Ride or Die Read online

  Ride or Die

  Kay Marie

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Playlist

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

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  Ride or Die

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblances to persons, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Ride or Die. Copyright © 2019 by Kay Marie. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in articles or reviews. For information contact Kay Marie.

  https://www.facebook.com/KayMarieAuthor/

  Cover designer: Charli Childs, Cosmic Letterz Design

  Editor: Courtney Lynn Rose, Knox Publishing

  Formatter: E.C. Land, Knox Publishing

  Copyeditor: Rebecca Vasquez

  Proofreader: Jackie Ziegler

  Publisher: Knox Publishing

  www.knoxpub.com

  Trigger Warning

  This material contains content that may be viewed as offensive to some readers, including graphic language, dangerous and sexual situations, murder, and extreme violence.

  Created with Vellum

  Dedicated to second chances, because sometimes that’s all we need.

  Acknowledgments

  My husband – Thank you for continuing to be so supportive and encouraging when it comes to my writing. xoxo

  My editor, Courtney – Thank you for helping me make my books the best they can be.

  My KP family – Thank you for everything. From being there to talk to, for bouncing ideas off of each other. Y’all mean the world to me.

  My readers – Thank you for your continued support.

  Playlist

  Pandora by Tyler Keast

  Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It by Darius Rucker

  Here With Me by Marshmello and CHVRCHES

  You Don’t Know Her Like I Do by Brantley Gilbert

  Hell On An Angel by Brantley Gilbert

  Headphones by Florida Georgia Line

  Talk You Out of It by Florida Georgia Line

  Top of the Line by Rittz

  Never Forget You by Zara Larsson and MNEK

  Highway to Hell by AC/DC

  In Case You Didn’t Know by Brett Young

  Prologue

  Buster

  Events of the past year have me reconsidering some of my past choices. I thought if I left and started over somewhere new, she’d be easier to forget. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’ve thought about her every day. Ever since I’ve been back in Texas, I’ve wanted nothing more than to call her, to see her. The only problem is, I have no idea if she’s still here. Like always, my mind drifts off to one of the many memories I have with her. I was too young to understand it then, but she’s had me hooked since that day. I was a dumbass and fucked it all up.

  10 years old

  I’m sitting in Ms. Cordell’s fourth grade class, trying to pay attention as she talks to us about multiplication. This week, we’re working on multiples of eight. She’s about to hand out our timed times table worksheets when Principal Martin walks into our class with a new girl. She’s pretty. She has light brown hair and light blue eyes.

  Principal Martin and Ms. Cordell are talking in soft tones. I glance over and find her staring back at me. I lift my hand, giving her a quick wave and a small smile. Her cheeks turn pink before her eyes move to her feet, avoiding my gaze.

  With a smile on her face, Ms. Cordell moves to the front of the room with the girl by her side, smiling. “Class, I’d like you to meet our new friend, Calina. Her family recently moved here. Please, make her feel welcome.”

  She turns to Calina and speaks to her in a softer voice. “Calina, sweetie, why don’t you take the empty seat next to Ryan.” She points in my direction and I pretend to be busy. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her walk over and sit. I catch her eyes and smile.

  “Hi,” I whisper. “I’m Ryan.”

  This time, I get a small smile from her.

  “Nice to meet you,” she whispers back. She has some kind of accent. It sounds cool. I want to ask her where she moved here from, but Ms. Cordell is talking about our math lesson again. I’m paying attention even less this time. All I want to do is talk to Calina and make her smile some more.

  Ms. Cordell hands out our times table worksheets. She places them on our desks upside down so we can’t see the problems yet. Once everyone has a worksheet, she walks back to her desk and grabs a timer.

  “You will have one minute to do as many problems as you can,” she explains. “Ready . . . Go!”

  I flip my paper over, trying to solve as many problems as I can. These worksheets always make me so nervous. The problems I struggle with, I skip. Once I finish, I go back to ones I skipped, trying to solve them fast. I still have a few left unanswered when the timer goes off, signaling for us to stop. I set my pencil down and turn to Calina. She’s wearing a bright smile, proud of herself.

  “Please bring your worksheets to my desk. Then you may go to lunch,” Ms. Cordell tells us.

  “Do you want to sit with me at lunch?” I ask Calina before either of us get up from our desks.

  “Sure,” she responds, giving me a shy smile.

  We walk to lunch, side by side, without saying a word to each other. I’m not usually so shy around new people, but I don’t want to say the wrong thing and make her not like me. We go through the lunch line. Today’s choices are chicken nuggets or pizza boat. I choose chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, and applesauce. Calina chooses pizza with the same sides.

  We take our trays and find a spot to sit. We find a table close to the windows, sitting across from each other.

  “You have a neat accent,” I tell her, causing her to blush again. “Where did you move from?”

  “We moved here from New York, but my family is from Russia,” she explains.

  “That’s awesome! I’ve lived in Texas my whole life. My family has never even been on vacation outside of Texas.” I laugh and she giggles.

  “My family visits Russia every Christmas. We don’t do any other traveling unless we absolutely need to. Papa says it isn’t very safe for us.”

  I wonder for a second why it wouldn’t be safe for them, but I don’t ask her about it. We fall into an easy conversation while we eat. We talk about what our favorite activities during recess are— we both like four square. Our favorite specials class— mine is PE and hers is art. Our favorite things to do outside
of school— she likes reading books and I like anything to do with cars. We both like reading comics.

  “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask her.

  She lets out a breathy sigh. “It might sound silly, but I want to open my own bakery.” She must see the question on my face. Before I get a chance to ask why, she’s already telling me. “It’s something I’ve always done with my babushka, uh I mean, my grandma and my mama. They tell me I’m pretty talented for being so young, and I love it.”

  Her face lights up as she talks about her plans. I smile at her. “You should have it be half a bookstore too since you love to read.”

  She laughs. “That would be wonderful! What do you want to be?”

  “I want to be a race car driver. To be honest, as long as I’m doing something with cars, I’ll be happy.” I’ve never told anyone, but all my friends and family understand my obsession with cars.

  We’re so into our conversation we don’t even recognize lunch is about over until we see other kids leave to go back to class. We drop our lunch trays off and make our way back to our class.

  “After lunch we have Social Studies. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it’s Science,” I explain to her. “This week, we’re learning about oceans and continents.”

  “Thank you for being such a good friend to me,” she says as we get closer to our class. “It means a lot to me.”

  I smile at her. “Anytime, Cali.”

  She tries to hide a smile at my nickname for her.

  1

  Buster

  The Riders are on our first club gun run. Thor and Rascal are also with us. We’re meeting with the Bratva’s Sovietnik, Nikolay, in New Orleans. The Pakhan is in Russia on business and Nikolay is his right-hand man. They need a small batch of guns delivered while Nikolay is close by. I mean, it was only an eight-hour drive for us to get here. I’m not sure why they need such a small batch, but it’s not my job to ask questions. I only do what Bull tells me to do.

  We arrived at our hotel, the Royal Sonesta— compliments of Nikolay, around three this afternoon. He got three rooms for the six of us, all with balconies overlooking Bourbon Street. We don’t meet with him until tomorrow, so tonight, we’re going to have some fun. We decide to check out a restaurant called Olde Nola Cookery. It’s within walking distance of the hotel in case we decide to get some drinks. We leave our cuts in our hotel rooms so we don’t draw attention to ourselves. It takes under five minutes for us to get to the restaurant and it’s early enough before dinner time, we’re able to get a table pretty quick.

  Observing the interior of this place, I can’t stop the thoughts of her. I’m curious if she’s been to New Orleans before. It’s a pretty colorful city. I bet out of everything here, she’d be most interested in Cafe Du Monde. The older we got, her love of baking also turned into a love of coffee. Cafe Du Monde is famous for its cafe au lait and beignets. I plan to check it out tomorrow morning. We’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do tonight when our waitress walks over to take our order.

  “Can I get you fellas something to drink? Maybe an appetizer?”

  “I’ll take a sweet tea and can we get some crabmeat cakes and some fried gator tail bites, please?” Rascal says.

  We all take turns ordering our drinks and she goes to get them.

  “You think they have a race scene out here?” Of course Clutch would ask about racing.

  “Did I hear one of y’all ask about a race scene?” a guy sitting next to us says. “You wouldn’t happen to mean street racin’, would ya?”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what he’s talkin’ about,” Rascal replies.

  “We happen to race too. Name’s Gator,” he says. Gator takes out a pen and writes something on a napkin and hands it to Clutch. “Be at this address at nine tonight. That’s when shit goes down.”

  “We’ll be there,” I say as our waitress is back to give us our drinks and take our order. Right after she leaves to put in our food order, we get our appetizers. Gator and the guy with him left already. It’ll be interesting to see the racing scene here. Maybe we’ll make another trip out here for more racing. We make small talk until our food arrives.

  After we all finish eating, we still have some time to kill. We walk back to the hotel and Rascal, Thor, Shade, and I decide to check out Jazz Playhouse, while Clutch and Diesel run to their room to get their car keys. I keep mine on me at all times, out of habit. Shade wasn’t in the mood for racing tonight, so we’re only taking three of our cars. Thor and Rascal are riding along to watch. They aren’t riding their bikes so they don’t draw any unwanted attention.

  It’s a quarter to nine when we’re loading into our cars to head out to the races. According to the GPS, it should only take us fifteen minutes to get there. I turn the key, letting my car roar to life.

  “That sounds almost as sexy as my bike,” Rascal laughs.

  I shake my head. “It’s much sexier,” I tell him.

  “Agree to disagree. They’re different kinds of love,” he says.

  I chuckle and put the car in gear, pulling out of my parking spot and heading toward the address Gator gave us. The GPS takes us out of the city to some abandoned buildings with long strips of roads. I know we’re in the right place because of all the cars lined up on the side of the road. We might be in a different city, but the race scene is pretty much the same anywhere you go. I park my car and Rascal and I get out at the same time.

  “Hey! Y’all made it! Ça va? How are you,” Gator asks, walking toward us.

  “Ready to race,” I respond. “We couldn’t pass up racing in a new city.”

  “You won’t be disappointed. There’s some good competition around here,” Gator’s friend says. “I’m Biggie.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Buster, this is Rascal.” I point to Rascal beside me.

  “The four idiots behind us are with us too.” Rascal hooks his thumb over his shoulder gesturing to the guys with a smug grin. Gator’s eyes light up with a trace of humor.

  “Laissez les bon temps rouler! Come, I’ll introduce you to the rest of my crew,” Gator says. I give him a confused look as he turns and walks away. Biggie chuckles.

  “It means, let the good times roll,” Biggie explains and I nod. We follow them to their cars.

  “Holy shit, B. There are a lot of nice cars out here,” Shade says, now walking beside me.

  “They look nice, but let’s see how they drive,” I tell him.

  “You wanna take my spot in the next race,” Gator asks me.

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  “Twenty minutes and you’re up,” he says.

  Twenty minutes flies by. I pull my car to the spray-painted start line not long before my opponent does. He revs his engine in an attempt to intimidate me and I smirk. He’s driving an Eclipse. Those cars aren’t usually as fast as they look or sound. I’d be stupid to be intimidated by that type of car. There’s a tire biter to count down the race.

  She signals for us to go. I drop my car into gear and take off. The Eclipse is keeping up better than I anticipated, but I’m still ahead. I glance at the button to release NOS and hover my thumb over it. The Eclipse is inching closer and closer. I hit the NOS and go flying forward, crossing the finish line a whole car length in front of him.

  I pull my car back around to where my crew is at and park. I hop out and they’re all surrounding me, congratulating me on my win.

  “Brah!” Gator drawls out. “That was a nice win!”

  “Thanks. That guy was better competition than I anticipated him to be.” I grin, floating on cloud nine from my adrenaline rush.

  We stick around for Clutch and Diesel to race and to watch some locals before heading back to the hotel. Biggie wasn’t lying when he said there’s some good competition out here. We’ll have to come back to visit again soon.

  “Hit us up if you’re ever in Austin,” I tell them before we leave for the hotel.

  Tomorrow, we meet with Nikolay before we make our way back
home. Shade and I are having a party at our new house in two short days.

  2

  Cali

  Beep, beep, beep.

  Four o’clock comes way too quick. I smack my alarm clock, silencing the excessive beeping. It has to be on an obnoxious setting. If my alarm plays music, I sleep through it, hearing whatever song it is in my dreams. I’m not one to hit snooze half a dozen times either.

  I crawl out of bed and begin my morning routine. Today, I’ll be working in the kitchen at my bakery. Which means yoga pants, a t-shirt, and messy bun. I love working in the kitchen and getting to bake. My babushka introduced me to baking at a young age. I’d take any chance to bake for my family as a kid.

  Now, I get to share my love with strangers every day. A Novel Bunch is more than a bakery. It’s also a coffee shop and bookstore. It’s everything I love all together in one little place. I received my Associate of Applied Science degree in pastry arts a couple of years after I graduated high school. My papa helped me with my shop financials until I got on my feet. Now, over three years after opening, A Novel Bunch is pretty successful. We have new customers often, and I try to change our menu a little as seasons change. We have a daily special which is always some kind of Russian dessert in honor of my babushka.