"Touch that bike again and I'll bury you next to the last man who tried." That was the first thing Ethan Ryder heard when he walked through the gates of one of the most feared motorcycle compounds in Nevada.
He was 19 years old. He hadn't eaten in 2 days. His boots had holes in them.
And the men staring him down had combined prison sentences longer than his entire life. But Ethan didn't flinch. Because somewhere inside that compound, behind the iron gates, and the armed guards, and the decades of legend, a machine was waiting for him.
A machine that had been waiting his whole life. The guard's name was Tank. 6'4 270 pounds of tattooed Nevada desert hardened into a human wall. He had a jaw like a truck bumper, and eyes that had seen enough trouble to stop caring about most of it.
He had been standing at that gate for 11 years. He had turned away journalists, lawyers, bounty hunters, and one very confused pizza delivery driver who had made a wrong turn off Route 93. He had never not once been approached by a teenager carrying nothing but a canvas tool bag, and a look that said he had absolutely nothing left to lose. "Private property."
Tank said. His voice came out like gravel being poured down a metal chute. "Turn around." "I'm here about the Harley."
Ethan said. Tank blinked. That was the only reaction he gave. One slow blink like a lizard processing something it wasn't expecting.
"What did you just say?" "The Harley. The one nobody can fix." Ethan shifted the tool bag on his shoulder.
The canvas was worn almost to threads. "I want to try." For a long moment, Tank simply stared at him. He looked at the kid's boots.
Looked at the hollow space under his cheekbones that told the story of too many missed meals. Looked at the grease permanently tattooed into the lines of his palms, not from a day's work, but from years of it. The kind of grease that never fully washes out, no matter how hard you scrub. "You got a death wish?"