It happened on a Friday night in March, and it was not what any of them expected.
Not a confrontation. Not Route 9. It was a fire.
The Saints' garage -- the converted warehouse on the south edge of town, the place that smelled of oil and coffee, where Ellie had first walked up with a helmet in her hands and not known what she was walking into -- caught fire at eleven-fifteen p.m. Electrical, the fire chief would say later. An accident.
Rafe did not believe in accidents at eleven-fifteen p.m. the week after he'd told Dutch's buyers they couldn't have his territory.
He was there in eight minutes. Half the club was there in fifteen. The fire was in the back storage -- not the main garage, not the bikes -- and it was out within the hour. The damage was real but survivable. No one was hurt.
