Steel My Heart (Motorcycle Club Romance) (Sons of Steel Motorcycle Club Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

The depression that threatened to swallow him whole.  Red rage that made him ball his fists and blinded his sight.
    Motorcycles saved his life.
    It was a complete fluke that led him to sign up for the motorcycle repair course.  J. had never had much use for school.  He and his best friend Randall had skipped more days of school than they had attended, but the chaos of Strawberry Mansion High School meant that he was passed from grade to grade regardless.  But once he was behind bars, his boredom led to curiosity, which led him right into the vocational classroom of Teach Jones, philosopher-mechanic.
    J. had never met a man like Teach.  He had been working as a votech instructor at the correctional facility in Perkiomen for nearly twenty years and he had seen it all.  Nothing flustered him.  Nothing set him off.  Instead, the older man radiated calm authority.  He commanded respect as his due. 
    One day in class, one of the inmates, a squirrelly little wannabe skinhead, gave Teach shit.  He stood up at his worktable, screaming out slurs and complaining that Teach's long gray dreads stank too badly for him to stay in the room.  J. watched, waiting for Teach to respond with anger when the little punk called him the worst names there were.  In fact, J. was ready to beat the punk down himself, right there in front of everyone.  
    But instead, Teach had folded a socket wrench into his huge hand and crossed his arms.  He waited impassively for the loudmouth white kid to shut his face.  The silence lasted so long, J. started to squirm uncomfortably.  He had never seen a man so still, so immovable.  The punk kid slowly trailed off in the face of his calm and meekly sat back down. Teach stood in the prison classroom as if he was planted there and nothing could move him from that spot.
    J. was fascinated.
    As his sentence dragged on, he learned everything he could from Teach.  Mostly about motorcycle repair, but also about religions and history and Teach's favorite subject, philosophy.  J. went to the prison library and picked up the teachings of the Roman philosopher Seneca, Teach's personal hero.   He spent many nights in his cell, laboriously picking through the dense words. 
    "The point is not how long you live, but how nobly you live."  He memorized the word and took them to heart.  The teachings of the Stoic philosopher calmed the red rage in his mind almost as much as the intricate work of dismantling a 1200cc, 74 cubic inch, horizontally opposed V-Twin engine and rebuilding it from scratch.
    J. slowed his bike, hugging the curve of the off ramp.  The road along the Delaware River wound among the rolling, grassy lawns of mansions as he made his way up to the bridge at Lawrenceville.  Riding led him further out of Philadelphia than he ever would be without it.   Riding cleared his head and soothed the riot of anger that sometimes threatened to consume him.  Riding let him see the country.  Riding had given his life purpose.  He had a job now, a place to live and brothers who would die for him if asked.  Ride to live, Live to Ride. 
    The sun peeked out from behind a cloud, warming the black leather of his jacket.  The wind was in his face, the roar of the engine filled his ears.  He could do whatever he wanted, he was free.  For the first time since that stupid fuck-up six year ago, he was his own man.  "Keep your head down," Officer Sayers had warned him, and he intended to listen to that advice.  No more prison, no more screw-ups, no more red rage getting the best of him.  No getting mixed up in other peoples' drama,
    And no more fighting.  That was going to be the hardest part.
     

Chapter 6
     
    J.
     
     
     
    It was late in the morning when J. got back from his ride.  Crash and MacDougal were still dead asleep in the clubhouse in back of the shop, sleeping off lethal hangovers no doubt.  J. wasn't surprised to see Teach already behind the shop's counter, leafing through parts