Blood on the Asphalt

When a missing rich kid is dragged into a brutal underground fight circuit, Santa Cruz private eye Joey McCall must tear through biker crews, cartel debt, and his own cemetery-haunted grief before the asphalt claims another son. Santa Cruz has its pretty face: salt wind, boardwalk lights, beach bars, and chrome shining under summer heat. Joey McCall knows the other face. He has chased men through its alleys, buried pieces of himself in its streets, and learned that every clean view of the Pacific has a shadow waiting underneath it. When a wealthy father hires Joey to find his missing son, the case should smell like spoiled money and bad choices. Instead, it reeks of blood. The boy has been swallowed by an underground fight circuit where bikers sell fear, cartel men collect debt, and scared kids are turned into meat beneath screaming lights. Joey brings his crew into the hunt: Jinx, his brother in everything but blood; Hayes, steady-eyed and hard to shake; Big Raz, a father trying not to fail his son; Rush, Kimmie, JV, Cy, Jose Carrillo, Wally, Baz, and the whole battered family orbiting The Wake. But every rescue drags them closer to a war on the road, and every choice leaves fresh blood on the asphalt. At the center of it all stands Tina, the woman who refuses to let Joey mistake dying for loyalty. She loves him, fights him, and keeps The Wake burning like a lighthouse for men who barely know how to come home. Beside her, Jinx hides terror behind cruel jokes and loves her like a little sister he would bleed for without admitting the tenderness out loud.