Chapter 15 Dean
Dean
I brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink and rinsed out my mouth.
I hadn’t showered, and I could feel the grit on my skin, the aftershock of too many nights spent waiting for the first bullet to come through the window.
My cut hung on the back of the chair, and for a second, I let myself imagine a world where I left it there and took Emily somewhere nobody knew our names, where my mom was alive, where the Sultans were just a punchline at the end of a joke.
I watched her sleep for a minute, curled on her side with Sergeant’s blocky head wedged under her armpit, the dog’s chest rising and falling in a rhythm that matched hers.
Emily always looked younger when she slept, the tough lines of her mouth ironed out, her face soft enough that you could almost pretend she hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours as a target.
I sat on the edge of the mattress and tapped her shoulder gently.
She came out of it all at once, eyes open and sharp, before her body caught up.
“We good?” she whispered, voice a low, gravelled thing.
I shook my head. “We gotta go. Now.”
She didn’t ask why. She just ran her tongue over her teeth, then pulled the sheets to her chest. Sergeant groaned, then sat up, eyes on me, waiting for the next move. The animal knew the drill better than either of us.
I dug a shirt out of my duffel and tossed it to her. “Put this on. No time for a shower.”
She pulled the shirt over her head, her hair a tangle, then stood, one hand on the dog for balance. “Where are we going?”
“Clubhouse. It’s secure. Nobody’s getting in.”
She eyed me, lips flat. “You sure about that?”
I shrugged, but kept my voice level. “Safer than here. Damron’s already there. He wants everyone locked down before sunup.”
Sergeant was up and circling, tail a low pendulum. I took the leash from the counter, clipped it to the collar, and passed it to Emily. She fished a rubber Kong from under the bed and jammed a treat into it with the violence of someone mad at the world.
She pulled on jeans, zipped them without looking, then knelt to tie her boots. Her hands shook, not from fear but from caffeine deprivation. I poured her the last mug of coffee, black, and she drank it in three burning gulps.
Sounded corny even in my own mind, but Emily was the one.
Some men waited a lifetime for the right one, only to see that ship sail at death, having never experienced what I was experiencing now.
Keeping her safe was priority number one.
Killing the assholes who killed my Ma was priority number two. She would’ve wanted it that way.
“Can I bring anything?” she said, glancing at the chaos of her living room.
“Just you,” I said, then added, “and the dog.” It almost made her smile. I hesitated and then said, “Pack a bag, not a suitcase. Pronto.”
When Emily was finished, I slung my cut over my t-shirt and shrugged the weight onto my shoulders.
Emily stared at the patches, the bold red and bone-white, the words that marked me as an animal even before I’d proven it a hundred times over.
She touched the Secretary patch, the motion a cross between a question and a warning.
“You going to tell me what’s really happening?” she said, low.
I glanced at the window, then at the locked chain on the door. “We know who left the note. Damron’s got proof. Sultans are planning something big—maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. They want us off the board. You’re a pressure point.”
She looked at her feet, then back at me. “So I’m just a hostage, then?”
I shook my head. “You’re leverage, yeah. But you’re not a hostage. Not with me.”
She let it hang in the air, then scooped up the dog’s bag, slung it over her shoulder, and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
The walk to the bike was silent except for Sergeant’s toenails on the stairwell and the distant grind of a garbage truck three streets over.
The lot was empty except for my Harley and Emily’s Honda.
I did a quick sweep, eyes tracing every shadow.
Emily and Sergeant climbed into her car, and we left.
The ride to the clubhouse was short, but I took the long way, dodging strip malls and the 24-hour donut place.
The sky was turning a lighter blue, the kind that makes you feel hungover even if you weren’t drinking.
I pulled into the alley behind the clubhouse, killed the engine, and watched for a beat.
The door was already propped open, a sliver of light cutting through the cinderblock gloom.
Two patched members flanked the entrance, hands in their pockets, eyes on everything.
I recognized Nitro’s twitch, the way his fingers drummed his thigh even when he was standing still.
He nodded to me, then to Emily, and didn’t bother to hide his surprise at seeing her there.
We went inside, Sergeant leading. The hall was thick with old smoke and the pine-sol tang of a hasty mop job. Augustine waited in the meeting room, tapping a knife against the table. Brick was there too, hunched over his phone, probably texting his dealer.
Damron stood at the head of the table, arms folded, eyes like two chips of winter. He gestured us in, then motioned to the seat next to him. Emily hesitated at the threshold, her whole body braced for an ambush.
“It’s okay,” I said, hand at her back. “They’re not here for you. Not like that.”
She sat, Sergeant at her feet, the dog’s eyes flicking from face to face, already cataloguing the threats.
Damron didn’t waste time. “Glad you made it,” he said, voice pitched low. “We start in five. Everyone’s coming in hot. Shit’s about to get Biblical.”
Emily looked at me, then at Damron, then back at the dog. I watched the way her jaw set, the way her hands clenched in her lap. She was scared, but she wasn’t going to run.
That was the thing about her. Even when you gave her an out, she stayed. Even when the fire got close enough to burn, she just pulled the dog a little tighter and waited for the next order.
I leaned in, lips at her ear, and whispered, “We’ll get through this. I promise.”
She didn’t answer. But her hand found mine under the table, fingers interlocked, and held on until the room filled with the rest of the club, and the war planning started in earnest.
***
The war room was a long, narrow box of a space, walls packed with the history of the Bloody Scythes, every square inch covered in dusty glass and the faces of men who’d either aged out, been locked up, or ended up in the ground.
The oldest photos were yellowed, the frames mismatched.
Some showed guys in desert camo, arm-in-arm with dead-eyed grunts, the patches on their vests not yet faded from sun and sweat.
Others caught a different flavor of battle—burnouts in the desert, booze-soaked cookouts, birthday cakes with a single candle stabbed through the top.
There were plaques for the fallen, their club names engraved in gothic, impossible-to-pronounce fonts.
I’d memorized every one before I’d ever gotten patched.
Emily trailed me down the corridor, her steps half a click behind mine, Sergeant marching point with her head up and her tail down, scanning for threats.
The stares started before we hit the meeting room.
First, from Gordo, who managed the garage; he looked Emily up and down with the same eye he’d use to assess a suspicious carburetor.
Next was Chino, covered in grease and ink, his hands crossed in front of his chest as he sized up what it meant for a civilian—and a woman, at that—to be brought into the inner sanctum.
Neither said shit, but the air changed, the oxygen getting tighter with every step.
I kept a hand on Emily’s back, steering her through the bottleneck. My thumb pressed against her spine, a signal she didn’t need but one I couldn’t stop giving.
We stepped into the main room, where a pair of battered couches flanked a homemade table the size of a coffin.
Damron was already seated at the head, boots on the floor, arms folded, his cut a banner of stitched scars and rank.
There was a whiskey bottle on the table, half-empty despite the hour.
He didn’t look up right away—he let the power settle in, let every man in the room decide for himself what came next.
Nitro was there, sitting as close to Damron as the table allowed, his buzzed scalp gleaming, the tattoo on his neck still raw and red.
Augustine circled the perimeter, never quite sitting, using a folding knife to shave dirt from under his nails, his eyes darting from the window to the hallway to me.
Brick nursed a double shot of brown, his face already flushed, his phone on the table but screen down—a rare display of respect.
Emily paused just inside the door, as if she’d hit a physical wall.
I caught her hand and squeezed once before guiding her to the seat behind mine.
She sat, posture perfect, both hands in her lap.
I positioned myself so that every eye in the room had to pass over me to get to her, a move I learned from Damron but would never admit.
Sergeant curled up under the table, her breathing even but low. The men watched this, too, the dog’s presence as telling as a gun on the table.
Damron’s gaze finally lifted, sweeping the room like a searchlight. He landed on Emily, eyes narrowing in a calculation I’d seen him use on rival bosses and cops with questionable motives. Then he looked at me, the message clear: your responsibility, your problem.
He cleared his throat, and the entire room leaned in.
“Brothers,” he started, voice smooth and unhurried, “and our guest. We all know why we’re here.
Last night, Medina and his—” he let the pause dangle, a test “—lady friend received a message from the Sultans. Not just any message. A threat, shoved under a kennel door, letting us know they’re done playing nice. ”
A ripple of sound, a hum of anger and anticipation. Nitro drummed his fingers on the bottle, and Brick cracked his knuckles. Augustine smiled, but it never reached his eyes.
Damron continued. “This isn’t about territory anymore.
It’s personal. They want us scared. They want us dead.
But more than that, they want to send a message that we can’t protect our own.
” He pointed at me, then at Emily, but his words hit everyone.
“They threatened family. I say we make them regret it.”
He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “But this isn’t a free-for-all. We do it clean. We do it fast. We send a message back so clear they’ll be tasting blood and gasoline for the next decade.”
He gestured at the rest of the table. “I’m open to ideas. But first, I want to hear from Medina. You got more skin in this than any of us.”
Every face turned. Even Emily looked up, green eyes wide and unblinking. For a second, I wished I could crawl under the table and join Sergeant.
I cleared my throat. “They’re cowards, but not stupid. If we go at them head-on, they’ll be waiting. But they didn’t just threaten me—they threatened her. That’s new. That’s escalation. They’re running scared, or they wouldn’t waste time trying to spook civilians.”
Brick nodded, mumbling something about the Sultans being “chickenshit.” Augustine twirled the knife, then stabbed it into the table, just missing his own thumb.
I kept going. “We draw them out. Make them chase us. Get them out of their hole, then hit them hard before they realize they’re not the predators anymore.”
Nitro spoke, voice a rasp. “You want bait?”
I nodded. “Not her,” I said, looking at Emily, then at Damron. “Me. I’ll take the bike, run a pattern they can’t ignore. They’ll come after me, try to make an example. That’s when you close the net.”
Augustine grinned, eyes lighting up. “Like a fox hunt.”
Damron let the words settle, then looked at Emily. She met his stare, face composed, but I saw her hand white-knuckling the edge of the seat.
Damron addressed her directly, voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “You know what you’re walking into?”
She didn’t blink. “I’m not a liability. I know how to follow orders.”
A smile, small but genuine. “Good. Because you’re sticking with Sergeant. If it gets loud, you hole up in the back, second door on the left. Medina will get you when it’s done.”
She nodded, and the smallest tremor ran through her jaw, but she didn’t argue.
Damron looked back at the room. “You heard the plan. Medina runs point. Nitro and Augustine, you flank. Brick, you watch the door and clean up the mess. We’re done waiting for them to strike.”
He stood, the motion slow but final. “It’s time we deal with these Sultan bastards once and for all.”
The room reacted like a pack of dogs hearing a dinner bell. Every man straightened, shoulders back, teeth bared. Even Brick, three whiskies deep, managed a grin.
I felt Emily’s hand on my arm. She squeezed. I squeezed back, letting my body say what my mouth couldn’t.
Damron walked to the door, then paused. “One more thing,” he said, looking right at me. “Don’t die. We’re short on good men as it is.”
The laughter that followed was real, and for a second, the tension broke. Then everyone filed out, leaving me, Emily, and the dog in the empty room.
She let out a breath, then leaned her head against my shoulder. “You really think this will work?”
I thought of my father, of Ma, of the dozens of men whose faces lined the hallway outside. “I don’t know,” I said, honest. “But it’s better than waiting for the next note to show up.”
She looked at me, then reached up and brushed a thumb across my cheek. “Don’t die,” she said, echoing Damron.
I smiled, then kissed her hand. “I’ll do my best.”
The door slammed shut somewhere down the hall. Sergeant looked up, then put her head back down, content to sleep through the storm.
We sat together in the aftermath, the ghosts on the wall watching, waiting for the story to end.