Chapter 18 Diesel
EIGHTEEN
DIESEL
I glance back at the house. I can still taste my wife on my lips, feel the ghost of her in my arms. It’s not goodbye, but it fucking feels like it.
I promised her that I’m coming back, but I can’t help thinking if this goes sideways, that was the last time I’ll ever see Makenna again.
My kutte is heavier than usual, weighed down by the gravity of what we’re about to do.
One more look, that’s all I allow myself before I climb into the van. It’s already crowded in the back. Riot is sitting with Mace, but he doesn’t look at me when I sink down next to Nic.
I don’t need his trust, just his steady aim and cover, and I’m not sure I have that. I hate going into battle without knowing if anyone has my back.
My mind is both quiet and racing at the same time. It’s too loud. Too claustrophobic. The van starts moving and the motion has my skin itching. I want to peel it away, escape my own body, but I chew the side of my nail until it bleeds.
Fuck.
I can’t even think about the lines I might have to cross to protect my wife, my club. My brothers don’t even want me at their side.
Fuck them. You’re not doing this for them.
Every mile between me and Makenna is too fucking far. I rub my hands together, flexing my fingers, unable to calm the motion in my body.
“You okay?” Nic asks.
“Fine,” I mutter.
Don’t unravel. Not here. Not when you need a clear head.
When the van eventually stops, my lungs are so tight I can’t breathe. That pressure eases when the doors open at the back.
I squint against the light and push up from the floor quickly, moving around the others.
I don’t unclench until my boots hit the gravel hard enough to rattle my bones.
We’re on a side street across from the clubhouse.
I can’t see it from here. There are too many buildings in the way, which means we’ll have the element of surprise when we attack.
There are two other vans, a couple of cars, but no bikes. There doesn’t need to be. There are brothers gathered from London and Manchester. Too many faces to process, so I don’t try. I force my mind to slow.
Focus.
Breathe.
Calm.
Then I see him. He’s standing with Blackjack, Manchester’s VP.
Trick…
A man carved from vengeance and pain. He found a second chance with his old lady, but he still carries the weight of what he lost with his first wife.
There’s a hollowness in him that only comes from watching your whole life bleed out in front of you.
He lost Mara because of Crank, but it was his own pain that finished him.
Some brothers still whisper about the shit he did in her name, say he nearly buried the club in the same pit as her, but I get it.
I fucking get it.
They killed the mother of his child and while she took her last breaths they pulled their daughter out of her.
I wouldn’t have stopped at burning, cutting, flaying. I would have razed the world to ash, rebuilt it, just to burn it again.
He senses me staring and our eyes lock across the distance. I give him a lift of my chin. An unspoken understanding, and he returns it before saying something to Blackjack.
This life… it’s dangerous when club isn’t united.
Ravage stands in the middle of us, hands on his hips. His kutte is worn in a way that makes it look like he’s had it on his back forever.
“Crank ain’t going to go down easy. I ain’t sure what kind of support he has, so be careful.
Watch each other’s backs. No one inside that building is loyal until it’s proven.
Stay safe, don’t be a hero. We’ve all got families to get home to.
” He pulls his gun from under his kutte before he says, “Let’s go. ”
We split into groups, taking different directions to the clubhouse. I’m at the back entrance with Nic and a few of the London boys. I push Kenna out of my mind and keep my thoughts on one thing—spilling blood.
We pause at the perimeter fence while one of the guy’s cuts through the chain link.
Snip. Snip. Snip. The noise pisses me off, but I focus on the clubhouse.
There’re a few bikes, a handful of vehicles parked up, but I don’t see Crank’s ride among them.
There’s no one smoking outside, no bass rumbling through the walls. Just… silence.
My skin prickles as I scan for movement.
“Something’s wrong,” I say in a low voice.
Nic nods once, sharp, as if he also feels it.
“We keep goin’?” Fury, one of the London boys, asks, as the last of the fence is cut.
He shifts in his crouch, and I notice the savage looking bowie knife in his hand.
The question hangs in the air while Nic stares at the clubhouse, as if he’s waiting for it to answer back. It doesn’t. Nothing stirs. Nothing happens.
“We keep going,” he says.
We melt out of our hiding places, slipping through the hole in the fence one at a time, the brother in front marking the one behind.
I keep low, my hand resting on my gun, the weight of the knives sheathed across my body heavy. I keep my breaths shallow, quiet, and we barely make a sound as we infiltrate the clubhouse through a side door.
It’s not locked, which isn’t unusual, but it feels ominous that it’s not. Fury opens it and Nic ducks in first. I follow him.
The stainless-steel cupboards reflect the light coming in from the window, and the fridge hums from the corner. I smell it before I see the boot sticking out from behind the counter.
Death.
“Fuck,” Nic hisses, scrubbing a hand over his face.
I move to him, and my chest seizes. It’s Digger. I can only tell it’s him from the patches on the front of his kutte. Half his face is gone. The other is a mess of stringy sinewy flesh and blood. The smell hits the back of my throat, and I have to swallow down the retch.
Fury clamps a hand on Nic’s shoulder and gestures to keep moving. I step around the blood pooled and congealed on the tiles, breathing through the growing rage in my gut.
We don’t have to go far to find another body.
Roan. He’s slumped against the wall, legs thrown in front of him like he crumpled where he fell.
His chin is on his chest, his grey hair matted with blood, his shirt too.
His kutte is half dragged down one shoulder, as if someone tried to take it off him, but even bleeding, and dying he kept it on his back.
Nic goes down to his haunches and presses two fingers to his neck. It’s clear he’s dead, but no one stops him. His shoulders square, his body tight like he’s gearing up to lose his fucking mind.
It feels like there’re barbs inside my lungs. These are men we knew, men we drank with and rode beside.
They’re Sons.
And they’re dead. Left to rot like they meant nothing.
“Fuck me,” the other brother mutters. I don’t know his name, but Fury cuts a look at him. “This was an execution.”
Nic straightens slowly, controlled. I watch him carefully, waiting for the explosion, but it doesn’t come. When he turns, his eyes are blazing, but he’s calm. “Keep moving.”
There are more bodies. Too many. I stop seeing the blood, stop smelling it after the third. By the time we reach the bar area, Nic’s vibrating with barely repressed rage. The others are already there, checking the bodies scattered around the room.
I move slowly around. Riot is kneeling in front of a body. I don’t know who it is. I don’t look. I can’t. My ribs are too tight, my skin feels wrong. The smell is thick. I slip, grabbing the wall to keep my feet.
Blood is smeared under my boots, thick and shiny.
My face twists, the breath sharp in my throat. No one moves or speaks. Not Ravage, not Howler. Not Nic. Just silence and the stench of death. There are at least six bodies in this room alone. Men, gunned down like they were nothing. Like the patch meant nothing.
Blackjack walks in, breaking the stillness. “Rest of the building’s clear.” His mouth is pulled into a line.
“Survivors?” Nic asks. Blackjack just shakes his head, and my gut does that slow turn again. “Crank did this.”
“You don’t know that,” Nox says, trying to be the voice of reason.
“He ain’t lyin’ on this floor in a pool of his own fuckin’ blood,” Nic snaps. “So, he either did this, or he ran and left them to fight whoever did.”
“A dog backed into a corner will eventually bite,” I say quietly.
“Nic!”
Mace steps into the room clutching a small body in his arms. Nic slides between the tables, heading for him. All I can see is long hair. Every inch of skin is bruised and swollen.
“Fuck, Chloe?”
I blink. Shit, it is her. She’s barely recognisable beneath her injuries. Mace carefully lowers her onto the pool table. She lets out a pitiful, broken whimper, and curls into herself.
My jaw twitches, my nose flaring.
“You know this girl?” Ravage asks, clipped.
Nic nods, his brow tight. “Yeah. She’s… she’s club.”
He doesn’t explain. He can’t. Chloe’s relationship with the club is… difficult.
“She’s a brother’s kid,” Mace adds.
Ravage glances at him. “Which brother?”
“We don’t know.” Nic brushes her hair back from her battered face and she flinches as if he struck her. “Chlo… Who did this to you?”
“What do you care?” she whispers, her voice thick and slurred.
Nic’s fingers curl into fists at his side. “You know I care.”
She peels one swollen eye open just a fraction. It’s so bloodshot there’s no sign of the white.
“I thought he loved me.” Her voice cracks. “I thought he—”
Nic squeezes her shoulder, the only part of her that doesn’t look like a roadmap of wounds. She latched onto a monster, thinking that would give her a way to be around the club family she desperately craved.
“Crank did this?”
She turns her head away, as if she can’t bear to hear his name. “He let them at me. They were… they were like wild animals. Then he left me here to die.” She sobs like a small child.
I grind my teeth together, adding this to the list of reasons Crank has to die.
“You got any good contacts here who can patch her up without questions?” Ravage asks.
Mace nods and steps away to make a call.
Nic hasn’t moved, hasn’t breathed in the last few minutes. He’s just staring down at Chloe like she’s the final straw to break him.
“He killed brothers,” he says between gritted teeth.
“And he’ll pay for that,” Ravage says quietly.
“We find him and we fucking end him.”
Blade shakes his head, like he’s trying to clear the horrors from his mind. “This is… this is fucked up.”
Nic still hasn’t moved. I’m not even sure he’s seeing anything but the blood he’s going to spill in the name of the dead anymore.
“You want to know if I’m ready to lead?” he asks, finally lifting his head to meet Ravage’s eyes.
“I’m done playing games. He’s done.” His gaze slides to me, then Blade, Riot, Mace and finally Riley.
“Follow me, or don’t. I don’t care. You’re either with me or you’re not, but if you’re not get the fuck out of my way.
” His jaw flexes. “Because I swear on every single man who fell here today that I’m going to avenge them. ”
A wet cough rips through the silence.
I whip around, reaching for my knife, but it’s not a threat.
A body I stepped over, thinking him gone, is convulsing, blood on his lips, bubbling.
Fury moves, grabbing his head and turning him onto his side.
He sucks in air like he’s drowning on land.
He should be dead. The red staining his shirt looks fatal, but he’s not. He’s breathing, just barely.
His eyes flutter and open half-mast, locking on me.
And I see the relief in them for a second before he coughs again.
King.