Chapter Three
My bed was empty when I got home, the woman whose name I couldn’t remember having left like I’d told her to. A dull grey light filtering through the venetian blinds. She’d made the bed, pulling the covers neatly back into place, the pillows carefully propped up on their ends. She’d make someone a good wife. Not me. Much to my mam’s dismay. Her second-born son, with no plans to settle down or give her the grandchildren she craved. Just like the rest of our family. Those of us that were left, anyway.
The heavy thumping in my head had doubled on the drive home, the remnants of the alcohol in my blood taking a last stand in defiance. I just needed a few extra hours’ sleep to add to the two hours I’d snatched earlier.
Club nights had become more frequent. Always something to update the brothers on, which meant that we all called into the clubhouse almost daily. Last night had been no different. We just hadn’t expected the next hit to have been on Trouble. That had taken us on the back foot.
I closed my eyes, fifty shades of shadows dancing across my eyelids, the room not quite dark enough to squeeze them all out. My stomach tightened, a stab of nausea amidst the exhaustion, but not enough that it could keep me from the desperate pull of sleep.
The phone rang beside my head, the vibration beating against the side of my face where I’d abandoned it barely minutes earlier. I could ignore it, block out the angry buzzing till the caller gave up. But I stole a glance. The display was lit up with the single word Chaos . There’d be no ignoring him.
“What?” I answered.
“Love you too, bruv.”
“Bruv me again and I’ll shove this phone so far up your arse you’ll be getting orgasm shits for the next month.”
“Your imagination really worries me, Fury. Really does.”
“What is it, Cade?”
“Me and Caleb talked to one of the girls that had been drinking in Trouble with Tez last night.”
“The one he’s playing away with?”
“Don’t think there’s just one, mate. Seems running a lap dancing club is screwing with his brain. Sounds like he’s been getting round a few of them.”
“Fucking don’t tell Magnet that,” I grumbled, massaging my right temple where the pulsing in my brain was threatening to break through the skin. “He already took it personally tonight.”
“What? Why?”
“You know, family stuff. Can’t get his ol’ lady pregnant yet here is Tez with a bun in the oven and dipping his wick everywhere else.”
“That’s crazy. I don’t get it. Guys have needs.”
I stayed quiet for a moment; the words blurring in my brain, muddled with the haze of alcohol and the fog of tiredness.
“He loves his wife, Cade. Just another reason he’s known as Magnet. She’s his south. Anyway, what you find out?”
“When the masked men broke in, they came through the back door. Distracted Tez at the front but entered through the back.”
“Sounds like my sort of relationship.”
The man on the other end of the phone chuckled, the same laugh echoing in the background, and now I realised I was on ‘loud speaker’ with the Kray twins.
“When they first got in, they asked the girls’ names. But they seemed to be looking for one in particular. Ciara.”
“Shit.” I breathed down the phone.
“Yeah, bruv. I know. Demon needs to know.”
“Aye. He does.”
“You reckon it’s the Hand?”
“Or the Aces. They seem to be the Hand’s puppy dogs at the moment. I’ll talk to Indie. Let him handle breaking the news to Demon.”
“This is other level bike club shit now, isn’t it?” Cade’s voice had changed. A slight strain to it, tension creeping in at the edges. “Yes, Chaos. This is war. This is how it starts.”
The other end of the phone fell silent. A second passed, then another second.
“So, what do we do next?”
“We be vigilant. We put up more CCTV. We watch that and we watch our backs and the backs of our brothers. We look out for our family and we fucking hit back. Hard. Because if we don’t, they’ll know we’re weak. And that’s when people die.”
The young man on the other end of the phone went quiet again. I remembered my first war. I was twenty-two. Fresh out of the army. I’d thought I’d seen things on tour, but in truth, the horrors closer to home, the fighting, the collateral damage, the cruelty, was far worse in the Great Biker War of the early 2000s. Part of me held out hope that this one wouldn’t be so bad. Just a few beatings, some scared clubs would fold. But the other half. The half that had seen it all before knew what was coming.
“I’ll see what Indie wants to do about this intel.” I broke the silence. “Not a word to anyone about this. Not a sausage. Understand?”
“Aye, mate.”
Because if Demon found out before we had time to steer his rage, there’d be dead bodies everywhere, and with a new manager at the funeral home, the ability to hide the evidence would disappear along with our club.
*****
The chime above the door screeched at me, making me jump even though I knew it was coming. It was like something from a TV game show, the noise you hear when you get an answer wrong. ‘And the survey says…’ It says if this new manager doesn’t get this bill right, they’re going to very quickly learn who the fucking Kings are.
“Hi Fury,” the young woman on the reception desk welcomed me, her cheeks colouring just a little. That hadn’t been the only cheeks I’d seen when we’d needed a means of getting into the local crematorium one night six months ago. She’d blushed then, too.
“Hey, Daisy.”
“Poppy.”
Shit.
“Sorry. Poppy.” Yet she didn’t seem put off, twirling a finger in loose brown hair that fell about her shoulders.
“Haven’t seen you for ages. I thought you were gonna ring.”
“I was, baby. I was. Dropped my phone down the bog. Had to get another. Lost all my contacts.” I waved the device in the air, as if I needed to convince her. Her eyes lit up. “Dave around?”
“Yeah. I’ll go get him for ya.”
“S’ok. I know where his office is.” I wandered towards the door almost in front of me, the dark, stained front pretending to be real mahogany.
“No. He’s not in that office anymore. He’s through the back. I’ll go get him.”
She jumped down from her chair, suddenly reminding me how small she was as she scurried off to find Dave.
I glanced round the reception area, at the dated wallpaper and the fake flowers, the gentle music that trickled from some speakers fixed on top of the old picture rail. The thin, industrial carpet under my feet was worn from thousands of footsteps. The same carpet that had been there when we had brought fallen Kings’ members through the doors in droves all those years ago.
And that feeling hit me again. Thick and onerous. Foreboding and threatening. Crawling through my veins and making my blood feel heavy. This had never been my favourite place. Even if the pussy on the front desk was tight and sweet, or the manager helped us tidy up occasionally.
“Fury! Hi. I was expecting Indie.”
“Aye. He’s busy. What’s going on, mate?” My voice boomed around the reception, bouncing off the walls and coming straight back at me.
Dave glanced over his shoulder nervously, towards the door in the far wall, to where his office once stood. He flicked his head, gesturing to me to follow, out of earshot of the new manager, who must be cocooned within Dave’s old office. For now, they were safe. At least until I found out from Dave what the fuck was going on.
I followed Dave along a corridor with doors lined along one side. Three, I counted, but I’d never been down this far before. It had always been the first office we’d been led into. And that same thud of dread thumped me in the stomach as I eyed each one. The sudden fear of seeing a dead body, even when I’d seen them die in front of me, and in my arms. The stab of anxiety before you walked into the room of soft lighting and gentle music, the smell of sterility and the coolness that grabbed at the hair on your forearms. That was as sharp in my memories as watching someone draw their last breath.
I shook my head. Swatting out the thoughts. Regaining my composure. Following Dave into the back room, ever closer to the lines of freezers and chillers containing soulless bodies. And somewhere in there, behind the thick metal double doors, our ex-president lay.
“So, what’s the craic, mate?”
“Dunno. It’s all cloak and dagger at the moment. I didn’t even know she was coming until the other day.”
“She? New boss is a she?”
Dave nodded. “Don’t get any ideas, Fury. She’s not one you can win over with a flick of your hair or a flex of your muscles. Not like young Poppy out there.”
I grinned. I’d always like a challenge.
“She’s the owner’s daughter. Grown-up some since I last saw her. An accounts auditor from London. Don’t know why she’s here. Rocked up a few days ago and has been digging into everything ever since. The Kings’ accounts in particular.”
Dave frowned, scrubbing the palm of his hand over the top of his balding head.
“Any tips on how to handle it?”
Dave shrugged, a look of defeat in his eyes.
“You’d better introduce me then.”
I had a game plan. The same one that had never failed me. Posh bit from London was no different, even if she was the daughter of the Big Wig owner.
The man in front of me drew a deep breath, bracing himself and then pausing, as if he was about to say something else, but then thought better of it.
“Back through here, then.”
Dave moved around me, leading me away from the chilling bodies, along the corridor of reflection rooms, back to the safety of the reception. He knocked softly on his own office door, listening for something I couldn’t hear, and then gently nudging the door inwards.
“Ms Fischer. I have a gentleman here to see you.”
A gentleman I was not. I couldn’t hear the response, but Dave pushed the door fully open, then stepped away.
She looked up at me as I stepped across the threshold, a piercing stare, blonde hair falling around her shoulders, lightly curled, bouncing as she got to her feet and stepped out from behind the old desk. Her suit was navy. Fitted across the bulge of her chest and nipping in at a slim waist, before the rest of it flared away, accentuating the curve of her hips. The matching navy skirt ended just past her knees, showing off the muscled arc of her calf and the delicate ankle that led to the cream stilettos.
“Heidi Fischer,” she held a delicate hand of manicured nails out towards me.
My hand engulfed hers. The callouses of years of labour feeling much more rough against the smoothness of moisturised flesh. I’d expected her to do that limp-wristed, delicate shake that women did. But she gripped me tightly. A show of control. Control I’d take from her soon enough.
“And you are?” she asked suddenly, breaking the silence as I stared at her hand in mine.
“Fury.”
“Fury? Nick name?”
“Bike name.”
“Bike name?”
“I’m the Vice President of the Northern Kings MC.”
“Sit down, Mr….”
“Fury. Just Fury.”
She smiled gently. But it wasn’t friendly. Just professional tolerance.
“Please, Fury. Have a seat.”