Chapter 5
Gabriella
“I will never get in another car with you as long as I live,” I snapped at Dante as I saw the familiar houses come into view.
He had started to slow down once we entered Rider territory, and now that I wasn’t fearing for my life—at least not at the hands of his driving—I was able to concentrate more on my surroundings.
Unlike the Devil’s, the Rough Riders did not all live on one heavily guarded compound.
We were spread out throughout our patch of Leeds, which made an ambush more difficult.
But it also made it easier for us to sneak up on the clubhouse, since there were always members of the public coming and going at any time.
Which is where I found myself when I opened my eyes, feeling the car draw to a stop, and the rumble of a dozen motorbikes before their engines silenced.
“Trust me, princess, I don’t plan on using the car any more than necessary. And when I do, you won’t be invited again.”
I just scoffed in return. The man drove like he was personally offended by the existence of corners, speed limits, and any form of self-preservation.
Instead of replying to him, I watched as he approached Rachel, murmuring words I couldn’t hear, before addressing his club—quietly, quickly, and with all the force only a president could command.
I barely heard any of it. None of it mattered to me, anyway. I wasn’t actually sure why I was here. I wasn’t needed—or wanted.
So I focused more on where I was instead. On what I was seeing.
Home.
Breathing heavily through my nose, I tried to remember what that was. The last time that statement had been true.
Home was never a place. It was a feeling. A sense of belonging. Comfort, love, and safety.
That feeling hadn’t been here since Nico had taken over.
But knowing what was coming tonight, knowing what would be destroyed in the aftermath of Vienna’s decisions, I couldn’t help but remember what used to be.
For one ridiculous, painful second, I didn’t see Nico’s club and what he had let it become. What it now stood for.
Instead, I saw my father’s.
I saw him standing outside the clubhouse with a smoke hanging from his mouth, shouting at Damien for doing something stupid with one of the bikes.
I saw Natalie sitting on the wall near my house, swinging her legs, her skirts far too short and her makeup far too heavy, rolling her eyes at whatever drama I was dragging her into that day.
I saw younger versions of myself running through the streets with scraped knees and tangled hair, believing with the unshakeable arrogance of childhood that this place would always belong to us, that the men who wore these patches would always protect what was ours.
Territories came and went. But this here, this estate in the rougher area of Leeds, had always been our stomping ground. This was where the Riders were founded and we fought fiercely to protect it. We belonged to it as much as it belonged to us.
And it hadn’t been stolen by our rivals like my dad had always feared. It had been seized by the enemy within, and no longer did I think this place would offer anyone anything even close to protection. And certainly not me.
“The goal here is to get Vienna out, and that’s the end of it. If you run into trouble, I expect you to handle it,” I heard Dante saying, and the mention of Vienna had me focusing on the conversation.
“Unlike the past, we are not here for blood. If you need to deal with a Rider, I trust that you will use your judgement and whatever force you feel is necessary. But try to remember that there are innocent people living here. The Riders are living amongst the community, and everything we do will have an impact. Let’s not bring more trouble than needed, understood? ”
A chorus of ‘yes, boss’, ‘understood’, and other affirmatives rang out, and then Dante gave the go ahead to his brothers to do their job.
“You,” he said, snatching hold of the back of Rachel’s cut as she went to leave with the others. “You are to behave.”
“Why the fuck am I getting a separate lecture to everyone else?” she practically snarled at him, but he just laughed in response.
I barely heard his answer, though. My entire body flinched and recoiled at the sounds of shouts and gunshots firing off in the direction of where the Devil’s had gone.
“For fuck’s sake,” Dante hissed, and then he was gone, running alongside Rachel and into the chaos.
Jogging to catch up, I watched as the Devils spilled further into Rider territory like a storm that had finally found somewhere to break.
Men shouted. Gunfire cracked through the air.
Bodies moved too quickly for my eyes to follow, black cuts and Rider patches colliding in a brutal mess of fists, weapons, blood, and vengeance.
And I stood there and watched.
Frozen.
Horrified.
Useless.
My fingers curled into my palms, nails digging into my skin as my body refused to move.
Everything within me screamed to find Vienna. To show my allegiance to the man I loved and aid his club. The fighting didn’t bother me. I’d fought before—I’d been involved in the ambush on the Devil’s clubhouse that had cost Crash his life.
But there had been a reason for that. My dad had been murdered. I was hurt. And I hadn’t killed anyone. I’d sought Vienna out, finding him with Rachel, and I’d fired a shot into the distance so they could get away.
Blood wasn’t on my hands. But I’d accepted the blame alongside my club, because I had no loyalty to the Devils other than Vienna.
But this was different. These weren’t faceless enemies. This was my home, or the corpse of it, and some of the men falling beneath Devil’s fists were men I had known since I was a child.
That one near the garage had once lifted me onto his shoulders during a rally because I couldn’t see over the crowd.
The man Dante drove towards had stood beside my father’s coffin with tears in his eyes.
Another had taught Damien how to clean a gun properly, slapping the back of his head every time he rushed the process.
They had histories. Families. Names. They had watched me grow up.
These men chose their side. And it wasn’t yours, a voice inside my mind whispered to me.
And it was right.
These were men who had stood by my dad’s side and sworn an oath to protect the Riders.
And then they had allowed Nico to poison us from the inside out, destroying us all.
From the moment he took command, they had been willing to sacrifice the little girl they had helped raise and allowed him to abuse the woman she had become.
That was the thought that finally broke something open inside me.
They had watched. They had been complicit. They hadn’t done anything to save us.
Maybe some of them had been afraid. Maybe some had objected quietly behind closed doors. Maybe some had looked away because looking too closely would have meant doing something about it.
But not one of them had saved me.
Not one of them had saved my mother. Not one of them had stopped Nico from turning Harley’s club into a prison and a brothel, and a graveyard for any woman unlucky enough to be dragged through its doors.
“Gabriella, move!” I heard Rachel shriek a split second before two large arms wrapped around me, hauling my feet off the floor.
And then it was my own turn to scream as a bullet flew past my cheek and into the forehead of the person behind me.
“Get back to the car,” Dante told me, his voice low and ferocious.
“But—”
“No, buts. Not right now. Your head is all over the place, and I’m not dragging Vienna out of there just for him to find out I let you get yourself shot. Because then he’ll only go and try to get himself killed yet again, and the whole cycle will repeat. Just… go.”
I turned to glare at him, but the words didn’t come fast enough.
He glanced at me then, and whatever he saw in my face softened something in him. Not much, because Dante King softening in the middle of a battle would probably cause the world to tilt off its axis, but enough that his voice lowered.
“This is a lot,” he said. “I know it is. But you are doing yourself no favours by watching.”
I swallowed hard and looked back at the clubhouse. “It shouldn’t be hard. I should hate them enough for this to be easy. But this is my home.”
“It isn’t,” he replied simply. I looked at him then, and he shrugged his large shoulders in response.
“See her?” he asked, pointing to a laughing Rachel who was punching a man in the face.
“She’s my home. Her and those kids. If my compound were to burn down tomorrow, I’d still have them.
I’d still have my brothers. Home can’t be measured by concrete walls.
Home is what you make it. And Vienna has been your home for a long time—just like you are his.
And the sooner you both realise that and stop fighting the inevitable, the sooner I can go back to being the nasty, angry biker that no one likes to talk to instead of an agony aunt with terrible advice and cringe phrases. ”
He grinned at me, and I could do nothing but let my mouth drop open in shock.
Who knew Dante had a soft side?
I was just about to say that very thing when an excited bundle of blonde and blood stormed over to us, muttering under her breath about her sore knuckles.
“That’s what happens when you use someone’s face as a punching bag, darling,” Dante said to her.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Are you two done with the heart-to-heart? Because while I appreciate the full-circle trauma tour, I’d quite like to get our idiot back before Nico decides to chop him into decorative pieces.”
“That’s up to Gabriella here,” he replied, and for a moment, just a moment, Rachel looked at me and her eyes softened.
And then she was back to her bitch self.
“Well, if she could make a decision a bit faster, that would be grand. We have men bleeding out for her.”
Despite everything, despite the gunfire and the fear and the way my entire past seemed to be crumbling around me, a strangled laugh forced its way up my throat. Rachel looked at me as though I had grown another head.
“What?”
“You’re just… you,” I said, shaking my head. “All the time.”
“As Vienna once told me—if you can’t be yourself, then who can you be? Speaking of which… any idea where my old hair buddy might be?”
“The basement,” I said without hesitation.
“There’s a room beneath the house. Not the clubhouse—the main house.
My house. That’s where I was before I escaped, and I left my mother there as well.
My bet is on Nico putting Vienna there for safekeeping.
But my bet is also on Nico instructing that they be removed whilst you’re all distracted with fighting. ”
Dante nodded once, already moving. “Rachel, take Hacksaw and Trent with you and circle the back of the clubhouse. Keep them busy and stop anyone getting between us and the cars.”
“On it,” she nodded. “Bring our guy back, Dante King.”
“Have I ever let you down before?”
“Numerous times,” she said immediately, without a shred of humour, her tone completely deadpan.
He leaned in quickly and kissed her hard enough to make my eyes widen, then pulled back with a grin that had absolutely no place in the middle of a gunfight. “That’s my girl.”
“You’re both insane,” I breathed.
“Welcome to the family,” Rachel said, already backing away.
Family.
As if I could even dare believe it.
Dante shoved me back towards the car, grabbed my door and opened it, crouching slightly so we were eye level.
“You’re going to get behind the wheel. You’re going to keep the engine running.
If anyone who isn’t one of mine gets too close, you drive or you shoot,” he said, placing a gun on my lap. “I’ll let you make the decision.”
I looked past him towards the main house.
Towards the basement.
Towards my mother.
Towards Vienna.
“Gabriella,” Dante said firmly. “Stay alive. That’s all you need to do. You can pick apart the mental damage afterwards. Stay alive long enough for me to return Vienna to you, and we’ll deal with everything else afterwards.”
“And my mother?” I asked, my voice sounding smaller than I wanted it to.
Dante hesitated, his lip curling in distaste. “I’ll bring her,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Gee, you sound utterly fucking thrilled.”
“It’s bad enough having my enemy’s daughter sitting in my car. Now you want me to have his old lady here as well.”
“Harley is dead, Dante.”
“Yeah. And I pulled the fucking trigger.”
Then he was gone, moving through the chaos with the terrifying certainty of a man who had been born for war.
Men fell around him. Devils closed ranks behind him.
Rachel shouted orders somewhere to my left, her voice cutting through the gunfire, and I forced myself into the driver’s seat, hands shaking as I adjusted behind the wheel.
I turned the key even though the engine was already running, earning a horrible grinding noise that made me wince.
“Brilliant, Gabby,” I muttered to myself. “Survive Nico for years and get defeated by a fucking ignition.”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel.
Through the windscreen, I watched the battle continue. I watched Devils cut through Riders. I watched men I had once trusted fall beneath men I had once been taught to hate. I watched my past and my future tear each other apart in the yard I had once called home.
And all I could do was sit there, keeping the car warm for the man I had spent ten years trying to save.
The man who had come for me anyway.
The man who, God willing, Dante was about to bring back.