Chapter 34 #2
“We’ve had worse odds. Right!” he boomed, speaking over everyone, commanding the attention of the room.
“We don’t ask questions. It doesn’t fucking matter why they’re here.
They’ve entered our territory unannounced.
You take down anyone you come across. You all know the score here, brothers.
We deal with this, and we’ll think of how to handle the consequences later.
Do what you can, protect the brotherhood, and I’ll see you all in Church later. ”
“Let’s go, then,” I grinned, the energy in the room shifting so fast it was like someone had flicked a switch inside me.
One second I’d been sat at the table stewing over Gabriella, and the next my blood pressure was up and my body was moving before my brain had fully caught up.
Chairs scraped back, drawers were yanked open, knives and guns and brass knuckles and whatever else people kept hidden in the kitchen were suddenly appearing in hands like muscle memory.
It was chaos, but it was our kind of chaos.
We were organised. Everything felt familiar, like muscle memory.
Everyone knew what to do without needing to be told twice.
Rachel was just about to race out of the door when she paused, spun around, and grabbed the potato peeler.
Monster looked at her. “You are not taking that into a fucking attack.”
She looked back at him. “Why not?”
“Because it’s a potato peeler.”
“And?”
“And you’ve already traumatised enough people with kitchen utensils for one lifetime.”
Rachel gave him a look. “That sounds like a you problem.”
I snorted as I reached for the knife block on instinct, only to have Dante shove a gun into my hand instead. “Use that first,” he said. “Try not to kiss anyone this time.”
I grinned and checked the mag before tucking it into the back of my jeans. “Can’t promise anything. Bar fights bring out the romance in me.”
“Christ,” Ant muttered as he grabbed a crowbar from behind the utility cupboard. “If I get taken out today and my last image on this earth is you snogging a Rough Rider, I’m haunting this place.”
“Get in line,” Riley said darkly.
The alarm was still blaring as we poured out of the kitchen and into the rest of the house, but the second we hit the hall, the noise outside drowned it out.
Men were shouting, engines were revving, boots were crunching on the gravel out front.
Dante split us up quickly, pointing Ant, Tools, and the poultry twins toward the back and barking for Riley to take the side entrance and cut anyone off trying to get around to the garage.
Monster and I stayed with him, while Rachel, because she was Rachel, ignored everyone entirely and strode toward the front of the house with the sort of purposeful confidence that suggested she was looking forward to this.
“Rachel,” Dante barked.
She glanced over her shoulder. “What?”
“Stay inside.”
“No.”
“Rachel—”
“No,” she repeated, not even slowing down. “They came to my house. Where my children are. I’m not hiding in the kitchen while you all have fun.”
And then she was gone.
Dante closed his eyes for one brief second, like he were asking the universe for strength before turning to us. “If she dies, I’m blaming all of you.”
“Fair,” I said, nodding slowly. “Because everyone saw the strings on her. We’re nothing but the puppet masters, putting her in harm's way.”
“Bite me,” Dante snapped, walking towards his old lady who had reached the door.
The front door had barely made it halfway open before the first Rider came through it, knocking into Rachel as he booted it the rest of the way open.
Dante didn’t even hesitate. He moved at a speed that defied his size, driving his fist into the guy’s face so hard the man staggered backwards into the porch wall, and then everything after that happened in a blur.
Bodies crashed together, the doorway immediately becoming too small for the amount of violence trying to force its way through it. Someone shouted from outside. Someone else hit the floor hard enough to rattle the skirting boards. The smell of sweat and mud and blood hit the air almost instantly.
And then I was in it.
One of them came at me from the left, all heavy swings and more confidence than skill, and I barely had to think before I ducked the first punch and buried mine straight into his ribs.
He folded with a grunt, but before I could finish him off, another one came at me from the side and clipped me hard enough across the jaw to make my head snap.
Pain ricocheted through my mind, blurring my vision, and another jab hit me in the ribs.
I ducked the next punch, and grabbed the guy behind me, flinging him over my shoulder and into the wall.
Just at that moment, the back door opened, and there Steph stood, a manic grin on her face. I frowned for a split second before realising the mad cow had literally released the hounds.
Dogs of all shapes and sizes piled into the kitchen, heading straight for the enemy—just like they had been trained to do.
My distraction came at a price, however, as another punch hit me across the jaw.
And God help me, I laughed.
I couldn’t help it. I fucking loved a good fight.
I could feel the blood spilling from my lips, staining my teeth, and dripping down my beard.
“Yes, you fucking violent little beauty!” I laughed again, sounding almost manic to my own ears.
The bloke backed up when I approached, seemingly more scared of my laughter than he had been at the thought of fighting me.
I grinned my bloody grin at him and grabbed either side of his head, planting a kiss square on his lips.
“What the fuck—”
“Yes!” I beamed, pulling back from him and shaking his head. “That is what I’m fucking talking about!” I grabbed him in a headlock, ruffling his hair with my knuckles.
And then I kneed him in the face repeatedly.
Behind me, Doc made a disgusted noise. “You are absolutely not right in the head.”
“Jealous?” I shot back, just as someone grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me sideways.
I twisted on instinct and found myself face to face with a Rider I vaguely recognised from a bar scrap a couple of years ago.
He didn’t get time to remind me of his name.
I smashed my forehead into his nose instead, heard the wet crunch of cartilage, and then grabbed the back of his neck and bit down on his nose until I felt the tip of it burst in between my teeth.
The house was mayhem now. Proper fucking mayhem.
The front room had turned into a full-on bar fight, bodies slamming into furniture, lamps getting knocked over, glass smashing under boots.
One of the poultry twins had someone pinned over the back of the sofa while the other was trying to hit a different Rider with what looked suspiciously like one of Rachel’s decorative candlesticks.
Monster had two of them on him at once and was swearing so violently I was half convinced his mother could hear him from beyond the grave.
Dante had somehow ended up in the middle of the room with blood on his knuckles and murder in his eyes, laying people out with the kind of terrifying efficiency that reminded everyone exactly why he was president.
The dogs were running rampant, biting whoever was wearing a rival cut, and Rachel was losing her shit at the thought of her beloved Staffie taking a beating.
She grabbed some of the darts off the dartboard and stabbed one of the Riders in the ear, before she scooped her hellhound up and placed him behind the bar.
And through it all, despite the chaos, despite focusing on the fight at hand, I kept waiting for the one thing that would tell me why they were here.
Because Dante had been right. It didn’t matter in the moment.
Not really. Not when they’d come onto our land and into our house and made themselves fair game.
But it still sat there, needling at the back of my mind as I drove my shoulder into another Rider and sent him sprawling over the arm of the sofa.
I could only think of one thing. And if I was thinking it, no doubt Dante was, too.
The cameras.
They’d found the fucking cameras.
Which meant this wasn’t random. And it also meant that if they had enough intelligence to plug those cameras into a computer, they knew exactly what Gabby had been up to last night.
This wasn’t a drunken show of force or one of Nico’s usual pissing contests.
This was retaliation.
And the second that thought properly formed, the image of Gabriella hit me so hard in the chest I nearly missed the fist coming at my face.
I blocked it too late. It clipped my cheekbone, making my eye water, and before I could recover, the same bastard drove into me hard enough to send us both crashing into the bar.
Bottles shattered behind me.
Glass rained down.
“Fuck yes,” I muttered, grinning despite the pain as I shoved him off and swung back hard enough to split his lip. “Now we’re having fun.”
He lunged again, and we both went down in a tangle of limbs and broken glass, fists flying, boots connecting, both of us half slipping in spilled whiskey as we tried to get the upper hand.
He managed to land one decent punch to my mouth, and I answered it by grabbing the back of his head and slamming it into the cabinet beneath the bar until he stopped moving.
Breathing hard, I pushed myself upright and spat blood onto the floorboards.
Then I heard it.
Not the fight.
Not the shouting.
A voice.
One of the Riders, half-dragged by Riley through the hallway, blood pouring from his nose and mouth as he kicked uselessly against being hauled deeper into enemy territory.
“You’re all dead anyway!” he shouted, wild-eyed and grinning through split lips. “Nico knows—”
My entire body went still.
Dante heard it too. His head snapped in my direction.
There was only one reason Nico knowing anything mattered to me.
Only one reason my pulse had just kicked into something colder and far more dangerous than adrenaline.
The bastard tried to keep talking, but Riley punched him hard enough in the mouth to shut him up. “Oops,” he said blandly, dragging him upright again. “Slipped.”
I was already moving.
“Vienna!” Dante barked, catching what I was doing immediately.
“I’m going.”
“You don’t know that this is about her.”
I looked at him, chest heaving, blood dripping from my split lip onto the floor.
“Yes,” I said, with a certainty that made the room seem to sharpen around me. “I fucking do.”
Dante swore, shoving a Rider off him hard enough to send the bloke crashing into the coffee table. Then he looked around the room, did the quickest assessment of the situation I’d ever seen, and made the call.
“Tools, lock this place down. No one leaves. No one gets in. Riley, keep one of them breathing so we can ask questions later.” He turned back to me, already heading for the hall. “Get Hacksaw, Trent, and Chris. We’re checking those fucking cameras and putting an end to this once and for all.”