Chapter 18 Katana #2
It’s not just another building. We put this place down once.
I still remember the night. The barking was so loud it rattled my skull, the metallic clang of chains snapping, the copper stench of blood smeared across concrete.
Meadow tore a padlock off with bolt cutters while the rest of us hauled half-starved dogs out of cages.
Their ribs jutted sharp as knives, their eyes too tired to hope. One of them was Diesel.
Even now, I glance sideways at LC. Her jaw is locked, her eyes hard, but I see the memory of that night hitting her.
I know she’s picturing the same thing I am, Diesel’s shaking body in that cage, the way his tail thumped weakly against the bars when she scooped him up. He made it out. Not all of them did.
We cut engines a block out. The silence is broken only by the drip of water from a busted gutter and the hum of traffic.
Quinn signals us into position, her hand precise, steady.
LC peels left with Orchid and Rogue. Scarlet Rose, and Silk fan out toward the back, covering the collapsed fencing.
The rest tighten the perimeter, posted at every blind corner.
Some of the windows are busted out, others boarded up. A single bulb flickers above the front door, casting more shadow than light.
Quinn glances back at me, her eyes sharp. “Kat, you’re with me.”
I nod once, my throat too tight for words.
Meadow shoulders the crowbar. The doorframe splinters under the first hit, the sound echoing down the empty lot like a gunshot. The second hit tears it free. The door creaks open, groaning like the building doesn’t want us inside.
The smell is even stronger inside. Rows of rusted cages line the perimeter, their bars bent, doors hanging loose, stains still smeared in the corners.
Chains drag across the concrete in the draft, clinking like ghosts.
My stomach twists. The echoes of snarling, of yelps, and bets being placed still feel embedded in the walls.
We move in, boots crunching over broken glass and old bone fragments. The weak bulb overhead swings on its wire, throwing shadows long and jagged across the floor.
And then I see her.
Devyn. Tied to a chair in the center of the room, duct tape stretched across her mouth, her chest heaving when her eyes lock on mine. Relief tears through me sharp enough to hurt.
But Riot steps out of the dark before I can move, her palms rapping twice against the rusted bars of a cage as she passes, the hollow clang echoing like a warning through the room.
She’s wearing her cut like she’s still one of us. Her eyes are wild, but her stance is steady. Sweat glistens at her temple, strands of hair sticking damp to her cheek. A pistol dangles loose in her hand.
“You came,” Riot says, her voice low, almost smug. The pistol dangles at her side, “Guess that means you got my message. So? Are we making a trade, Pres?”
Quinn doesn’t blink. Her voice could freeze the ocean. “Let her go.”
Riot barks out a laugh, sharp and bitter, but it wavers at the edges. “Not until I walk out of here free. You get Devyn, I get my life. That’s the deal.”
“We don’t make deals with traitors.” The venom in my tone is deadly.
Riot’s eyes snap from Quinn to me, her face twisted with pain before rage hardens it.
“You think I wanted this? You think I picked Serrano’s crew over my family for the fun of it?
He had me by the throat. I got pinched a few months back.
Cops found a car full of unregistered weapons that I was moving for this club. I was looking at federal charges.”
Her voice cracks as she goes on, shame bleeding into the words. “Serrano had a cop in his pocket. He made it all go away before it hit the system. He said I owed him. Just one favor. Then it was another, then another. Next thing I knew, I was buried under it.”
Quinn’s eyes narrow, sharp as razors. “If you were in trouble, you should’ve come to us. You should’ve trusted your club.”
Riot’s laugh is jagged and bitter. “Trusted you? You’d have stripped my patch the second you found out. You’d have locked me out before I could explain. I thought I could fix it before anyone knew. I thought I could keep us safe.”
Her eyes flick to Devyn, and the guilt there is almost enough to make me sick. “Then he wanted names of girls. He said if I didn’t he’d make sure every fed in the country had my file. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.” My voice is hoarse, raw. “That girl’s done nothing to you.”
Devyn’s muffled cry cuts through the air like glass. My stomach knots so tight I can’t breathe.
“You don’t understand,” Riot snaps. “I couldn’t just walk. You would’ve hunted me down till the end of the earth. So I used what I had. Devyn was… leverage. A way to buy myself out.”
Quinn moves forward, slow and deliberate.
Calm in a way that makes the whole kennel tremble.
Riot’s gun twitches, but Quinn’s faster.
Her hand clamps Riot’s wrist, twisting hard until the pistol clatters against the concrete and skids out of reach.
In the same motion, Quinn grips her by the collar, yanks her forward, and rips the cut clean off her back.
The leather tears under her fists, the sound like a sentence being passed.
She holds it up like a trophy, her voice low and lethal.
“You’re right about one thing. You don’t deserve to wear this,” Quinn says. Each word is a death knell. “You betrayed your sisters. You betrayed me. What you did to those girls…to Devyn. It’s unforgivable. You’ll die without it.”
Quin tosses the cut to the floor. Riot lunges for it, desperation spilling out of her. “We had a deal!”
I’m on her before she reaches it, pain tearing through my ribs.
We crash into the concrete, fists flying.
Everything we were dies in the blur of blows.
Riot rams her knee into my ribs and I nearly black out from the pain, but I don’t let go.
I grab her wrist, twist until her bones grind, and slam her into the concrete, blood smearing hot across her face.
I pin her, every breath fire in my chest. My fists rain down. one, two, three. Blood smears across her lip, her nose, but still she thrashes.
“Kat!” Quinn’s voice snaps sharp.
I don’t stop. I can’t. This is Riot. My sister. My betrayer. The one who put Devyn in that chair.
Riot spits blood onto the concrete, smirking through split lips. “You think you’re better than me? You don’t even know what it takes to survive.”
My fist cracks against her jaw, the sound sickening. She jerks away, scrambling to her feet, wild-eyed, blood dripping down her chin.
She comes at me like a feral dog. Nails rake my cheek, burning lines into my skin. She rams her shoulder into my ribs, and the pain blinds me momentarily. I grunt, my knees buckling, but I don’t go down. Not for her. Not for this.
I grab her by the hair and slam her face into the nearest cage. Metal dents, blood spatters. She snarls, swinging an elbow back into my gut. I choke on pain, stagger, and she twists free, snatching the knife from her boot.
The blade gleams under the flickering bulb.
“You chose Serrano,” I snarl back, circling opposite. My vision tunnels, focused only on her and the knife.
She slashes. The blade kisses my arm, shallow but hot, a line of fire down my skin. She grins through her bloody teeth. “You’re already half-dead, Kat. Just let it happen.”
Rage carries me. I lunge, ignoring the scream of my ribs, and slam my forearm into her wrist. The knife clatters away, skittering across the floor. We crash down together, fists flying, every blow fueled by years of shared history.
I scream through it, head-butting her hard enough that she reels back, dazed. My fist drives into her stomach.
Quinn’s voice cuts sharp: “End it, Kat.”
Riot coughs, blood pooling at the corner of her mouth, still smirking through the wreckage of her face.
I raise my fist again, but Quinn steps in. Calm. Icy. Final. She presses the muzzle of her gun to Riot’s temple.
“Look at me,” Quinn orders. Riot meets her eyes, defiance still burning. “You’ll see your death coming, because that’s the price for betraying the Royal Harlots.”
The gunshot cracks, sharp and merciless. Riot’s body jerks once, then slumps, blood pooling across the concrete.
I stagger back, chest heaving, my hands sticky with her blood, my ribs screaming. Quinn holsters her gun, bends to scoop up the cut from the floor.
“She was one of us,” Quinn says, voice flat. “And she died knowing what it costs to break that.”
LC’s already at Devyn, tearing the duct tape away, cutting her ties. Devyn collapses against me, shaking, clutching my cut like I’m her anchor in a storm.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, choking on the words. “You’re safe now.”
Devyn nods against me, a quick, jerky motion. She’s trying to be tougher than all of this, but her wrists are chewed raw, left cheek purpled where a hand caught her, lip split. My stomach knots.
“You hurt anywhere else?” I ask her.
“No.” Devyn shakes her head, breath hitching.
“Good.” A sense of relief washes over the heartache that tugs at my chest.
Quinn straightens, her voice still cold. “It’s over. Now we need to clean this up.”
I bury my face in Devyn’s hair, but my eyes find Riot’s body anyway.
My stomach knots, bile climbing my throat. She was my sister once. My family. And now she’s nothing but a corpse on the floor.