Chapter 1
One
Hella
Smoke and old blood has a distinct smell to it. Not copper. Not fucking ash. And this table has seen plenty of that.
Carved by Beast’s grandfather from a native Totara tree, our club Taniwha sits proud in the middle. It was the first and only gift he gave Henry “Candle” Burns before he dropped. Whakairo, Beast calls it, now spends his free time. Which is never lately.
Had too many good memories with Candle. He went far before his old ass time.
Now his chair sits empty down the side, cut off patch folded neat over the backrest. President badge stitched off, Candle’s name untouched. Nobody touches that cut. Nobody touches that chair.
It’s been five years since we rode up from the South Island with nothing but a stolen Chevy, fucked lungs, and Vanguard ghosts chewing at our heels.
Five years since Candle took one look at Beast, another at me, and said, “You boys are home now.” Patched Beast as his VP.
Slapped the Huntsman badge on my shoulder like he’d been waiting to do it.
Now Beast is international president.
And I’m the one sitting at his right.
“Been over a month,” Bull says, breaking the low rumble of voices.
He leans back in his chair, boots planted wide, big hands wrapped around his beer.
Beard messy, eyes sharp. Bull being short for Hannibal, we all know what the fuck he really wants to do.
“If anyone knew anything, they should’ve piped up by now. ”
“They should have,” Beast agrees, voice flat.
He’s not leaning back. He’s hunched over the table, forearms braced, fingers linked like he’s keeping himself from punching through the wood.
President patch heavy over his chest, black T-shirt stretched across his pumped up muscle, Tamoko inked down his arm.
Cleanly shaved, you can see the tension in his jaw.
The fucking circles beneath his eyes. I’ve known Beast since I was fourteen years old and dumped into a government funded system that no one knows shit about.
I’ve never seen him fucked up like this.
He hasn’t looked at his father’s chair once. Not directly. Just slides past it every time his eyes move around the room.
Tino Rangitiratanga flag hangs behind him, right beside photos of those passed.
Still not sure if I deserve this VP patch. Wish someone else wore it. Like one of the other founding members who still sit at this table. Toke, with his half-face Ta Moko, or Footy, Candle's oldest friend. Toke would fight the best friend term out since both he and Candle shared similar moko.
I was the club’s Huntsman when I first got here. Now I’m the fucking VP.
“We’re not waiting on anyone to come to us,” Beast says, finally. His gaze drags over each man at the table—Bull, Frost, Toke, Nyx, Ripper, Footy. Eight members of the mother chapter, two prospects. “We go to them.”
“Westbeach,” I say, because we’ve been circling it the whole week and I’m sick of the foreplay. “We head to Westbeach and see if anything has been sniffing around there.”
His eyes flick to mine. Brown, blown out with tiredness and fury he’s trying to keep caged.
“Westbeach,” he confirms with a short nod.
“Waikato charter. Zane’s backyard. Russians like to sniff around there when they want something from the ports and don't want to drag his daughter in who runs an MC in the Bay of Plenty.”
The Russians. Viktor Baranov and his pet wolves.
Henry’s coffin is still fresh in my head, dirt hitting the lid in a slow, steady drum. I remember Beast standing there, jaw rock solid, not a single tear. I remember thinking if I dig my nails into my palms any harder, I’ll open them up. Give the old bastard one last offering.
Heart attack, they said.
Candle didn’t go out from a fucking heart attack.
Frost shifts in his seat, arms folded over his chest, Huntsman badge bold beneath his one percenter. Blond hair buzzed on the sides, longer on top, his blue eyes cutting between us like he’s trying to read what Beast isn’t saying.
“You think the Russians hit him?” Bull asks, not dancing around it. Of course he doesn’t. Subtle isn’t his thing. “And what, made it pretty for the cops?”
Beast shakes his head. “If Viktor wanted Candle dead, he’d have sent flowers after. Man’s old school.” His lip curls. “He also knows I’d put every Baranov dog in the ground if he touched my father. He’s not that stupid.”
“So we head into Eastbeach?” Nyx asks, tilting his head.
“Nah, stick to West. Don’t want to ruffle his feathers too much right off the bat,” I answer before Beast has to. “Not that we would. Viktor was the one who fed Beast the first crumb about Candle while we were in Vanguard.”
Silence.
Beast’s eyes glass over. He doesn’t flinch, but I can tell he’s back there. Underground. Concrete walls, Vanguard patch on some bastard’s shoulder, the humming buzz of fluorescent lights, the way Protocol 6 was always shouted and never whispered.
Execute all commands without question.
“Back when he was still Vanguard’s good little whore,” I continue, voice mild, making it worse on purpose. I tap the table once with my finger. “He knew too much then. He’ll know something now.”
Beast’s jaw jumps, but he lets it roll. Temperamental bastard. I need to call Yana. Tell her she ain't hitting it right.
Bull nods slowly. “I’ll call Zane. Give him a heads up we’re coming. Make sure his boys aren’t playing footsie with any stray Russians we don’t know about.”
“Do it today,” Beast says. “Tell him we’ll be there tomorrow night.”
It doesn’t take long to get over that way. Around four hours through the Gorge and straight into the Peninsula. I can already feel Hellraiser biting at the bit in the shed, red frame begging to open up on those coastal roads.
“This isn’t a friendly drop-in,” I add, looking around the table, making sure every man catches it. “We’re going to check Candle’s trail. We’re going to see what Viktor’s been hearing, if any of Zane's boys know more than they're letting on. Anyone gets in the way, we move them. Clear?”
Grunts answer. A couple of the boys hit their knuckles on the table in agreement. No one says no. They never do when it’s about Candle. The old bastard raised half the men in this room. The other half owe their lives to him.
Beast reaches for his smoke, taps it against the wood but doesn’t light it yet. His fingers still. “Frost,” he says, finally turning to our new Huntsman. “You got anything else?”
Frost straightens. “Nothing solid,” he admits, voice clipped.
“I’ve talked to every cop we’ve got in pockets.
No chatter about forced entry or struggle at Candle’s.
Nothing missing. No weird vehicles in the neighborhood on CCTV.
No Russians in the area the week before he died—at least not under the names we know. ”
“Too clean,” Bull mutters. “Fucker was supposed to go out guns blazing. He'd be pissed about that and that alone.”
“Yeah.” Frost’s eyes harden. “Whoever was near him that night, they either belong in this room or they’re ghosts. And if they’re ghosts, they’re the careful kind.”
I feel something cold move down my spine. Not fear. Just that awareness you get before shit goes sideways. Candle knew this life. He’d have smelled a stranger on his street a mile out. Whoever got close either came with a familiar face, or he invited the fucker in himself.
Beast flicks his smoke away unlit, like he’s disgusted with the whole idea of calming down.
“We go shake the tree,” he says. “If it’s Viktor’s people, he’ll slip up.
If it’s someone else, they’ll start to move when they hear we’re sniffing in Westbeach.
Either way, I’m done sitting here with my thumb up my ass while my father’s put in the ground and forgotten. ”
Forgotten.
That word sits wrong.
Candle is in the wood of this table. In the rules on the wall. In the scars on Beast’s hands. He doesn’t get forgotten. He gets avenged or he haunts us. That’s it. Two options.
I lean forward, forearms on the table, my cut creaking. “Some of you will hold down home. No bullshit while we’re gone.” I cross my arms, letting my gaze drag over each face. “That includes pussy you’re trying to impress.”
“Anything else?” Beast asks.
Nobody speaks up.
His hand slams down once on the table, not with a gavel, just bare palm on wood. The sound ripples through the room.
Chairs scrape back, boots hit concrete. The low drone of voices starts up again as men file out, some heading for the bar, some for the yard, some for the dorm rooms where they’ll fuck, fight, or pass out, maybe all three.
I don’t move.
Neither does Beast.
The room empties until it’s just the two of us and Frost, who lingers by the door like he’s waiting for orders he already knows he’s getting.
Beast drags a hand over his chin and finally—finally—lets his eyes drift to his father’s empty chair. Then he looks away.
“You think he knows?” Beast asks. “About Candle. About…everything.” There’s Vanguard in that last word. Electrodes. Hidden cameras. Orders whispered through speakers. I hear it even if he doesn’t say it.
“I think Viktor knows as much as he wants to know,” I say. “That’s why we’re going. Not so he can tell us the truth. So we can watch what he does when we ask.”
He huffs out a humorless sound. “You really are a vicious fuck.”
Frost clears his throat softly. “I’ll go prep,” he says. “Check the bikes. Make sure the boys know who’s staying and who’s keeping their mouths shut.” He jerks his chin once at Beast. “We’ll figure this shit out, prez.”
Beast nods, and Frost disappears.
Silence settles. Not peaceful. Just heavy.
“You good?” I ask Beast, even though I know the answer. The question’s a joke. A fucked one.
He looks at me, and for a moment, I see the kid in the Vanguard cell, back pressed to concrete, wrists raw from restraints, eyes full of venom.
“No,” he says. “I will be when I know who the fuck touched what they shouldn't have.”
My lips twitch. “That’s the spirit.”
We stand at the same time. I glance once at Candle’s folded cut, the stitched name, the empty seat.
Tomorrow we point our front wheels at Westbeach.