Chapter Seventeen
Bones
I pull Tank’s truck up in front of my place, already anticipating the look on Sunny’s face.
“Need help, brother?” Maverick asks, coming around the side of the house.
“Figured you’d be gone already,” I grunt, cutting the engine.
“Nah, not needed anywhere else at the moment,” he says, grabbing a duffle in one hand and a TV box in the other. “How many TVs do you need, man?”
“I got one for every room,” I mutter, slamming the door shut behind me. “That one’s for the bathroom.”
Maverick laughs, loud and low. “Looks like Sunny’s got you by the balls, brother. Good. It’s about time.”
I grunt again, not denying it.
“Come help,” he calls toward the yard, and within seconds, I’ve got a whole damn parade of Shadows grabbing gear out of the back like we’re moving someone into witness protection.
Which… I guess we kinda are.
When we push through the front door, Sunny’s eyes go wide.
“What in the world is all this?” she asks, eyes ping-ponging between boxes and bags and furniture. “Five TVs, Jack? Really? ”
“Don’t want you getting bored, baby,” I say, setting her duffel down beside the recliner. “How’re you feeling? You need your pain meds?”
“Yeah,” she admits, brow furrowing. “But I also need to stretch. I’ve been sitting in this recliner so long my spine might be permanently reclined.”
“I’ll help you in a second,” I tell her, nodding toward the chaos. “Let me tell the guys where everything goes.”
She rises slowly, one arm wrapped protectively across her chest. Then her eyes lock on something behind me.
“Wait… Is that my office desk ?”
“Yep.”
“Jack, why is my desk here?”
Before I can answer, someone shouts from the hallway, “Where do you want this bean bag chair?”
Sunny’s hands fly to her temples. “Is that my bean bag chair?!”
“I’m going to go hang up these dresses,” Abby calls sweetly, already halfway down the hall with an armload of fabric. “Sunny, I adore your style. I’d love to design something for you one day!”
Sunny blinks. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that man behind Abby is holding every dress I own. ”
“Nope!” Abby chirps from around the corner. “Foster’s got another armful. Which closet, Bones?” she calls out.
“Mine,” I grunt.
There’s a beat of silence.
Then Sunny’s voice, high-pitched says, “ Your closet?!”
Someone whistles in appreciation. “Everything’s so colorful. Like a Skittles explosion.”
“Where to, Bones?” another voice calls.
“Just set it in the corner,” I reply.
Sunny turns slowly toward me, her eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“Is that… my entire kitchen storage? Jack, did you pack my entire freaking apartment?! ”
I shrug, completely unbothered. “Nah. Didn’t have room for the furniture.”
Sunny just stares at me, arms crossed carefully under her ribs like she’s physically holding herself back from launching something at my head.
“Jack,” she says slowly, “did you seriously break into my apartment and pack my entire life into your house?”
“Didn’t break in,” I say calmly. “Tank gave me your keys.”
“Because that’s the issue,” she mutters, pacing in tiny, angry, limping circles. “Not the part where you moved my entire kitchen , Jack. My office desk. My toaster. You took my toaster?”
“It’s a good toaster,” I say with a shrug.
“ You brought my banana hook! ”
Maverick walks by, snorting. “You have a hook just for bananas?”
“It keeps them from bruising!” she shouts back.
“She really loves that hook,” Abby adds, from somewhere in the house.
“I noticed,” I say, deadpan. “Should have wrapped it in bubble wrap.”
She turns on me like a very wounded, very furious kitten.
“Jack,” she says, voice tight. “You can’t just go and relocate a woman’s entire existence without telling her!”
I arch a brow. “You were drugged and healing from a broken rib. Figured moving would be easier while you were temporarily immobile.”
“Temporarily imm… Are you hearing yourself?! ”
“Loud and clear, baby.”
She lets out a noise somewhere between a groan and a scream and walks toward the kitchen…only to freeze in place.
“I swear on everything sacred,” she whispers, glaring at Knuckles, “ is that my bathmat? ”
“Where to, Bones?” he asks me, grinning.
“It says ‘Get Naked’”, Sunny screeches.
“Put it in front of the fridge.”
Skip doubles over, wheezing. “Oh, man. You’re a menace. Who knew?”
I lean against the wall, arms crossed, watching her with open amusement.
“You done?” I ask.
“No,” she huffs. “I have so many words for you.”
“Pick three. Make ‘em good.”
She points a finger in my face, eyes blazing. “ Overbearing. Alpha. Hooligan. ”
I grin. “You forgot yours. ”
That stops her cold.
Her mouth opens. Shuts. Opens again.
“I hate you,” she whispers, cheeks flushed, lips twitching.
“Keep telling yourself that,” I say, straightening up and walking past her toward the kitchen.
“And Jack?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“If you moved… no…if you so much as touched my book collection , I swear I will make you read a twenty-book romance series about a cinnamon roll librarian who only falls for poets.”
I pause. Glance back.
“I might’ve packed those too.”
She gasps like I shot her.
“You absolute monster. Did you pack them properly? Oh no. I bet there are folds and creases all over them. Hey, who has the box of books?”
I decide not to mention the pair of granny panties currently stashed away in my pocket.
Too soon.
***
“Is everyone here?” Foster asks as we settle into our usual seats in the war room.
“Just missing Knuckles,” Spike says, arms crossed and expression unreadable. “He’s with his parents today. I’ll catch him up later. What’s going on?”
The screens flicker. The feed from the clubhouse cams disappear, replaced by four grainy video feeds, all from different angles. Alleyways. Rooftops. Security from storefronts. All surrounding Iron Café.
“Alright,” Foster begins, fingers already dancing across the keyboard. “I pulled all footage from inside the diner the day the girls were drugged. Nothing useful. No weird reactions. No suspicious moves. Looked like a standard takeout order.”
He clicks again. The video sharpens on a back alley.
“But then I pulled footage from buildings around the diner. Cross-referenced timestamps. And eventually… I found this. ”
A figure appears on screen, hood up, pacing, hands twitching.
The guy’s anxious, constantly checking over his shoulder. Eventually, a woman steps out of the Diner and into the alleyway. The man reaches into his pocket and passes the worker a small plastic baggie and some cash.
“Pause,” Spike says, voice low.
Foster freezes the frame.
We all lean in.
“Is that heroin?” Crusher asks.
“That or powdered Fentanyl,” I growl.
“No note?” Skip asks.
“Nope,” Foster says. “But I took the liberty of talking to the woman myself before I called this meeting. The man told her to make a few cookies with the powder and to make sure they went to the next Iron Shadow who came through the door. Didn’t care who.”
A beat of silence stretches.
“Did she know what it was?” Maverick asks, voice tense.
“I don’t think so,” Foster says. “She said he told her it was just a special ingredient. Claimed it was some kind of wellness booster. Said he’d heard bikers ‘loved the strong stuff.’ She thought it was a joke. Or a dare.”
He looks up from the laptop.
“She said she wouldn’t have done it if she knew the truth. She seemed legit scared. But she was desperate for that money. Her kid brother needed food.”
Spike’s jaw tightens, the muscle in his cheek twitching.
“Nieve woman,” Tank mutters. “We’ll have to talk with her and she needs to apologize to our women. But we won’t kill her.”
“I will be killing someone,” I growl. “If it’s not this woman, then I want to know who the fuck that man is.”
Foster doesn’t answer.
He just unpauses the footage.
We watch the figure turn and raise his head.
Foster hits pause again.
The image freezes on a clear, unmistakable profile.
The room goes dead quiet.
“Son of a bitch,” Crusher breathes.
“Billy,” Spike says. The word hits the table like a hammer. “I should have fucking known he would find a way to sneak back in. Damnit. I should have killed him years ago.”
Silence.
No one breathes.
Foster breaks it first.
“I ran his cell as soon as I confirmed his identity. He’s not even trying to hide . ”
He clicks again, and a map pulls up with a flashing red dot over a section in Eastgate.
“Billy doesn’t know we’ve got someone like me in the club now. He’s been sloppy. Phone’s pinging off towers near Ridgeview Road. Last ping was twenty minutes ago. Stupid fucker went back to the same dump he was staying at before.”
Spike steps forward slowly, both hands braced on the table. His expression hasn’t changed, but his voice…
His voice is ice.
“Skip. Bones.”
We both sit up straighter.
“You’re going after him.”
“Copy that,” I say without hesitation.
Spike’s jaw tightens. “Don’t capture him. No torture. No questions. No fucking last words. ”
The entire room freezes.
“Don’t even give him time to fucking speak,” Spike snarls. “You find him and shoot him between the fucking eyes. ”
No one argues.
No one questions it.
Because this isn’t club business anymore.
This is personal.
This is blood for blood.
I stand, nodding once. “We’ll handle it.”
Skip cracks his knuckles. “Been waiting to see Bones and his sniper in action for months now. He’s always going for his blades these days.”
Spike looks at me one last time.
“Don’t miss.”
I meet his gaze, steady and cold. “I never do.”
“Wait, brother,” Tank says, holding up a hand. “We need to know why he did it. Who he’s working for. We need answers. We need to confirm who the hell Muerte is.”
“I already know those answers,” Spike growls. “He’s pissed. Pissed I wouldn’t let him set up his little drug shop in Palm Springs. He thought being blood gave him a free pass.”
His lip curls, jaw locked with rage. “And clearly, he and Max were working together a few months back. The timing’s too damn clean.”
“Max is tied to Los Fantasmas,” I remind them, voice like gravel. “That cartel’s fingerprints are all over this.”
Spike drags a hand down his face, weariness fighting with fury. “I’ll reach out to Buckey. See if his man’s got anything new from the inside. We’ll piece the rest together soon enough.”
He looks around the table, eyes burning.
“But I’m telling you now. I don’t want my cousin breathing air for another fucking day.”
No one argues.
Not even Tank.
The room goes still with the weight of what’s just been said. And what’s about to happen.
“Let’s ride,” I say, already halfway to the door.
***
“Don’t shoot until he sees me,” Skip says through the earpiece.
We’re staked out near the old meat-packing farm. Billy’s little backwoods hideout. Isolated, decaying, and quiet enough for a rifle shot to disappear into the air like a whisper.
“I know Spike said to drop him without a word,” Skip continues, adjusting his vest as he walks toward the building. “But I want him to see us. I want him to know exactly who’s here to end his sorry little traitor life.”
Billy showed up about an hour ago, but the bastard stayed inside, no clear line of fire. Now we wait. He has to come out eventually.
“I’m just gonna knock,” Skip says cheerfully. “If there’s a camera, Foster’ll scrub it. Easy peasy.”
There aren’t any cameras.
“You haven’t said a word, man,” he continues, tone teasing. “You good up there? Blink twice if you’re still with me.”
I don’t respond.
“You’re up there being all dark and broody, aren’t you? Thinking grim thoughts. Probably carving skulls into your scope while you wait for your moment.”
Still nothing.
Skip lets out a dramatic sigh. “Seriously, how does Sunny do it ? I mean, you’re such a ray of fucking sunshine. Just sparkles and unicorns all day long.”
I adjust the scope. Breath steady. Skip knocks on the door.
“Oh! Maybe she’s into the whole ‘emotionally unavailable but secretly romantic’ vibe. You do grunt a lot. That’s practically flirting for you.”
He talks too fucking much.
Movement.
I can see Skip smile from my scope, his voice quieter now. “He’s coming out. I’m in position. Don’t shoot me.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I growl.
“Oh, he speaks.”
The door creaks.
Billy steps outside, squinting into the light, muttering to himself.
He sees Skip.
“Thanks for the cookies,” Skip says cheerfully.
Recognition hits. Fear.
And before Billy can say a single fucking word…
I pull the trigger.