Chapter 18
LYRIC
“You going to be okay?”
The party for Rowdy broke up a little over an hour ago. Most of the visiting brothers went to bed to sleep off the alcohol they consumed, while others paired up with club whores. The ones who didn’t have been drinking coffee and reminiscing about my dad.
Mellie’s leaning against the wall outside the spare room, and her face is flushed from drinking. She’s beautiful, and it’s killing me to know that she wants and needs space to heal.
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“Bullshit.”
Arching a brow, I smirk. “You’re calling my bluff?”
She masks her expression like she’s afraid she’ll piss me off. “No.”
Sighing, I shove my hands in my pockets, so I don’t reach for her. “Today sucked,” I admit. “Saying goodbye to my dad is the second hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with.”
“What’s the first?”
“Having you look at me like I’m a stranger.” Her lips part on a soft gasp. “It’s okay, Mellie. It is what it is at this point, and I know it’ll get better.”
“How do you know that?” she asks, genuine curiosity in her tone.
“Because we’re soulmates,” I reply simply, placing a kiss on her forehead. “G’night, Mel.”
I force myself to walk away without looking back. When I enter the common room, I see Zombie hustling in my direction, Trick and Undertaker hot on his heels.
This can’t be good.
“Pres, we’ve got a problem,” Trick says before the three of them reach me.
“What?” I bark.
Undertaker’s expression hardens, and he snarls, “Just got a call from the security company for Death’s Door. There was a break in.”
“Did you pull up the video feed from the cameras?” I ask, knowing he did.
He jerks a nod and lifts his cell so I can see the screen. “Fuckers dug up Rowdy’s casket.”
I stare at the screen and try to process what I’m seeing.
Four hooded figures dig up the recently filled hole.
Undertaker fast forwards a bit, and the same people are pulling the casket out of the ground.
Again, he moves the video forward, and it ends with a still frame of an open casket and Rowdy’s corpse lying beside it.
It appears that there’s graffiti on both, but it’s hard to tell with the grainy image the small screen allows.
“Where the hell were the prospects we left behind to watch over things?” I demand, my blood boiling.
“I don’t know,” Undertaker says. “Whoever did this realized they were being recorded and cut the feeds. The security company alerted the police, but we both know they don’t give a fuck about Death’s Door and the people buried there.”
I shove past my brothers and march toward the door. “Zombie, you stay here with Mellie,” I order. “She trusts your dumb ass for some reason. Undertaker and Trick, you’re with me.”
“The three of you won’t be enough,” Zombie states, annoyance in his tone at being ordered to stay behind. “I’ll send Quake, Whiz, and Sawbone. They just went to their rooms, so I’m sure they’re still awake.”
“If they’re sober enough to ride, send ‘em,” I say. “If not, we’ll manage. We don’t need to bury another brother.”
“Got it.”
It doesn’t take long for us to get to Death’s Door since we break every speed limit on the way, and the three brothers Zombie sent are only minutes behind us.
I pull my gun out of my waistband, and they do the same. “I doubt anyone is still here, but if they are, take ‘em out,” I demand. “No one walks away from this.”
The funeral home is eerily quiet when we enter, but the destruction speaks volumes. There isn’t a wall in the place that doesn’t have some sort of graffiti on it, and the floors are wet with piss, if the smell is anything to go by.
“Motherfucker,” Quake growls, as he swipes a finger through some of the red lines on the wall. Lifting it to his nose, he sniffs. “Goddammit! This is blood.”
“Well, it can’t be Rowdy’s,” Undertaker comments. “I embalmed him myself.”
“Then whose is it?” Whiz snaps.
“The prospect’s, most likely,” Sawbone bites out. “So, where are their bodies?”
It takes a few minutes, but we clear the rest of the building, and no bodies are found inside. The six of us move outside to the cemetery, and still, there are no prospects. What there is, though, is the desecrated remains of my dad.
What the security cameras didn’t catch was the fact that he was cut up into pieces and strewn throughout the grounds. My body vibrates with rage, and a red haze fills my vision.
“Pres, look at this.”
I slowly turn to see Trick pointing to the casket Rowdy was buried in. Closing the distance between us, I narrow my eyes as I take in what he wants me to see.
The calling card of the Shadow Sixes is spray-painted on the polished wood, a reaper cloaked in shadows with six six six scrawled on his chest.
“Cray Cray,” I growl. “This is his doing.”
“Retaliation for taking out Loco?” Undertaker asks.
“Who the fuck cares why,” Quake snaps. “We can’t let this go.”
“We won’t,” I promise as I take my cell out of my cut to send a text.
Me: Get to Death’s Door… bring the prospects
Scrubs: On it
“Scrubs and the prospects will be here shortly,” I inform the others, pocketing my phone. “He’ll get shit cleaned up.”
“What about Rowdy?” Undertaker asks.
“We’ll gather his… parts,” I say. “Bring him to the clubhouse for now. We can store him in the underground cooler until he can be reburied.”
Undertaker nods and, with the help of Quake and Sawbone, begins to gather my dad.
“This is a declaration of war,” Trick says, standing next to me.
“It is.”
“What’re we gonna fucking do about it?”
I slide my gaze to him. “If it’s a war they want, it’s a war they’ll goddamn get.”
And it’s a war we’ll win because nobody fucks with the Kings.