Chapter 33
Royal
The clubhouse is too quiet when I hit the top of the stairs. Not normal quiet. Wrong quiet. The kind that settles on a man’s shoulders like the weight of a loaded gun.
Whiskey is pacing by the pool table, muttering curses under his breath. Oaks is standing near the bar with his arms crossed tight, the veins in his neck popping. Even Legend looks wired, like he is holding back something ugly.
I know before anyone says a word that something is bad. Real bad.
“Who died?” I ask.
Whiskey flinches. Oaks looks away. Legend lifts his gaze to mine, steady and grim.
“Joey,” he says. “Your girlfriend. Remember her?”
My stomach drops. My heartbeat stumbles.
“What about her?”
It is not a question. It is a warning.
Legend steps closer. “She didn’t come home last night.”
“That happen before,” I say. “You know Joey… Joey Donut likes starting fights in other counties. Wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she likes spending the night in jail. Cops are her thing.”
I tear my gaze away as I think about how the bunny actually gets off on the danger. The only reason, she has a thing for me.
“Always comes back.” I grit out the words, but they don’t sound true even to me. Something feels off. Too off. A cold trickle moves down my spine.
Whiskey drags a hand through his hair. “It ain’t like that this time.”
I turn toward him slowly. “Then tell me what it’s like.”
He swallows hard. “Her soft tail’s still parked outside The Fire Pit.”
My spine stiffens. “And? She can go home with who she wants. It ain’t serious.”
“And her phone was found in the parking lot behind the dumpsters. Screen smashed.”
Everything inside me goes still. Cold. Focused. I don’t blink. I don’t breathe. I just stare at him.
“Who found the phone?”
“Cornbread,” Whiskey says. “He was out doing his rounds before the morning shift.”
Oaks steps forward. “There’s more.”
My fists clench. “Say it.”
“We found blood,” he says. “Not a lot. But enough.” He hands me her purse, shiny and stained. I dig in it, pull out a piece of paper complete with a bloody thumb print.
“What is it,” Legend asks.
“An address in Louisville,” I say.
“Where the body of a missing girl was found,” Oaks blurts out. “But could be anything. Lots of folks around here has business in the Ville. Family. Jobs.”
Legend handing me her phone is the nail in the coffin. “Whip said it’s broken beyond repair.”
Silence falls like a hammer. My head feels like it is full of broken glass.
Joey may not be mine anymore. Not ever officially. Not since Becki got locked in my room and everything in my life shifted sideways. But Joey was almost mine once. She knew my bed. She kept my secrets when nobody else did. A club bunny, she’s still a woman under our protection.
And someone laid hands on her.
“Who the fuck was working the door last night,” I ask.
Whiskey stares at the floor. “Vandal and Kernel.”
“Get them here.” My voice sounds wrong. Too calm. Too controlled. Oaks hears it too. His eyes flick up.
“Royal,” he says quietly.
“Get. Them. Here.”
Legend’s voice cuts through the room. “Already called. Boys are on their way.”
I inhale once. Slow. Then turn toward the hallway like I’m fixin’ to walk it off.
But I don’t walk.
Remembering she tried to reach out, I take out my phone. Unblock her number like a text from her would magically come through. Nothing. Of course.
I slam my fist into the wall so hard the wood snaps behind the paneling. The noise cracks through the clubhouse like lightning. Everyone jumps.
The pain is nothing. A spark. A reminder that my body still exists when everything else feels like smoke.
“She is not just gone,” I say. “Someone took her.”
Legend ain’t arguing. “Yeah. That’s what it looks like.”
Oaks mutters, “Or something.”
“Same pattern,” I say. “Ex-Pearly Gates. Young. Troubled. Beautiful. Blood left behind.” My mind moves fast. Too fast. “Same as Marlena. Same as the other girls.”
Whiskey curses under his breath. “You think it is the same guy.”
I look at him. “I think it is exactly the same guy.”
A predator working in the dark. A man who knows how to move women without being seen. A man who leaves just enough behind to make sure we know he was there.
Becki’s face flashes in my mind. Confined to my room. Barefoot. Smart mouth. Secrets in her bones. The Reverend’s daughter. But the Reverend had names on his wall. A chain in his basement.
The pattern hits me like a brick. The girls he takes ain’t random. They are connected. They are chosen. Maybe by the Reverend. And I have one of them downstairs. Locked away. Locked away on purpose.
Legend stiffens when he sees my expression. “You figured something out.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”
“Royal.”
I drag a hand over my mouth. “Could’ve easily been Becki.”
Oaks frowns. “If she wasn’t your prisoner.”
“Joey was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Whiskey says. “Could mean nothing.”
“Or it could mean everything,” I say quietly.
Legend steps closer, lowering his voice. “If Becki knows something, we will get it out of her.”
I shake my head. “She is not lying to me.”
Whiskey snorts. “She lies every time she breathes.”
“No,” I say. “Not about this.”
A girl goes missing. Becki’s daddy’s church smells like rot. And the walls in that basement have names carved into them. Joey’s name is not there.
Not yet.
And Sherrif Dix will come question the Kings. The thought ignites something violent inside me.
Legend crosses his arms. “What do you want to do?”
I lift my head slowly, letting the fury settle into something clean.
“We find her,” I say. “Alive or dead. We bring her home.”
Legend nods once.
“And the man who took her,” I add, voice low and final.
Whiskey looks up. “Yeah. What about him? What if it’s the Reverend?”
I meet his eyes.
“We bury him.”
Legend agrees with a jut of his chin. “She was taken from the Fire Pit. Neutral ground, but not really. Everyone knows the bar’s actually Kings’ territory. Might have a traitor again.” He’s thinking of what just happened with Critter. “Before we ride, I want Hell turned upside down.”
The club’s basement feels too heavy, tonight, too still, like dust is holding its breath.
I grip my phone, using the flashlight and take the steps slow, boots landing soft on old concrete.
The Kings used to use this place for storage before we cleaned it out.
Now it smells like mildew and rust and something sharper underneath.
Not blood.
Not exactly.
But close enough to make my skin prickle.
The beam slides over the far wall, catching the faint grooves just above where the foundation dips near the pipes.
Not the symbol I thought I saw the first time.
No. These are tally marks.
Hundreds of them. Left over from the days this place was a cell.
Carved deep, carved shallow. Some straight. Some jagged like whoever made them couldn’t see what they were slicing at. Some slashed into the stone with such force that dust still clings to the edges.
A few have brown stains baked into the grooves. Old blood. Too old to test. Too deliberate to ignore.
The light glides lower and catches on something else. A handprint. Full palm. Pressed into grime.
But it’s stretched, longer than it should be.
Like the fingers dragged.
Human?
Probably.
But something about the shape twists in my gut. Like someone tried to make their hand look like something else. Or like their hand wasn’t theirs to begin with.
A chill creeps under my hoodie. I force it back. I crouch deeper and lift the beam toward the utility pipes. That’s when I see it, caught on the jagged lip of the metal. A scrap of black fabric.
I tug it free.
Thick. Textured. Old stitching, not the kind we use on cuts, not denim, not modern. Almost leathery.
I bring it close to my nose.
Incense.
Church incense.
The same smell the Reverend uses in Pearly Gates. The same smell Becki carried when she arrived at the clubhouse.
Someone has been down here. Maybe someone who steals girls like offerings.
Something, maybe. Something that snatches the girls so hard, it leaves behind scraps.
Maybe on purpose. I rub my hand over the fabric.
Knowing masks, costumes, it feels fake. Like someone wants us to think it belongs to a batlike creature.
Boot steps echo at the top of the stairs.
Oaks.
He stands there blocking the exit, shoulders loose, expression blank. But his eyes? They flick to the scrap in my hand.
Maybe he knows something.
“You find anything?” he asks casually, too casually.
“Nothing I can prove.”
He stiffens, a flash so quick anyone else would miss it.
I don’t.
Oaks shrugs and leans against the railing. “You’re chasing ghosts, man. Monsters.” He laughs.
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”
His smile twitches. Not real. Not warm. A warning.
“You need something, Royal?”
“Truth,” I answer.
He laughs, but it’s thin. Nervous. “Ain’t nothing down here but old rot and your imagination.”
Imagination.
Sure.
“And Becki. Why’d you move her?”
I pocket the scrap and brush past him. He doesn’t stop me. He doesn’t ask more questions. He just watches me go with that empty expression that says he’s thinking hard.
The hall is dim, lit only by a single bulb that flickers like it’s choking on secrets. My boots carry me toward my basement room before I consciously choose the direction.
Her room now.
Not her cell.
She’s the only one who’s been honest about the rot underneath this town. And the only one reckless enough to crawl into the fire beside me.
I unlock the door and slide inside.
She’s cross-legged on the bed, scribbling in that ratty notebook of mine she found. Thankfully an empty one. My top clinging to her, hair a bush of dark on the top of her head. She looks up with those sharp, feral eyes that always see too much.
“You forget how to knock?” she asks.
“I ain’t here for manners.”
“Right. Just here to stare.”
Her mouth curves wickedly, like she’s daring me to give her something to write about.
I close the door behind me.
“We’re going to Louisville.”
Her spine straightens. She knows the weight of that word. Louisville’s where my nightmares were born. Where I was born. What happened to me there was worse than anything that happened at Pearly Gates. And for a while that’s why the church was my salvation.
“Now?” she asks.
“Tonight.”
She rises slowly.
“You’re letting me out?” she asks quietly, suspicion threading through the question.
“I’m taking you with me. Undercover.”
Her eyes flicker. Hope and fear and excitement mixing like gasoline.
“Won’t the club be mad?”
“Let them.”
“And what do I get?” she pushes.
“Protection.”
She snorts. “Not good enough.”
I step in close, close enough that her breath warms my throat.
“One wrong move,” I growl. “And I’ll feed you to the Demon Leaper.”
We both remember the threat too well.
“Nah, I’ll just chain you up again,” I say quickly.
Her breath catches. She doesn’t back away.
“I’ll bring the cuffs,” she whispers.
I exhale through my teeth. This girl is going to kill me. Packing takes minutes. Two burner phones. My knives. A spare hoodie. The Glock under the seat. The false-bottomed box in the toolbox.
“Why ain’t we taking your Harley?” Becki asks with a gleam in her eye like this is a joyride.
“Joey is missing. I can’t ride back with two bitches.”
“You’ve got that right.” Becki slides into the passenger seat wearing an ol’ ladies’ ripped jeans, a tank, and one of my black flannels tied at the waist. The sleeves swallow her hands. She pushes them up to her elbows. She looks like sin pretending to be innocent.
The truck growls down the back roads, slicing through bare branches.
After a long silence, she shifts.
“You scared?” she asks lightly.
“Never.”
“You should be.”
She turns sideways, one leg tucked beneath her, the other sliding over the consol, closer to me. Too close.
Her fingers drum on the dash. Then drift. Just a little. Just far enough to rest lightly, wrongfully, on my thigh. I grip the wheel hard.
“Becki,” I warn.
She tilts her head, all false innocence. “What?”
Her nails scrape the seam of my jeans.
“If you touch me again,” I grind out, “I’ll pull this truck over.”
Biting her lip, Becki grabs my dick through my pants. A slow stroke. Heat detonates under my skin.
“So do it.”
The wheel jerks. Gravel sprays. I kill the engine on the shoulder.
The cab goes silent.
I lean across her, bracing one hand against the window beside her head, caging her in. She breathes in sharply, but she doesn’t move away. She never does.
“You want to play?” I whisper.
Her lips barely part. “I want answers.”
“You want me,” I snarl softly. “You want to bleed.”
Her breath trembles. “Yes.”
My hand slides up her thigh, but then I stop.
Because if I don’t, I won’t stop until dawn. Nothing’s holding me back now, not Legend, not the club. Taking Becki out of Hell, I made a choice.
Her.
But we have a demon leaper to hunt. Before it’s too late for Joey.
I restart the engine. We don’t speak the rest of the drive. But the truck is cramped, sweltering, and packed with something volatile.
Next time she touches me, I won’t stop.
Even if it burns everything down.