Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Aero
Telling Lacey that I didn’t love her might have been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I watched the color drain from her eyes when I said it. I watched her swallow that heartbreak like it didn’t cut her in half. She was trying to be strong for me, even then.
Now she’s gone. Packed into a dented, rust-streaked van with a prospect behind the wheel, staring ahead like he doesn’t feel the tension rolling off me like a damn thunderstorm.
She’s right though. I’m a damn coward and a liar.
I lied. Straight to her face.
I didn’t even give her time to process what I was demanding of her, or a proper goodbye. I treated her like nothing but a problem to solve but it’s my problem, not hers.
It’s not even true. I feel that girl in my bones.
In the cracks of me that nothing else has ever touched.
But I can’t say the words. Can’t let them exist in the world where my enemies are circling, where scum like the Bloody Scorpions are sniffing out weakness like wolves.
If they knew how much she meant to me… they’d use it.
Hell they already got too close and I’m kicking myself in the ass for it. I’ll give her up to keep her breathing.
I stand on the front steps of the clubhouse, watching the van’s tail lights until they disappear around the bend. My fists curl at my sides. My jaw clenches so tight it aches. I don’t breathe until it’s out of sight.
Then I turn and stalk back into the clubhouse.
The door slams behind me like a gunshot.
Every fucking eye in the place snaps away.
The air stiffens. Brothers and Ol’ Ladies pretend they weren’t watching.
Zoey ducks her head. Crank fidgets with a loose thread on his vest. Even Surge doesn’t meet my gaze.
I’m an asshole. I know. I didn’t have to handle it like that. But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gone through with it.
Emery stands behind the bar, arms folded, scowl so sharp it could skin me alive. Midge doesn’t say a word, she just lines up three shots of whiskey and slides them down the counter.
I knock back the first. No burn. No sting. Just more empty. The second one’s just as useless. By the third, the silence has stretched so long it feels like it’s wrapped around my throat strangling me from the inside out.
I slam the glass down and look up. Everyone’s watching me now, not even pretending anymore.
“We got work to do,” I growl out.
It cuts through the room like a blade. No one argues. They know what’s coming. The Bloody Scorpions made this personal. They threatened what’s mine. And now, I’m gonna tear every one of them apart piece by piece until the streets run red with their blood.
Because if I can’t have Lacey… I need the war.
“Hashtag,” I bark, jerking my chin toward the back room. “Show me what you got.”
He’s already moving, his laptop tucked under one arm like it’s an extension of his body.
We all trail out of the common room, through the courtyard and into the tech den.
Hashtag throws his laptop on the table under a row of screens, cords hanging everywhere like a mechanical spider web.
The screens glow, already blinking with signals and code.
“Told you I could find ’em,” he mutters, fingers flying over keys. “One of the Scorpions posted a clip to a closed group on the dark web. Real cocky shit. Video’s gone now, but I scraped the metadata.”
I squint at the map on the screen. “That’s a dead zone outside the city.”
“Yeah. Industrial decay central. GPS ping matches burner traffic too. These dumb asses use cheap-ass phones. No encryption. Bought in bulk from a gas station on the 9.”
Pike whistles. “Dumb and dirty.”
Hashtag nods. “I tapped into the nearest tower. Piggybacked off three pings from phones with matching serials. Got movement. Pattern suggests they’re coming and going from a single location.”
“You’re telling me this is their clubhouse?”
He grins like the little bastard just hacked God. “I’m telling you if we leave now, we’ll catch ’em with their dicks out and no one watching the back door.”
“We’ll hit it quiet. Get eyes first. Snatch a prospect and bring him home.” I straighten, blood hot in my veins. “Gear up. We ride in ten.”
And just like that, the room explodes into motion. We don’t talk. We don’t joke. We ready our weapons and head to our bikes. This war’s just beginning. And I plan to end it one corpse at a time.
Ten minutes later, we’re riding hard, tires screaming against hot asphalt, engines roaring like war drums under the Atlantic City sun. The scent of salt and gasoline clings to the air. Summer’s heat presses down like a curse. Sweat sticks to my back, but I welcome the burn. It keeps me sharp.
Grizzly rides at my flank, his jaw set in stone. Padre’s behind us, quiet but deadly, the way only he can be. Surge leads a second group trailing wide to flank if needed. Hashtag rides with Rancor and Crank, head ducked low, eyes locked on the GPS he rigged to ping the Scorpions’ burner phones.
We move like a damn unit with purpose stitched into our bones. We circle west, past the last row of crumbling industrial buildings just outside Atlantic City jurisdiction. Close enough to be a problem. Far enough no one’s watching. Except us.
There, half-hidden behind a busted chain-link fence and a scrapyard sits a two-story concrete shithole with a cracked scorpion spray-painted on the cinder block wall.
Found you, mother fuckers.
I kill the engine and swing my leg off the bike.
The rest follow. In seconds, we fan out around the perimeter like dogs let off the leash.
A couple of bikes are parked out front, one of them still warm.
This place reeks of piss and bad intentions.
I crouch beside a busted dumpster, peering around it.
A half-dead security light flickers above the partially opened back door and no security cameras visible.
One of the Bloody Scorpions is slouched near the entrance, supposedly standing guard, but he’s too busy scrolling his phone to notice us closing in.
Bloody Scorpions. Stupid fucks.
Grizzly steps up beside me, his voice low, “Hashtag says they rotate watch every two hours.”
I nod once. “We need one alive. I want one too stupid to keep his mouth shut.”
Grizzly grins wide and peels off toward the back with Pike and Hashtag, slipping through the overgrowth to cover exits. Padre crouches at the east wall, waiting, still as stone.
The only sound now is the distant hum of semis rolling down the highway.
Thirty minutes later the door creaks open, the hinges groaning and a kid steps out.
Prospect. No patch yet but he’s got the tattoos.
The stance. Cigarette hanging from his lip like he thinks he’s untouchable. He’s the one. Young. Dumb. Alone.
“Target,” I mutter.
We wait while the two men switch positions, once the door is closed and the prospect is alone, I give the signal. Three fingers up. Two. One.
Surge already moving. Crank’s boots slap asphalt, silent but fast. I rise and move with them.
The kid barely registers the shift in the air before he’s surrounded.
“The fuck is this?” he chokes, his eyes going wild.
I shoulder slam into him and press my forearm to his throat, shoving him into the wall hard enough to rattle his brain.
“You don’t get to ask questions,” I snarl, “You ride with the Scorpions?”
He hesitates. Big mistake.
I knock the air out of him with a punch to the gut. He doubles over but I don’t let him catch his breath before jerking him back by the collar.
“Yes!” he coughs. “Yeah—shit—I’m just a prospect, man!”
I grab his jaw, force his face up so he sees me. Sees my cut. “Then you’re exactly what I need.”
“Bag him,” I bark.
Surge slaps duct tape over his mouth. Grizzly yanks a canvas sack from his vest and drops it over the kid’s head. Rancor hauls his ass out the back like garbage on collection day.
Our own prospect comes in hot with the van. The slide door slides open smooth and fast. We haul him inside. He fights, but not well. Kid’s soft. Untrained. Hasn’t experienced pain yet.
“Where to?” Crank asks.
I stare straight ahead, eyes burning. “Guest Room.”
He knows what that means. We all do.
It’s time we got answers. And the prospect? He’s about to meet the side of us nobody walks away from.
The van rolls out first with the Bloody Scorpion prospect zip-tied and gagged inside. Our prospect drives, hands tight on the wheel, eyes flicking to the mirrors like his life depends on it, because it fucking does.
I ride flank on my bike, the engine snarling beneath me.
Grizzly and Surge ride tight to the back bumper, their headlights punching through the heat-rippled dusk.
Pike and Hashtag up front, cutting a path.
Padre and Backdraft hold the wings. No gaps.
No room for surprises. If one of those Scorpion bastards tries to follow, we’ll bury him on the side of the damn road.
The wind whips against my face, but it doesn’t clear the fire simmering in my chest. I glance toward the van. That kid in there is only the start. Just the first in a long line of scorpions who are going to bleed for coming at what’s mine.
We pull off the main road, gravel spitting under tires and wheels, and snake around the back of the clubhouse out of sight.
We drag the Bloody Scorpion prospect through the overgrown path behind the clubhouse like the trash he is.
His boots scuff against the gravel, his arms bound behind his back, blood already staining the sack over his head from where Surge introduced his fist getting him out of the van.
He squirms, tries to spit curses, but Crank lands a blow to his gut with a twisted grin and a casual, “Shut the fuck up, shitbird.”