Chapter Twenty Seven #2
How hard that message came across, I wasn’t sure. Again, the Reverend didn’t react. Not a flicker in his eyes, not a twitch or tiny breath. It was like he was immune. To anything. Tomahawk’s fingers moved on the table. Just a flinch. Just enough that I could see a reaction.
“I’m pretty sure you didn’t ask for a meeting to compare dick sizes, Indie,” Tomahawk straightened, crossing his arms over his chest.
“No. I didn’t.” Indie paused, glancing at both of them across the table. “You know the only way we’re going to win this is to take the Hand out.”
“We?” I could hear a hint of amusement in his voice. “The Hand are coming for the Kings. Not the Vandals. This is your war.”
“It’s the coalition’s war,” I corrected, feeling the bubble of anger starting in my chest at the lack of fucking respect from the Vandals’ president’s mouth.
“Reap’s right.” Indie’s voice lowered, a warning just in his tone. “The Hand would have patched us all over last time round. They won’t stop at us this time either. You and I both know that. Which is why you’ve been a paranoid fuck long before all this kicked off.”
For a while Tomahawk just stared, an internal battle going on in his brain. Beside him, the Reverend sat quietly, his eyes and the fucking face carved into his wooden fucking crucifix staring at me.
“So, Indie. What’s the plan?”
“We take them out. Each and every one of them that sets foot on British soil.”
“Interesting. How?”
“Your sniper and ours. The two best killers in the North of England.”
The Reverend moved now, the tiniest of pulls at the side of his mouth, dark amusement threatening to break his stoic exterior.
“Sounds a bit too easy,” the Reverend’s hand stroked the end of the crucifix. “What’s the catch?”
“You two are on your own. Radio silence. No back-up. No one in, all in. No one can find out about it. The Viking doesn’t exist and somewhere in our club I’ve a fucking mole. I also want it done in order. Prospect up to officer. And not Grim.”
“Why not Grim?”
“This is one charter. Grim needs to tell the others that we wiped them out. One charter in the largest MC in the world, and these northern MCs can take them.”
“You know they’ll never stop coming, don’t you?” The Reverend leant forward now, his hands together like he was saying a prayer.
“Aye. But not for another ten years. More. Because every time the fuckers try it, the MCs in the North stop them. We’ll stop them this time. And the next.”
“And what if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we’re all dead or wearing fucking hands on our backs. You. Angels and Demons. All of us.”
Tomahawk and the Reverend glanced at each other, something passing between them.
“Tell V he can meet with Rev to sort the details.” Tomahawk stood, the chair scraping back on the wooden floor underneath us loudly. “Now we need a fucking drink.”
*****
Darkness had consumed the coast on the ride back, Harleys roaring through the night.
My hands were numb, my grip on the throttle stiff, and my mind swimming with scenarios and uncontrollable thoughts.
I hadn’t seen that coming when Indie had instructed us to meet for a run up to the Valhalla’s Vandals.
And now I understood why he’d brought me in to hear the plan and no one else.
I’d always kept my silence. Even when someone tried to beat it out of me. And this one would be no different.
I glanced in my mirrors again, at the same prick of light that had been following us since we left. I hadn’t quite noticed it before, not until now. The bright white orbs didn’t move. Never getting bigger or smaller. The distance between us perfectly maintained. Too perfect.
Opening the throttle, the bike roared beneath me.
Magnet glanced sideways, watching me move out of formation and racing the bike to the front, slowing as I pulled up alongside Indie.
I gestured behind me and watched as he studied the mirrors before nodding at me and giving the signal to go faster.
I let them pass, making the same gesture to each brother until I slipped back into position at the rear, the white lights still there. Still holding.
Waiting. Then they moved. No warning. No hesitation.
The engine behind us roared louder, the lights swelling fast as the car closed the distance in seconds. Too fast. Too deliberate. I could see it now. An Audi. Fast fucker. Sitting on the road like it meant to take us with it.
“Fuck,” I muttered, already shifting my weight as it came up hard on my back wheel.
It didn’t slow. It pushed. Metal edging too close, the front of it nudging into the space we occupied like we were nothing more than cones in the road.
I swerved instinctively, the Rocket biting back under me, Magnet doing the same beside me as the rest of the boys tightened around Indie, forcing him forward, pushing him out of reach.
The car lunged again. Closer this time. I felt the rush of it at my leg, the threat of it clipping us and sending us both sliding across the tarmac.
“Go!” I shouted, though no one could hear me over the engines, and I just hoped my brothers did what I knew they should do. Protect the fucking president.
Magnet peeled with me, the two of us breaking off, drawing it away like we’d done this a hundred times before. The rest surged ahead, Indie swallowed up in the pack as they forced him out of the line of fire.
It worked. The car chose. And it chose us.
The engine screamed as it chased, headlights flooding everything, too bright, too close. I pushed the Rocket harder, weaving between lanes, the road narrowing, stretching, the world reducing to nothing but speed and survival. Magnet held tight beside me, matching every move, every shift.
Then, something changed. A flicker. His bike jolted.
Once.
Twice.
Like something had grabbed it from underneath.
“Mag—”
Too late. The rear locked. The bike snapped sideways, metal screaming against tarmac as it threw him clean off, his body slamming hard, rolling, disappearing into the dark as sparks lit the road behind him. The car didn’t stop, just drove on into the night.
I slowed quickly, not waiting for the Rocket to come to a complete stop before dropping my bike and running up the road.
Magnet was on his side, halfway off the road, his bike a few feet away like it had been gently set down instead of thrown. No fire. No blood spraying. Nothing dramatic enough to explain the way my chest locked tight.
He moved. Relief hit hard and fast, almost dizzying.
“I’m good,” he said immediately, voice strained but solid. Too quick. “Just…fuck…winded.”
I crouched beside him, one knee hitting gravel. His helmet was still on, the side scuffed to shit like it had been attacked with a cheese grater. His hands were clenched around his ribs like he was holding himself together by force alone.
“I’m fine, Reap,” he winced.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I said. “Stay still.”
He laughed. Actually laughed. But it came out wrong. Short. Broken at the edges.
“Did the others get Indie away?” he asked now, his voice raspy.
I reached for the fabric covering his face.
“Don’t…” he said, then stopped, jaw tightening. “Okay. Okay, yeah.”
When I pushed it down, his face was pale beneath the road grime. Sweat slicked his skin despite the cold. His eyes tracked me, just a fraction too slow before they focused.
“How many fingers?” I asked.
He squinted. “That your way of asking if I’m concussed?”
“Humour me.”
“Three,” he said.
I was holding up two. My stomach dropped, slow and sick.
“You sure?” I asked quietly.
He frowned, blinked hard, then huffed out a breath. “Two. You’re not that ugly, Reap.”
I didn’t smile.
“Where does it hurt?” I asked.
He hesitated. That hesitation was the first real crack.
“Chest,” he said finally. “Feels like someone parked a bike on it.”
“Any sharp pain?”
He nodded once. “When I breathe deep.”
I pressed my hand lightly to his jacket, just below his collarbone. I didn’t push. I didn’t need to. His body flinched anyway.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “That’s not great, is it?”
“No,” I said. “It’s not.”
He shifted, trying to sit up. His breath stuttered halfway through the movement, and he swore, teeth gritting like pain was something he could out-stubborn.
“Magnet,” I said, gripping his shoulder. “Stay down.”
He looked at me then, and something passed between us. Not fear exactly, but awareness.
“Don’t let them move the bikes yet,” he said suddenly. “If the cops come—”
“Magnet,” I snapped. “That doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” he insisted, fingers digging harder into his side. “Patch first. Always patch first.”
That was when I saw it. The tremor running through him. Not shock. Something deeper. Something internal and wrong.
“Ambulance,” I said, already pulling my phone out.
He caught my wrist.
“Wait,” he said. “Just give me a minute.”
I looked down at his hand gripping mine. His skin felt cold through the glove.
“This isn’t negotiable,” I said.
He swallowed. “I know.”
And for the first time since I’d known him, Magnet sounded unsure. We waited for the sirens but we heard the bikes first. The rest of the club doubling back now Indie was safe.
He talked while we waited. About nothing. About how the Vandals’ roads were shit. About how he owed Fury twenty quid. About how he should’ve tightened his helmet strap before the ride.
I let him talk. Because when he went quiet, his breathing got worse.
By the time the ambulance arrived, his eyes were glassy and unfocused again. They loaded him carefully, too carefully, like they already knew more than they were saying.
As they closed the doors, he reached for me one last time.
“Did I fuck it up?” he asked. “Is everyone ok?”
“No,” I said, forcing the word steady. “You did everything right. Everyone is ok.”
He nodded, like that was enough.