Chapter Thirty Four
“How long will this take?” I asked, packing another woollen jumper into the little carry-on case on my bed.
“Not long enough for you to wear all these clothes. Do you really need four pairs of jeans?”
“Well, as you can’t tell me how long I’ll be away for, then four pairs of jeans might not even be enough.”
Ryan rolled his eyes for the tenth time in ten minutes.
“Can we go now?” He asked as I squashed the lid of the little suitcase down.
“Yeah.”
He dragged the case from the bed, his arm sagging suddenly as the mattress disappeared from under it.
“Apart from enough clothes to last a month, what else you got in this?” he complained.
An angry buzz at the intercom stopped the words leaving my mouth, and I studied Ryan like he might know who it was. He shrugged his shoulders at me.
“You expecting anyone?”
“No.”
The knock echoed round the house.
“Shit. Someone’s let them through the main door.”
Ry nodded silently, his hand moving to the inside of his jacket pocket. When it slipped out again, he was holding something in his palm.
“Ry?”
“Stay behind me,” he instructed.
I moved behind him, almost completely shielded by his height and bulk.
His right hand tightened into a fist, and that was when I saw it.
Thick, heavy brass wrapped his knuckles.
It caught the daylight that flooded in from the kitchen window behind us, dented and brutal.
Ryan caught my wrist before I reached the handle.
“I said stay behind me,” he hissed, pulling me backwards.
The flat fell quiet around us as he moved towards the door instead, not standing directly in front of it but slightly to the side as he glanced through the spyhole.
“Shit,” he hissed, backing away, and my heart stopped beating for a half second. “It’s your dad.”
“Shit,” I repeated.
“You going to let him in?”
I nodded, feeling the nausea build in my stomach and my heart beating in my ears.
I glared at the door handle, then up at Ry, and back to the door.
The knock rattled the door, heavier this time.
Ryan slipped the brass knuckle duster from his hand and pushed it back into his pocket.
His fingers found mine and squeezed gently and I gripped the door handle with the other.
“Dad?” I tried to sound surprised instead, I just squeaked.
“Sophie.” He stepped in without being invited.
The flat suddenly felt too small. Dad’s eyes moved around it quickly, taking everything in the way they always did. The case on the living room floor. Ryan’s boots by the door. The leather cut slung over the arm of a chair. Evidence. Assessments. Conclusions. Then his gaze landed on Ryan.
“I thought I saw the Rocket outside.”
Ryan leaned casually against the wall beside the door, but I could feel the tension radiating off him, anyway.
“Funny that,” he replied flatly.
Dad ignored him entirely. That almost felt worse.
“I’ve been hearing interesting things lately,” he said, looking back at me now. “Like the fact my daughter’s apparently been spending most nights at the late Mr Dodd’s address.”
The formal way he said Magnet’s name made something twist inside me. Like he was a case file instead of someone we’d been mourning.
“I’ve been helping Suzy,” I answered carefully.
“With members of an organised criminal gang.”
“Motorcycle club,” Ryan corrected sharply.
Dad’s jaw tightened slightly. Tiny movement. Most people wouldn’t notice it. I did. Ryan definitely did.
“You’re a doctor, Sophie.” His voice softened slightly then, slipping into that reasonable tone that used to work on me every single time. “You’ve worked too hard for this life to throw it away now.”
Throw it away. Like grief was contamination. Like caring about them diminished me somehow.
“You need to decide what exactly it is you’re choosing here.”
Silence hung in the air. Ryan hadn’t moved once behind him. Hadn’t interrupted again. But I could feel him there like a second heartbeat. My throat tightened painfully.
“Thank you, Dad.”
Confusion flickered across his face instantly. Genuine confusion.
“For what?”
I swallowed hard.
“Because that’s the first time you’ve ever given me a choice instead of making it for me.”
The room went deathly still.
Dad stared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I looked at Ryan then. Just briefly. The same boy I’d loved at seventeen hidden somewhere underneath the man prison and violence had built over him.
“You made that choice thirteen years ago,” I said quietly. “Not me.”
Dad’s eyes shifted slowly towards Ryan. And for the first time in my life, I saw uncertainty creep into them. Ryan straightened slightly, voice low and rough when he finally spoke.
“Told you back then she’d figure it out, eventually.”
Dad held Ryan’s gaze for a long moment. The air turned thick, hanging on the silence, the only noise the faint hum of traffic somewhere beyond the windows. Then Dad gave the smallest nod. Not agreement. Not even acceptance. Recognition that a line had been drawn.
“You always were good at playing the long game,” he said quietly.
Ryan’s expression never shifted. “Learnt from the best.”
Something cold flickered across Dad’s face then. Gone almost instantly. His attention returned to me. I waited for the lecture. The anger. The order to come home. Instead, he simply looked older. Tired maybe.
“You think this ends well?” he asked softly.
I glanced at Ryan. At the suitcase sitting on the floor, knowing we were being shipped off whilst something awful was being taken care of that we didn’t really know much about.
At the man who’d stood between me and danger every single day since he’d turned up bleeding in my A&E without ever asking me for anything in return.
“No,” I answered honestly. “I think it ends truthfully.”
Dad stared at me for another second before giving a short nod to himself, like some private thought had finally settled into place. Then he stepped backward towards the door. When he opened it, cold air rushed into the flat.
“You’re still my daughter, Sophie.”
The words should’ve sounded comforting. Instead, they felt like a warning. The door clicked shut behind him, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel trapped afterwards.
*****
Rain threatened overhead but never quite fell, the sky hanging low and swollen above Newcastle while the street outside Mamma Dot’s little house filled steadily with women, bags and tension.
A minibus sat idling at the kerb. Plain white.
No company markings. Nothing that stood out.
Just another airport run or late-night taxi to anyone passing by. Which was exactly the point.
“Honestly, you’d think we were fleeing the fucking country,” Ciara muttered as one of the twins struggled to force three overstuffed suitcases into the back.
“You lot packed enough for six months,” he shot back. “Thought we were lying low, not relocating.”
“I’ve got two kids,” Emmie complained. “There’s half a dozen stuffed animals in one of those suitcases. If you lot had stopped gifting cute cuddly toys every time you see Lily we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Heidi snorted beside him while Suzy sat silently near the front of the minibus wrapped in one of Mamma Dot’s thick knitted cardigans despite the mild spring air. She never seemed warm anymore. I stayed close to her instinctively.
Mamma Dot bustled around, handing each of us a carefully packed lunch like we were travelling hours away instead of up the coast in a tactical evacuation.
“You lot still need feeding,” she scolded when Tori rolled her eyes at another container being shoved into the bus. “You need food in a war. Fills the belly and steadies the mind.”
Tori muttered something under her breath and climbed into the back seat, cigarette tucked behind one ear and an expression sour enough to strip paint. Nobody seemed particularly pleased she was here. The atmosphere around her felt different. Tight. Distrustful.
Outside, prospects moved quietly up and down the street, pretending not to watch everything.
Hoodies instead of cuts. Cars instead of bikes.
No obvious sign of the Kings. But they were there.
Watching parked cars. Watching windows. Watching us.
Fury and Ry stood near the driver’s window, speaking quietly to the older man behind the wheel.
The driver looked tense, like he knew the weight of responsibility he drove today.
“Route’s clear so far,” Ryan said as he stepped away from the van. “Prospects’ll stay with you till Morpeth. After that, the Vandals take over.”
“Are you coming?” The words escaped before I could stop them.
Ryan’s eyes found mine instantly. Softening slightly.
“Can’t, Grey.”
Of course, he couldn’t. The war stayed here with the men. Something painful tightened in my chest, anyway. He stepped closer while everyone else climbed aboard, his fingers brushing briefly against mine. Tiny contact. Barely there. But enough to steady me.
“Stay on the island,” he murmured quietly. “No wandering off. No trying to play doctor. And don’t let Tori start any shit.”
“I heard that,” Tori snapped from the back of the van.
“Good,” Ryan answered without missing a beat.
A few tired laughs moved through the women, and somehow that helped. Just enough to ease the pressure squeezing all of us. Then Indie appeared at the end of the street with Fury beside him, both scanning the road automatically before Indie knocked twice against the side of the minibus.
“Time.”
The atmosphere shifted instantly. Doors slammed.
Bags shuffled onto laps. The engine growled louder beneath us.
Outside, the prospects peeled away from walls and parked cars, climbing into ordinary-looking vehicles staggered up the street.
No cuts. No Harleys. No attention. Just shadows escorting us north.
I watched Ryan through the window as we pulled away from the kerb. He stood in the middle of the road watching us go, hands shoved into the pockets of his cut, tattoos dark against his skin beneath the streetlights. He didn’t move until we turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
The city slowly gave way to darker roads and long stretches of coastline. Newcastle faded behind us, lights glowing amber against the low clouds, while conversation inside the minibus rose and fell quietly around grief and exhaustion.
The further north we travelled, the thinner the traffic became until eventually flashing headlights appeared behind us near Morpeth. Three motorbikes. Black. They overtook in the right-hand lane, wolf sigils catching briefly under passing streetlights.
“The Vandals,” Emmie muttered from beside me.
The man at the front was broad and imposing even on the bike, the others staying behind him like shadows.
They rode smoothly, perfectly in sync. The handover happened almost wordlessly.
The minibus driver slowed slightly while the bikes shifted formation around us like they’d done this a hundred times before.
The car in front slowing as we followed the motorbikes in an overtaking manoeuvre, and then dropping back.
Then suddenly the little pricks of headlights vanished, tucking off the road somewhere behind us.
In front of us, the Vandals guided us east towards the coast. Towards Holy Island.
Towards the long, dark stretch of causeway disappearing into the sea.