Chapter Thirty Seven
They arrived growling just as Jazz and Chase sped off, so close that I wasn’t sure whether they had eye-balled each other as they crossed. I counted twenty of them, just like Chase had described, pouring into the car park and breaking off into two flanks.
We were surrounded. Outnumbered and outgunned. We’d moved over a third of our weapons to the Church last night. And now we had nowhere near enough weapons or ammo to hold them off.
“Fuck,” Beanz jabbered. “What do we do? What do we do?”
“Not fucking panic ya big bald pussy,” Demon growled.
“You’ve seen them all? There’s no way we’re getting out of this alive.”
“Fucking shutup Beanz.” I kicked him in the shin as I walked past. “Make yourself fucking useful and get those fucking curtains closed. You too.” I nodded at the prospects who stood like statues made out of fear in the middle of the clubhouse.
“Indie,” I spoke low as I crossed over to him, and he nodded, moving us to the far side of the pub.
In the background Fury barked quiet, urgent orders. “Everyone against the walls. Stay away from the doors and windows. Chaos and Carnage collect every weapon we’ve got. Demon get anything we can make into a fucking weapon.”
Demon grinned, upending a chair and stamping on a leg, and suddenly there was a wooden baton in his hand.
“Fucking hell,” Indie grumbled as we huddled in a booth. “I’m going to have no fucking pub left.”
On another day I would have smiled, at least internally. But not today. Today, the Hand and the Notorious stood outside our clubhouse, ready to kill us. Inside we sat as defenceless as newborn babies.
“It’s Baz,” I whispered.
Indie locked eyes with me. “I know.”
“When?”
“Just now. Same as you.”
I nodded. “The women. The fake funeral.”
“Brie.”
Indie said the same word that had been going through my mind, but I couldn’t quite form.
“Brie,” I repeated like I needed to release it.
“What now?”
“Watch him. I don’t want him to know we know. Not yet.”
I nodded. “So, what now?”
“Did you ever find God?” He laughed then.
“Never believed in the fucker.”
“Good. Then fight like there’s no one to punish you in the afterlife.”
A fist hammered against the clubhouse door hard enough to rattle the frame. Every fucker inside went silent. Then Grim’s voice boomed through the wood.
“Thought the Kings were meant to be brave, lads.”
Demon’s grip tightened on the broken chair leg until the wood creaked. Another bang. Louder this time.
“We know you’re in there.”
Outside engines idled low and savage. The sound vibrating through the walls like a second heartbeat. Then another voice shouted from somewhere near the side alley.
“Oi Demon!”
Demon’s head snapped up instantly. Dangerous already.
“Think your bitch still screams your name when someone else fucks her?”
The room detonated.
Demon surged for the door, Fury’s and Carnage’s hands glancing off him, catching his arms, but he shrugged free. Chairs crashed backwards. The baton splintered further in his fists.
“I’ll fucking kill him!” Demon roared.
“Demon!” Indie shouted.
But he’d already gone somewhere else in his head. Somewhere black and violent. Grim laughed outside. Loud enough, we all heard it.
“Thrash always wanted a go of her, didn’t he? Those fucking tits. Bet he’s sucking on them like a starving fucking mutt. I sent him up there. He’ll do a good job of her.”
My stomach tightened.
“Someone fucking stop him,” Indie yelled as Demon ran towards the doors.
Security Sam pushed off the wall, bounding towards him in quick, long strides for a six-foot fat bloke. He ducked his shoulder, dipping as he slammed him sideways, bowling him clean off his trajectory for the doors and landing heavily on top of him on the floor. Demon yelped in pain. Fuck.
My stomach stiffened as I crossed the Dog. The Hand weren’t trying to force entry. Not yet. They were trying to pull us out where we didn’t have the protection of the clubhouse.
A slow creak sounded overhead. Floorboards. Every head in the room snapped upwards. Behind me Fury swore.
“How the fuck did they get upstairs?”
The answer hit me instantly. Baz. Had to be. Downstairs, another fist slammed against the door.
“Time to talk, Kings!” Grim shouted. “Or we start sending inspiration through the windows.”
The clubhouse descended into chaos. Brothers shouting over each other. Prospects panicking. Security Sam pushed up from on top of Demon, who clutched at his side.
Indie’s voice cut through all of it.
“Quiet!”
Silence hit hard. Immediate. Indie looked around the room once. Calm despite the fucking apocalypse unfolding in the pub.
“I’ll go out.”
“No, the fuck you won’t,” Fury snapped instantly.
“They want me.”
“They want your fucking head.”
Indie ignored him.
“I’ll buy time. Keep them talking. We wait for Chase and Jazz to get to the women.”
“If they even fucking made it,” Baz muttered darkly from near the bar.
I looked at him sharply. Too sharp, maybe because his eyes flicked towards me for half a second before moving away again.
“I’ll go with you,” Baz offered suddenly. “You shouldn’t walk out there alone.”
There it was. The move. Get Indie outside. Vulnerable. Exposed.
I stood immediately. “Then I’m coming too.”
Baz’s expression shifted almost invisibly. A tiny flash of annoyance before he buried it. Indie looked between us both. He knew exactly why I’d spoken. Outside, Grim hammered the door again.
“Clock’s ticking, lads!”
Indie exhaled slowly through his nose before nodding once.
“Fine.” He glanced at me first. Then Baz. “The three of us.”
And suddenly every instinct in my body screamed this was about to go very fucking bad.
There was a wind in the air. It rushed us as we stepped through the doors, out into the car park in front of the Dog on the Tyne. Three of us. The President, the Road Captain and me.
“I don’t suppose you’re here to say goodbye?” Indie started, his thumbs looped into the armpits of his cut.
Around us, the Hand and the Notorious laughed. I scanned each of them. Faces I knew. Others, I didn’t. A couple of them stood back, uncertain but there. I’d pick them off first, if they didn’t run when shit started.
“I’ll give you one last chance to walk away, Indie,” Grim drawled.
“No, you won’t.” Indie didn’t miss a beat. “I’d have to convince everyone in the club to patch over. You know it isn’t my decision.”
“But you could convince them.”
“Probably could. Not gonna.” Indie shrugged. “It’s a unanimous vote, or it doesn’t happen.”
Grim pulled his fingers through his beard. “Guess I could get all your lot to agree with one phone call. You know we’ve got men on your women. Not a great plan to put them all in one place. One call from me and I’ll shoot them all.”
I swallowed slowly, a tiny trickle of rage escaping into my blood. My heart thundered in my chest, so loud I could swear everyone else could hear it.
“Indie,” Baz spoke softly. “It’s time to let this club go. You’ve done a great job. But the Northern Kings are done and gone.”
Those words hit strangely. Not because of what he said. Because of how fucking tired he sounded saying it. I looked sideways at him properly then. Really looked.
Baz stood with his shoulders lower than I’d ever seen them.
Not tense. Not ready for a fight. Just heavy, like the weight of the cut finally sat too hard on him.
The wind pulled through his greying hair while his eyes stayed fixed somewhere beyond Grim and the line of bikes. It wasn’t fear. It was resignation.
And suddenly little things from the last few months started clicking together in the back of my skull.
Baz skipping runs he’d once lived for. Sitting quieter in church.
Complaining about the pressure from the coalition.
The way he’d lingered longer and longer after closing time at the Dog, staring into his pint like he was trying to remember why any of this mattered anymore.
He hadn’t betrayed us because he hated the club. The fucking idiot had done it because he couldn’t see a way out of it.
“You brokered this?” I asked quietly.
Baz’s eyes flicked to mine, then away again. Shame burned there for just a second before pride smothered it.
“I was trying to save what was left,” he muttered. “You boys don’t see it. This life’s done. Cameras everywhere. Coppers everywhere. Americans flooding in. There’s no room left for clubs like ours.”
“There’s always room,” Indie answered calmly.
Baz laughed then, but there was no humour in it.
“That’s because you still believe in this shit.” His hand gestured weakly between us. “Brotherhood. Respect. Rules.” He shook his head slowly. “I’m sixty-four years old, Indie. I’m tired.”
The admission hit harder than any shout could’ve. Around us, even the Hand quietened slightly, watching.
“I gave this club forty years,” Baz continued, voice rough now. “Forty fucking years. Buried brothers. Lost marriages. Prison. Violence. For what? So, I die in a pub car park because some Americans want territory?”
Grim watched him carefully, saying nothing. Letting him unravel. And I realised then that this had always been the deal. An exit. Not glory. Not power. Just an old man and a way out.
Indie stared at him for a long moment, disappointment sitting heavier on his face than anger ever could.
“You killed Brie,” Indie’s voice lowered. It wasn’t a question.
“He knew. His boys. Minty and them, they’d seen me. When the call came in, I knew I had one chance. So, I silenced him.”
“You should’ve just stepped down, brother.”
Baz swallowed hard. “Couldn’t.”
“Could’ve.” Indie’s voice softened slightly. “We’d have carried you out of that life with respect. But answer me this, brother? You really thought this lot would let you walk away?”
Something cracked across Baz’s face then. Regret maybe. But it was too fucking late for regret now.
“Indie…I…”