Chapter 14 Rook
The sun’s barely cleared the treeline when I roll into the clubhouse lot, but my head’s still back at the school. That black sedan. Those tinted windows. Watching my kid like we’re all fair game.
The engines from the morning rides are long cooled, but the place is already alive—brothers tuning bikes, coffee burning in the pot, the low buzz of business as usual. It grates. Nothing about today is usual.
I slam the door behind me; the sound cracking through the chatter. The room stutters quiet, every eye swinging my way. They can feel it—the storm under my kutte. Someone at the pool table doesn’t catch the warning fast enough.
“Maybe if you kept your old lady and the kid out of club business,” the new prospect mutters, loud enough for every ear. “Wouldn’t be our problem.”
The words slice clean through the air.
I’m across the room before the cue ball stops rolling. “Say that again,” I growl, voice low but sharp enough to cut steel.
The kid straightens, jaw tight like he thinks the patch on his back makes him ten feet tall. A heavier shadow drops between us—Boar, the club’s Sergeant-at-Arms, big enough to blot out the daylight pouring through the windows. His scarred knuckles flex once.
“You know the rules,” Boar rumbles, voice like gravel sliding down a chute. “You run your mouth, you settle it in the pit.”
The old boiler room, every brother knows it. Concrete floor, steel pipes, and the ghosts of a hundred fights still clinging to the walls. I bled down there the first month I wore a kutte. My fists itch. My pulse spikes.
“Fine by me,” I say, eyes never leaving the prospect. “Let’s go.”
Boar jerks his chin toward the stairwell, the room parting like a tide around us. Sunlight from the high windows spills across the steps, but the air already smells like rust and old blood. Daylight or not, the pit’s waiting. And I’m more than ready to teach a lesson.
Boar’s massive hand clamps on the kid’s shoulder before he can edge toward the door. “Move,” Boar growls. “You started it. You finish it.”
“I—hey, I didn’t mean—” the prospect stammers, eyes darting from Boar to me and back. “It was just a joke.”
Boar leans in, voice low and deadly. “We don’t joke about family. You know the rules.”
The room goes quiet enough to hear the ceiling fan tick. Brothers step back, opening a path to the stairwell that leads to the old boiler room. Sunlight spills through the grimy windows, bright and unforgiving, but the air down there always feels like midnight.
He hesitates. Boar gives him a shove, hard enough that his boots scrape the wood floor. “Pit,” Boar snaps. “Now.”
The three of us head for the stairs: Boar in back like a wall of muscle, the prospect in the middle, me on his heels. The iron steps groan under our weight, the smell of rust and old sweat rising as we descend.
The prospect glances over his shoulder, panic flashing across his face. “Look, man, I don’t—”
“Too late,” Boar cuts him off, voice a low rumble that fills the narrow stairwell. “You opened your mouth. You bleed it out or you live with it forever.”
The boiler room waits below—concrete floor scarred with old fights, light slicing in through broken windows. My pulse kicks harder, not from nerves but from the need to finish what he started. I crack my knuckles, step onto the cold cement, and let the door clang shut behind us.
Boar shuts the heavy door behind us, the clang echoing off the concrete like a gunshot. Only three of us down here—no crowd, no brothers leaning on the rails. Just the smell of rust, old sweat, and the faint drip of water somewhere in the dark.
The prospect hesitates in the center of the floor, eyes flicking to the cracked lightbulb swinging overhead. His knuckles are white around nothing.
“Strip the kutte,” Boar orders.
I peel mine off and toss it onto an old folding chair. The kid fumbles with his vest, finally dropping it beside mine. Boar steps between us, massive arms crossed.
“You know the rules,” he says, voice flat as steel. “No weapons. No cheap shots. Bell rings, you fight till one of you can’t stand. You—” he nods at the kid—“learn some respect. You—” he pins me with a look—“don’t kill him.”
I roll my shoulders. “Not planning to.”
Boar pulls the rope that hangs from a rusted pipe. The old brass bell bolted to the wall gives a single, sharp clang. The prospect barely gets his hands up before I’m on him.
First hit—straight right to the chest—drives him back into the cinderblock.
He grunts, scrambles sideways, and throws a wild jab that glances off my shoulder.
I move in again, fists finding ribs, the thud of flesh against flesh echoing in the hollow room.
He swings desperately, catching my jaw just enough to sting. I taste iron and smile.
The kid’s breathing hard already. Fear rolling off him in waves.
Good. I feint left, then bury a hook in his gut.
Air rushes out of him with a wheeze. He staggers, tries to clinch, but I shove him off, every strike a lesson.
Boar stays silent, a dark mountain at the edge of the ring, eyes flat and unblinking as the bell’s echo fades into the sound of fists and heavy breaths.
The kid’s already wobbling, sweat and blood streaking down his cheek. I give him a second to catch his breath, just enough rope to prove a point.
He spits red onto the floor and glares up at me. “No wonder the Scorpions are sniffing around,” he pants. “All it’d take is that sweet little old lady of yours and—”
The rest of the sentence never makes it out. Something snaps. The world narrows to a white-hot roar. I slam him back into the cinderblock wall, fists flying—ribs, jaw, gut—every punch a warning he’s too stupid to hear. He tries to cover up, but I break through, driving him to the floor.
“Don’t. Ever. Say. Her. Name.” Each word comes with another hit, knuckles slick, heartbeat pounding like a war drum.
“Rook!” Boar’s voice booms across the boiler room, but I barely register it. The kid’s eyes are wide now, fear finally cutting through the bravado.
“Enough!” A massive arm hooks around my chest and hauls me backward like I weigh nothing. My boots drag across the concrete, fists still swinging at the air. “Stand down!” Boar growls in my ear. “You made your point.”
I’m breathing hard, vision edged in red. The prospect curls on the floor, groaning, blood seeping from a split lip and a fresh cut above his eye.
Boar shoves me toward the far wall, planting himself between us. “Rules are rules, brother. He crossed a line, but you don’t get to finish him.”
I flex my hands, knuckles raw and throbbing, the need to keep hitting still burning through my veins. But Calla’s face cuts through the haze—her laugh, Beau’s smile—and I force a step back.
Boar studies me, eyes like cold steel. “You done?”
I drag in a breath, chest heaving. “Yeah,” I rasp, even if every part of me still wants to tear the kid apart.
Boar gives a short nod. “Then it’s over. Prospect learned today. And so did you.”
Boar keeps a hand planted against my chest, a wall of muscle and authority. The kid stays crumpled on the floor, coughing through split lips, eyes wide and glassy. I take a slow step forward anyway, just enough for him to feel the heat of it. My spit lands in the dust a breath from his boots.
“Listen close,” I growl, voice low and razor sharp. “You ever let my woman’s name cross your mouth again—ever breathe a word about my kid—there won’t be a patch, a brother, or a grave deep enough to hide you from me.”
The prospect swallows hard, blood and fear mixing in his throat.
“You think today hurt?” I lean in, my shadow swallowing his. “That was a warning. Next time, you won’t get one.”
Boar’s grip tightens, but he doesn’t pull me back. He just lets the words hang in the damp air like smoke. I take one last hard look at the kid, enough to make sure it’s burned into his skull, then turn for the stairs. My knuckles throb, heart still hammers, but the message is delivered.
Calla. Beau. Untouchable.
The boiler-room door slams behind me, the sound echoing up the concrete stairwell. Cool daylight hits like a slap when I step outside. I dig a cigarette from my kutte pocket, strike a match, and draw in a long drag until the smoke steadies the pulse still thudding in my ears.
Boots scrape across the gravel. Boar follows, the door clicking shut behind him. He plants those massive shoulders against the wall, arms crossed, eyes on the yard.
“What the hell was that about?” His voice is low, but it carries.
I exhale a slow stream of smoke. “That kid’s had my woman’s name in his mouth three times now. Subtle digs. Little jabs when he thinks I’m out of earshot. Something’s off.”
Boar grunts, gaze narrowing. “Three times?”
“Yeah.” I flick ash into the dirt. “Grimm’s heard it too. Says the kid’s got a mean streak—asks too many questions about Calla, about Beau. Like he’s fishing. He caught him in that rainstorm when Beau showed up…”
Boar scratches at the scar along his jaw, silent for a beat. “And then the thing with the school today…”
I take another drag, the memory of that black sedan flashing behind my eyes. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “Too much lining up to be a coincidence.”
The wind carries the smoke out toward the pines. Boar studies me for a long moment, then nods once, slow and deliberate, like he’s filing it all away.
“Alright,” he says. “We’ll keep eyes on him. And on the school.”
I drop the butt into the gravel and grind it out with my boot, the anger still there but sharper now, focused. “Good,” I mutter. “Because if that kid’s playing both sides, I’m not waiting for a fourth strike.”
The clubhouse door creaks again. Ridge steps out, sunlight catching the silver in his beard. The Vice President takes in the scene—the stomped-out cigarette, the cooling anger—without a word at first.