Chapter 20
TINY
We slow only when the shelter looms ahead of us, our bikes rumbling beneath our bodies like barely restrained beasts.
Capone lifts a fist, signaling us into a loose half-circle along the tree line.
Engines idle low but hungry, heat curling off exhaust pipes and turning the night thick with gasoline.
Red’s voice threads through the comms from the van parked a ways back, steady despite the tension riding the air. “Two Hellhounds at the south side. One on the roof. No motion at the main entrance. No sign of Syvannah on cams. Your window is small.”
Capone nods once, a silent confirmation. “We go in as a wall. No hesitation.”
The words settle over us like the last breath before a storm.
Blayze shifts on his Dyna to adjust his weapon, and that’s when his left saddlebag gives a subtle jolt. A tiny thump, soft enough most wouldn’t notice over the engines, but I feel it like a tap straight across my ribs. He glances down, frowns, and pats the bag once to make sure the latch is secure.
Before he pulls his hand away, the flap bursts open.
Peanut launches herself out like she’s been fired from a slingshot, hits the ground with a small somersault, and lands facing the dark with her tail puffed and her ears pinned in determination.
“Peanut? Hey!” Blayze shouts, reaching toward her. But she’s already gone, slipping between the tires, ducking under Derange’s footpeg, weaving between moving shadows like she trained for this.
Aloiki laughs under his breath. “Ho, look at that. She prospectin’ again.”
Twin One leans forward on his handlebars. “Fast little menace.”
Twin Two adds, “Faster than Blayze, that’s for damn sure.”
Blayze throws a hand up. “She literally flipped me off. Swear to God.”
Someone snorts. Someone else huffs a strained laugh. The tension eases just enough to keep us from shattering in place, and for a moment, even the engines feel like they exhale.
But Peanut keeps running. That’s when I realize she’s not running in panic. She’s following a scent, a path, something only she can feel. She’s leading.
Capone lowers his chin toward me, voice low enough only we hear it. “You know where she’s going.”
I nod once.
He raises his arm, and the command is silent but absolute.
The moment his hand drops, the world erupts.
Every engine surges at once, the chorus of bikes shaking the earth as we shoot forward out of the trees.
Branches whip past us, dirt spraying behind our tires as we cut through the back access road straight toward the shelter.
The building rises ahead, its cracked walls, rusted fencing, and broken lights strobing across the concrete.
Hellhounds scramble the second they hear us.
Trigger fires from his saddle before his bike even stops moving, dropping the rooftop guard in two clean shots.
Torch plows straight through a man trying to reach an alarm panel, sending him tumbling across the pavement.
Bones swings his bike sideways to knock another straight into the wall, and Derange follows behind him, blade flashing in the dim light as he cuts the man down before he can scream.
Aloiki dismounts mid-roll, landing hard and driving his fist into the first Hellhound that gets too close. The Twins move like mirror images. One goes high, the other low, dropping two more enemies with strokes so synchronized they look rehearsed.
Capone fires over my shoulder. “Push in! MOVE!”
We hit the main entrance in a single, furious wave.
The doors don’t stand a chance. Smoke rolls out from somewhere deeper in the structure.
Overhead lights flicker as if the entire building knows what’s coming and trembles beneath it.
Chaos spreads fast as the brothers flood inside.
Dagger yelling positions, Torch calling targets, and Aftermath providing cover while Trigger clears corners with brutal efficiency.
My pulse roars in my ears, and all I can think about is Syvannah and what she must be feeling, what they did to her, what I swore I’d do if anyone touched her again. I’ll tear this place apart before I lose her.
A figure walks out of the smoke ahead of me.
Lattimer steps into the hallway as though he’s been waiting for this exact moment. His suit is immaculate despite the chaos, his expression calm in a way only the sickest men achieve. His eyes skim over the gunfire and bodies until they land on me, and then he smiles a slow, poisonous smile.
“Finally,” he murmurs, as if greeting an old friend.
I don’t waste the breath it takes to answer. I charge him.
We crash together with enough force to slam through a rusted cage panel, metal screaming as we hit the ground. His ribs give under the impact. My fists move before he hits the ground, driving into his cheek, his jaw, his throat, his ribs.
Lattimer swings a knife, and I catch his wrist mid-strike, twisting until the sharp crack of bone snaps through the hall.
He screams but still tries to grab a shard of broken metal from the floor.
I pin his arm with my elbow, drag him across the concrete, and slam his head into the ground so hard the shock rattles up my forearm.
“You can’t save them all,” he spits through blood.
I press my weight into him, voice shaking with fury. “I can damn well try.”
Gunfire explodes behind us as the brothers tear through reinforcements. Someone screams. Someone else drops. Smoke thickens until the air tastes like metal and fire.
Then a squad of tactical vests storms the hallway.
ATF.
Special Agent Ramirez breaks through the smoke, face grim as he takes in the scene, the cages, the wounded women, the blood, Lattimer choking beneath my hands. His gaze pins me first, calculating, knowing exactly what the Royal Bastards are capable of and the thin line I’m standing on.
“Step away from him,” Ramirez orders, gun leveled, voice steady but loaded with warning.
I don’t move.
Capone’s voice cuts through the noise behind me. “Tiny.”
This was the move Capone made that protects the club even when everything else is burning. It’s the only path that takes Lattimer out without taking us with him.
Slowly, every muscle screaming in protest, I release my grip.
Ramirez grabs Lattimer by the collar and slams him into the wall to cuff him, not gentle in the slightest.
Lattimer laughs, teeth pink with blood. “War’s not over,” he rasps at me. “You can’t stop what comes next.”
Ramirez yanks him upright. “You can finish that sentence in federal custody.”
I’m already moving, forcing my way through the smoke and wreckage, past broken cages and the faint trail Peanut left behind, every instinct in me sharpening toward one truth. I have to find her.
“Tiny…” Her voice crawls from the burning shelter like a prayer torn raw.
Nothing in this damn world will keep me from her.