Vengeance
“You’re trying to choke your father to death,” Dante pointed out.
“The journal,” Dante shouted.
A voice rose above the gunfire. “Manzo!” Bowie stepped into the clearing. He didn’t hide behind a tree and didn’t crouch behind one of the motorcycles. He walked forward with a rifle held against his shoulder and murder in his eyes.
Dante turned toward him, and for the first time that night, his expression lost its amusement. “Bowie.”
“You killed my husband,” Bowie shouted
“His heart killed him,” Dante corrected.
“You hunted our daughter,” Bowie continued.
“She belongs to a debt Savage refused to pay.” Bowie fired, and Dante threw himself behind the SUV as the round shattered the rear window.
“You come near her again,” Bowie shouted, “and I will tear your empire apart one man at a time.”
Dante answered from behind the vehicle. “You don’t have enough men.”
“Try me,” Bowie spat. The SUV’s engine roared, and Marcus fired repeatedly through the shattered rear window while the driver accelerated.
The vehicle lurched backward, turned sharply, and sped toward the narrow road.
Spider and two other brothers opened fire.
Bullets struck the tires and rear panel, but the SUV continued down the mountain with the second vehicle following.
Within seconds, both disappeared beyond the trees.
The Royal Bastards swept the property, checking the shed, the cabin, and the surrounding woods for anyone Dante had left behind.
Vengeance barely noticed them because his attention remained fixed on Chloe.
She knelt beside Doc with her hands covered in blood.
Bowie crouched near her, speaking softly, but she didn’t seem to hear him.
Vengeance forced himself to stand. His ribs screamed, and blood ran down his side and dripped from his injured palm. He took one step, then another. The distance between them felt endless. Chloe looked up, and the devastation on her face nearly broke him.
“He’s gone,” she whispered. Vengeance stopped because he already knew. Still, hearing her say it made the truth final. He looked at Doc. The old man’s eyes were closed, and his expression was strangely peaceful—as though death had come after a long day, and he’d decided he was too tired to argue.
Vengeance sank to his knees beside him. “No.” His voice sounded small—like the frightened sixteen-year-old Doc had once found bleeding behind his clinic. He touched two fingers to the side of Doc’s neck and felt no pulse.
“I’m sorry.” Chloe covered his hand with hers. “He saved me.”
Vengeance stared down at their joined hands. Her fingers were slick with Doc’s blood. “He always saved people.”
“He told me to tell you something,” Chloe breathed.
Vengeance couldn’t look at her. “What?”
“He said that Savage was right,” she said.
A broken laugh escaped him. “About a lot of things.”
“You get to choose who you become,” she continued. Vengeance closed his eyes. Doc had repeated those words every time Vengeance believed Dante’s blood had already decided his future. Apparently, the old man had wanted the final word. “He also said there was more evidence,” Chloe continued.
His eyes opened. “What evidence?”
“Beneath the floor of his old clinic. Room seven.” Vengeance looked at Doc again. “He said it would be the end of Dante Manzo.”
Bowie joined them. “We’ll find it,” he said.
Vengeance shook his head. “Dante knew about the journal. He’ll know there are copies. It’s not safe for either of you to go after the rest of the evidence.”
“Sure it is,” Bowie said. “We’ll just have to move faster than Dante does.”
“The clinic is three states away,” Vengeance said.
“Then we better get on the road,” Bowie said.
Vengeance pushed unsteadily to his feet. “No, I’ll go alone.”
“You can barely stand by yourself,” Bowie pointed out.
He pressed his palm against his wound and winced. “I know where Doc hid things.”
“So do I,” Bowie said. Vengeance looked at him, and Bowie’s expression hardened.
“Savage trusted me too. I was his husband.” The reminder landed like a blow.
Vengeance had spent years believing he stood outside Savage’s family, looking in, but Bowie wasn’t treating him like an outsider.
He was speaking to him as an equal—like a man who had lost the same people.
Smoke thickened behind them and flames crawled along the cabin roof. Vengeance turned toward the porch. “The letter.”
“It’s gone,” Chloe said softly.
“Savage’s journal—” Vengeance said. “Dante tore out several pages before the fire started. He took them.”
“What was on them?” Bowie asked.
“I only saw part of one page,” Vengeance admitted.
“What did it say?” Vengeance tried to remember through the pain.
Dante was standing beside him, and Marcus was holding his arms. The journal was open in Dante’s hands, and a list of names was written in Savage’s block lettering—dates, payments, and one address was circled repeatedly.
He remembered how Dante’s expression changed when he read the final paragraph.
“There was a reference to something called the Lazarus file,” Vengeance said. “You ever heard of it?”
“No,” Bowie breathed, “But it must have meant something to Dante.”
He believed that Dante knew exactly what the Lazarus file was. “He looked afraid,” Vengeance said. “Not angry, but afraid.”
Chloe stood beside him. “What else?”
“There was a name,” he said.
“Whose?” Bowie asked. Vengeance hesitated, and the memory sharpened. Savage had written it beneath the circled address.
Elena Manzo
His mother. Vengeance’s stomach tightened. “My mother’s name.”
Chloe touched his arm. “What did it say?”
“I didn’t see anything else,” he said. Dante had slammed the journal closed the instant Vengeance leaned close enough to read it, and then he’d ordered Marcus to burn the cabin. Whatever Savage had discovered involved Elena, and Dante would kill anyone who learned the truth.
“I thought that Dante said she died,” Chloe whispered.
“He said a lot of things,” Vengeance breathed.
“You don’t believe him?” she asked.
Vengeance looked toward the burning cabin.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” The roof groaned, and Ryder shouted for everyone to move back.
The center of the cabin collapsed in a shower of sparks, and heat rolled across the clearing.
Vengeance watched the place burn. It was Doc’s home, and it had been reduced to ash.
Chloe slipped her hand into his, and he looked down. She didn’t release him.
“We need to go,” Bowie said.
Vengeance nodded toward Doc. “We’re not leaving him.”
“No,” Bowie agreed. “We aren’t.” They wrapped Doc in a blanket and carried him away from the cabin.
Vengeance took one corner despite Bowie ordering him not to.
Ryder took another, while Spider and Blade carried the opposite end.
Chloe walked beside them. The Royal Bastards formed a silent procession through the trees, and no one spoke until they reached the motorcycles and trucks hidden farther down the mountain.
Bowie opened the back of a dark SUV. “We’ll take him home.”
Vengeance’s grip tightened on the blanket. “Home?”
“To Huntsville,” Bowie said.
“Dante will be watching,” Vengeance said.
“Let him watch us bury one of ours then,” Bowie growled.
Vengeance looked at Bowie. “Doc wasn’t patched.”
“He didn’t need one to be family.” The words struck deep. Vengeance finally released the blanket, and the brothers carefully placed Doc inside. Chloe climbed into the second SUV, but Vengeance remained outside.
Bowie approached him. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t go to Huntsville,” he whispered.
“I wasn’t taking you there,” Bowie said.
Vengeance frowned. “Dante knows Chloe will want to return to her family. Every road south will be watched.”
“I know,” Bowie said. “I have another safe house. Savage bought it years ago under a shell company that Dante never connected to him.”
“Where is it?” Vengeance asked.
“North Carolina,” Bowie said.
“That’s too close,” he insisted. He knew that Dante wouldn’t stop looking for him, and North Carolina was too close to home.
“It’s not the one you’re thinking about.” Bowie lowered his voice. “It’s along the Tennessee border, buried in the mountains. No neighbors. No cell service. No club connection on paper.”
“You want me to take Chloe there?” Vengeance asked.
“I want both of you to disappear,” Bowie said.
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes me to find the evidence beneath Doc’s clinic and figure out what the Lazarus file is.
” Vengeance looked toward Chloe through the SUV window.
Her face was pale, and she looked exhausted.
She had lost Savage, nearly lost Bowie, and watched Doc die because Vengeance had led Dante to the cabin.
“She should stay with you,” Vengeance insisted. “She’ll be safer with the Royal Bastards.”
“She won’t come home with me,” Bowie said.
“She’s your daughter,” Vengeance reminded. “You can force her to stay with you.”
Bowie barked out his laugh. “No one has forced Chloe to do a damn thing since she was nine years old. And being my daughter doesn’t make her obedient.” Despite everything, Vengeance nearly smiled. Bowie studied him carefully. “She trusts you.”
“She shouldn’t,” Vengeance grumbled.
“Don’t start that shit with me.” Vengeance looked away, but Bowie stepped closer. “You stood between my daughter and Dante when every instinct in you had to be screaming to run.”
“I wasn’t going to let him take her,” Vengeance explained.
“I know,” Bowie said.
“I’ll never let him take her.”
“I know that too.” The weight of Bowie’s trust settled over him. It felt heavier than Savage’s Colt and more frightening than Dante’s threats.
“You love her?” Bowie asked. Vengeance’s eyes returned to the SUV. Chloe was watching them now, and for some reason, he couldn’t lie. It would be safer for everyone if he had.
“Yes,” he breathed.
Bowie nodded as though Vengeance had merely confirmed something obvious. “Then keep her alive.”
“What happens when she decides she doesn’t want me?” Vengeance asked.