Chapter 10
Roman
The chair splinters against the wall, sending fragments of wood flying across the clubhouse.
I’m already reaching for the next thing to throw, blind rage turning my vision red.
Hands grab at me from all directions, but I shake them off, slamming my fist into the nearest face.
The memory of Kayla’s terrified eyes, the bruise on her cheek, is burned into my mind, fueling a fury I’ve never felt before.
My brothers become obstacles, faceless barriers between me and what I need to do: find my wife.
“Take him down!” Atlas roars, and suddenly there are too many hands to fight off.
I’m tackled to the floor, my cheek pressed against sticky, beer-soaked wood. Someone has my arms pinned behind my back. Someone else is sitting on my legs. I buck and thrash, but they’ve got me immobilized.
“Let me go!” I snarl. “My wife is out there with that psychopath! Let me fucking go!”
“Not until you calm the hell down,” Atlas says, appearing in my limited field of vision. He crouches down, his weathered face inches from mine. “You done? Or do we need to keep you pinned here all day?”
I struggle once more against the weight holding me down, then go still, chest heaving. “I’m done,” I mutter.
The pressure on my back eases slightly, but no one lets go yet. Atlas studies my face, looking for signs that I’m lying. Finding none, he nods, and the weight lifts entirely. Hands help me to my feet, though I shrug them off as soon as I’m upright.
The clubhouse is a mess. The chair I threw has left a dent in the wall; bottles and glasses lie shattered on the floor.
Digger is being helped to his feet, blood streaming from his nose and split lip.
Other brothers stand around, wary and tense, some with their hands hovering near concealed weapons.
“You pull that shit again,” Atlas says, jabbing a finger into my chest, “and you’ll be facing club discipline. I don’t care if you are VP. We don’t turn on our own.”
“Then why did you all turn on my wife?” I demand, voice rising again. “She called here for help. She was in trouble, and every single one of you ignored her.”
Atlas’s jaw tightens. “Your priority is the club, and you know it. Naomi is the target here. Demon wants her, not your wife. He’s just using Kayla as bait, hoping we’ll get careless.”
“You heartless son of a bitch,” I breathe, disbelief and rage tangling in my chest. “That’s my old lady. My wife. That used to mean something in this club.”
“It still does,” Atlas says, but his eyes shift away from mine. “But the safety of my daughter, your sister in the club, comes first. You know that. You agreed to that.”
“I didn’t agree to sacrifice my wife!” The words come out as a roar, and several brothers step forward, ready to restrain me again.
I hold up my hands, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
Looking around the room, I see a spectrum of reactions.
The younger members — the ones who came in after I became VP — look hostile and ready to follow Atlas’s lead.
But some of the older members, the ones who rode with my father years ago, won’t meet my eyes.
They shift uncomfortably, staring at the floor, the walls, anywhere but at me.
“I need to find her,” I say, my voice dropping to just above a whisper. “Every minute she’s with him…”
“We’ll find her,” Atlas says, his tone making it clear it’s not the priority. “But we need to be smart about this. Demon’s trying to draw us out, get us to act rashly. That’s why he took her. He knows you’ll come charging in, half-cocked and emotional.”
“And what would you do if it were Naomi?” I ask, watching his face carefully.
His expression hardens. “I’d trust my brothers to have my back and make the right call. I wouldn’t turn on them like a rabid dog.”
My laugh is bitter and cold. “Bullshit. You’d burn the world down, and we all know it. You did burn the world down when Demon took her the first time.”
For a moment, I see the truth flash in his eyes before he masks it. “Go cool off, Viper. We’ll work out a plan that doesn’t get us all killed.”
I look around the room one more time, at these men I’ve called brothers for most of my life.
My gaze lands on Naomi, standing slightly behind her father, her red curls vibrant against the sea of dark leather and denim.
Her expression is unreadable, but there’s something in her eyes I can’t quite name.
“I’m getting my wife back,” I say, the words dropping like stones into the tense silence. “With or without this club’s help.”
Atlas’s face darkens. “You walk out that door right now, you’re on your own. And when you come back, there will be consequences.”
I hold his gaze for a long moment. “Fuck you.”
“Viper!” Naomi’s voice cuts through the tense silence. She appears in front of me, blocking my path to the door. Her face is flushed, eyes. “You can’t leave. Please.”
I try to step around her, but she moves with me, hands coming up to grip the front of my cut.
“You promised,” she hisses, fingers digging into the leather. “You promised you’d protect me. That you wouldn’t stop until Demon was gone for good.”
I look down at her hands clutching my cut, then into her face. In this moment, with Kayla’s terrified expression still burned into my mind, I feel nothing for Naomi. Not sympathy, not loyalty, nothing.
“Get out of my way, Tech,” I say, my voice flat.
She doesn’t move. “If you leave now, you’re abandoning me. Abandoning the club. Is that who you are? A man who turns his back on his family?”
Her words inspire nothing but anger in me. I grab her wrists and pry her hands from my cut, then shove her aside. Not hard enough to hurt her, just enough to clear my path.
“Viper!” she calls after me, her voice cracking. “You’ll never find him alone! You have no plan! You have no idea where he’s taken her!”
I don’t look back. She’s right, but I’m not about to admit it. I have no plan, no leads, nothing but blind rage and desperation. But I’ll tear this state apart piece by piece if that’s what it takes.
I push through the clubhouse doors into the late afternoon sunlight, the brightness momentarily blinding after the dim interior. My bike stands where I left it, untouched in the chaos. I stride toward it, keys already in hand.
Just as I’m about to kick the starter, the clubhouse door swings open again. Steel emerges, his weathered face grim. He’s one of the old guard, rode with my father for years before he died. Steel’s got thirty years of road on him, and the respect of every man in the club.
“I’ll try to talk some sense into him,” he calls over his shoulder, then makes his way toward me, unhurried.
“Not in the mood for a lecture, Steel,” I say, hand still on the ignition.
“Good,” he replies gruffly. “Because I’m not in the mood to give one. Take a ride with me.”
I narrow my eyes, suspicious. “I need to find Kayla.”
“And I need you to take a ride with me,” he says, already moving toward his own bike. “Just for an hour, Viper. After that, you can do whatever the hell you want.”
I hesitate. Steel has never been one to waste time or words. If he thinks this is important, it probably is. But every minute counts with Kayla in Demon’s hands.
Steel must see the conflict on my face. “You go charging off blind right now, you’ll get yourself killed. And then who saves your old lady?”
He’s right again, damn him. I exhale slowly, then nod. “One hour.”
Steel kicks his bike to life and rolls out of the lot. I follow. We merge onto the highway, heading east. The wind whips at my face, clearing my head slightly. But the clarity only brings more fear. What is Demon doing to Kayla right now? Is she hurt? Terrified?
We ride for about thirty minutes, Steel setting a pace that’s just fast enough to focus the mind. The road winds up into the mountains, pine trees crowding close on either side. Finally, he signals and turns onto a narrow side road that climbs even higher.
The overlook appears suddenly around a bend, a small gravel lot with a guardrail and a view that stretches for miles. Steel cuts his engine and dismounts. I do the same.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. Steel walks to the edge of the overlook, staring out at the valley below, hands tucked into the pockets of his cut. I wait, impatience thrumming through me, but knowing better than to rush him.
“This is bad business,” he finally says, still not looking at me. “Bad for you, bad for the club.” He shakes his head slowly. “Wouldn’t have happened this way if your old man was still alive. If he were still our Prez.”
I move to stand beside him; the valley spreading out beneath us in shades of green and gray. “What do you mean?”
Steel’s weathered face turns toward me. “We didn’t ignore our own back then. An old lady was family. You messed with one, you answered to all of us.”
It’s something I’ve known but haven’t wanted to admit for a while. I’ve watched the club change under Atlas’s leadership, becoming harder, more insular, less the brotherhood my father raised me in as a boy. It’s part of the reason I’ve kept Kayla separate from the club.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Steel looks away again. “Because someone needs to. Because that girl of yours deserves better than what she got. And because your father would raise hell right now if he knew what happened.”
The mention of my father stings. He died when I was fifteen, in a stupid accident on a wet road. He never got to meet Kayla, never got to see the man I became.
“Atlas won’t help me find her,” I say, the reality of it still raw.
“Atlas has his priorities,” Steel replies, his tone making it clear what he thinks of them. “Always has.”
“I don’t know what to do next, Steel. I have no idea where to even start looking.”
Steel turns to face me fully. “You need information. You need to know where Demon might be keeping her, what his next move might be.”
“And how do I get that?” The frustration bleeds into my voice. “He could have taken her anywhere.”
“Not anywhere,” Steel says, shaking his head. “Demon’s got enemies. Places he can’t go. People he can’t trust. You need to talk to someone who knows him better than we do.”
I frown, confused. “Who?”
“Dragon,” Steel says simply. “Head over to Billings. Find the Drago’s Inferno MC. Talk to their Prez, Dragon.”
I blink in surprise. “Are you serious? They hate us. Have for years.”
“Not all of us,” Steel corrects. “Their previous Prez held a grudge against your father and Atlas, but he had a grudge against everyone by the end. And the new Prez doesn’t like Atlas’s leadership style.
But…” Steel hesitates for a minute. “Dragon, he’s a different sort than his father.
Fair. Honorable in his own way. If you’re straight with him, don’t try to bullshit him; he might help you.
And you’re going to need his help, because if anyone knows where Demon would go to ground, it’s Dragon. ”
I consider this. “Why do you think he’d know that?”
Steel’s mouth twitches in what might almost be a smile. “Ask me that question again after you meet with him.” He stares out at the horizon for a moment longer. “But listen to me, Viper,” he says, pausing. “Be careful who you trust right now.”
The warning is clear, but it doesn’t make sense. “What do you mean?”
Steel hesitates, then says, “You trust Naomi more than you should.”
I’m about to protest when something stops me.
I remember the look on Naomi’s face the other day, while I was going over the books, when she was talking about her big plans for the Rejects.
The look on her face in Atlas’s office just this morning.
Both her and Atlas being willing to sacrifice Kayla to Demon.
Just twenty-four hours ago, I would have said I could trust Atlas and Naomi with my life.
Now, the ground is shifting beneath my feet, and I don’t know anything for certain.
Steel gives me a slight smile, his eyes sad. “Your hour’s up. What you do now is your call. Just watch your back, Viper.”
Steel turns and starts to walk back to his bike, before suddenly turning back around. “Oh, and one more thing: Dragon’s club prefers to be called The Inferno. They’re a bit sensitive about their club name. Best not to ask questions about it.”
“What?” I frown, completely confused by this random bit of advice. “Why would they be sensitive about their name?”
But Steel is already mounting his bike. “Just trust me on this one,” he calls over the sound of his engine starting up. “And good luck. You’re gonna need it.”
With that, he pulls away, leaving me alone on the overlook with more questions than answers. I stand there for a moment, watching him disappear down the winding road, then turn back to the view.
Drago’s Inferno. It’s not much of a lead, but it’s something. And right now, something is better than the nothing I had before.
I pull out my phone and search for the fastest route to Billings, determination hardening in my gut. I’m coming, Kayla. Just hold on a little longer.