Chapter Twenty-Five
Bone
Something woke me up.
I didn’t know what the fuck it was at first.
I opened my eyes and stared into the dark, waiting for my brain to catch up. The room was quiet except for the fan turning overhead and the soft sound of Hazel breathing beside me.
Hazel.
That still took a second to register sometimes.
Not because I didn’t know she was there. I’d gone to sleep with her curled against my side, one leg thrown over mine and her hand resting on my stomach. I’d woken up twice during the night because she moved around like she was fighting invisible people in her sleep.
The first time, she’d stolen the blanket.
The second, she’d nearly elbowed me in the fucking throat.
I’d moved her arm, pulled her back against me, and gone right back to sleep.
That was the weird part.
I slept with Hazel.
Actually slept. I didn’t fuck her and leave. I didn’t lie awake waiting until enough time passed that I could get dressed without looking like an asshole.
I slept. And tonight, she’d done it here at the clubhouse.
After I got back from meeting Eli, I’d gone to her house. Hadn’t planned on it. I’d gotten back to the clubhouse after midnight, talked with Myth for another hour, checked to see if Dave had gotten anything, then found myself getting back on my bike.
Hazel hadn’t questioned it when I’d knocked on her door.
She’d just smiled and put her hand in mine when I told her I wanted her in my bed.
No conversation about what it meant.
Hazel and Bone.
That was it.
Worked for me.
I shifted slightly. Hazel made a sleepy noise and moved closer.
I almost closed my eyes again, and then I heard it.
An engine.
My eyes opened.
Not a bike.
I lifted my head. The sound was faint but getting closer. Tires rolled over gravel.
What the fuck?
I carefully moved Hazel’s arm off my stomach.
She stirred. “Bone?”
“Go back to sleep.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and reached for my jeans. The engine got louder.
Nobody should’ve been coming down the road at—I grabbed my phone from the nightstand—three seventeen.
What the fuck?
“What’s wrong?”
I pulled on my jeans and looked over my shoulder. Hazel had pushed herself up onto one elbow. Her hair was all over the place, and the sheet was pulled across her chest. “Nothing.”
“You’re putting pants on at three in the morning.”
“Stay here.”
“That doesn’t sound like nothing.”
“Hazel.”
She blinked at me.
“Stay here.”
Something in my voice must’ve gotten through because she nodded. “Okay.”
I grabbed my gun from the nightstand, shoved it into the back of my jeans, and pulled on a T-shirt.
Headlights swept across the wall.
My whole body went tight.
Whoever was out there was close.
Too fucking close.
I grabbed my cut and shrugged it on as I opened the bedroom door.
Another door opened down the hallway. Myth stepped out wearing jeans and nothing else. “You hear that?”
“Yeah.”
Humpty’s door opened. “What the fuck?”
“Vehicle,” Myth said.
“No shit,” Humpty grunted.
Dealer came out next.
Then the rest of guys appeared within seconds.
Everyone had heard it.
The clubhouse wasn’t built in a place where people accidentally drove past. There was nowhere to accidentally fucking go. You came down our road because you meant to come down our road.
And at three seventeen in the morning, nobody had any business being here.
I headed toward the main room. “Lights off,” I ordered.
Bull reached for the switch before anyone could turn one on.
We moved through the dark.
The engine outside revved, then tires spun over gravel.
“They’re leaving,” Myth said.
I reached the front window and pulled the curtain back enough to look out.
Red taillights.
That was all I caught.
Too far away already.
The vehicle was moving fast down the road.
“Fuck.”
I headed for the door.
Myth grabbed his gun. “You see what it was?”
“No.”
“Truck?”
“Couldn’t tell.”
I opened the door and cold night air hit me.
The lot was dark except for the security lights around Grave Casket Co. and the warehouse.
Nothing moved.
I stepped outside and Myth came with me.
Dealer and Humpty spread out without being told.
Taco appeared in the doorway behind us wearing sweatpants and one boot.
I looked at him.
He looked down at his feet.
“Couldn’t find the other one.”
“Stay there.”
“Wasn’t planning on running.”
“Shut up.”
He nodded.
Munch came up behind him. “What happened?”
“Someone was here,” Bull said.
“Who?”
“If we knew that, we wouldn’t all be standing here in our fucking underwear,” Humpty snapped.
I scanned the lot.
Nothing.
Everything looked the way it should.
Then Dealer stopped. “Prez.”
I turned.
He was looking toward the Grave Casket building.
My eyes followed his and everything inside me went still.
A coffin sat in front of the big garage door.
For a second, the only sound was the distant engine disappearing down the road.
Then Taco spoke. “What the fuck?”
I started walking.
Myth grabbed my arm. “Hold up.”
I looked at him.
“We don’t know what the fuck’s in it.”
He was right.
“Dealer.”
“Yeah,” he called.
“Get Hose.”
He nodded and headed back toward the clubhouse.
“Bull, check the cameras.”
“On it,” Bull replied.
“Humpty, nobody leaves. And Rowdy, go chase down that truck if you can.”
Ten seconds later, Rowdy cranked up his bike, and he took off down the road.
“Taco,” I called.
He lifted his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“Find your fucking boot.”
He looked down. “Working on it.”
I shook my head.
Myth and I moved closer to the coffin.
Ten feet away, I stopped. It looked like ours.
One of our standard builds with dark walnut, brass handles.
Nothing fancy.
Myth stood beside me. “You recognize it?”
“Looks like one of ours, but we thought the same thing about the one Owen showed up in, and we were fucking wrong.” I was still pissed that we had fucked that up.
The clubhouse door opened.
Hose came jogging out, pulling a shirt over his head. “What the fuck happened?”
I pointed.
He slowed. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Anybody touch it?” he asked.
“No. We haven’t gotten close to it, yet,” Myth told him.
“Good.”
Hazel’s voice came from behind me. “Bone?”
Fuck.
I turned and she stood in the clubhouse doorway.
She’d pulled on a pair of shorts and my black T-shirt. The shirt hung halfway down her thighs, and her hair was still a mess from sleep.
Taco stood beside her. At least he’d found his other boot.
I walked toward her. “I told you to stay in the room.”
“I did.”
“For five minutes.”
“You didn’t come back,” she reasoned.
“That’s generally how staying works, Hazel.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “You told me to stay, then the whole clubhouse was running around, so I got curious.”
“This isn’t something you need to be curious about.”
Her eyes moved past me to the coffin. “What is that doing there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did somebody just drop off a coffin?”
“Casket.”
Her eyes came back to mine. “Really?”
“What?”
“That’s what you’re correcting right now?”
I sighed. “Go back inside.”
She looked at me. “Bone—”
“Please.”
That did it.
Her expression changed. Hazel didn’t know what was going on, neither did I, but she knew me well enough now to understand I wasn’t fucking around.
“Okay.”
She nodded.
“Okay.”
I touched her waist as she turned.
Then Bull came running out of the clubhouse.
“Bone.”
I looked at him.
“Cameras caught it.”
“What?”
“Black box truck.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
“Plate?”
“Rear camera got something, but it’s blurry.”
“Get Dave on it.”
“Already sent it.”
Hazel stopped in the doorway.
She looked back at me, and I knew she heard. Couldn’t do anything about that now.
“Hose,” I called.
“Yeah.”
“Check it.”
We moved toward the casket, but I told Hazel to keep her ass in the doorway.
I wanted to tell her again to get back in my room, but didn’t because I knew it was just going to be a fight.
Hose crouched beside the coffin and checked underneath it. Then the sides. He ran his hands carefully along the base. “Don’t see anything.”
“Open it?” Myth asked.
Hose stood. “Only one way to find out what the fuck they brought us.”
I stepped forward. Myth moved with me.
Taco was suddenly there too.
“Thought I told you to stay by the door.”
“You did,” he agreed.
“And?”
“I found my boot,” he answered.
I stared at him. “What?”
“Felt like that changed things.”
Despite everything, Myth snorted.
I shook my head. “Stay back.”
Taco actually listened.
Hose moved to one side and I took the other.
My hand wrapped around the edge of the lid.
For one second, Owen flashed through my head. The smell. His bloated body. Munch gagging.
I lifted the lid and Hose swore.
Myth went completely still.
I stared down at Eli. “Fuck.”
There was no mistaking him.
Same short brown hair. Same skinny face. Same gray T-shirt he’d been wearing when Myth and I met him.
His skin had lost its color. His eyes were closed. There was bruising around his neck.
I didn’t need Hose to tell me he was dead.
I knew.
Myth leaned closer. “Son of a fucking bitch.”
“Bone?”
Hazel.
I turned, and she wasn’t in the doorway anymore.
She was behind Taco, her eyes were fixed on the coffin.
On Eli.
Fuck.
I immediately stepped in front of her and her eyes snapped to mine.
“Is he—”
“Yeah.”
She swallowed. “Oh my God.”
“Inside,” I ordered.
“Bone—”
“Hazel.”
Her face had gone pale.
I put both hands on her arms.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“You need to trust me right now. I promise that nothing is going to happen to you, and I will fight till my last breath to make sure you are safe. Do you believe me?”
She nodded with zero hesitation. “Yes, Bone.”
“Good. Now go inside with Taco. I’ll answer all of your questions then.”
“I just have one right now.” She paused, and her eyes came to mine. “Who is he?”
“Eli.”
Her brow furrowed. “You know him? Is he part of the club?”
“Yeah, we knew him, but he’s not part of the club.”
I looked over my shoulder at the coffin.
Owen had been the first. Now Eli.
Twice, someone had delivered death straight to the Grave Prowlers’ door.
That was twice too fucking many.
Whoever the hell was behind this wanted our attention.
They had it, and now we were going to find out who the fuck they were.