Chapter 34
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— Colt —
We didn’t ride out together. That was the first thing we’d agreed on.
Twelve bikes leaving Millfield in formation would have been noticed—word travels fast in MC circles, and we didn’t know all of Death’s Head’s eyes.
So we went in pairs, spread over a few hours, taking different routes south and east, looking like brothers headed separate ways for separate reasons.
Glitch and three others left first. Saddlebags packed with laptops and contracts alongside everything else they’d need.
The Louisville security consulting meetings were real—the meetings had always been real—and if anyone came asking what Venom Riders had been doing that week, there was a paper trail pointing straight to Kentucky.
Clean and legible. Glitch had made sure of it.
The rest of us followed in our own time.
Lilac, Betty and the boys had gone to the clubhouse this morning. Indira had called it a family event, a sleepover, an excuse to let the kids run wild together. The boys had bought it. Lilac had kissed me goodbye, told me to come back and hadn’t made it harder than it had to be.
Me and Dutch left last, taking the back road south before swinging east. Three and a half days of riding, most of it on roads nobody was watching. Unglamorous. Designed to be forgotten.
We met the others at a truck stop twelve miles south of the Death’s Head compound. Engines cold, bikes scattered across the lot like we’d each come in from different directions. Because we had.
I knew the layout—I’d spent years at that clubhouse before I’d patched over to Venom. The arrogant bastards hadn’t changed a thing. Same security protocols, same schedules, same weaknesses. That arrogance was going to get them killed.
Graham had filled in the rest. Names of the officers who’d orchestrated the cover-up. Details about that night—who’d given the orders, who’d helped dispose of the bodies, who’d forged Lilac’s signature on the divorce papers. Seven years of guilt had given him a perfect memory for their sins.
“You sure about this?” Dutch had asked, standing in that parking lot in the dark. “Once we cross this line, there’s no going back.”
“They stole seven years from my wife and my boys. Let me believe—” I’d had to stop, the rage choking me. “There’s nothing to think about, brother. They die tonight.”
Dutch nodded once, his expression settling into something hard and final. “Then let’s go to war.”
The Death’s Head compound was quiet when we arrived. A few lights on in the main building, bikes parked in rows, a single prospect dozing at the gate. Easy pickings.
Handful and two others peeled off to handle the perimeter guards. I heard a muffled thud, then silence. A moment later, Handful’s voice crackled through the comm: “Gate’s clear. Perimeter’s clear. You’re good to go.”
We rolled through the open gate like ghosts, killing our engines and coasting the last hundred yards. By the time the first Death’s Head brother realized something was wrong, we were already inside.
The guard at the door went down before he could shout a warning. Holden’s knife was quick and clean—one slash across the throat, and the man crumpled without a sound. I stepped over his body without hesitation.
We’d agreed anyone wearing a Death’s Head cut was fair game. They’d all known what happened to Lilac. They’d all helped cover it up. Not one of them had spoken up in seven years.
They’d made their choice. Now they’d live—and die—with the consequences.
The main room was exactly how I remembered it. A dozen men drinking, playing cards, a few club girls draped over laps. Just a normal night at the clubhouse.
Until we kicked in the doors.
Chaos erupted. Men scrambling for weapons, women screaming, chairs crashing to the floor. But we had the advantage—surprise, position, and a rage that had been building for seven years.
The first Death’s Head brother to reach for his piece took a bullet between the eyes. Glitch’s shot was precise, almost clinical. The body dropped, and suddenly everyone else froze.
“That’s better.” Dutch stepped into the room, scanning faces. “We’re looking for your officers. President, VP, Secretary, and a doctor named French. Where are they?”
Silence. Then a grizzled biker near the bar spat on the floor. “Fuck you, Venom. You think you can ride into our house and—”
I shot him in the kneecap. The boom echoed through the room, followed by his screaming.
“Wrong answer.” I walked toward him, gun still raised. “Let me be clear. Every one of you is going to die tonight. The only question is how much you suffer first. Now. Where. Are. Your. Officers?”
A younger guy near the back—barely old enough to have a patch—broke first. “Upstairs! Church! They’re in church!”
“Thank you.” I turned to Dutch. “Keep the rest of them contained. I’m going up.”
“Take Holden and Handful. We’ll handle this lot.”
I was already moving toward the stairs.
The door to church was reinforced steel—they’d learned that much from other clubs. But they hadn’t learned enough. Graham had told us about the service entrance, the one they used for bringing in supplies.
Four men sat around a table covered in papers and cash. The president who was responsible for Lilac’s amnesia, his VP, secretary, and Doc French—the bastard who’d examined my pregnant wife and then helped cover up her apparent murder.
They looked up as we entered, shock registering on their faces before they could reach for weapons.
“Don’t bother.” I leveled my gun at my former president’s head. “You’re all going to die. The only question is whether you want to do it with some dignity or begging like the cowards you are.”
The old man—heavyset, gray beard, cold eyes—actually laughed. “Colt. Should’ve known you’d come eventually. Once a lovesick fool, always a lovesick fool.”
“You nearly killed my wife.”
I caught it. A crack, just for a second. “Your wife is dead, son. Been dead seven years.”
“No,” I said. “She isn’t.”
The silence that followed was different from the one before it. The VP’s eyes cut to the old man. Doc French went very still.
“That’s not possible.” The fucker’s voice had lost a note of its certainty.
“I checked her.” Doc French’s voice came out thin. “She wasn’t—there was no pulse—”
I turned to Doc French. “You did her ultrasound. You knew she was eight weeks pregnant when you declared her dead, and then fucking lied to me about it.”
The color drained out of his face.
Nobody spoke.
“She survived.” I watched the bastard’s face.
“Graham was your cleanup crew. You sent him to dispose of the bodies and he found her still breathing, so he took her somewhere safe instead.” I let that land.
“Remember Graham? Prospect? Turns out he had more conscience than every officer in this club put together. She spent a month in a coma. Woke up with no memory of any of it. Not the club, not the beating, not me.” I let that sit. “I know everything.”
The old man recovered faster than the others. His jaw tightened, and the cold came back into his eyes. “Doesn’t change anything. She was collateral damage. I had an episode. I was drugged by the motherfucking Tigers. The brothers cleaned it up. Protected me. Protected the club.”
“You’ve been at war with the Tigers for years.
” I watched the old man’s face. “Thought they poisoned you. Had evidence—traces of the compound, communications, a Tiger inside man who couldn’t account for himself.
You weren’t wrong that there was a Tiger inside your club.
” I glanced at Scar. “You were wrong about what he was used for.”
I let that land.
“Scar found him first. Before you did. Used him—his access, his channels, his contacts—to source the drug and make sure the trail led back to the Tigers. Every piece of evidence that pointed at them? Scar put it there.” I kept my voice even.
“You’ve spent seven years killing the wrong men.
Men who’ve been telling you they didn’t do it.
Men who never touched you—who were telling you the truth every single time.
Men dead on both sides of a war that Scar manufactured to cover his own ass. ”
The old man went very still.
“The plan was for you to overdose quietly. Scar steps up as president. Clean transition.” I watched his face.
“Except you didn’t overdose. You went on a rampage instead.
Two prospects. A club girl. Three men who’d just come in off the road for a drink.
And my wife.” I paused. “After that, they couldn’t come clean without the police figuring out the rest. So they covered up the rampage to cover up the plot, and kept you pointed at the Tigers so you’d never look closer to home.
Seven years of your men dying in a war Scar started. ”
The old man’s eyes moved to Scar. Slow. Deliberate.
What happened next was fast—faster than I would have expected from a man his age.
He came across the table with his hands going for Scar’s throat.
Scar caught his wrists and drove him back hard, and for three seconds it was chaos—the secretary scrambling for his piece, Holden moving, the table scattering papers and cash—
I shot the secretary in the shoulder before his hand reached his gun. The sound snapped the room still.
“Everyone sits.” My voice came out flat. “This ends my way.”
The old man was breathing hard, Scar’s hands still on his wrists. Scar released him and stepped back, eyes on my gun, expression giving nothing away.
Slowly, the old man straightened. “Well.” His voice came out quiet. “How about that.” He looked back at me. The arrogance had gone out of his face. Not replaced by fear or regret. Just bleak recognition.
“We did what we had to do.” The old man straightened, the arrogance settling back in. “Couldn’t let word get out about what happened, whatever caused it. So we made it go away. The bodies, the witnesses, the evidence—all of it.”
“Including Lilac.”