24. Honor Among Lies
TWENTY-FOUR
HONOR AMONG LIES
NEVAEH
The weeks after the Red Flag Run feel like the kind of exhale you don’t trust. The Saints aren’t limping home from a fight every other night, and the air at the clubhouse hums with something lighter, music, laughter, the clink of bottles instead of the snap of rifle bolts or sheathing of knives.
The front doors are thrown wide, letting the August night spill into the main room in a haze of sweat, cigarette smoke, and beer.
Heat rolls in from outside, clinging to skin already damp from the press of bodies.
The smell of charred meat from the grill mixes with perfume and the acrid bite of a cigarette burning too close.
My boots stick to the floor in spots where beer has dried tacky, and every time someone brushes past, the faint rasp of leather grazes my arm.
Brothers move through the crowd with an easy physicality.
Palms clapping backs, arms hooked around shoulders, heads leaning close for quick, private exchanges.
The kind of touches that speak of years of trust and shared blood, all of it so natural it’s almost invisible.
Honeys drift in packs, draped over brothers’ laps, pressed into shadowed corners with townies who bought their way inside with rounds of shots.
Someone’s making out against the hallway wall, another pair disappearing toward the back rooms without bothering to shut the door.
A card game is running hot near the bar, the pile of crumpled bills in the center growing with every slam of a winning hand.
Music thumps low from the jukebox, heavy enough to rattle the pool balls every time City breaks.
Leather cuts hang open, shirts peeled off, tattoos glistening under the low light.
I keep my place on the edge of it all, Crusher’s arm across the back of my chair, a silent claim that doesn’t need words.
He doesn’t take the kind of service the other men are getting tonight, and the few times a honey has drifted close with a coy smile, he’s sent her away with a look sharp enough to cut.
One, a tall brunette with glitter on her cheeks, trails her fingers along the back of his cut as she passes. “If you get bored, you know where to find me,” she purrs, loud enough for me to hear.
Crusher doesn’t even look at her. “Not in this lifetime,” he says flatly, pulling his arm tighter across my chair. She huffs, flouncing off toward the bar, but not before shooting me a look that says, You don’t belong here.
As she reaches the bar, a high-pitched laugh cuts through the music.
Another honey leans in to whisper something, eyes sliding my way.
The brunette smirks, turns, and on her way past, tips the edge of her drink just enough for the cold splash to hit the toe of my boot.
“Oops,” she says, the word sugar-coated and insincere.
If it bothers me, I don’t show it. I’ve learned that in this world, reactions are currency, and the wrong people collect.
City calls out from the pool table, “Crusher, tell your girl I’m about to make Rampage cry.”
Crusher smirks, shaking his head. “I’m not lying for you, City.”
Rampage flips him off without looking away from his shot. The table cracks with a clean sink, and the laughter rolls back through the room. For a moment, it feels like nothing bad exists outside these walls.
I still write. Every night, once the laughter’s faded into a low rumble and the smoke’s thinned in the air, I pull out my laptop or notebook and type until my fingers ache. Most of it’s just organizing thoughts, but sometimes the pieces come together in ways the Saints’ own intel hasn’t yet.
That’s how I spot it. A single line in a local crime blotter, so small it would’ve slipped past anyone not already neck-deep in this world: Local business vandalized. Witnesses report a group of men in leather jackets with a winged skull patch.
The thing is that the winged skull isn’t the Saints.
It belongs to the Iron Cross, a rival MC that’s been circling like vultures.
And the location? A bar the Saints have used as an off-the-books meet spot for months.
I close my laptop, my pulse picking up. That wasn’t random.
The Iron Cross had to know about that meeting place recently.
The next day, I find Honor and City in the corner of the clubhouse, heads bent over a half-folded map and a list of addresses. I slide in without waiting for an invite.
“I think the Iron Cross have someone feeding them intel,” I say, laying the folded crime blotter clipping on the table. “They hit a spot only you guys should’ve known about. And they didn’t just hit it, they made sure the damage was visible enough for the news to catch.”
Honor’s eyes narrow as he scans the scrap of paper, his jaw tightening. City’s smirk fades into something sharper.
“You sure this wasn’t a coincidence?” City asks.
“Coincidences don’t wear another club’s colors,” I answer.
Honor leans back in his chair, gaze tracking slowly across the room. His posture shifts, more squared, less relaxed. The kind of stance a man takes when he’s cataloging exits and threats.
“If you’re right,” he says finally, “that means someone here is talking. And if they’re talking, they’re either stupid… or bought.”
City’s gaze follows Honor’s, drifting toward the far side of the room where the prospects are gathered around a dartboard. Their laughter sounds a little too loud now, too careless.
A couple of full members glance over mid-conversation, eyes flicking in that direction before returning to their drinks.
Without a word, one brother taps the neck of his beer bottle twice against the bar, a signal I’ve learned means eyes up.
Another sends a prospect toward the garage for “supplies,” a chore that’s really about getting him on camera.
“Stupid can get people killed,” City mutters, drumming his fingers on the table.
I glance at the prospects. Niko’s leaning against the wall near the jukebox, talking with Rampage. He’s laughing, but there’s a stiffness in his shoulders that doesn’t match his grin. Caine and his twin brother Nova are at the dartboard, but their eyes keep flicking toward the garage door.
“Who’s been closest to that location?” I ask.
Honor and City share a look. It’s quick, but it’s loaded.
“There are a few options,” Honor says finally, his voice low enough that I have to lean in to hear. “But the one I don’t like is real close to your man.”
The words land heavily. The bass from the jukebox thumps in time with my pulse, each beat a little too hard.
Heat prickles under my collar, and the whiskey in my glass tastes flat, like my mouth’s gone dry.
I keep my face still, but my body’s already telling on me. “You’re saying someone near Crusher?”
“I’m saying,” Honor cuts in, “that if this is true, we have to be careful. We don’t spook ’em. We watch. We wait. And when they slip up…” He lets the sentence trail off, but the promise in his eyes is clear.
City leans back, eyes narrowing. “Patterns don’t lie, sweetheart. We’ve seen this before, and it’s never the guy you want it to be.”
The air in the room shifts. Conversations don’t stop, but they dip.
A few of the brothers lean closer to each other, voices lowering, while others subtly reposition, backs to walls, eyes scanning.
No one says anything out loud, but the easy sprawl of the room is gone, replaced with a tighter, more contained energy.
One of the Honeys notices the change and drifts toward the bar, dragging two prospects with her like a lure on a line. Their laughs are too loud, the way people get when they’re covering nerves.
Crusher laughs at something Steel says, head tipping back, a sound rich enough to cut through the tension for a second. He doesn’t see the shift happening around him.
City leans back, a grin creeping in, but his eyes stay cold. “Looks like the break’s over, darlin’. Back to the fun part.”
Across the room, Caine catches Honor watching and quickly looks away, his shoulders tensing for half a second before he forces himself back into the game. The reaction’s small. But Honor clocks it. So does City.
“Could be him,” City murmurs.
Honor’s gaze cuts across the room again, slow and deliberate, and this time his eyes land not just on the prospects but on Niko.
The kid’s leaning against the wall near the jukebox, talking with Rampage. He’s laughing, but there’s a stiffness in his shoulders that doesn’t match his grin. Like he knows eyes are on him and he’s pretending not to feel it.
“Could be Niko,” Honor replies, eyes never leaving the jukebox.
City notices too. “Huh.” It’s not much, but the sound is loaded. “He was running errands for Crusher last week, right?”
My stomach knots. “Niko? No. He,” I stop myself. I don’t know what he was doing those days. I only know he’s one of the few people Crusher actually talks to outside the core officers.
Honor doesn’t look at me. “We’re not saying anything yet. Just watching.”
But the shift in the room deepens. Tiny tells, nothing a stranger would notice. Brothers choosing seats with clear lines of sight. City leans back in his chair, keeping his right hand close to the knife clipped to his belt.
And through it all, I can feel the weight of what they’re not saying. If Niko’s the leak, it’s not just a breach. It’s personal.
I glance at Crusher again, deep in conversation with Steel, unaware of the thread tightening around someone under his wing. My throat feels tight. Whether Niko’s guilty or not, this club will eat its own if it has to.
And as the laughter and music fill the air again, I can’t shake the thought. Next time the Saints draw blood, it might be from the inside.
I glance down at the clipping again, that little line of text I almost missed, and my gut tells me this is bigger than a prospect trying to impress the wrong crowd. This is a crack in the walls of the Saints’ world, and I just helped put a spotlight on it.