27. The Devils Crown
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE DEVILS CROWN
CRUSHER
The clubhouse doesn’t breathe right tonight. It’s not loud like usual, no brawling over pool scores or Honeys climbing into laps. It’s quieter. Every laugh cuts off a second too early. Every glance has too much weight behind it.
Niko’s the worst of it. He’s moving like he has glass in his boots.
Too quick to volunteer for nothing tasks, too slow to make eye contact.
He keeps wiping his palms on his worn jeans every time someone talks near him.
At one point, I catch him near the back hallway, half-turned toward the exit like he’s considering making a run for it.
“Niko,” I call.
He jumps like I fired a round at his head. “Yeah, VP?”
“Something wrong?”
He shakes his head, “No, sir. Just a long day.” His eyes move past me, over my shoulder toward Nevaeh. The knot that’s been growing in my gut all day clinches tight.
“Go rack out,” I tell him, watching every muscle in his face fight to play it cool. “Church at zero-nine-hundred.”
We don’t normally have prospects or hang arounds in Church, but this is a special meeting to weed out who is loyal and who isn’t.
Niko nods, slips out of the hallway, and disappears toward the prospect wing.
When I turn, Nevaeh’s at the bar talking with City.
City glances at me, then flicks his attention toward the hallway Niko disappeared down.
A silent question passes between us. You see it too?
I nod once. Nevaeh must see everything on my face because she quiets mid-sentence and slides off the barstool to meet me halfway.
With everything going on with the Club, I should stay close by, so going to my place isn’t an option tonight. “You ready to head to my room?” I ask.
Nevaeh doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”
She says goodnight to City. City doesn’t smirk or tease like he usually would. He just clasps my shoulder when I pass. Hard. Solid. Translation: Watch your six.
Inside my room, Nevaeh drops her jacket on the chair and takes her boots off like she’s done it a thousand times. The sight shouldn’t hit as hard as it does, but it does, like she’s already carved herself into this place, and I didn’t even notice when it happened.
She pauses in the bathroom doorway. “You alright?”
I should tell her. Should warn her that the club’s leaning toward fracture, that Niko’s got panic in his eyes, and a target painted on his back. Instead, I step forward and frame her face with my hands. “Yeah,” I lie. “Just tired.”
She doesn’t believe me. But she lets it be.
We fall into bed with our clothes half on, wrapped in each other like we can lock the world out with the press of skin. She falls asleep first. I stay awake a little longer, listening to her breathe and staring at the ceiling like it might tell me whether we’re about to lose everything.
At some point, exhaustion wins, and I drag her close enough that her legs tangle with mine, her hand resting over my heart.
For a few hours, the knot eases. Until morning. The sun barely touches the blinds when my eyes snap open. Instinct, sharp and cold. Nevaeh’s side of the bed is empty.
Sheets cooling.
I’m already up, pulling on jeans, when my phone buzzes with Honor’s message:
NIKO GONE.
BIKE’S NOT HERE.
My blood turns to ice.
I bolt through the clubhouse, heart in my throat, calling, “Nevaeh!”
No answer.
The front door is cracked open, and sunlight slices across the asphalt. And just like that, every nightmare I’ve ever had pulls up a chair at the table.
The front door swings under my hand and slams against the wall hard enough to rattle the glass. Sunlight knives across the worn boards of the porch and straight through me.
No Nevaeh.
No Niko.
Just the low hum of a familiar engine idling halfway down the service road.
Rock stands beside his own bike, eyes narrowed, phone in his hand. “I just pinged his phone,” he says before I can speak. “Signal’s five miles south and moving.”
“Moving where?”
Rock turns the screen to me. GPS dot sliding toward the old rail yard. Toward the Iron Cross turf.
I don’t remember sprinting back into the clubhouse, but I’m there. The door hits the wall, brothers are already on their feet. Steel’s halfway down the hall, gun in hand like he knew before I did.
“Niko?” he growls.
“Gone.” My voice feels like it’s coming from somewhere outside me. “And Nevaeh’s missing.”
The room reacts in one sharp, collective motion. Chairs scrape back, weapons unclip, patches thrown on over bare shoulders. No questions. No delays.
City checks the mag on his Glock, jaw ticking. “Knew that kid was twitchy.”
“No,” I bite out, grabbing the maps off the wall. “He’s not running. He’s delivering.”
The weight of that lands hard. Nobody argues.
Steel pulls on his helmet. “Mount up. We catch them before they clear the county line.”
The yard erupts into controlled chaos. Engines coughing to life, metal colliding with metal as shotgun pumps and mag catches click into place. Dust kicks up in clouds as twenty bikes hit the asphalt in formation.
I ride point.
The others fall in behind me. Rock and Steel on my flanks, City and Rampage tight behind, every man leaning into the ride like the road itself might try to steal us before we get there.
The wind roars in my ears, but all I hear is the echo of her voice. “I’m not running.” Hold on, baby. Just hold on.
We cut across the old industrial road. Rusted rail cars on one side, chain-link fences on the other. And then I see it. Iron Cross colors moving at the far end of the cracked blacktop. Two vans. One bike.
Headed for the warehouses.
“Visual,” I growl into the comm. “That’s Niko’s bike behind the second van.”
Steel’s voice is sharp in my ear. “We pinch them at the junction. Rock, take the left flank. Rampage with Crusher. City, back line. No one slips past.”
Engines snarl as the boys peel off and hammer forward. The driver in the first van clocks us too late as he tries to punch the accelerator and swing left.
Rampage is already unloading his gun. Bullets slam into the van’s rear quarter panel. It swerves, clips a rusted dumpster, spins, and then comes to a sudden stop.
The back doors fly open, and Nevaeh stumbles out. The tank top and shorts she slept in last night are torn and have spots of blood on them. Her hands are zip-tied in front of her. There’s blood dried on her temple. Her eyes are wide, but she’s alive.
One of the Iron Cross grabs her arm, dragging her up and over a concrete divider. Nevaeh’s eyes lock onto mine, and she screams as he forces her to follow him.
I don’t remember getting off my bike. One second, I’m riding. Next, my boots hit the asphalt, and I’m moving. The pistol raised, finger squeezing the trigger.
The Iron Cross chest kicks back in a spray of red.
Nevaeh drops to her knees. I skid in behind her, arm around her waist, dragging her behind the burnt-out truck as bullets chew into the metal.
Her breath is ragged. “I tried to run. They…”
“It’s okay. You did good. Stay down.” I soothe. My heart is finally slowing down in my chest, knowing she’s alive.
More gunfire cracks through the yard. Rock’s rifle is barking in controlled bursts. City is kneeling behind an old railcar car sending rounds into the van windshield. An Iron Cross tries to flank, but Steel drops him with a single shot like it’s nothing more than routine.
“Where’s Niko?” I ask her, loading another round in my pistol.
Her eyes flick toward the second van. “He didn’t fight them. He led them.”
Every muscle in my body goes tight. “Stay here.”
I push up from cover and sprint toward the open van. Niko’s inside, crouched behind the driver’s seat, pistol shaking in his hand.
He sees me.
His mouth opens like he’s about to apologize, like any word is gonna change what he did.
I fire. One shot. Center mass.
He falls back against the van wall, eyes wide, blood blooming across his chest. He doesn’t reach for his gun. Doesn’t move at all.
Outside, Steel calls, “Clear!”
The silence that follows isn’t relief. Its aftermath.
I holster the gun and move back to Nevaeh. She’s trying to tug the zip-ties off herself, blood running down her cheek, hands trembling but still steady.
I drop to my knees in front of her, cutting the ties with my knife. She grabs my wrist as soon as her hands are free, hard. Like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
“Hey,” I murmur, pushing her hair back, trying like hell to steady my own voice. “I’ve got you.”
She nods, but her eyes are bright with something that hurts to look at. Fear, yes, but trust too. Trust that wrecks me because I almost lost her.
Steel moves past us, glancing down at Niko’s body with a hard, cold expression. He doesn’t say anything. Just gives me one sharp nod.
Job done.
The brothers start loading weapons back into saddlebags, checking each other for wounds. Rock lights a cigarette with fingers that still shake. City kicks one of the van's tires with his boot and mutters something vicious under his breath.
Draft lights up a joint and passes it to Rampage and then Throttle. Steel, Hurricane, and Honor wait patiently for Nevaeh to get her bearings.
I help Nevaeh to her feet. She leans into me, silent and iron-willed as ever, but her knees shake once. I wrap my arm around her waist.
“Let’s go home,” I say. She doesn’t answer. She just presses her forehead to my shoulder and breathes.
The ride back feels nothing like the ride out.
There’s no formation, no chatter on comms. Just engines growling low and steady while the sun climbs slowly over blood-stained asphalt.
Nevaeh rides in front of me this time, safely in Steel’s truck with Nova driving and Caine riding shotgun.
She’s still shaking, and I need her surrounded by steel and brothers while I keep the rest of the road clear.
I follow behind on my bike.
I can still feel her hands on my skin. I can still taste gunpowder in the back of my throat. I can see Niko’s face when the round hit, that flicker, like he knew he’d made the wrong choice and it was too late to undo it.
He was just a kid. But he took her, and I’d do it again.