Chapter 1 #2
A sergeant with the Honolulu Narcotics Unit, Kayl was not as squeaky clean as his superiors believed him to be.
Tangaloa, Kayl, and I grew up together, and while he wasn’t in my club, he was on my payroll.
I paid him a hefty sum each month to pass on information that pertained to us and to turn a blind eye when needed.
When the club formed, we took over Tangaloa’s arms business, partnered with a local brothel, and bought a brewery to help launder our money.
Kayl might not be as close to us as Tangaloa and I were to each other, but he was still a friend.
Tangaloa looked back at me, anger blazing in his dark eyes. “He found proof Kahoku is the one who paid the Bloody Scorpions to shoot up your house.”
My blood lit with molten lava, Kū pounding in my soul for revenge.
Two months ago, my house was obliterated by gunfire while Lu, my baby niece Pua, and I were still inside.
It was only from my inability to sleep with boxers on, instead of in the nude, that saved us.
I heard the van pull down my drive in the middle of the night when no vehicles should have been moving around on my farm.
After discovering that the visitors were unwelcome, I was able to get Pua and Lu to safety before the gunfire started.
Everything, all our belongings, were destroyed.
Kahoku Hikialani wasn’t just some activist around these parts; he was the activist. And most of my club, including myself, Tommy, Spirit, Tangaloa, Neo, Mako, and Hops, had once worked for him.
Kahoku stood for home, for our way of life.
Which was why I had trouble wrapping my mind around the claim that he was involved in the drug trade here on the islands.
He called it the ‘haole poison’, and he despised drug dealers.
I’d killed a fair share of them on his orders.
But as Bacon, a former FBI agent, had pointed out, what better way was there to get rid of the competition?
And now I finally had the proof I needed before I went after him. It was only in deference to everything Kahoku had done for me over the years that I had not acted already. I needed that proof before I destroyed him.
Proof that I now had.
I turned my head and kissed Lu on the forehead. I would help her shower before laying her to bed, alone. “Tell Tommy to get his boat ready,” I told Tangaloa as I headed for the stairs. The manō would eat well tonight.
Whistles rang out upon the night as hot crimson splattered my face, the lifeless body of a man falling at my feet. Like the lore of the Night Marchers, I offered no mercy to those who had broken ancient law. Drenched in blood, the leather of my cut glistened more mahogany than black.
From the screams in the distance, I know the twins had the exterior guards handled.
I have never been able to tell them apart, though technically Harlan had the road name of Thing One and Sawyer had Thing Two.
Half the time, they both wore a Thing One or a Thing Two cut just to fuck with us.
They were as lethal as I was, and just as sadistic.
When they fought hand-to-hand, they wore gloves with small barbs dipped in tetrodotoxin that paralyzed their victims before slowly asphyxiating them.
Tangaloa and Tommy, the club’s Medic, preferred guns while Spirit, the club’s Tracker, and I had a penchant for a more brutally bloody approach.
Lu and I were a month out from our wedding.
She wasn’t thrilled with me leaving her as I did, the old fear from when I’d nearly died five years ago still fresh in her thoughts.
But I wasn’t alone as I had been five years ago.
Now, I had my club to guard my back, and we were powerful. Still, I would not leave Lu unguarded.
Bacon, my SAA, was there, as was his woman, Holly. I hadn’t yet figured out Holly’s past, though I pieced together that she’d been raped by more than one man. She was odd—to say the least—and I got the feeling that she knew more about killing than even I did.
Additionally, Saga and Tick, my Secretary and Treasurer, were at the mansion to provide extra protection. Neo was there, too, though they would be little help if it came to a fight. At four-eleven, they were better at sneaking into places than battling head on.
Lucifer, our Chaplain, was called away on business involving the community center he helped run north of Mililani.
Normally, club business took precedence.
There were very few exceptions to that rule, helping an abused woman and her children escape her psychotic boyfriend being one of them.
Lucifer could handle himself. Though a former priest, he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty when it came to protecting the innocent.
Still, I sent four of our five prospects, Mouse, Doodles, Beetle, and KD, with him just in case.
Barnacle, the fifth prospect, was currently guarding Tommy’s boat.
Kahoku lived in a secluded part of Kaua?i, the most northern island in the main island chain.
Unlike the others in the club who used to work for Kahoku, I had been to his home many times prior to our invasion.
His mountainous home was surrounded by foliage that was supposed to deter intruders, but he never thought it would be the Kama?āina that came for him.
Once upon a time, I helped guard his home. I believed in Kahoku—or rather believed in his cause. I thought his ideals the same as mine, to protect our ‘āina, our land, and keep it pure. While he’d always been eccentric, I never thought much of it because his intentions had always mirrored my own.
Until one of the Bloody Scorpions who had shot up my house muttered Kahoku’s name two months ago, I never would have believed he was involved in anything untoward.
Illegal, sure, but that was the price you paid when the laws of nature conflicted with the laws of man.
But drugs? Making deals with human traffickers who stole our people and shipped them around the world for the pleasures of evil men?
No. Never.
There aren’t many people in my world who I looked up to. For one, I was too awesome. For another, very few had earned that level of respect from me. Discovering indisputable proof that Kahoku paid to have me killed, Lu killed?
Until Kayl had called earlier this evening, a part of me was still been trying to figure out how the Bloody Scorpions could have framed Kahoku. Even Neo hadn’t been able to find much, but Kahoku also didn’t use technology as freely as most people did these days. In that, we were similar.
Kayl’s proof, the redhead who had paid the Bloody Scorpions on Kahoku’s behalf, was now hogtied on Tommy’s boat with Barnacle. To my utter astonishment, he had both of his hands. Although, he was missing his tongue.
A single kick from my bare foot splintered the front door, gaining me entry into the home. I let out a long, high-pitched whistle that echoed through the house like the bad omen it was.
Above all, I was pissed. I didn’t give a fuck who Kahoku was, who he used to be to me, or what I had once owed him.
He had nearly killed Lu! There was no excuse, no reason, no defense for that.
He would die tonight. Slowly, painfully.
I gave him the benefit of the doubt for nearly two months while searching for proof.
Never again. No one would ever get such a reprieve from my wrath again. Not when it came to Lu and certainly not when it came to my son.
Kahoku’s network was vast. The Hawai‘ian blood was stronger than any mountain and would stand the testament of time. These poor bastards had chosen this unlucky night to guard their master, their eyes shielded from the evil they protected.
But my eyes were wide open.
The ancient fighting style of Kapu Ku?ialua, or Lua, was sacred to my people. While more modern martial arts had come to the Islands over the last century, there are those who still live by our traditions.
My father was one of the select few, an ?ōlohe, who was chosen to become such a revered warrior. From the time I could walk, he drilled me in the ways of our ancestors. The most important lesson he taught me was that a Lua warrior never walked alone.
At his core, my father was a peaceful man.
He believed in the law of the ‘āina, our land, and balance in all things. After he disappeared following my mother’s funeral, I twisted his teachings, used them not to defend but to avenge.
I killed and maimed, caused harm to those who dared endanger my island.
I was cruel, and above all, I was deadly.
After my mother’s death and my father’s disappearance, I was beyond angry.
I saw it now: how blind I’d been to Kahoku’s charismatic ways, how he’d twisted my beliefs to heighten my anger.
If it hadn’t been for Lu leaving me and making me walk away from the life I’d been living, I might still be blind to it.
Man after man fell at my hand, and all the while I whistled. Tonight, I was as deadly as the Night Marchers, the procession of ghostly warriors who continued their duties even through the afterlife.
I wiped the blood that was running into my eyes as I came upon his study.
Even at this hour, this was where he would be.
Not only was it where he would feel the most powerful, it was where he kept his collection of weapons.
Many of which he’d purchased from Tangaloa.
The traditional Japanese house wasn’t massive, not like Bacon’s monstrosity.
Its outer walls were mostly made of glass, allowing an unending view of the horizon from any room.
The lattice and washi paper of the shoji door exploded in front of me.
I took cover behind a large potted umbrella tree just as another spray of buckshot tore through wood and paper.
Glancing around the surprisingly wide trunk, I watched Kahoku emerge from the wreckage of what had once been his door.