Irish (Flaming Skulls MC: East Coast Chapter #10)

Prologue

Irish

The compound didn't feel victorious; it felt hollow, as though whatever satisfaction we should have taken from surviving the night had burned away with the buildings around us.

The smoke had thinned enough for the morning sun to push through the blackened timbers, casting long beams across broken walls and collapsed roofs, but the smell refused to leave.

The air carried the mingled scents of burned wood, melted plastic, blood, chemicals, and wet earth from the fire crews who had spent half the night keeping the flames from reaching the surrounding trees.

Every breath carried the reminder that men and women had lived—and died—here believing they were serving something holy.

Now the only sermons left were the crackle of dying embers and the distant hum of generators powering floodlights over the crime scene.

I stood near what had once been the administrative building, watching Cipher move between folding tables covered in laptops, hard drives, and cardboard boxes filled with paperwork.

His fingers never stopped moving, transferring files, cloning drives, photographing documents before bagging them for later review.

Steel had assembled half the club into an organized search team while the remaining brothers swept the property one last time for hidden rooms and escape tunnels.

Storm and Raze had already disappeared beneath the main building with two prospects, checking another section of the underground passages she'd discovered during the assault.

Remedy knelt several yards away beside one of the rescued women, speaking softly while Sunshine wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

Harbor House would have more residents by nightfall, far more than any of us wanted to see added to the growing number of survivors already under our protection.

The silence around the compound wasn't peaceful so much as exhausted, the kind that followed a night when everyone had already spent whatever anger and adrenaline they possessed.

Steel emerged from the remains of the office carrying three weathered leather ledgers beneath one arm and a metal lockbox in the other. Dirt streaked his forearms, and soot darkened one side of his face, making the fresh cut above his eyebrow stand out even more.

"I found these stuffed behind a false panel."

Cipher barely looked up.

"Anything useful?"

"Depends."

Steel dropped the ledgers onto the folding table with a dull thud before opening the first one.

"I've got names."

He flipped another page.

"Maybe."

Another.

"Or maybe not."

Toxic walked over, wiping his hands on a rag before tossing it aside.

"What've you got?"

Steel frowned down at the pages.

"I don't know."

That answer alone earned everyone's attention.

Steel wasn't a man who admitted uncertainty often.

He turned the book around so the rest of us could see.

Instead of names or addresses, every page was covered with columns of symbols, letters, numbers, and handwritten marks that looked random until you realized they repeated in deliberate patterns.

Cipher leaned closer.

"I've never seen encryption formatted like that."

"It isn't encryption," Steel muttered.

"I don't think."

He opened the second ledger.

"Same thing."

Then the third.

"Every damn page."

Cipher adjusted his glasses before enlarging one of the photographs he'd already taken.

"No legends."

"No references."

"No key."

Steel rubbed the back of his neck.

"I've dealt with drug routes."

He tapped one column.

"Gun shipments."

Another.

"Money laundering."

Another.

"Trafficking."

He looked at Toxic.

"I've been doing this a long damn time."

Then he slowly shook his head.

"I've never seen shipping codes like these."

No one spoke as I continued staring at the page, my attention fixed on one small symbol most people would have dismissed as decorative. I knew better. It was a port identifier, one I had spent years pretending I had forgotten along with everything else connected to that part of my life.

Without thinking, I heard myself speak.

"That's because they're not for here."

The words cut through the room.

Every head turned toward me.

Steel's eyebrows lifted slightly.

"What do you mean?"

I stepped forward, picking up the ledger.

The leather felt older than it should have, as though the ledger had been handled too many times and hidden too carefully to contain anything harmless.

I flipped through several pages, each one tightening the knot already forming in my chest as dates, transfers, and rotations began creating a pattern I understood.

They weren't describing cargo at all. They were describing people—women, children, and entire families disappearing from one location only to reappear somewhere else under different identifiers.

The Order hadn't been moving products across borders and oceans.

They had been systematically relocating their own people.

Toxic watched me for a long moment.

"You know what you're looking at."

It wasn't a question.

I nodded once.

"They're shipping manifests."

Steel folded his arms.

"For where?"

My thumb moved across another symbol, then another port and another route, each one pulling up a memory I had spent years refusing to revisit.

"They cross the Atlantic."

The table fell silent.

Raze climbed out of the basement entrance with Storm just in time to hear the last sentence.

Storm frowned.

"Atlantic?"

Someone behind me asked the obvious question.

"England?"

I slowly shook my head.

"No."

Steel's voice grew quieter.

"Then where?"

The answer settled in my chest like stone because the route wasn't leading anywhere in America, the Carolinas, or the world I had built with the club. It was leading toward a place I had spent years convincing myself no longer belonged to me.

I closed the ledger.

"Home."

A heavy silence settled around us, different from the uncertainty that had filled the compound only moments earlier because everyone understood that one word had changed the direction of the investigation.

I could feel every pair of eyes on me. Most of the brothers knew I was Irish, but very few knew anything about the life I had lived before joining the club, and I had worked hard to keep it that way.

Toxic broke the silence first.

"Talk."

I exhaled slowly.

"I've seen these before. Years ago."

"When?"

"Before America."

Steel looked at the symbols again.

"You can read them?"

"Aye."

The word slipped out before I caught it.

My accent always thickened when memories got too close.

"They're old maritime routing marks."

I pointed to one corner of the page.

"This one's Liverpool."

Another.

"Holyhead."

Another.

"Dublin."

My finger stopped over the final symbol.

"Cork."

Storm looked between me and the ledger.

"So the Order isn't just here."

"No."

I met Toxic's eyes.

"It never was."

The realization settled over every man standing there.

Everything we'd fought and uncovered—the compounds, the rescues, and every death along the way—had belonged to only one branch of something far larger than any of us had realized.

Toxic reached for the ledger, studying it for another long moment before handing it back to me.

"How long would it take you to get there?"

I already knew what he was asking.

"I can be wheels up tonight."

Steel looked at him.

"Toxic—"

He held up a hand.

"No."

His eyes never left mine.

"You've spent years watching our backs."

He stepped closer.

"Now it's our turn to watch yours."

I said nothing.

Because I already knew where this was going.

"You're going home."

The word hit harder coming from someone else.

"You'll find out how deep this thing runs."

He glanced around the yard before pointing toward the clubhouse parking lot where the bikes waited.

"You won't be doing it alone."

His gaze settled on Trigger.

The massive brother looked up from checking ammunition magazines.

"You're with him."

Trigger gave one sharp nod.

"Done."

Toxic looked toward the younger man helping Cipher organize evidence.

"Hawkeye."

The prospect straightened immediately.

"Yes, Pres."

"Time to start earning your patch."

The kid's eyes widened before determination replaced the surprise.

"Yes, sir."

Then Toxic turned toward Storm and Raze.

"You two started this trail."

Storm folded her arms.

"I've already got passports."

A few of the brothers chuckled.

Raze didn't. He simply looked at Toxic.

"We'll go."

"I figured."

Toxic finally looked back at me.

"You know the roads. You also know the people and what we’re walking into."

I opened my mouth to argue but he cut me off before I could.

"And before you tell me you work better alone..."

His expression hardened.

"...I'm telling you no."

The word landed with the weight only a president could give it.

"Whatever's waiting for you over there..."

He glanced at the ledger still in my hands.

"...it isn't yours to carry by yourself."

For the first time in twenty years, I wasn't sure I believed anyone could help me carry what waited on the other side of the Atlantic, but for the first time in almost as long, I wanted to believe it.