Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Slayer
Since making the move into Jersey’s place, life has found a steady, grounding tempo.
I wake up, share a meal with my family, and then head to the clubhouse or the cemetery to handle club business, usually finishing the day by grabbing a cold one with the brothers or hauling ass straight back home.
We have our coffee on the porch as the sun bleeds over the horizon, grounding ourselves before the chaos of the day takes hold.
The routine isn’t just for us, though, it’s the lifeline that keeps Boston and Carolina steady.
We fill our days with the simple, necessary acts of building a home.
Jersey has become the woman holding my world together, and I’m the man who’ll do whatever it takes to keep it that way.
Even with those Dragon assholes lurking, the sense of permanence here is undeniable.
I’ve moved my belongings into our shared space, trading the solitude of my room for a life that includes boots by the door and a family at the table, just as she envisioned.
Right now, however, we’re in church, the air thick with stale smoke and the heavy vibration of voices as we share intel that’s been gathered on Jerome, Patrick, and his fucking bitch of a mother, the councilwoman.
That woman is a piece of work, a predator in a pearl necklace who thinks her title makes her untouchable.
Technically, we’d like nothing more than to take her on ourselves and show her exactly what happens when you threaten the Kings, but she’s too high on the food chain for us to take her out and it not blow up in the media.
We have to be smart, surgical, and patient.
Indiana takes a draw of his cigarette, releasing a thick plume of smoke that curls toward the ceiling as he taps his fingers steadily on the scarred surface of the table.
The sound is sharp, a staccato punctuation in the heavy silence that follows his words.
“How do you think the governor would take it knowing that the woman he put in charge of the town is selling drugs to his seventeen year old son?”
The room goes deathly still, the air thick with the implications of the information we’ve spent weeks unearthing.
Some of our trusted allies scourged the professor's office and apartment he kept near the college to maintain his professional image. They found years worth of documentation, including a journal, that broke the seal on the inner workings of the outfit because it laid out the blueprint for their expansion, fueled by the very corruption the councilwoman is now facilitating from her seat of power. Jerome’s bio dad was one of the founding fathers of the Devils, now Dragons, and he reared his son to become the cold, calculating man he is today.
Every file we cracked open revealed a new layer of filth, and I watch the brothers around the table absorb the weight of the leverage we now hold.
We’ve been looking for the one loose thread that’d finally unravel her protected world, that single point of failure in her carefully constructed political armor.
This isn’t just club business anymore, it’s the kind of high stakes leverage that could end this war with the Dragons without us ever having to pull a trigger in public.
It’s the kind of power that shifts the landscape of a town like Canton.
Especially if the dots we’re connecting link her directly to her son, Patrick, and his association with Jerome, the head of the misfit gang that’s been a constant thorn in our side since he took over the mantle and renamed them from the Devils to the Dragons.
This transformation was more than just a name change, it was a shift toward a more predatory and organized brand of chaos, something else we’ve discovered after taking out the professor and raiding his archives.
Riptide leans forward, the light from the ceiling fan catching the intensity in his eyes as they narrow, his mind clearly already calculating the tactical advantage of every piece of paper on the table.
We have to be shrewd about how we use this.
If we move too fast or show our hand too early, it blows up in the media, creates a spectacle we can't control, and brings the full, crushing weight of the law down on us. But played right, this intel on Jerome, Patrick, and his mother’s extracurricular activities could be the end of their treachery.
It’s the guillotine for their entire operation.
As Indiana exhales another thick cloud of smoke and the brothers begin to murmur their agreement, I realize the light at the end of the tunnel for my family, for Jersey, Boston, and Carolina, isn't just a hope anymore, it's a certainty.
We finally have the teeth to finish this.
“Nova, call your man in the feds, set up a meet for me.”
“What are you thinking, Rip?” I ask, leaning forward and looking down at the printed out documents he has in front of him.
Riptide doesn’t answer right away. He taps a heavy finger on a photograph of the councilwoman entering a high-end restaurant with a man we’ve identified as a key distributor for the Dragons.
“I’m thinking that we don’t just have enough to bury her, we have enough to force the Dragons into a corner they can’t fight their way out of,” he rumbles, his voice like grinding stones.
He looks around the table, his gaze lingering on each of us.
“If we hand this over to Nova’s federal contact, we aren’t just snitching.
We’re providing the fuel for a RICO case that will incinerate everything Jerome and Patrick have built. ”
The weight of his words settles over the room.
For months, we’ve been playing defense, keeping our old ladies and kids behind gated walls while the Dragons tried to bleed us dry.
Now, the tide is finally turning. I think of Jersey back at the trailer, the way she finally started to breathe again, and the peace I’ve found waking up beside her.
If this works, the lockdown isn’t just softened, it’s over.
“If the feds move in on the councilwoman, the Dragons will scramble,” Indiana points out, crushing his cigarette into the ashtray. “Jerome isn’t the type to go down with the ship. He’ll try to burn the evidence, which means he’ll be coming for those files we took from the professor.”
“Let them come,” Icer growls, his first contribution to the meeting. His hands, the size of dinner plates, are folded on the table, and the look in his eyes says he’s more than ready for a final confrontation.
Riptide nods at Nova. “Get that meeting set. I want the agent in a neutral location by tonight.” He then turns to me, his expression softening just a fraction.
“Slayer, keep your head on a swivel. If Jerome realizes we have the governor’s son in these documents, he’s going to get desperate.
Make sure Jersey and the kids are tucked in tight. ”
“Always,” I promise, the word a vow that echoes in the quiet room. I’ve paid my price in blood to keep them safe, and I’m ready to do it again if the storm breaks before the feds can close the net.
Pissed doesn’t even describe how I’m feeling about being left behind while Riptide, Shade, Nova, and Indiana go to meet with Nova’s contact, the man who helped him rescue and keep his old ladies, Chainey and Freyja safe from their serial killer father.
I understand the strategic necessity of staying back to fortify the compound, but my skin is crawling with a restless energy that makes staying still feel like an impossible task.
My place is at the table or on the road with my brothers, not loitering in the shadows while they face the music with the feds.
Every minute they’re gone is another minute I’m left staring at the heavy iron gates, listening for the roar of their engines.
I’ve always been the shield, the one who takes the hits and clears the path, and being sidelined when the stakes are this high feels like a physical blow to my pride.
Riptide made it clear that my primary objective is the safety of the unit here, especially with Boston and Carolina finally finding their footing, but the warrior in me is screaming for me to be on the front lines, next to my president where I belong.
The air on the compound feels stagnant, heavy with the weight of what’s happening in that neutral meeting location.
“Slayer,” I hear Jersey call my name as she comes up behind me from the area where I’ve been steadily pacing since they left. “I brought you some water. You’ve been out here for hours without anything to drink.”
I stop, my boots grinding against the gravel as I turn to face her.
The irritation that was boiling in my gut softens the second my eyes find hers.
She looks small against the backdrop of the compound, but the steady way she’s holding that glass shows the strength she’s found since moving in with me.
I take the water, my fingers brushing hers, and the contact anchors me to the reality of why I’m standing guard in the first place.
My brothers are handling the feds, but I’m protecting the peace we’ve fought so damn hard to find inside these gates.
I trust Nova’s federal contact to play it straight, especially given their history with rescuing his women, but in our world, trust is a fragile thing that can be shattered by a single misstep.
The wait is a jagged edge, sawing at my nerves until I’m ready to snap at the first thing that moves.
Every distant siren or squeal of tires on the main road has my hand dropping to the grip of the nine mil tucked into my waistband.
I’m the VP, the one who’s supposed to be the calm in the eye of the storm, but being sidelined while the future of this club is being bartered in some backroom meeting has my stomach turning in knots.
“Thanks, baby,” I say as I take a gulp, nearly drinking the entire glass before handing it back to her. “You should be inside.”
She doesn’t budge. She stays right there, her gaze searching mine, seeing the map of the fading bruises I’m still sporting and the exhaustion I’m trying to mask.
“Boston and Carolina are sleeping,” she tells me, her voice a soft, grounding vibration in the humid air.
“The compound is quiet, Slayer. You don’t have to carry the whole weight of the clubhouse on your shoulders tonight.
” I want to believe her, want to let the tension bleed out of my frame and just be the man who shares her bed, but until those gates hiss open and my brothers roll through, I’m a King first and a man second.
“You should be sleeping too, beautiful,” I remark, sliding my finger across her cheekbone, admiring her beauty.
I can see the fatigue etched into the corners of her eyes, a reflection of the long days she spends molding young minds.
The moonlight catches the silver glint of her gaze as she looks up at me, and for a second, the heavy weight of the club and the impending meeting with the feds feels like it’s a lifetime away.
She’s the peace I never knew I was looking for, a soft place to land in a world that’s mostly made of rough edges and broken promises.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispers, leaning into my touch. “Every time I closed my eyes, I was listening for the sound of their bikes. I know you’re out here, and I know why you’re pacing, Slayer. You don’t have to do this alone,” she reiterates.
“I’m never alone when I have you, Jersey girl,” I counter, my voice dropping to that guttural tenor that always seems to make her breath hitch.
I want to tell her that she’s the reason I’m still standing, the reason I survived that ring and the reason I’m so damn determined to see this war through to the end.
But for now, I just hold her close, the warmth of her body a shield against the darkness.
We stand there in the quiet of the compound, the only sound in the background is the chirp of the crickets and the distant, muffled noise coming from the clubhouse.
I told her that we had some information that could give us the upper hand, I didn’t go into details because that’s not something I want her involved in or thinking about, but I gave her enough to help her sleep better at night.