Chapter 2
Reaper
Iwasn’t supposed to be there. That had been the deal the Dead Knights and I had agreed to.
We’d stay clear of the funeral and pay our respects our way later that evening at the clubhouse, with a bottle of Jameson in hand, Caleb’s kutte laid across the bar, and stories we’d only tell in the dark.
No suits. No flowers. No lies. That wasn’t the way we did things.
But there I was, parked two blocks out, engine off, helmet hanging on the handlebar.
The silence was too loud in my ears. I’d waited ‘til the priest started mumbling his final words before I slipped in from behind the rusted fence, heart pounding like I was seventeen again and about to throw my first punch for the club.
I’d tucked Caleb’s kutte under my hoodie and walked the long way around the cemetery, circling trees and ducking behind gravestones until I found the one funeral that looked more performance than pain.
When everyone had their eyes closed in prayer, I snuck Caleb’s kutte onto the top of the casket, under the flowers so it wouldn’t stick out. No one noticed me. No one looked.
That should have been it. I should have turned and walked away, but there was one person in attendance I couldn’t tear my gaze away from. Lucy.
Caleb always swore she was happy to be gone from this town, free of their parents and their warped life. I believed him. Hell, I’d counted on it. She had always been too good for the life she’d been dragged up in.
She stood across the grave, grief carved into every line of her body.
She hadn’t gone soft, not one bit. If anything, the years had sharpened her.
Her curves hit like a sucker punch as her dark brown hair tossed in the breeze, copper strands catching the sun until it looked like flames were licking through.
She was glass and hellfire, all at once.
I couldn’t stop staring, which was a fucking problem.
Because it wasn’t Jay looking at her anymore.
I wasn’t the kid who used to tease her, calling her ‘Little Kane’ when she’d storm after us with her fists clenched.
I was Reaper now, President of the Dark Knights MC.
Every look I gave carried weight, and every slip of control could become a weakness.
I stood under the shade of a crooked willow, watching as she hovered beside the casket. The rest of the mourners were already drifting back to their warm cars and polite finger sandwiches. Lucy stayed.
Then she saw the kutte.
My breath hitched as she stepped forward and touched the leather. His leather. The same kutte he’d bled in. The same one I pulled off his dead body the night we found him, slumped in that goddamn motel like he hadn’t asked to come home a month earlier.
He was our brother, and he was trying to come back, but someone had made damn sure he didn’t make it.
I thought it was a warning from someone on the inside or just close enough to know our moves. That’s why we weren’t at the funeral. Keep quiet and keep our distance. Let the world believe he OD’d.
But I couldn’t stomach burying him without the colours he earned.
I watched as she traced the patch with her fingers, jaw tight, eyes burning. She’d pieced it together faster than I expected. Ghost didn’t overdose. He didn’t give up. Someone had made sure he didn’t come home.
Now, Lucy would be looking for blood. She stepped back to her car then turned like she knew someone was watching her, and that’s when her gaze caught mine, like a gunshot to the chest.
Those eyes hadn’t changed, not even after all this time. Still that same storm grey, but now with something new behind them. Purpose. Maybe even fury. I wasn’t sure if it was aimed at the world . . . or at me. Maybe both.
I didn’t flinch, didn’t move. I let her look. Let her know I was there, that I’d always been there for Caleb.
She turned away, got into her car, and locked the doors like it would help. I watched her drive off, tires spitting gravel.
I stood there for another full minute, listening to the silence Caleb left behind. Then I pulled my kutte tighter across my shoulders, fingers gripping the worn leather like it could keep me steady.
“Rest easy, brother,” I muttered, “but we both know this ain’t over.”
Because Lucy was going to start digging, and I’d be damned if I let her do it alone. Not when the people responsible might be wearing the same patch I had on my back. Not when she might end up in a grave beside him if she pushed too hard, too fast. Not when I owed Caleb more than silence.
I turned back towards the willow, fading into the shadows like the Reaper I was named after.
I rolled in just before dusk, engines already roaring out back as the guys geared up for the ride we were supposed to take after the funeral.
I parked beside Boxer’s bike and killed the engine. Silence settled in my chest like a loaded gun as my fingers drummed against the handlebars, still feeling the weight of Lucy’s stare.
I hadn’t told anyone I was going to the cemetery.
If they found out I’d slipped the kutte onto Caleb’s casket, there’d be questions.
But screw ‘em. That kutte was his. He’d bled for it, same as the rest of us.
He may have left for a while, but he was trying to come home when he died, so I owed him that much.
“Pres!” Boxer’s voice boomed from the loading dock, already half-drunk. He was leaning against a stack of beer crates, patched vest open, chest straining under a black Dead Knights T-shirt. “You ready to ride, or you planning to sit there brooding like a goddamn poet?”
I slid off my bike, tossing him a grin I didn’t feel. “Maybe I don’t feel like riding for a brother we buried in lies.”
His smile faltered. “You know how this works,” he muttered, straightening. “Cops say overdose, we let ‘em. No heat on us. No war with some ghost hitman no one’s even sure exists.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
His eyes narrowed. “Pres?”
I pushed past him and headed for the doors.
The metal creaked as I shoved them open, revealing the low-lit chaos inside.
The clubhouse reeked of smoke and cheap perfume.
Tattoo guns buzzed in the corner as our new girl and tattooist, Raven, was inking Link.
A couple of club girls were laughing too loud near the bar.
Everyone wore a version of the same lie, that they’re tough and invincible, but I could feel the shift.
Two deaths, too close together. First, Diesel got taken down whilst receiving a shipment, then Caleb’s death, mere weeks after he’d asked me if he could come back. They had left a crack in the place, something that made me feel hollow inside.
Riot sat at the bar, hands resting lightly on the weathered wood, shades on despite the dim lighting.
My VP was a stone-faced bastard, always three steps ahead of everyone and paranoid enough to stay alive that long.
His fingers tapped once, twice, then went still, which was Riot’s version of a warning bell.
He clocked me the second I stepped in. “Pres,” he greeted.
“Riot.”
He didn’t move. “You were supposed to be at the clubhouse.”
“I needed air.”
“You find what you were looking for?”
A tense silence stretched between us.
I shrugged. “Didn’t know I was looking.”
He snorted like he didn’t believe a damn word but didn’t push either. That’s how Riot worked. He let the rope hang just long enough to see who’d use it to climb or hang themselves.
My jaw clenched until it ached.
Riot followed my eyes. “You think we’re not doing enough?”
“I don’t think he overdosed.”
He didn’t flinch. “You think someone made it look that way?”
“I think Caleb tried to come back. Then he ended up dead in a motel with enough Oxy in his system to drop a bull elephant.” I stepped forward. “He was scared, Riot. Said someone was watching him.”
“We’re always being watched.”
“Not like this.”
He studied me for a long beat then leaned in, voice lower now. “You think it was one of us?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to say it out loud. Didn’t want to believe it could be true, but Riot saw it in my eyes anyway.
“You’re not the only one asking questions,” he said. “But if you start stirring the pot too fast, you’re gonna end up on someone’s list too.”
“Maybe I already am.”
He nodded once. “Then don’t be stupid.”
I turned away before he could say more, walking towards the hallway that led to the back rooms.
“Hey, Pres, want some company?” Gabby came out the ladies’ bathroom, her eyes lighting up when she saw me. I tried to step aside, not in the mood for her shit, but she stood in the way.
“Not tonight.”
She trailed a finger up my chest. “C’mon, Reaper. You look like you need it, and I know how you like it.”
“I said no.”
Her grin turned teasing. “Or maybe you’re scared you’ll like it too much.”
That was it. My hand shot up, catching her wrist, not hard enough to hurt but enough to stop her.
“Gabby,” I said, “you don’t want to push me tonight.”
The corridor seemed smaller, quieter. She pulled her hand back slow, eyes searching mine for whatever had crawled under my skin. She must’ve seen it because she stepped aside without another word.
Caleb’s old room hadn’t been touched since he left. No one wanted it ‘cause of superstition and ghosts. I stopped at the door, ran my hand over the handle, and took a deep breath before I pushed it open.
It had the same faded posters on the wall and reaper flag above the bed. The photo of him and Lucy was still taped to the mirror, him in his kutte and her with smudged mascara and a crooked smile.
I sat on the edge of his bed, feeling the weight of his death settle over me.
Lucy was about to dig deep into a world she didn’t understand.
She was smart, but she was also walking blind into a situation that could end up with her dead next.
I hadn’t wanted her in it, but the kutte was the only way.
If I went to her outright, the brothers would smell it on me.
Better she came looking on her own, even if it killed me to watch her step into the fire.
I stood, grabbed the small lockbox from under Caleb’s bed—the one only he and I knew about—and cracked it open with the code he’d once given me whilst drunk off his ass, during a run to Reno.
Inside the box was a burner phone, a few photos, a slip of paper with a list of names I didn’t recognize, and a note addressed to me scrawled in Caleb’s untidy handwriting. A note that I had read a thousand times since hearing of his death.
If anything happens to me, start here. Trust no one, not even the ones wearing your patch. There’s another box for my sister, Lucy, stored in the place I like to be.
I stared at the note until the edges blurred then folded it, slipped it into my kutte, and closed the box, sliding it back under the bed.
I lay back on the bed and shut my eyes, the weight pressing down on my chest until it hurt to breathe.
With the pain came memories I’d spent years trying to bury.
Seven years back . . . the Dead Knights bar.
Caleb had dragged me out, swearing I needed to “earn my stripes” if I ever wanted a real shot with the club, no matter who my father was. Smoke was thick as tar, fists slammed on tables, and laughter was loud enough to deafen.
Then Lucy walked in.
Eighteen, eyeliner sharp as a blade, boots too big, chin tipped up. She wasn’t supposed to be there. Caleb knew it. I knew it. But Christ, the second I saw her, something lit up inside me.
I played it cool, called her ‘Little Kane’ the way I always did, as if she was just a kid tagging along. I ordered her a soda because no way in hell was I letting her drink anything poured in that place. But the truth? I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She sat across from me in the booth, legs curled under her, trying so hard to look like she belonged when she didn’t. She leaned in and whispered, “You don’t belong here either,” and I almost kissed her.
Almost.
But then Caleb came over, threw his arm around her shoulder, and pulled her away without a word. His eyes said it all: She’s mine to protect. Hands off.
So, I shoved it down and buried it under loyalty, leather, and silence.
But it never really died.
A year later, Caleb and I were parked outside town, passing a six-pack back and forth. It was an easy night of small talk until he dropped the grenade.
“Lucy’s leaving,” he said. “For good this time. Heading out tomorrow.”
I nodded like it meant nothing, as if it didn’t feel like someone was carving out my ribs. “Probably best.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. She doesn’t belong in this mess. I want her out while she’s still clean.”
I told him I agreed, but later, when we drove back, I didn’t go inside. I rode fast and hard until my lungs burned.Still, I ended up outside her apartment, helmet in my hands, like I had no control of my own damn bike.
She opened the door in sweatpants, hair tied up, looking surprised but not unhappy to see me. “Jay?” she whispered.
I wanted to tell her not to go. That I’d thought about her every day since that night at the bar. That she made the shit in my life feel like maybe it wasn’t all ruin.
Instead, I said, “So, it’s true? You’re running?”
Her jaw set. “I’m not running, I’m leaving. There’s a difference.”
I shrugged, acting cruel because I had to be. “Same thing. Don’t expect anyone here to miss you.”
The words tasted like poison, but I made myself say them. Watched them land. Watched her chin lift higher, even as her eyes flashed like I’d gutted her.
“Goodbye, Jay.”
She shut the door in my face.
I stood there, fists clenched, every muscle screaming to knock and take it back. But I didn’t. Because Caleb was right—she was better off far from here, far from me, far from the club that turned everything it touched into ash.
So, I climbed back on my bike, revved the engine, and left her behind.
Like a coward.