Chapter Seven
Firestride
The violent, insistent slamming of a fist against wood ripped through the suffocating stillness of my sleep, a raw, guttural sound that clawed at my ears.
My breath hitched and a strangled groan escaped my lips as I fought the leaden drag of unconsciousness, my body protesting the intrusion.
My bare feet slapped against the cold, unforgiving floorboards, each thud a testament to my burgeoning dread as I yanked my door open, the hinges screaming their protest, to find a thundercloud condensed into human form.
Cerberus.
His name was a whispered legend, a shadow that danced in the periphery of our brutal world, and tonight, he radiated a potent, simmering rage. His knuckles were bone-white, his jaw a rigid line, every muscle in his broad frame coiled like a viper ready to strike.
“What is it?” My voice was a ragged rasp, which tasted of already forgotten dreams, a pathetic counterpoint to the tempest brewing before me. His eyes, dark bottomless pits, bored into mine. They held a chilling stillness that promised no good.
“Inferno’s bitch and her husband are dead,” he snarled, the words punctuated by a venomous spit. “No one knows where his kid is at. Morpheus wants officers in the sanctuary. Now.”
“Where is Inferno?”
“Scythe is sitting on him.”
Nodding, I said, “I’ll be right down.” Closing my door, I took a deep breath and sighed as I walked over to my dresser and pulled out a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
The air in my room instantly felt colder, heavier.
Cerberus, as always, delivered bad news with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
He was our vice president, our grim reaper, and tonight, his rage felt amplified.
Scythe, our resident interrogator and enforcer, was a man who knew how to make even the most stubborn rock weep.
If anyone could keep Inferno from going nuclear, it was Scythe.
Pulling on my boots, I grabbed my jacket.
The thought of Inferno’s kid, alone and scared, snagged at something deep within me.
It was the echo of my own past, the gnawing emptiness left by a life I’d barely known.
The Brotherhood of Bastards wasn’t a family in the traditional sense, but we looked out for each other.
That kid was all Inferno had left. He’d always been a good brother, loyal and steady, and this.
.. this was a betrayal that cut deep. Someone had crossed a line, and they were going to pay dearly for killing the mother of his bastard daughter.
The sanctuary, the heart of the Brotherhood, was buzzing with angry bodies when I walked in and immediately spotted Morpheus, our leader, the club’s president, sitting at the table saying nothing as he listened to the surrounding conversations.
The man was a force unto himself. A veritable beast of death and destruction.
Morpheus finally broke his silence, his voice a low rumble that commanded the attention of everyone in the room.
“We have a situation. Kaycee and her husband are dead. The kid is gone. And Scythe’s got Inferno pinned down, waiting for orders because the fucker is threatening to burn the world down to get his daughter back. ”
“Who the fuck would be stupid enough to take out one of us?” Carver, the club’s doctor, asked. “Kaycee and Karter are protected. Everyone in Rapid City knows that.”
“A dead man,” Garotte growled. As the other enforcer for the Brotherhood, Garotte was just as deadly, maybe more so than Morpheus. The two of them were always beating the hell out of each other.
“This is a betrayal, brothers,” Cerberus stated. “Some motherfucker declared war on the Brotherhood, and they’re going to pay.”
“Called my contact at the RCPD,” Nano, the club’s intel officer, spoke up.
“Whoever did it, killed Jake quickly, as he was the bigger threat. But what that son of a bitch did to Kaycee. He beat her black and blue before he put a bullet in her head. But that’s not all,” the man said, before taking a minute to gather his thoughts.
And when he spoke again, no one in the room could believe the words that came out of his mouth. “After he killed her. He raped her.”
Carver cursed, “Jesus fuck. That means we’re looking for a necrophiliac, or more specifically a thanatophile, a person who experiences sexual arousal and gratification from interacting with corpses.
It’s a paraphilic disorder. They are methodical, cunning, decisive, and driven with a primal need that can’t be stopped.
Mark my words. Whoever this is, he will strike again and soon. ”
I listened, my gut tightening with each word.
The image of Kaycee, Inferno’s former woman, conjured a wave of nausea.
Jake was solid. A good provider, but he was no Bastard.
No matter how good he was to Kaycee or Karter.
But Kaycee... she’d been a sweet, fragile thing, not built for our world, and Inferno knew it, but before he could end it, he learned he’d got Kaycee pregnant.
Children were both a blessing and a curse in the Brotherhood.
Boys meant future Bastards, but girls...
well, they were a complication but nonetheless loved.
And the idea of someone desecrating Kaycee after ending her life was a level of depravity that made my blood run cold.
This wasn’t just about vengeance anymore; it was about purging a sickness from our ranks.
Carver’s assessment hung in the air, a chilling prediction of what was to come if we didn’t act fast.
Morpheus, his face a mask of grim resolve, looked at me.
“Firestride. You were just in Rapid City. Did you find anything about Jessup Winston?” The shift was jarring, but I understood.
Jessup was a snake, a dealer for the Death Dogs, and if he was somehow connected to this, we needed to know.
He’d already crossed a line with us, but when he raped and laid hands on Kyllian, well, he’d marked himself.
It was a transgression I couldn’t ignore.
“No,” I growled. The memory of Kyllian’s terror, still fresh, left a sour taste in my mouth. “He wasn’t in Rapid City. I checked his place out near the old Crazy Horse memorial, but it was empty. Cleared out.”
“You said he left collateral?”
“Yeah. His soon-to-be ex-wife, Kyllian Ward.” As I spat the words out, the image of her bruised face flashed behind my eyes. She was trouble, sure, but she was also the last link I had to Jessup.
“Bring the bitch in.”
“What about Inferno’s daughter?” Cerberus asked.
Morpheus looked directly at me, his gaze sharp and unyielding. “Firestride, you’re on point. Snatch the bitch and find the kid. And if you get your hands on the son of a bitch who killed Kaycee... don’t think. Kill the sick motherfucker.”
The weight of his words settled onto my shoulders, a familiar burden. My gut twisted. Inferno’s kid. A child caught in the crossfire.
I didn’t question the order. I simply nodded, the whiskey from earlier still burning a hole in my gut.
The image of Kyllian’s defiant eyes flashed in my mind, a stark contrast to the brutality that had unfolded elsewhere.
My mind, usually sharp and focused, felt clouded with a strange mix of obligation and. .. something else.
Something akin to concern.
My engine roared to life, a guttural snarl that echoed the storm brewing within me.
Kaycee was dead. Inferno, our brother, was on the brink of self-destruction unless I recovered his daughter.
This was more than just a debt collection gone wrong; this was an attack, a calculated strike against the Brotherhood.
My gut clenched as I swung a leg over my Triumph, the familiar weight offering cold comfort.
The kid. Morpheus’ order was clear: find the kid and punish whoever dared touch one of our own.
The drive south was a blur of the roaring engine and my churning thoughts.
Rapid City. That was where Kaycee had been living.
She wasn’t built for the Bastard lifestyle, but she had still stayed close so Inferno could have a relationship with his daughter.
She was a good woman, decent and honest. She didn’t deserve this fate.
I pushed my Bonneville harder as the wind whipped past me, in a desperate attempt to outrun the cold dread that was starting to set in.
The thought of Inferno’s daughter, innocent and caught in the crossfire, gnawed at me.
It was a darkness I knew all too well. And the motherfucker who had done this, who had dared to spill protected blood and leave a Bastard child exposed, was going to face a reckoning unlike any they had ever imagined.
As I pulled into the outskirts of Rapid City, the familiar grim landscape offered no solace.
The moonlight cast long, distorted shadows, and the air itself seemed to hum with a low, dangerous frequency.
This was not just about vengeance anymore; it was about damage control, about protecting the innocent from the fallout of our violent world.
And somewhere in this shadowed city, a Bastard child was waiting, unaware of the fire that had just erupted over their young life, a fire I was now tasked with controlling.