Chapter Nine #3
Margot double-checked the locks on the front and back doors, her deputy’s badge tucked away but her sidearm visible. Deva moved with her usual calm, but even she had ditched her sandals for boots and kept a knife clipped to her belt.
Jade lounged with her phone, pretending not to glance out the windows every five minutes.
This was the first time Dylan had met her; Hero’s old lady and Razor’s daughter.
Somehow, that combination should’ve been intimidating.
But it wasn’t. Jade had long dark hair that spilled over her shoulders in loose waves, and eyes sharp and cool like her father’s.
But her easy manner made her feel instantly approachable.
There was a quiet confidence about her, like she’d grown up around danger and decided to smile through it anyway. Dylan liked her immediately.
Ryder stood in the center of it all, arms crossed, calm as a man watching a storm he knew wouldn’t touch down.
“They’ll be fine,” he said, mostly to Dylan. “Vendetta’s got half the damn Hounds with him. Razor, Axel, Outcast? That place will be ashes before they’re touched.”
Dylan tried to smile. “I know. I just --”
A low rumble cut her off. Not the familiar roar of bikes. What she heard was something else.
The sound was the slower, steadier cadence of a car engine, idling just beyond the tree line.
Jade sat up straight from the couch, phone forgotten in her lap. “Anyone expecting company?”
Ryder’s posture shifted just slightly. “Nope,” he said, on high alert now.
Deva was already moving toward the back hallway, hand going to the pistol tucked at her hip. Margot stood, eyes narrowing toward the front windows. “Could be nothing,” she said. “It could be someone checking gates. But let’s check it out.”
Ryder nodded to one of the Hounds. “You and Hopper take a walk. Eyes open. Don’t engage unless they do.”
Dylan stood near the hallway, arms crossed, trying to quiet the nervous drum in her chest. The quiet around her felt… wrong. It was too still.
And then she heard it. Just the faintest sound, like a floorboard giving beneath cautious weight. A whisper of movement from the side of the house. She turned, pulse spiking, and stepped back into the living room.
Margot glanced up, sharp. “What?”
Dylan didn’t speak. Just pointed a finger toward the hallway.
That was enough. Margot was up in an instant, gun in hand, her gaze darting toward the shadows. Deva followed suit, silent but focused. Jade set her phone down carefully, motioning Dylan to walk in her direction.
A man burst from the hallway, fast and terrifying like a vision from a nightmare. She recognized him from Ned’s as one of his uncle’s men. He had a footlong blade in his hand. His hard, dark eyes were on her. Of course. Eli had sent men to kill her.
Jade grabbed Dylan by the arm, hauling her in the direction of the kitchen.
Behind them, Margot fired. The shot rang through the house. Dylan whipped around to watch the injured biker stumble, gripping his bleeding side. But he didn’t go down.
A second crash had Dylan jumping where she stood.
She was close enough to the kitchen to see the back door explode inward and a larger biker, who she also recognized from her uncle’s MC, roared in.
Fear rooted Dylan to the spot until Ryder slammed into the man mid-charge, the two men crashing into the counter hard.
A bottle shattered as Ryder drew his knife.
The brawl exploded into fists and fury, flashes of silver.
“Deva!” Margot shouted, but it was already too late. The man bleeding all over the floor slammed into Deva hard as she tried to block him. The impact sent her crashing into the pool table, hitting the floor so loudly Dylan winced.
“Dylan -- the drawer!” Margot barked, snapping off another shot that grazed the biker’s shoulder but didn’t stop him.
Dylan yanked open the drawer at the side of the pool table, and there it was.
Margot’s backup Glock, just where she said it would be earlier.
Gripping it with both hands, Dylan aimed it at the man’s head.
Her heart was racing, her arms trembling, but she held it steady.
Her gaze locked with his, just as she’d seen her uncle do a hundred times.
The biker scoffed from where he’d landed on the floor. “Safety’s on,” he said as he started pulling himself up from the floor.
“There’s no safety on that gun,” Margot told her calmly, her own firearm trained on him.
He made it to his feet, staggered toward her. Blood seeped through his shirt, fury burning in his eyes.
Dylan aimed the gun at his face, not moving otherwise. Fear battled with the anger swelling with her, and fear was losing. Her fucking uncle had tried to traffic her, and when that hadn’t worked out for him, he’d sent these men to kill her.
“Don’t,” Dylan said, voice low and even.
He stood on unsteady feet, losing a lot of blood. His gaze still locked with hers before flicking to the Glock in her hands and back.
The fight wasn’t this random Cottonmouth’s anymore. It never had been.
Dylan’s hands tightened on the grip, the adrenaline burning off just enough for her fury to rise. “He sent you to kill me?” she asked, her voice trembling, but not from fear.
The biker didn’t answer at first. His lips parted like he was thinking about denying it, might spin some story.
Slowly, he sneered instead. “You ratted him out,” he spat.
“You ran to the wrong side.” His breath was ragged.
“That delivery guy. What the hell did you think he was gonna do? Save you? What’d you think would happen? ”
Margot stepped in behind him, her gun raised. “You’re about two seconds from finding out what happens when you threaten someone in Mercy.”
“He was one of you,” Dylan snapped. “You called him Tank.”
The biker hadn’t expected that. The name stunned him, halted the bravado in his eyes for just a second.
“My uncle betrayed him,” she went on, every word deliberate. “Hung him in the woods for daring to speak out. Left him to die.”
“That’s not…” he started, shaking his head. “That’s not what happened. I heard that shit. Tank ran off like a fucking coward.”
“No,” Dylan said, her voice low but unwavering. “He didn’t go anywhere. He crawled out of his grave, still wearing the scar the rope gave him. He took a new name. He’s Vendetta now.”
The biker’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Dylan didn’t move, even with all the adrenaline running through her. “And he’ll be talking to Eli very soon.”
A low voice cut through the tension behind her. “The guy I just dropped in the kitchen won’t,” Ryder said, stepping into view, calm and deadly.
The biker Dylan had a gun on, whipped around to look at Ryder. “You fucking killed him?”
Ryder gave a humorless grin as he closed the distance. “Nah. Not yet.” He leaned in, his shadow falling long across the man’s face. “But don’t worry, he won’t be the only Cottonmouth taking a dirt nap by the end of the night.”
The man tried and failed to keep the emotion off his face. It looked like the truth was finally seeping in.
Ryder nodded toward the door. “Let’s get them both out of here. This one’s leaking on the damn rug.”