9. Ash
Ash
The ghosts of my men still linger in the club as we all litter the booths, drinks in hand. Scotty, Henry and Ivar were all long-time members, and their blood is still stamped onto my hands. Everyone feels them, the heaviness settles deep into the space.
Kaleb polishes a knife at the bar while Kai just stares at the door, alert and ready like always.
The clunk of pool balls bashing together blends into the low music pouring out of the speakers, but no one is happy. It’s not the usual loud yelling, fighting and fucking that usually happens on a Friday night. It feels wrong.
A loss is always felt deep within the Devils, let alone three. And not all of the Devils have an angel to give them a moment of silence in their minds.
I watch Leon over the rim of my glass waltz up to the bar where Griff is leaning. Leon’s cheeky smirk focused on Griff’s permanent scowl. These two haven’t meshed well since we brought Leon in after his stint in prison.
As soon as I saw the twenty-five-year-old’s tech skills, I knew we needed him.
And he needed us, after seven years locked up and coming out to nothing and no one.
It was a win - win situation for everybody but Griff.
The kid just has a way of getting under his skin unlike anybody else. And I love to watch it.
Griff is a life time member, born into the club, and he is a pain in my ass most of the time.
All he wants to do is get drunk, start fights and fuck women.
I guess that explains half the men in the club, but Griff is useful when I need him.
With arms built like tree trunks and a body built like a brick shithouse, people see Griff and second guess whether messing with us is worth it.
He also makes a pretty penny in the underground fighting world, but that is a whole other story.
When he begins throwing punches, they walk away. He is a scary motherfucker, even I can admit that.
And Leon hasn’t seemed to get the memo. Leaning against the bar, Griff slowly looks him up and down, a look of pure disdain on his face.
Leon stands out among all the rest of my boys.
His patch work tattoos are trendy compared to the rest of our skin-to-skin pieces and his lean body doesn’t hold anywhere near the bulk that mine or Griff’s does.
And I know he makes Griff uncomfortable; I just can’t quite figure out why.
“Hey, pretty boy,” Leon taunts as he joins him at the bar. He grabs a drink over the counter and winks at Griff over the bottle as he takes a swig.
An exhausted sigh falls from my lips as Griff leaps on Leon, his hand wrapping around his neck and shoving him back onto the bar. “The fuck you just say to me?” Griff’s growl attracts everyone’s attention.
Leon laughs, his eyes sparkling, seemingly unaware of the damage Griff could do just by squeezing his hand. Or maybe just unfazed. “I said...Hey, pretty boy,” he gasps out of his compromised airways. I shake my head. Leon might be more insane than any of us.
Griff’s hazel eyes come alight with hate as he glares into Leons green ones, before he shoves him away and strides out the front door, the wood banging as he leaves. Chuckling, Leon rubs at his throat, going back to his drink like nothing happened.
Griff’s heavy boots pound out the door, the sound swallowed by the low thrum of music.
For a moment, no one moves. No one breathes too loud.
My fingers drum against my glass, the ice rattling in the silence before I finally push to my feet.
The chair scrapes back, sharp and grating, cutting through the stillness.
Every set of eyes in the room turns to me. My Devils. My family. My responsibility.
The deep breath I take feels like swallowing glass. The colour red still pulses across my vision, the same way it does when I think of them. My parents. I shove it far out of my mind.
“Three of ours,” I say, my voice low but carrying anyway. “Three brothers who bled for this patch, who stood for it, who’d burn the fucking world before letting it fall into enemy hands. And now they are gone. Blown apart by cowards who didn’t even have the guts to face us head-on.”
My eyes scan the room, landing on Kai, on Kaleb, on every man who’s been here long enough to understand what those names mean.
“Scotty. Henry. Felix. You don’t forget them.
You etch them into your skin, your bones.
You carry them until you join them.” I step forward, planting a hand on the table and leaning into their attention.
“And I swear to every one of you.... We will find the people who did this. We will find them, and there will be no mercy. Not quick. Not clean. They will beg before they burn.”
The air shifts, the low hum of grief bending into something sharper. Rage. Determination. I let it hang there for a second, let the weight of my words settle into their chests. Then I straighten, down the last of my drink, and toss the glass onto the table with a dull thud.
“Tonight, we celebrate our dead. Tomorrow, we start the hunt.”
I shoot off a text, as my men cheer and the drinks begin flowing. I know just the way we can celebrate...