“You’re also risking your life,” I growled, looking over my shoulder to see Wrath land a punishing blow to King’s temple that knocked him out cold before he even hit the ground.
The other members were similarly finishing off their fights and I could see Hendrix making quick work of grabbing the other bags a few yards away.
“You think I could sit by while I knew my family was going to be attacked then you’re whacked,” she seethed as she finally finished her task and began to slink on her belly deeper into the brush.
“Stay down, motherfucker,” Grease yelled, and a gunshot rang out through the mountains.
Fuck.
I turned away from Harleigh Rose and slunk back to Wrath. He turned to me with a raised eyebrow but otherwise didn’t say anything. We walked together to Grease who stood over an enormous blond man that looked like an honest-to-Christ Viking. Blood spilled out over his gut, pooling under him.
I needed the Berserkers to get out of there so I could call a fucking ambulance.
“Get the shit and let’s move,” Grease ordered, delivering a kick to the fallen biker’s wound then turning on his heel to hustle back to his bike.
Police sirens wailed in the distance, thankfully arriving from Entrance instead of Vancouver so the Berserkers could get back down the mountain unobserved.
“Clean this up!” Grease shouted over the shout of his revving engine as he and the others took off.
Wrath and I remained, arms crossed, shoulder to shoulder like sentries.
The second the group disappeared around the corner, we moved.
I crouched to the guy with the bullet wound and slapped his face to bring him to. “Hey, hey, need you to put pressure on this wound.”
“Fuck,” he said in a pain strained whisper. “Fuck you, you fuckin’ ’serker.”
“Shut the fuck up and put pressure here,” I said, using his own hand to quell the blood flow. “The cops are comin’ and they’ll get you to the hospital.”
He blinked up at me, sucked in a wet breath and then launched a wad of spit into my face. “Fuck you.”
I rubbed the thick saliva off my cheek and left him to it to check on King.
Wrath was helping him up when I jogged over.
“Thanks, man,” King grumbled, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. “Did you have to hit me so fuckin’ hard.”
The goliath shrugged. “Had to look the part.”
“Yeah, well don’t think anyone’s gonna be the wiser the way you clocked me. Jesus, have a headache for a week after this. Cress is not gonna be happy with my shiner.”
“What the fuck is goin’ on here?” I asked, the situation so far out of my realm of understanding that I couldn’t make any sense of it.
King grinned at me and clapped me on the back. “Good to see you, man. Have to say, like the leather better than that Canadian cowboy look you usually got goin’ on.”
“What the fuck?” I repeated.
King threw his head back and laughed as if we were at my place in Entrance shooting the shit in my garage instead of on the side of a highway littered with bikes and bodies. “Yeah, betcha thinkin’ what the fuck right ’bout now, but we don’t got time to clue you in. I gotta see if Axe-Man’s gonna make it and you two gotta get the fuck outta ’ere.”
Wrath grunted his agreement and walked away to retrieve his bike.
King made to move away then stopped shoulder to shoulder with me before he moved past me and stared. His eyes were pale even in the darkness and they went straight to the center of the confusion and chaos in my soul.
“Good to see you, Danny,” he muttered softly. “Stay safe.”
“Lion, get movin’,” Wrath called as King walked away and the sirens seemed to be right around the corner.
I got movin’, my head spinning nonsensically in my head as I got my bike out of the brush and followed Wrath into the darkness back to Vancouver.
Only, Wrath didn’t take us back to the clubhouse when he entered the city limits. First, he drove into the dirty bowels of East Hastings Street and turned off onto a filthy row of welfare housing. I pulled up beside him when he stopped before a peeling, white painted house and took off my helmet.
I didn’t lay into him with questions or rage. I’d learned the hard way as a cop that silence was the best tool in garnering a confession, so I waited.
Wrath had his helmet off, his gaze tipped towards the house, face soft in a way I recognized by seeing King with Cress and Zeus with Lou.
He was in love with the person that lived in that house.
“Name’s Kylie,” he started, his voice gruffer than his usual deep rasp. “Met her when she was fifteen and her mum tried to convince Reaper to pay child support yet a-fuckin’-gain. He hit her mum, sent her sprawling right to the ground in the driveway at the clubhouse and then stalked off. Didn’t know she was fucking fifteen, but the sight of her in this purple dress with her hair a riot of all these little curls, it knocked me on my ass just as surely as her mum. I helped her up and drove the both of them back home. Stayed while Kylie made me fuckin’ tea, as if I’d drink it, but I did.”
He looked down at his heavily scarred hands. “Doesn’t care ’bout his baby mama’s, hit or miss if he cares ’bout the kids. Coupla months, don’t know how, he took notice’a Kylie and started pushing ’er to hang around the club. Mutt got to ’er.”
I hissed, imagining the damage Mutt might have done to a young girl.
“She’s a grown woman now, twenty-two, but she’s a slight thing. Mutt sent ’er to the hospital. He cut open her mouth with a penknife so he could get his dick in there.”
My gut rolled at the blasphemy of mutilating a woman like that. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, took everything I had not to go into the clubhouse in a rage of gunfire, takin’ out every damn brother I could. They were there that night, you get me? They saw Mutt take ’er into his room, heard her scream and cry out. Didn’t do shit about it ’cause this crew doesn’t stand for brotherhood and freedom, it stands for male supremacy, rapin’ and beatin’ women into submission, killin’ those who oppose us even if it’s over a fuckin’ spilled beer.”
He stopped, his breath fast in his chest. A light turned on, then off in the silent house, on then off again.
A signal.
“He’d kill me he knew she was mine,” Wrath said, holding up a hand to the house even though I couldn’t see anyone looking out. “Kill me and let his boys kill her ’cause his sense of loyalty is whacked and he likes us to prove we’d go to hell for him.”
“What does this have to do with King, brother?” I asked quietly, using the endearment every brother in the club used for each other but using it in a way that showed I was with him, that I had his back and got his tragedy.
“Kylie went to university with him, they struck up a friendship. When shit went down, I went to King to buy protection for her, he didn’t want money though, he just wanted the same for his sister. I fell down on that job, but Cricket was my cousin and it was complicated, but I’m rectifyin’ it now by givin’ her the protection of bein’ my Old Lady.”
I didn’t even try to stem the tide of relief that flooded my chest at hearing Wrath and Rosie’s relationship was a ruse. Guilt followed swiftly like red tide mucking up the clean when I thought about my commitments to Diana and Laken. I could get rid of Diana, we’d been dating for years, but we didn’t have even a spark of what I had with Rosie. In fact, it was a dick move, but I decided to call her that night and end it over the phone. She deserved better, but then, so did Harleigh Rose.