He kept close as we walked the stairs then entered the eerily quiet house.
“Yo,” I called out. “Anyone here?”
No one responded, so I dropped Hero in Wrath’s room just in case something bad was going down before I went exploring.
I turned the corner into the kitchen, finding Twiz, Hendrix, Pink Eye, Roper, and Pope all sitting quietly drinking from opened bottles of whiskey.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, and I knew they’d tell me.
Since I’d ‘killed’ Lion, the club trusted me with everything.
“Was wrong,” Hendrix admitted, looking stricken. “Wasn’t Danner was the mole.”
My heart seized. “What? Who the fuck was it then?”
The front door crashed open with an explosive bang that heralded a coarse, agonized roar, “Where the fuck is she, you fucking bastards!?”
Wrath.
My heart dropped to the beer stained carpet.
The boys looked around the table at each other, but only Twiz and Pope got up.
“Tell me where the fuck my girl is!” Wrath bellowed again, and we could hear him throwing shit in the living room before his heavy boots made their way down the hall.
Pope had his gun out and trained on the door by the time Wrath filled it with his body and his rage.
He was utterly terrifying, his face brutal with anger, his fists clenched into hard stones that would crush bones as easily as a metal scrapper.
Pope flinched then held the gun steady. “Stay there, Wrath. We know you’re the fuckin’ snitch.”
Wrath’s glare condensed further until his eyes were only thin, glittering slits. He stalked forward slowly toward Pope who took a step back then held his ground.
“Stop right fuckin’ there,” he yelled out as Wrath got closer.
Wrath ignored me and walked straight into the barrel of the gun, the mouth at his right shoulder. His hand went up to grab Pope by the throat just as the gun fired.
He hissed loudly, jerked slightly as the bullet tore through his shoulder, but otherwise, he was unstoppable. He lifted Pope into the air with one hand and snarled into his face, “Where the fuck is my girl? You tell me in the next three seconds or I’ll snap your neck.”
Pope dropped the gun to clench at Wrath’s hand pressed around his throat, but he didn’t say anything.
Three seconds later, his neck snapped loudly, the sound like a foot stepping over broken plastic.
Pope fell to the ground dead and Wrath turned to face the others in the room.
“WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE!?” he roared so loudly, spittle went flying and the hanging light rattled.
“Dead.”
The one word punctured the furious air in the room like a popped balloon.
Reaper stood in the doorway, a placid smile on his face.
“Killed that boy you had protectin’ her, killed her mother and then dragged her outta that house by her fuckin’ hair,” he informed us. “Didn’t even wait to take her to the container. Just shot her dead by the side of the road and shoved her in the ocean.”
I threw my hand over my mouth to stop the sob from erupting as Wrath’s face went grey and ashen.
“That’s what happens to snitches in this fuckin’ club, in my fuckin’ family,” Reaper sneered. “We kill them like the animals they are.”
The air went suddenly electric and then it happened.
Wrath went berserk.
His roar filled the room, louder even than the shot Hendrix fired into his belly as he lurched forward towards the table. He ground an empty chair and brought it down over Roper’s head before he had a chance to move, grabbed a butter knife from the table and sunk it into Twiz’s eye as he shoved forward to take him down and then punched Pink Eye so hard in the throat something audibly broke.
Another shot fired, this one from the gun in Reaper’s hand from where he stood in the door, his smile visible through the gun smoke.
The bullet hit Wrath in the stomach but didn’t stop him.
He pushed Pink Eye’s choking body aside and prowled towards Reaper.
Another shot, this one getting him in the arm.
He continued forward until he had Reaper by the throat and he lifted him into the air.
“Where is my fucking girl,” he cried out, in confused fury.
“Dead,” Reaper smiled even though Wrath was choking him out. “Like you.”
Then another shot fired, this one from Grease who’d snuck into the room from the other doorway. The bullet sunk deep into his right shoulder, the one holding Reaper up.
Wrath collapsed to the ground.
I sobbed and tried to go to him, but Grease was suddenly there holding me back. I struggled against his arm as more brothers filed in, grabbed Wrath by his feet and started to drag his big bleeding body out of the room.
“Kylie’s photo,” he called out, his voice filled with pain.
“Shut the fuck up,” Reaper said before kicking him in the head so hard, he passed out.
But it was too late.
Wrath had given me his message and it had been received.
I raced up the stairs after Grease let me go, after the boys had taken Wrath out the back and loaded him into a truck I heard start up and tear out of there.
Grease let me go, probably thinking I was just emotional.
I was.
But I was also on a mission.
My fingers shook as I lifted the framed photo of Kylie Wrath kept in his closet and worked the back flap open.
The picture fluttered out onto the ground.
But so did thin pages and pages of accountancy papers.
I hugged them to my chest for a minute, Hero whining at me and nudging my back, confused by the ruckus and my quick sliding tears. I wrapped a hand in the fur at his back and whispered in his ear. “We got ’em.”
It was two days later that it happened.
Too late really.
Wrath was gone, presumed dead.
Danner was presumed dead but gone to me forever.
And I’d undergone so many trials to get to that point that it almost didn’t feel worth it.
But it did because it meant the threat they’d posed against my family was done.
The Berserkers had fallen.
I watched from the front seat of a massive GMC SUV as dozens of RCMP officers and local PD swarmed the Port of Vancouver. Red, blue and white lights flashed across the night scene, highlighting the last of the brothers who’d been there to unload the ship getting hauled into cop cars and driven off to be processed then, hopefully, convicted for life for arms dealing, smuggling, and a litany of other offenses.
It was too surreal.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car even though they’d told me not to.
I didn’t have a reason to listen to anyone anymore, so I didn’t.
Instead, I walked under the yellow police tape, hugging the borrowed RCMP jacket around my shoulders, and watched up close as officers taped and categorized the guns in a massive open shipping container, how Mutt cursed at two officers who pushed him up against a car roughly before shoving him inside.
I looked down at the police lights flashing on my skin, smelled the brine from the ocean at my back and closed my eyes to hear the police chatter over the radio, the not too distant call of reporters showing up to get the scoop.
It sunk in.
I’d done it.
Somehow, against so many odds, I’d helped protect not only my family but the city of Vancouver and the entire province.