Indi shrugged at me as she walked over to her new chair. “Yeah, because of your knobbly giraffe knees. It won as your new nickname in the bracket Lennon and I came up with.” She settled into her seat with a purr of contentment and ran a hand appreciatively over one of the armrests.
“Wait,” I questioned, “you made abracket?What the fuck, Indi?”
Indigo hunched her shoulders defensively and whined. “Well, there were some good contenders in the running! We couldn’t decide unanimously, so we decided to throw together a bracket and let people vote. The masses have spoken, Knob Lord. Wanna give me a push upstairs, and we can make Ivan help me get my new chair into Sheila?”
My father was trying, unconvincingly, to smother a laugh at my expense, but I was relieved that Indigo seemed to be feeling better, so his betrayal didn’t sting. I moved to stand behind her prize so I could wheel Indigo to the elevator.
“I feel like I’m going to regret this, but I’m going to need to know exactly who voted in this bracket and what the other nickname contenders were,lisichka.”
Indigo stifled a snicker as I wheeled her to the door held open by my father, whose face had suddenly gone serious again. He stopped us with his palm at the threshold. “Before you go, I need to make one more thing clear.” My father paused, seeming to search for the right words to say, something I’d rarely, if ever, seen happen. “It goes without saying that Roark Callahan is a liar. However, I feel the need to ensure you understand. You may be new to this family, but you are highly valued,and that value is not contingent on what you can provide my bratva.” Mikhail tilted Indi’s head up so that their eyes could meet. She’d find only sincerity in their depths, and I knew this because the same sentiment was echoed in mine. “Don’t allow him to convince you that he’s made you less. You’re more than he could ever hope to be. If anyone disagrees, feel free to direct them my way. I can be a very persuasive man.”
I hated the sorrowful look that haunted my cousin’s eyes. Her bottom lip trembled, and that tremble ignited something within me. I wanted to hug her with one arm and fucking break Roark Callahan’s jaw with the other. I hadn’t brought up the trauma bomb that Roark dropped because I didn’t want to upset Indigo more than she already had been, but my father was right to clear the air and give her the reassurance she needed. “You will not be forced to marry against your will, and no one will reproach you if you do not have children. You are free to live your life however you wish. That being said, if you want to ditch the broody biker, I can set you up with a Russian upgrade.” He winked at my cousin, who gave him a watery smile in thanks for lightening the mood.
My father stepped aside as Indigo sniffed and sat up straighter in her chair and whispered something that sounded like“I’m a bad bitch, not a sad bitch.” She cleared her throat. “Mush, Knob Lord, mush!” The sound of my father’s chuckle was cut off when the elevator doors slid open, and I backed Indigo’s chair into the lift. “Seriously,lisichka, Knob Lord? Youcannotlet Ivan hear you say that, or I’ll never, ever hear the end of it.” She snickered to herself and refused to tell me what the other names on the bracket had been. I wheeled her to the penthouse door, which was opened by Yuri. We found Ivan and Lennon sitting in the living room. “What up, Knob Lord,” Ivan said, followed by a chorus of cackles from the girls.Motherfucker.
Chapter 28
Cricket
Everyone prepares for a fight in their own way. If Bones were here in this tiny private airplane hangar outside Chico, California, right now, he’d be moodily fidgeting with some piece of bone or other. I thought of it as his version of macabre meditation. Priest liked to talk over the plan, just like his old man did. It settled his nerves to make sure everyone knew exactly what needed to be done to ensure we all walked out of this attack alive and successful. Personally, I liked to people watch. It was an old habit, and it gave me something to focus on outside my own dark thoughts. My eyes roamed the space, noting Rook and Bard sitting on a stack of pallets with a laptop illuminating their intent faces. They were using drones to scout the two track homes in Chico that the Raiders were using for their meth labs, making sure nothing unusual or suspicious was going on. So far, they seemed unaware we were coming for them.
Priest was busy going over the plan of attack with Maxim, a local bratva member tasked to represent Petrov’s people with us tonight, and Nyx, one of the bikers from the Frozen Furies MC. When the Furies had rolled up to the hangar, Maxim’s deep-set eyes had widened, and his slightly wrinkled brow had been creased in surprise. He shot a questioning glance at Priest, who tipped his chin in greeting to our allies, a secretive smile tugging up one corner of his mouth at the Russian’s incredulous expression. Guess he’d never seen an all-female biker gang before.
Nyx and five of her sisters came to support us in our fight against the Iron Raiders. Nyx removed her helmet and shook out her short inky-black hair dramatically, the ends of which rested just below her razor-sharp cheekbones. “Hey there, boys,” she said with a nod in our direction. Almond-shaped brown eyes accented in electric green cat-eye liner swept over our roster for tonight, taking in the measure of every man. Her eyes lingered on me for a moment, her full lips tugging up in the corner. We’d had fun together once upon a time in Utah, and remained friendly afterward, usually meeting up for a drink whenever we worked on a raid together. We may not be compatible for more than a night of fun, but the Fury was a good ally to have in your corner.
The rest of the Frozen Furies filed into the hangar, and they came fully kitted out and ready to party. Serrated blades were concealed against each of their ankles, and every woman wore a shoulder holster under their open leather jackets so their pistols were hidden but easy to draw. Vale, the only other Fury I recognized on sight from the Salt Lake City incident, was tucking small blades into her riot of curly hair, while one of her sisters pulled on a pair of discreet fingerless gloves that had brass knuckles sewn into them. One of the women had also brought some C4, you know,just in case? Between the black tactical clothing worn by the men and the Furies’s eclectic goth biker chick aesthetic, a random passerby of the hangar might think we were hosting the world’s quietest goth rave.
I smiled to myself, adjusting the black nylon strap running in an X over my chest that secured my…for lack of a better term, scabbard to my back.No, I wasn’t carrying a bloody sword.My second favorite cricket bat ran at a slight angle up my back, ready to draw and bash some bloodyheads in. This one wasn’t made of English Willow like my favorite bat, the one my mum had given me the summer before we’d immigrated to the US. That one lived at Crow’s Landing. This one was its bad-arse bastard American cousin; a black composite bat made of carbon fiber polymers. I found this bat much easier to clean after we were done wreaking havoc. I’d hate to get blood stains on the one Mum gave me.
“Hey… uh, hi,” one of the Furies I wasn’t familiar with said awkwardly, coming to stand where I was leaning against a hangar wall. “I like your scabbard. Did you make it?” A grin stretched across my face at the very idea of Indigo hearing her question. My weird little sis would be setting up a craft corner in the clubhouse where we could learn to make holsters and ammo pouches before the week was through.
“No, love.” I did a slow turn. “Etsy.” Rook snickered from his post on the pallets.
“It’s nice,” she said with a roll of her big, doe eyes. “Not as nice as mine, but it’ll do.” I leaned back against my wall, enjoying this momentary distraction before we annihilated the Raiders.
“Well, love, I did show you mine. Turnabout is fair play, after all.” I pointed down and spun my finger in a circle, gesturing for her to show me this mythical scabbard. She pulled a tawny braid over her shoulder and turned around, showcasing an umber colored leather scabbard holding an honest-to-god baby sword. It was longer than a dagger but not as long as a sword. It looked like she was cosplaying as a hot ginger Hobbit, only instead of riding Old Bill, she had a Harley Davidson. I stepped forward so I could take in the intricate designs etched into the tooled leather. “Another excellent Etsy find?” I asked, causing a look of mock outrage to grace her freckled face as she spun back around. “No, though I did meet a blacksmith once who had the cutest Etsy shop at a Ren Faire. I made this one.”
God, Indi would love this chick. “I don’t believe we’ve met, love. I’m Cricket. And you are?”
She offered me her hand. “Sorry, I’ve always been told that I talk way too much without ever really sharing anything useful. I’m Echo. I probably should have led with that…”
I chuffed a laugh, her rambling endearing. Maybe I’d been conditioned by Indigo over time, or perhaps I’d always been predisposedto finding quirkiness adorable, but the beautiful woman in front of me instantly slid into the “off-limits” category. Granted, that category had always been thesmallestcategory of women I’d encountered, usually consisting only of: women I didn’t find attractive (obviously), married women and ole ladies, Ellis and Lennon, and blood relatives. It had grown recently to include Indigo. Everyone else was fair game. Echo should be shaggable, but for some reason, my instinct was to lump her in with my adopted sister.
“Any man with half a brain would listen to you talk about blacksmiths and broadswords or whatever bloody hell you wanted to talk about just for the pleasure of hearing you speak, love. If you’re too much, tell them to go fuck with less, eh?”
Echo giggled, drawing attention from the pacers and the plotters alike milling around the hangar. Priest leveled a “now is not the time to flirt, motherfucker” look at me, but I shrugged him off. Echo shot me a cheeky grin. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time somechickI’m on a date with rolls her eyes at me when I talk about embossing saddle bags with Sindarin script.”
“Atta girl,” I said with a mischievous grin. Maybe there was more than one reason my instinct put Echo into the “off-limits” zone; it seemed we played for the same team. My new ginger friend chatted my ear off while we waited for the call from Duke to go ahead with our part of the plan. Maxim had men in place to surveil the clubhouse and the two houses that the Raiders were using as locations for their meth labs. Rook and Bard were still using drones to check the surrounding streets. When the signal came, we’d hit their clubhouse and the drug houses simultaneously, raining destruction down on our enemies and ending their threat for good and all.
Priest, Maxim, and Nyx all received text messages with the code to move into position. Rook stayed behind in the hangar with his laptop to operate the drones. Maxim offered to operate them via an app on his phone, but Rook didn’t want to take the risk of losing service and not being able to strike when the time came.
“We’ve watched the houses ever since thepakhan’sorder came through,” Maxim had said of the two meth labs. “Only a few men have come in or out. No women or children have been seen entering orexiting, nor have we seen any through the uncovered windows. Thermal imaging shows only a few men in each house. You are confident in your ability to operate the drone, yes? The strikes must occur on time and without complication.” Rook gave Maxim a tight smile.
“It’s not my first time, don’t worry. I’ll be your eyes in the sky, and when it’s time, I’ll handle the fireworks.”
Priest nodded to Rook and slapped him on the shoulder. “I trust you, brother. Everyone else, it’s time to get into position. Let’s roll out.”
Maxim barked an order in Russian, which his men followed without hesitation, filing into SUVs with heavily tinted windows. Nyx, Vale, Echo, and three other Furies straddled their bikes and pulled behind the SUVs. My brothers and I made our way to our bikes, eager to avenge Ace and ensure that no more Raiders spilled Los Cuervos blood. Tonight, a reckoning rode on swift winds to deliver a vicious and bloody end to the Iron Raiders. The Crows would feast tonight.
