“Come on, Lips,” Vale sobbed, clutching the hand of her fallen sister. I knew it was possible for the impact from a bullet, even with a vest on, to cause serious damage and even death, but I’d never seen someone felled with a hit like this.
Maxim’s bulky frame came hustling back into the room carrying a black messenger-style bag. “Remove any jewelry or hair pins, anything metal on her. NOW,” he barked at Echo, who scrambled to pull off a pair of fingerless gloves that were oddly bulky along the knuckles and a chain from her neck while Maxim tugged a red case from the bag. Thank God, he had a portable defibrillator.
“Get back!” the Russian ordered as he attached the pads to her—Lip’s—chest. Nyx pulled Vale into her arms, her face a mask of calm, but her eyes were full of fire and silently demanding that her sister breathe. Maxim checked the machine once the pads were placed and gave Nyx a flick of his eyes before the AED delivered a shock. Maxim performed CPR on an unresponsive Lips, and I began to wonder how long we could hold out any hope that she would make it. FuckingPyro. Momentarily, I wished that he were still alive so I could have a turn to kill the bastard.
Maxim read the screen on the AED and removed his hands from Lips so it could deliver another shock. He shook his head and gritted his jaw, beginning compressions again. He leaned down to give Lips another two breaths when she let out a sharp gasp. Vale lunged out of Nyx’s arms, and Maxim studied the screen of the defibrillator. “She has a heartbeat, but we need to get her to our clinic. Dr. Anders has been notified of a cardiac arrest and will be waiting to stabilize her.”
“….babe?” Lips’s voice rasped out weakly, uncertainty and confusion coloring her voice. Every head in the room turned to her in surprise.
Vale cradled her head. “I’m here. You’re going to be okay. We’re gonna get you to a doctor.” Nyx and Maxim began coordinating her removal from the clubhouse so she could get medical care, and everyone else was either setting up explosives or having an existential moment in the backyard.
I stepped forward, uncertain what to do but needing to help in some way. “Lips, we’re going to move you to the Petrov clinic in one of their safe houses. Don’t worry about your bike. Someone will take care of it, okay?” I said in what I hoped was a soothing tone.
“Calypso,” Lips murmured as she was lifted by her sisters and Vale, who still gripped her hand like it was the only thing tethering her to the earth. At first, I thought maybe she was delirious, but she cracked a blue eye open and met mine with a small smile. “Only Vale gets to call me Lips.” I chuckled a bit, relieved that she was well enough to tell me not to call her by her girl’s pet name. The trickle of relief turned into a flood, but I was able to wait until the Furies were out of the room to lean against the wall and let out a wobbly breath.
The Chico Iron Raiders were about to be literally wiped from the map, Pyro the traitor was dead, my brothers were still alive, and our allies came away with just a few injuries. No deaths. I could only pray that the teams hitting the other clubhouses were just as successful. All we needed to do was finish the job and get the hell back to Sagebrush so I could see my angel. Cricket and Bard came shuffling in with Pyro’s body, tossing him in the main portion of the clubhouse with the rest of the dead. I briefly explained Calypso’s injury as we gave the house one more check to make sure we hadn’t left anything incriminating insidethat might survive the explosives that were about to raze this clubhouse to the ground.
Once everyone was outside, I called Rook. “We’re clear,” I said when he answered his phone. “Everything good on your end?”
Rook exhaled roughly. “Yeah, there are five Raiders split between the two houses, and no one has entered or exited. Time to execute?” he asked.
“Time to execute,” I confirmed.
I heard a few clicks and some rustling before Rook said, “It’s done.”
“Well done, brother. Land the drones at the hangar and then pack up. We’ll head home tomorrow.” I ended the call and walked over to Maxim.
“Rook discharged the drones. Let’s blow this shit heap so we can get Calypso to your doctor and get cleaned up. Then I owe you a drink. You saved Calypso’s life.” I reached out and shook the hand of the older Russian gangster. He wasn’t obligated to help us, complete strangers, any more than hispakhaninstructed him to, but he’d gone out of his way to resuscitate the Frozen Fury.
“If you two are done jerking each other off over there,” Nyx drawled from her position straddling her bike, “some of us require urgent medical attention.”
Maxim’s men didn’t appreciate the Fury’s tone, judging by their stony expressions, but to my surprise, Maxim chuckled a bit. “Da, garpiya,” he said.
One of Maxim’s men started Calypso’s bike, and I gritted my teeth at the thought of someone else riding my baby. It had to be done, but still. No biker wanted someone else handling their ride. Something within us growled with possessiveness at the very thought. My sympathies were with Calypso even more now, having to deal with bruised tits and probable burns from the AED pads, just to have some random dude mount her bike. Talk about a bad damn day.
I shook my head and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I opened the required app, entered a PIN, and motioned for everyone to pull out. SUVs and motorcycles pulled away from the clubhouse, and I was the last bike to pull away. The Iron Raiders had always been a thorn in our sides, opposed to our club in every possible way. What started in mygrandad Gavin’s day with the first war simmered for decades, the bad blood never quite going away. Tonight, the threat of the Raiders hanging over our heads, and their involvement in some of the worst sins humans can commit against each other, concluded.
I watched, in my rearview mirror, as the Iron Raider clubhouse erupted in flames. Heat from the explosion surged, but we were already riding forward, toward a future that promised to be brighter now that the Raiders had been neutralized. I hoped somewhere out there, Ace knew that we’d avenged his death. I smiled grimly at the knowledge that Ace would have relished the fall of the Raiders. I might not go to his plot in our cemetery very often or leave flowers and shit at his grave, but I could do this. Honoring the grumpy old bastard by ridding our world of a bunch of predatory assholes seemed like a more fitting tribute to Ace than anything else could.
Rook
I slid my phone back into my pocket, regret and determination mingling in my heart and leaving my chest tight with words I couldn’t say and truths that festered.
“Yes, well done,brother,” Levi sneered from where he stood across the small hangar, his shaggy dirty-blond hair obscuring his eyes. I shut the laptops I’d been using to monitor the drone footage of the clubhouse and the two single-family houses the Raiders used as sites to manufacture drugs.
My back was to Levi, but I could feel the penetrating glare he cast my way burning a hole through the Los Cuervos colors on the back of mycut. Grabbing the case I’d stowed my laptop inside, I turned to face his scowl with one of my own.
“No need to be jealous. You’re both pretty, and I love you exactly the same.” I forced a sarcastic smile to my lips, but it never reached my eyes. “He calls all the Crows ‘brother.’ I’m not special.” I moved to walk past Levi, but he darted to the doorway and blocked my path.
A hand met my chest as he shoved me a step back. “Well, as youractualbrother, allow me to jog your memory as to why we’re doing this in the first place. Consider this your gentle fucking reminder, andkeep your head in the game.” I bit my tongue and resisted the urge to deck the guy I’d met way back when we were both nothing but gangly limbs and empty bellies. Back when all we had in the world was each other…and one other.
Everything we’d done, what we’d built, the vow we made, and the lies we’d told—it was all forher.The girl had been just as young, just as vulnerable as we were, lost in a system that had washed its hands of us. She’d become like an elder sister to Levi and me, forging us into the only family we’d ever really known.Nixon. Then one day…she was justgone.
I gritted my teeth. “You never have to remind me. I’m just as deep in this as you are.” Smacking his hand away, I walked out to my bike and stowed my gear into a saddlebag. “Petrov arranged for the traffic cameras to go dark until two o’clock. You’ve got till then to get as far north as you can. Are you sure about Demir?” Murat Demir was the leader of the Turkish mob in Vancouver and was a link in the chain of traffickers we’d been hunting down. I wasn’t sure if Duke and the other Crow presidents knew about Demir’s placement on the pipeline that ran trafficking victims along the West Coast of the US. I may need to make arrangements to ensure he came up on their radar.
Levi might have loathed every moment he was forced to spend with the Iron Raiders, but he hadn’t been idle. Once he proved himself to Riot and was initiated, Levi had access to all the Raiders’ business dealings and quickly found exactly what we needed to damn the Raiders and continue our hunt. The Iron Raiders worked security for Demir’s transport vehicles, making sure his preciouscargowasn’t intercepted en route or otherwise damaged before they could be passed to the nextmonstrous stage of an atrocious industry. Now we knew schedules, buyers, and intended transfer points for Demir’s organization. We were only two men and could only do so much, but our priority always was and always would be finding Nixon first. However, I was well placed to ensure the people whocoulddo something about it would find out.
My work with the Crows had provided substantially different rewards than Levi’s with the Raiders, but there were rewards nonetheless. I had no idea when I chose to infiltrate Los Cuervos MC that I’d be hitting such an informational goldmine, and I wasn’t anywhere near done gathering what we needed from them yet. That didn’t mean I hadn’t grown to care for them all. Levi ensured Bones and Indi weren’t killed the night he attacked the compound with the Raiders, but he hadn’t been able to do anything to prevent the attack from happening without blowing his cover. My only regret about the night Indigo and Bones were taken was that Ace got caught up in the crossfire. He was a good man, and I felt a vindictive rush of satisfaction when I watched Cricket kill Pyro on the drone’s camera tonight. He deserved every ounce of what he got, and more.
