“Where’s your phone?” Tangaloa asked, jaw ticking with annoyance. He crossed his tattooed arms over his broad chest. Like me, he only wore a pair of board shorts. No doubt the only reason he allowed me entry was because I had Lu in my arms. From the moment I introduced them a decade ago, he loved her like a little sister and would never do anything to hurt her.
“It got wet,” I answered without preamble. Lu’s awake enough that she giggled into my neck at my answer.
Tangaloa’s eyes narrowed, but he smartly kept his mouth shut on my known disdain for cellphones. Way I saw it, if no one could get ahold of me, they couldn’t interrupt me fucking mywahine.
“Kayl called me when he couldn’t get ahold of you.” His eyes glanced to Lu, but I didn’t offer to take her away or to hide her from the topic of conversation. I didn’t keep secrets from Lu—not anymore. Those secrets had cost me five years when I could have been with her. I’d never allow anything to come between us again, not even the darker side of my world.
A sergeant with the Honolulu Narcotics Unit, Kayl was not as squeaky clean as his superiors believed him to be. Tangaloa, Kayl, and I grew up together, and while he wasn’t in my club, he was on my payroll. I paid him a hefty sum each month to pass on information that pertained to us and to turn a blind eye when needed. When the club formed, we took over Tangaloa’s arms business, partnered with a local brothel, and bought a brewery to help launder our money. Kayl might not be as close to us as Tangaloa and I were to each other, but he was still a friend.
Tangaloa looked back at me, anger blazing in his dark eyes. “He found proof Kahokuisthe one who paid the Bloody Scorpions to shoot up your house.”
My blood lit with molten lava, Ku pounding in my soul for revenge. Two months ago, my house was obliterated by gunfire while Lu, my baby niece Pua, and I were still inside. It was onlyfrom my inability to sleep with boxers on, instead of in the nude, that saved us. I heard the van pull down my drive in the middle of the night when no vehicles should have been moving around on my farm. After discovering that the visitors were unwelcome, I was able to get Pua and Lu to safety before the gunfire started.
Everything, all our belongings, were destroyed.
Kahoku Hikialani wasn’t just some activist around these parts; he wastheactivist. And most of my club, including myself, Tommy, Spirit, Tangaloa, Neo, Mako, and Hops, had once worked for him. Kahoku stood for home, for our way of life. Which was why I had trouble wrapping my mind around the claim that he was involved in the drug trade here on the islands. He called it the ‘haolepoison’, and hedespiseddrug dealers. I’d killed a fair share of them on his orders.
But as Bacon, a former FBI agent, had pointed out, what better way was there to get rid of the competition?
And now I finally had the proof I needed before I went after him. It was only in deference to everything Kahoku had done for me over the years that I had not acted already. I needed that proof before I destroyed him.
Proof that I now had.
I turned my head and kissed Lu on the forehead. I would help her shower before laying her to bed, alone. “Tell Tommy to get his boat ready,” I told Tangaloa as I headed for the stairs. Themanowould eat well tonight.
Whistles rang out upon the night as hot crimson splattered my face, the lifeless body of a man falling at my feet. Like the lore of the Night Marchers, I offered no mercy to those who had brokenancient law. Drenched in blood, the leather of my cut glistened more mahogany than black.
From the screams in the distance, I know the twins had the exterior guards handled. I have never been able to tell them apart, though technically Harlan had the road name of Thing One and Sawyer had Thing Two. Half the time, they both wore a Thing One or a Thing Two cut just to fuck with us. They were as lethal as I was, and just as sadistic. When they fought hand-to-hand, they wore gloves with small barbs dipped in tetrodotoxin that paralyzed their victims before slowly asphyxiating them.
Tangaloa and Tommy, the club’s Medic, preferred guns while Spirit, the club’s Tracker, and I had a penchant for a more brutally bloody approach.
Lu and I were a month out from our wedding. She wasn’t thrilled with me leaving her as I did, the old fear from when I’d nearly died five years ago still fresh in her thoughts. But I wasn’t alone as I had been five years ago. Now, I had my club to guard my back, and we were powerful. Still, I would not leave Lu unguarded.
Bacon, my SAA, was there, as was his woman, Holly. I hadn’t yet figured out Holly’s past, though I pieced together that she’d been raped by more than one man. She was odd—to say the least—and I got the feeling that she knew more about killing than even I did.
Additionally, Saga and Tick, my Secretary and Treasurer, were at the mansion to provide extra protection. Neo was there, too, though they would be little help if it came to a fight. At four-eleven, they were better at sneaking into places than battling head on.
Lucifer, our Chaplain, was called away on business involving the community center he helped run north of Mililani. Normally, club business took precedence. There were very few exceptions to that rule, helping an abused woman and her children escapeher psychotic boyfriend being one of them. Lucifer could handle himself. Though a former priest, he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty when it came to protecting the innocent. Still, I sent four of our five prospects, Mouse, Doodles, Beetle, and KD, with him just in case.
Barnacle, the fifth prospect, was currently guarding Tommy’s boat. Kahoku lived in a secluded part of Kaua?i, the most northern island in the main island chain. Unlike the others in the club who used to work for Kahoku, I had been to his home many times prior to our invasion. His mountainous home was surrounded by foliage that was supposed to deter intruders, but he never thought it would be theKama?ainathat came for him.
Once upon a time, I helped guard his home. I believed in Kahoku—or rather believed in his cause. I thought his ideals the same as mine, to protect our ‘aina, our land, and keep it pure. While he’d always been eccentric, I never thought much of it because his intentions had always mirrored my own.
Until one of the Bloody Scorpions who had shot up my house muttered Kahoku’s name two months ago, Ineverwould have believed he was involved in anything untoward. Illegal, sure, but that was the price you paid when the laws of nature conflicted with the laws of man. But drugs? Making deals with human traffickers who stole our people and shipped them around the world for the pleasures of evil men?
No. Never.
There aren’t many people in my world who I looked up to. For one, I was too awesome. For another, very few had earned that level of respect from me. Discovering indisputable proof that Kahoku paid to have me killed,Lukilled?
Until Kayl had called earlier this evening, a part of me was still been trying to figure out how the Bloody Scorpions could have framed Kahoku. Even Neo hadn’t been able to find much,but Kahoku also didn’t use technology as freely as most people did these days. In that, we were similar.
Kayl’s proof, the redhead who had paid the Bloody Scorpions on Kahoku’s behalf, was now hogtied on Tommy’s boat with Barnacle. To my utter astonishment, he had both of his hands. Although, he was missing his tongue.
A single kick from my bare foot splintered the front door, gaining me entry into the home. I let out a long, high-pitched whistle that echoed through the house like the bad omen it was.
Above all, I was pissed. I didn’t give a fuck who Kahoku was, who he used to be to me, or what I had once owed him. He hadnearly killed Lu!There was no excuse, no reason, no defense for that. He would die tonight. Slowly, painfully. I gave him the benefit of the doubt for nearly two months while searching for proof.
Never again.No onewould ever get such a reprieve from my wrath again. Not when it came to Lu and certainly not when it came to my son.
