Rabid studies the photo again, uncertain and troubled.
Viper clears his throat and raises his eyebrow at the prez. "Rabid, what else would it be? Pike targets women. Young ones. Vulnerable ones. He’s following a pattern. This fits. Breaker’s right.”
My blood heats.
Viper’s voice is smooth. Too smooth. He gestures at the knife. “Blood’s still tacky. Likely, this was his last kill. And this…” he nods at the photo clenched in my fist, “is his next target.”
Everything in me roars; I stand so fast Rabid barely gets out of the way.
“He’s not touching her,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound human. “I’ll find him before he gets within a mile of her.”
Rabid gives me a long look that borders between agreement and suspicion, but ultimately he nods. “We’ll find the son of a bitch. I’ll put the club on it. Everyone. And we’ll tap our resources, too.”
Viper grins like he already knows the ending. “We’ll find him, Breaker. We’ll find him and we’ll end him.”
I stare down at the ruined photograph and feel something inside me lock into place with brutal certainty. I couldn’t save my brothers in Afghanistan. Bodies burned and buried because of me, because I failed when it counted the most.
But this time — this time — it’s different.
This time, I’m not failing the people I love.
Not again.
Not ever.
I tuck the photo into my pocket and turn toward the door, my heartbeat already shifting into the rhythm of the hunt. “Let’s go. There’s no time to waste.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Riley
The morning feels almost perfect. So close to perfect it’s a taunt. The kind of peace you can taste but never quite swallow, because even as the light slants through the kitchen window, even as the voices of the Twisted Devils ripple through the halls and the smell of coffee and bacon wrap around me, I know better. There’s a small, gnawing voice in the back of my head. Not quite a voice, exactly — more like a spiderweb of sensation across my skin. The kind that twitches when danger is near. Still, for a little while, I let myself believe in the illusion. I let myself breathe.
After Breaker left with Rabid, the clubhouse slowly comes alive — voices, footsteps, laughter drifting in from every direction. I linger in the kitchen doorway for a moment, just watching the rhythm of this place and smiling. For once, I’m not an outsider; I’m not tiptoeing, not hiding, not flinching at sudden sounds. I’m welcome.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I’d stepped into a strange, dysfunctional fairy tale.
Drawn in, I get close to the bar, and I sip my coffee and lean against the counter, savoring how the morning sun sharpens every detail: the counter glowing in the golden light, beer glasses shimmering, Mayhem and Havoc arguing about whether pancakes should ever include pumpkin. Just two grown men bickering over breakfast, like the world isn’t full of monsters.
Claire comes over, settling next to me at the bar with her own coffee.
“Good morning, Riley,” she says, her voice warm but measured.
“Hey, Claire,” I say. My voice surprises me with how soft it is, almost shy. “Thanks again. For the room, the clothes. Everything, really.”
She looks at me, and there’s a flicker of something almost maternal in her eyes. “You fit here, Riley. You know that, right?”
I sip my coffee, glowing a little. “I feel like I do. You all are so welcoming. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way… and I’m trying, you know?”
“You don’t have to try. You just… do.” Claire sips her coffee. Then she smiles, her lips lifting in a way that’s soft but proud. “I’m happy to see how well you’re doing. And I wish I could stay, but work calls.” She stands and heads toward Rabid's office to relay something Mayhem apparently forgot to mention last night involving a fire extinguisher and a missing boot.
I’m finishing my breakfast when Bones shuffles past, muttering under his breath as he drags a garbage bag behind him. “Goddamn roses,” he mumbles. “Some psycho threw ‘em everywhere. You believe that shit?”
The words hit me like a fist. Roses. My lungs clamp tight, stopping my breath. My roses.
“Roses? Where did you find them?” I say.
Bones huffs and hefts the bag onto the counter with a wet thump. The scent rises from them like a plague; the cloying perfume of decaying flowers, damp and sickly sweet. He yanks open the top of the bag and pulls out a handful: long-stemmed, black, dead. The petals are limp and rotted at the edges, as if they’ve been left to fester in the sun.
