“Getting a closer look. Memorise their bikes while you wait. Their profiles, how they move and speak. How they interact with each other. If you have a shot in the dark, it might be all you have to identify them.”
I did not wait for his answer. In truth, I’d brought Nash with me as a courtesy to Cam. A mark of respect, perhaps. Had I been alone, there was every chance Butch Crow and his sidekick would already be dead. A bolt each to the brain. An unsolved double murder in sleepy Devon while I evaporated from this world forever.
No footprints. No paper trail.
I did not exist.
But then, if I had been here alone, the fate of Butch and McGif would have meant nothing to me. The fate of Cam and Saint. The Kings. If not for meeting Cam’s gaze across a dingy bar in Bristol...I would not care because I would not know.
I did not like the feeling that washed over me as I contemplated that. Leaving Nash behind, I slipped into the shadows and crept closer to the Crow compound, leaving their chatter for Rubi’s meticulous ears while I scoped out the best places to lay the explosives buried nearby when I returned in the dead of night.
It was almost too easy, a fact the scratched my brain as I moved undetected around Crow HQ, climbing into their roof space. I came across the original bugs I’d laid with Saint all those weeks ago and dismantled them for something to do as I found a lookout spot in the dusty loft and scanned the compound. A Crow gathered a case of crude weapons—knuckledusters, bats, and pipes—and loaded them into a van, along with other supplies.
Bottled water. Cereal bars.
They seemed out of place with the rest of the preparations. Packing for a holiday instead of a war.
The truck.My thumbs itched to text Rubi and ask what he’d heard on that, but I forced myself to wait.Don’t distract me, bro.
Fair enough.
It did not take long to map out the explosives I would lay later that night. For good measure, I tampered with electrical items and fire extinguishers, but at Cam’s request, left the alarms alone. We would detonate when the compound was as empty as it would ever be, our intention to destroy, not kill.I had already ensured the Crows would have no money to rebuild.
On my way back to Nash, I laid the detonator and the wires, then coaxed him away from the car to show him.
“I’ll rig it tonight. You will be able to tell by the light on the detonator. See?”
Nash studied the simple contraption I’d presented him with. “It looks like the engine from my old dirt bike.”
I smirked. “Maybe it is. I collect car parts for work like this. It makes immediate detection more difficult for anyone who comes after you.”
“Me?” Confusion coloured Nash’s face. “Won’t you be here?”
“Of course. But it is prudent to have backup, no?”
“My nan’s cat was called Prudence, if that helps.”
It did not. But I enjoyed Nash’s easy company all the same. It calmed the ever-growing mess inside me, and knowing he could finish the job here if something pulled me away was a reassurance I hadn’t known I needed.
We finished up and headed back to the Kings’ compound. The town of Whitness did not feel like home, but the club’s base was beginning to, despite the suffocating throngs of people I had to navigate every time I was here. But it was quiet today, only the merchant yard thrumming with any kind of activity.
Orla waved to me and blew a kiss to Nash.
He sighed.
I chuckled. It was as easy as it was ever going to be.
Nash disappeared. Out of habit, I climbed the stairs to Cam’s bedroom above the clubhouse. He was not supposed to be here. His bike wasn’t parked in the yard, his SUV who knew where—I’d lost track. But he did not surprise me when I found him sitting on the hardwood floor, rummaging through a cardboard box of photographs.
“You are feeling nostalgic, biker boy?”
Cam glanced up, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was shirtless, the bullet scar on his shoulder exposed to the air. “How did you get on?”
“It is done as much as it can be until I go back.”
“I want Mateo to go with you.”
“No.”
