I gun the throttle, the engine snarling as I cut out of formation and take the side road toward the Rogue compound. I hit the next turn hard enough that the back tire skids for half a second before catching. The road ahead is dark, narrow, and mean, the fastest cut toward the old Rogue area if my guess is right. I thumb my phone and call Demo.
The kid answers on the first ring, breathless. “Bricks?”
“Where are you?”
“In the SUV with Saint and Ash. Moth sent us a possible location. Saint is about to kill everyone.”
“Good,” I say, leaning into another turn. “I’m on my way.”
Demo makes a strangled noise. “That’s your response?”
“The trap’s set, the Rogues bit, and Moth is ruining their night with math. Saint can have the compound.”
“Bricks, he’s really quiet.”
That makes my grin fade. Quiet Saint is one thing. Quiet Saint with Oisín missing is something else entirely. I picture Demo in the passenger seat beside him, probably sitting too straight, trying not to twitch every time Saint breathes. Poor kid. Hell of a way to learn what devotion looks like when a man has never practiced being gentle with it.
“Listen to me,” I say. “You stay close to him, but not in front of him. If he tells you to move, you move. If he tells you to shoot, you shoot. If he looks like he’s about to do something that gets Oisín hurt, you say Oisín’s name. Not his. Oisín’s.”
Demo is quiet for half a beat. “Will that work?”
“Fuck if I know. But it’s the only leash we’ve got.”
In the background, Saint’s voice comes through, a lethal edge to it. “Who are you talking to?”
Demo swallows audibly. “Bricks.”
Saint says something I can’t make out.
Demo comes back with, “He says ride faster.”
I laugh again. “Tell him I’m old, not dead.”
“I’m not telling him that.”
“Smart boy.”
I cut the call and ride a little faster. Something is about to go sideways. I just hope it involves the Rogues and not the one man Saint ever opened his heart for.
Saint
Soliswaitingatthe Rogue compound when I get out of the car, and for half a second, all I can think is that my father has the worst fucking timing of any man alive. I’m not even sure how he got in front of me but it doesn’t matter.
Demo climbs out on the passenger side with his gun already in hand, while Ash comes out of the back with the rifle case and the quiet focus Bricks promised me he had.
I barely register either of them because Sol steps away from the gatepost standing between me and the building where Oisín is either bleeding, unconscious, or still trying to survive men who’ve spent his whole life mistaking softness for permission. My father shouldn’t be here. He should be back at the clubhouse,playing president in the chair he still thinks protects him from consequences.
“This is the worst possible option,” Sol says.
I hit him before the sentence has time to settle. My fist catches him across the mouth hard enough to snap his head sideways and send the cigar skidding across the dirt. Sol staggers once, catches himself against the gatepost, and turns back with blood already darkening the corner of his mouth. For the first time in my life, I don’t care what my father sees on my face, because whatever he finds there belongs to me now.
“No,” I tell him, stepping past before the old fury in his eyes can become another sermon. “The worst possible option was standing in my way.”
If he speaks again, I’ll hit him again, and some part of him must understand that because he stays quiet while I cross the dirt toward the entrance. The Rogue prospect by the truck reaches for his gun too late. Ash drops him before his fingers close around the grip, the shot cracking across the yard and waking the compound all at once.
I kick the front door open and step into the main room with Demo at my left and Ash behind me. The place turns toward us in a rush of motion: men at tables, men near the bar, two by the hallway leading deeper into the building, hands dropping to weapons, mouths opening around curses they won’t get to finish.
Their cuts blur together into one old, rotten thing. Bad leather. Bad loyalty. Bad blood. I don’t need their names because the room has already made itself simple. Every man in it is either going to tell me where Oisín is or become part of the floor.
