“Nice to have you back, Jazz,” Indie started. “Wasn’t expected though.”
“I wasn’t gonna miss Magnet’s funeral.”
“Didn’t think you would.”
Jazz glanced around us, her eyes scanning faces, determining the level of hostility we might show to the man standing in our clubhouse. Then she pushed her helmet onto the table next to her.
“Funeral at the same place?” she asked, and I watched Fury’s brows furrow.
“Aye. Father Leverett doing the honours as usual.”
Jazz nodded, something in her eyes. “Then can you tell me why a whole pack of the Hand and the Notorious are headed in this direction?”
“What?” Indie frowned. “Jazz, what do you mean?”
“But it wasn’t Jazz that answered. “Twenty. Maybe more. Heading this way. Seven minutes out. We pinned it getting here, but by the looks of it, you’re about to have company.”
Fury hand his hands through his hair, eyes dark. “Fuck. How’d they fucking know?”
“Know what, Fury?” Jazz asked, her eyes seeking answered in all of us.
“The funeral is a sham. To draw the Hand where we wanted them. No one knew.” Indie’s eyes darkened too, his voice lowering his gaze picking each of us out, lingering on me a little longer. “Only a few of us. Not even the full club.”
He didn’t need to say it. We were all thinking the same thing. One of us was the leak. I glanced at my brothers. At Demon who looked like he might kill the next person who spoke, at the twins who glanced back nervously, to Fury who didn’tknow whether to snap the man who ran off his sister or rage that one of our brothers stitched us up. And then Indie. He showed nothing. No emotion. Nothing. Indie’s eyes held on me that bit longer, his jaw tight. A tiny flick of tension. I didn’t move my gaze, held his.
“The women.” One of the twins spoke suddenly, a tiny crack in the tension between us all forming. “If they know about this, they’ll know where our women are at.”
“What do you mean?” Jazz’s voice changed the pitch. “Where’s mam, Fury?”
“At Grace’s. They’re all at Grace’s. Out the way so they wouldn’t get caught up.”
Demon stood now, his face a mask of malice. “The tide’ll be in before we can cross. We’ll never get there in time.”
“The Vandals? Can we get them up there?” Fury asked.
Indie shook his head, and I watched the muscle in his neck tighten. “They’re already at the Church. They won’t make it back in time.”
“Fuck!” Fury wandered round in a circle, his hands stuck in his hair.
“We’ll get there.”
Our eyes snapped to him all at once. To the man who had hung one of our own from a fucking warehouse ceiling. To the one that had cut her down and saved her from his own club. To the one we could never forgive, no matter what he tried to do to redeem himself.
“I’m the fastest rider in the North. I can get there before the tide. Jazz too,” Chase continued. “No one’ll reach them quicker than us.”
Fury shook his head. “Never trust a fucking Road Rat.”
“Not one anymore.”
“Once one, always one,” Fury growled, stepping in closer and then stopping as Jazz put herself between the two men.
“Fucking hell,” she shouted. “Put your fucking balls away. That’s my mam too. And you put her in fucking danger. We’ll get there. We’ll protect them. I’m as much club as you are, Fury.”
Fury looked like he might swat her away, his eyes flicking from his sister to Chase and back again. And then he took a step backward and looked at Indie.
“Go.” Indie instructed.
In the distance, we heard a rumble. Motorbikes. Deep and angry. And more than one.
