Page 25

Blade

Rogue called in the entire MC. They’re all assembling in the big bar, which despite taking up almost the entire ground level of our clubhouse doesn’t seem large enough.

All the tables are taken, we’ve brought in chairs from the Council Room and people are sitting on the pool tables which I don’t like.

You can’t see the walls because so many people are leaning against them.

I’m proud that we’ve attracted this many people to our cause by doing the work we’ve been doing—seeking justice for those the system has failed. But all these people are my responsibility now. And that weighs heavy, given that we’re leading them to war.

I’m standing with Rogue just outside the door, in the parking lot that doesn’t look like it can fit any more bikes.

The sky is the brilliant golden brown of late sunset, a color I’ve never seen anywhere else in the world but LA.

It’s a nostalgic sort of light, one that grounds me in the here and now, but takes me back through the years too.

Learning to ride a bicycle with my dad, asking out Bella on our first date—I was a nervous wreck until we kissed near the end of it and then everything fell into place—and the first time we were able to deliver justice to a woman falsely accused of a crime with no other means of getting out from under the charge except with our help.

“Remember the early days, when it was just the five of us in that abandoned warehouse?” I ask Rogue. “Sometimes I wish it was all still so simple.”

He looks at me and grins. “It was far from simple back then. But yeah, I know what you mean. This is a big thing I’m sending our brothers and sisters into. And it’s not what they signed up for.”

“But they did,” I say. “And we’re doing this for all of us. So that there will still be a club once all this is done and dusted.”

He looks out over the parking lot, at the stragglers not inside the clubhouse yet. “If it’ll ever be done and dusted. But you had some doubts about this move… what changed your mind? I thought you were out here to talk me out of it.”

He has every right to call me out on this. I’ve been doing nothing but complain about this move since Bella and I got back from Sunset Beach. But I’ve done some soul searching since.

“I’m with you, from day one to the last day,” I say.

He looks at me for a few moments in silence. Then he claps me on the back, nodding, the gratitude in his eyes a little unsettling.

“I’m glad for your support. I’ll need it. The MC will need it.”

“You got that too. I understand why this needs to happen and I don’t see any other way either. We have to help the Devils so they’ll help us defeat Hydra for good.”

“I was hoping Bella’s connection to the Morettis, I mean her brother working for the guy would help us make a truce with them, but her brother is more the guy’s slave than anything else,” Rogue says. “Did you tell her about that?”

His fiery green eyes are boring holes straight into my skull as he waits for my answer.

“Keeping that from her has been hard,” I say.

“But she doesn’t need to know yet and we don’t actually know the nature of their relationship.

We just know Dante Moretti is treating him like one of the lowest soldiers at the moment.

Maybe it’s some recent thing between them…

who understands the workings of those ancient families anyway? ”

It’s what I’ve been telling myself and how I’ve been justifying not telling Bella that her only surviving family member might be in a pretty bad situation.

Rogue shrugs. “It could be that, I guess. We don’t even know if the rest of her family were killed as retribution for breaking off the engagement with Dante Moretti.

But we’ll deal with that when we come back.

Because first things first, we gotta secure the Devils’ allegiance if we want hope for a future. ”

“Yeah, this Hydra organization is living up to its name. Like the mythical monster, it has so many heads we might never be able to chop them all off. And if they also keep growing back… well, then we’re really screwed.”

Hydra has deep connections with the Mob and who knows who else. Skye thinks she recognized a former LA Police Chief in one of the surveillance photos Zane took, but is still confirming it.

Minx and Rock pass us as they walk into the clubhouse, nodding in our direction.

The bruise covering half of Minx’s face is fading, but the cut on Rock’s forehead will leave a permanent scar.

They’re also both still limping. A vivid reminder of how vulnerable we are to Hydra and a vivid example of why we must take care of them once and for all.

“We just have to cut off enough heads, then maybe it’ll die on its own,” Rogue says. “But that’s a conversation for another time. Let’s go in, it’s time.”

“Right behind you,” I say and follow him into the clubhouse and to the slightly raised podium he uses to deliver his speeches when addressing the whole club.

His presence alone is enough to quiet the room.

He’s magnetic like that. In another life he would’ve made a great snake oil salesman, or even a preacher. He always laughs when I say that.

I stand at his side, eyeing the crowd while Alice calls everyone to order as is her place as the Sarge, even though everyone is already quietly waiting for Rogue’s speech.

He raises his hands and starts telling everyone why we are riding north, why we are entering a war that is not our own and why we will give it our all to help the Devils and secure their help in return.

He talks about how they helped us find Ghost and finally avenging Angel, and about our need to have allies in our feud with Hydra.

Because defeating them is our only path forward.

Our only path back to doing what we are meant to do—bringing monsters to justice.

There’s some whispering and mumbling among the brothers and sisters, but not much, nowhere near what I was expecting. And by the time he’s done, no one complains. Everyone just promises him what I promised: that they will stand by him until the end, however and wherever it comes.

If I weren’t already convinced this needs to happen if we’re ever gonna have peace again, I’d be convinced after his speech too.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Rogue says as we hang back after the meeting. “I half expected half of them to abandon the MC.”

“Nah man, you could convince a dead man to rise if you wanted to,” I say.

“Let’s hope I never have to try,” he says grimly.

The idea of that happening hits me hard, right in the chest. But we’re doing this so Bella can have a peaceful life too. We’re doing it so we can get back to offering justice to those that have no other way to get it. We’re doing it to rid the world of scum that shouldn’t be walking free.

And that’s worth every sacrifice to me.