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The room above the bar where we held church was cramped as fuck. Caleb and I were almost sitting on each other’s knees, squeezed in around the enormous mahogany table with more scars than fucking Blazing Bill, the vice president from the Angels and Demons MC. I glanced across at the man, at the mottled scar of lines over his left cheek, and the light-blue, milky glazed eyeball that seemed to have taken on a mind of its own. He was listening intently and looking as uncomfortable as ever wedged in beside Brie. He dipped his head towards the Angels and Demons president, his lips moving, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Probably because I couldn’t take my eyes off his half bald head, where strands of long hair fell in clumps down to his shoulders.

Beside me, Sicknote stared too, his mouth gaping open in something that was half a grimace and half shock.

“Stop staring,” I hissed. “He might look half Zombie, but he’ll launch across the table in a minute and rip your throat out.”

“Aye, and then he’ll eat it,” Caleb added, his face as serious as Brie’s was as he listened to his VP.

“Fuck. Really?” The colour drained from Sicknote’s face.

I shook my head. We should have named him Fuckwit for how thick he was, not Sicknote. Although he’d lived up to his road-name lately. Apparently, he was too ill to come to church last week, or the week before. And I’d bet he was only here because Indie had threatened to have a brother drag him in by the balls if he didn’t show up tonight.

Eventually, the room descended into silence, Indie taking his seat at the very head of the table, next to Fury, who was already sitting at his right hand-side.

“Brothers of the coalition,” our president started. “Thank you for getting together at short notice.”

“We’re not all here though, aye?” Dougal, the president of the Teesside Road Rats, responded, for those of us who could understand his thick Glaswegian accent.

“No, Dougal. You’re absolutely right. The Notorious haven’t been invited.”

Mutters scurried across the room, every man turning to the buddy next to him and whispering something in response. I looked at Indie, trying to decipher the expressions running across his face, but neither he nor Fury were giving away much, their hardened war faces firmly in place, something we were all becoming more familiar with. Fuck how I longed for the summer back. When we were riding and fucking without a care in the world, only looking over our shoulders to keep a step ahead of the coppers. How times had fucking changed, and I hadn’t seen it coming. Not really. My stomach cartwheeled, the motion making me suddenly nauseous. Caleb turned towards me, the look on his face telling me he felt the same. And that made me feel even worse.

“A week ago, someone shot Demon.” Indie continued.

“Fuck,” the voices in the room all merged into one, and if the room had windows in it, I could have sworn someone had just opened one, the icy tendrils of surprise laced with realisation touching everyone in the Northern Kings’ church.

“He’s alive.”

Another mutter chased around the room.

“We believe the Notorious were responsible.”

Now there was nothing. Not a mumble, not a stutter. Everyone silent after Indie’s last word.

“Where’s ya proof?” Dougal crossed his hands over his big chest, old biceps bulging out of the bare arms of his leather waistcoat.

“Brie. Over to you,” Indie continued, and we all turned to stare at the president of the Angels and Demons MC.

“I have intel that the Notorious carried out the hit and that the Hand ordered it. The Notorious are working with the Hand now. Any allegiance they had to the coalition has long gone.”

“You sure about that, Brie?” Tez broke through the static of disbelief that filled the room.

“Hundred percent, mate. Who here has been approached by the Hand and offered a chance to patch over to them?”

Brie’s head turned, slowly scanning the room. At first, no one moved. Then Tomahawk nodded, his head of braids and tattoos almost coming alive of their own accord. The troubled face of the president of the Durham Heathens nodding too, and soon the entire room was a bob of heads.

Indie rose to his feet, the bobbing heads and low guttural mutters of the men around the table disappearing immediately.

“We can fold and give in. If you want to be bum buddies to the Hand, you go right fucking ahead. But know this. When you do, you are no longer part of the coalition. You will no longer get protection from the Kings. And we all know the Hand don’t keep their promises.”

“And you think you can protect us from the Hand, Indie?” Dougal growled in his low Scottish rumble from across the table. “Your errand boy is half dead in hospital, and I heard they’d gone after him again last night. How do we even know he’s still alive?”

I wasn’t sure what the atmosphere was in the room right then. Whether it was anger, surprise, fear, anxiety. In fact, I could feel all of it in the air, suffocating and hot. Fury leaned forward in his seat and to my other side, Reap immediately tensed.

“He’s still fucking alive, Dougal,” Indie tipped onto his elbows, forcing his eyeline down to the Teesside Road Rats level. “But you know we don’t need Demon. We have enough arsenal in this club to take on the Hand.”

Dougal shook his head. “Demon is half dead. You’ve just buried Ste and without Si or Ade, who’ve you got left?”

Fury jumped to his feet, the chair he’d been sitting on scraping back across the floor and then suddenly, we were all stood, every King in the room on his feet.

“The old guard are still here, you Glaswegian piece of shit.” Fury yelled.

Dougal uncrossed his arms. The VP next to him pushed his seat away from the table, ready to get to his feet.

I glanced around at nearly forty bikers squeezed into a windowless room. We were lucky there were so many of us, because if it all kicked off there was barely room to swing a cat and so a real good scrap was off the cards.

“Fury’s right,” Barry the Blade and Big Red were up now too. “The war was twenty years ago. And we may have aged in this time, but we haven’t forgotten how to fight. We don’t need Demon for that.”

“Really? Demon ended it because the shit he was doing was enough to scare the devil himself.” Dougal wasn’t letting up and the long-haired, skinny VP, dressed head to toe in the club’s Italian racing leathers next to him, was loving every minute.

“Demon was acting on Ste’s orders. You reckon he was the only one wearing a Dirty Deeds badge in our club? Look around you. See how many of us have that on our cuts.” Barry the Blade had pushed away from the table now, and opposite from him, the Teesside Road Rats President and VP were on their feet. The gangly, younger man already making his way towards the bottom of the table, but then he paused, looking across at our road captain before bounding up onto the table.

Someone next to me shouted. Indie and Fury separated, moving down each side of the table. Sicknote who’d been sitting beside me disappeared. One minute he was there and the next the fucker had ducked under the table. Caleb nudged my side and now we were standing, a sea of bodies writhing around us. There were grunts, shouts, a heavy thump as someone landed hard on the worn table in front of us. Shit was going to hell. Fast.

Leather cuts jostled with leather cuts. More men jumping onto the table in the middle of the room just to get enough room to fight. Fists flying and bones crunching, an elbow striking Caleb in his eye, popping his eyebrow, blood running down his face. The skinny VP from the Rats grabbed the back of Caleb, wrapping a thin arm around his throat and dipping his head as if going in for a kiss. The fucker was going to bite him. I charged forwards, stepping onto a chair and diving through the air, my elbow landing in the middle of the man’s head. He dropped under me and a piercing throbbing pain shot through my arm, radiating out from my funny-bone and consuming my entire right-hand side. Fuck, that had to have hurt me more than him.

And while I was distracted with the pain in my elbow, I hadn’t seen the Rat’s president’s punch until it was right in front of me. Now the pain in my elbow matched the pain in my left eye, and a warm trickle started down my face.

*****

There were no lights on at all in the vets when I got there that night. Not even round the back of the building. And no lights meant no Alice. I sat for a while out in the cold, watching the building that was all but asleep, as the left-hand side of my head pounded. The blood had stopped, but it felt like someone was hammering a nail into the top of my eye socket and the pressure of my helmet wasn’t helping.

The fight at church had gone on for a solid ten minutes to where no one knew who was punching who anymore. When everyone was exhausted and nearly everyone had at least one injury, it fizzled out. The Teesside Road Rats had stormed out, muttering all sorts of threats that none of us thought much about. Not when the Bloody Hand and the Notorious were our biggest concern. A bit of a rough up by another club wasn’t much in the scheme of things and unlikely with the backing of the others in the coalition. But if the Road Rats pulled out, our numbers were dwindling already.

We needed friends, not enemies. And we needed Demon back on his feet, because despite what the older members of the Kings had said tonight, Demon was still the best weapon we had. Everyone round that table knew it was no coincidence why he’d been targeted first. Even without killing him, the Notorious and the Hand had taken him out of the equation. We needed another weapon. Someone with more firepower. Most of us knew who that was, but half of the club wouldn’t entertain the idea. Indie wasn’t ready to force the issue just yet. But I hoped for all our sakes he was willing to do it when the time came. No matter who we ended up owing.

I shivered, the wind picking up around me, another cloudless sky letting the temperatures fall below zero for the fourth night in a row. And bike leathers were not a good choice. I started the bike up, the heavy roar of the engine slicing through the cold, every window around me vibrating. A curtain twitched to one side, a cautious resident peeking out, the sliver of light disappearing the moment it caught my attention.

It seemed almost stupid to ride the bike one street over to the red door I had left her in front of last night. I hadn’t paid attention to the street name, or the number on the door, but as I cruised, rumbling slowly along the street, I recognised it. Two red doors, barely six inches apart, and the old mosaic tiles of the path, distorted by dandelions and grass, growing despite the winter.

Above me, the blinds in the bay window moved, a dark figure pushing them to one side. Someone had seen me, but from down here, on the road below, I couldn’t tell who it was. The bike grumbled outside the door for a few minutes as I sat atop it, looking up at the light soaking through the blinds, and the shadow beyond.

I had no excuse for being here. None. Kinobi was at the vets, tucked up in her cage, still recovering from her ordeal. And here I was, camped outside the house of the woman I couldn’t stay away from. The woman I was trying to keep away from my brother. The woman that made me want to keep her all for myself. From the moment I met her, looked into those light blue eyes, watched as she took control of me and the dog that was bleeding out in my arms, I’d never felt so selfish in my life. Now I was captivated by a woman I couldn’t, wouldn’t, share with my brother.

The door opened, and that woman stood staring at me, vulnerable, real and as fucking gorgeous as I’d ever seen her, even if she was still wearing those green scrubs.