Page 62 of Cinder (MC Fables #2)

L ars

As much as I want to ride into the compound like a bat out of hell with all guns blazing, being stealthy and strategic is the key to living through this.

And making sure Ella doesn’t get caught in the crossfire.

We park our bikes and the van out of earshot and camera range. Thanks to Bram, we know where the weak spots are in their security and how to enter the compound without being detected.

We’ll take care of the firepower protecting the perimeter as quietly as possible, then sneak in.

It’s a good plan.

Until it turns out to be a set up .

Viktor’s men are waiting for us the moment we breach the perimeter fences and get inside, and we find out the hard way when they start shooting at us.

All hell breaks loose, and we get scattered as bullets fly from all directions. I see the prospect get hit twice, but I can’t get to him until I take down two of Viktor’s men, and by then it’s too late.

He’s dead.

Hellbringer is secured to my back, and I’m ready to use it if anyone tries to get between me and Ella. But for now, I rely on my two guns to mow down Viktor’s men as I move through the house, creating a pathway toward the woman I’m in love with.

But so far there is no sign of Ella, or Viktor, or that psychopathic fuck, Luca.

A dark figure appears out of nowhere with his gun aimed at me. But Santo gets a round off and takes him down. Saving my life.

He holds up his gun and wiggles the finger resting against the trigger. “See, son, I’ve still got it.”

I nod in appreciation before turning a corner and moving through the house quietly and precisely and on high alert.

I need to find Ella.

More gunfire rings out. More yelling.

At the end of the hallway, I see Santo exchange fire with someone. He gets hit and slumps against the wall. I change my direction and storm toward the person who shot him and unload several rounds into their chest. And they fall to the floor, dead.

When I reach Santo, he’s in a bad way.

Blood falls from his lips. “Tell Ella I’m sorry. I tried to fix this.”

“You can tell her yourself…”

But he’s already dead before I can finish the sentence.

The light has gone from his eyes, and he stares out at nothing.

I reach over and close them.

Goodbye, old timer.

I don’t have time to do anything else.

I keep moving.

I’m going to find Viktor and kill him. Then I’m going to burn this motherfucking house down.

Creeping along a shadowy hallway, I hear noise coming from one of the bedrooms.

I swing into the room and come face to face with Rogue.

“Fuck, man, I almost unloaded my clip into you,” I say, lowering my weapon.

But he doesn’t lower his.

“Have you seen where they’re keeping Ella?” I ask.

“They’re not here,” he says in an odd voice, while keeping his gun trained on me .

My eyes narrow. “You said you saw them arrive on CCTV?—”

Fuck.

He lied.

Because he’s the motherfucking rat.

My heart falls to the pit of my stomach.

The rat was a Knight after all.

Quicker than a heartbeat, I aim my gun at him again.

“Why?” My voice shakes because I know what I have to do. Rogue will have to pay, and it will be up to me to enforce it. “Why did you betray the club?”

Rogue’s face falls. He looks destroyed. Like the weight of his guilt has aged him.

“You know my sister’s story. You know she needs the money.”

His younger sister has a sick kid. Medical bills have crippled their family.

“There were other ways.”

“Yeah, how? Take on extra patrol runs? Work my ass to the bone doing hours outside of the club? Do you know what it was like seeing all that money come in from the Knights’ Fantasia trade, knowing if I got a bigger piece of the pie, it’d make all the difference?”

“The profit is distributed fairly.”

“My sister needed more. My niece needed more. ”

“The club helped her?—”

“But it wasn’t enough,” he yells helplessly. “I had to do something. I couldn’t stand by and watch my niece suffer. It was killing my sister. Her old man ran out on them. Quit because it was too hard. What was I supposed to do, let them both suffer?”

“You talk to Beast. You don’t betray the club.”

He swallows thickly, ashamed. His eyes are red and glassy.

“It wasn’t meant to go down this way. It was only meant to be a one-time deal.

I didn’t think they would come after the Knights.

But then the Bratva found me, and that’s the thing about these guys, once they’ve got you, they want more and more and more from you, and they push and push until you find yourself doing shit you never thought you would. ”

He shakes his head as he recalls what he’s been going through.

“At first, they said they would rat me out to the club. Tell you what I did if I didn’t start giving them something useful.

So I fed them little bits of information.

Useless shit. But they knew it. So they threatened to hurt my sister and her kid if I didn’t start playing ball.

Then they started paying for shit. A specialist appointment.

Medication. My niece started doing better.

They gave her a chance, and in return, all I had to do was occasionally feed them a little intel.

What choice did I have? I was screwed if I did and screwed if I didn’t.

I chose my sister and niece over the club. You would’ve done the same.”

“No, I wouldn’t have sold clean routes to the fucking Bratva in the first place. I would’ve spoken to my president. My club brothers. Not betray them.”

“That’s easy to say when you haven’t got anything to lose,” he says. “When you don’t have anyone you care about enough to do anything to save them.”

He’s wrong. I have fucking everything to lose.

And I’m here trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I grit my teeth. “You led us into an ambush.”

“They made me do it.”

“They make you kill Cheezy too?”

“I knew all roads would eventually lead to me. But when suspicion fell on him, I thought killing him would keep me in the clear.”

“You thought wrong.”

I think about the prospect lying dead in a pool of blood.

“Scotty is dead because of you.”

By the look on his face he didn’t know, and I see the genuine remorse move across his face.

“You’ve spilled Knights’ blood,” I say. “You know what comes next.”

When a Knight betrays the club, he becomes a Nameless Man. Stripped of his cut and banished. But when a member betrays the club and spills a Knight’s blood in the process, then he has to die.

Tears spill down his cheeks. “I know. ”

Accepting his fate, he lowers his weapon.

My finger slides along the trigger. He is beyond becoming a Nameless Man. Instead, he will rot at the bottom of The Well in the clubhouse dungeon. Where those who have betrayed the club have rotted before him.

He closes his eyes. “Please just make it quick.”

I don’t want to shoot him.

But I am the enforcer.

It’s up to me to enforce the rules.

No matter how much the burden gnaws at me.

My finger rests on the trigger.

Damn you, Rogue. Why did you have to do it?

I force back the feelings of regret.

I’ll do what I have to do.

But before I can pull the trigger, the business end of a gun is pressed into my temple.

Fuck.

“Biker scum,” says a voice in a thick accent.

Viktor Olicheckoff.

“Drop it,” he orders.

I do as he says and my gun clangs as it hits the marble floor.

“I shall enjoy killing you,” he says. “For touching her. For filling her pretty cunt with your dirty biker cock. ”

“Fuck you,” I growl.

He digs his gun deeper into my temple.

“You might have taken what was mine and stained her with your filth,” he says, every word burning with menace.

“But I have her sister, and I will make her bleed for her sister’s betrayal with you.

And then I will take Ella, and I will force her to her knees, and she will suck my cock every single night for the rest of her short, miserable life.

” He comes closer to whisper in my ear. “I wanted you to know that before you die.”

Images of Ella flash before me. Her smile. Her dimples. The sound of her voice. The comforting scent of her hair. The heartbreaking thought of not seeing her again.

“You touch her and I will?—”

“You will do nothing because you will be dead.”

Across the room, Rogue roars and lunges for Viktor, and the barrel of the gun quickly vanishes from my temple and fires in his direction. Hit in the chest, Rogue falls to the floor.

The distraction gives me the chance to grab Viktor’s outstretched arm and crack it in two, before I slam my fist into his skull and drop him to the floor. I pick up my gun and kick his away from him.

Wounded and crying in pain, he looks up at me, fear bright in his cold eyes.

Standing over him, I shoot him in both of his knees just to make him howl, then I kneel beside him and bring my face close so he can hear me .

“She is worth dying for. Not just because of how good it feels to be inside her, or because hearing her moan my name is like hearing angels fucking sing. But because she is the most beautiful thing in the world. Perfect in every possible way. And I’m going to marry her and spend the rest of my life making sure she moans my name every night.

We will be happy…while you slowly rot in the ground.

Nothing more than human mince seeping back into the earth.

” I lean a little closer. “I wanted you to know that before you die.”

He's in too much pain to talk. But his eyes scream with the rage he feels.

And that is all I need.

Rising to my feet, I leave him to suffer while I check on Rogue.

But he’s gone.

A bullet straight to the heart.

Stupid bastard . The moment he sold us out, it wasn’t going to end well for him.

Still, it hurts. Losing one of our own because of one stupid decision.

I crouch down and close his eyes.

Beast walks into the room and zeros in on Rogue lying dead on the floor, and Viktor moaning in pain only a yard away.

A frown ripples across Beast’s face. “What the fuck happened?”

“Rogue was the rat. ”

“What did he tell you?”

“I’ll explain later. Did you find Lucretia?”

“She’s with Gambit. She’s shaken up but she’s okay.” He walks over and kicks a boot into Viktor’s belly, making the asshole yelp. “This fuck didn’t get a chance to do anything to her before we arrived.”

Thank fuck.

"We’ll take her back to the clubhouse where Rev can look her over. She’ll be safe. Did you find Ella?” Beast asks.

“She’s not here. Rogue lied. But I’m going to find her.”

“Go get your girl. I will take care of this.” He nods toward Viktor.

“No,” I say, sliding Hellbringer from my back scabbard. “Allow me.”