Page 13 of Desert Loyalties

MANDRAKE

Watching a club brother blow his brains out shouldn’t feel like relief .

But it does.

Because now we won’t have to kill him for grieving.

Locke was one of us. Not a saint, not a hero, but one of ours.

He rode with us, bled with us. But grief makes men weak.

Makes them reckless. And if I’m being honest, really honest, I stopped seeing him as a brother the second he put Skye in danger.

I love this club. I built my life around it.

But if it were Skye who’d OD’d? If someone had gotten her hooked?

I would’ve tortured every last soul in this building to find the one responsible. Slowly. Loudly.

And I sure as hell wouldn’t have cheated on her while she was spiralling.

So yeah. I don’t mourn Locke. Not the way I should.

Still. The smell of blood’s thick. Metallic. Sticking to the back of my throat. I keep staring at the mess he made. Skull fragments sprayed across the floor like confetti.

I step over the body, closer to Skye. I speak softly as if speaking to a child. “Darlin’,” I say gently, voice lower than usual.

She finally turns her head. Looks away from Locke’s body and at me.

But it doesn’t feel like she sees me. Not really.

“He… he’s dead,” she says, hollow.

“I know.”

She blinks slowly. Her skin’s pale, lips pressed into a thin line. “He just killed himself.”

“I know.”

I reach for her, just to feel her skin against mine but she slaps my hand away, suddenly and sharply. “Stop saying that.”

It hurts. Not the slap. It’s the rejection that lands deeper. I don’t flinch. Don’t retreat. She’s in shock. She needs time to process, even if time’s the one thing we’re running out of.

She stands, legs a little shaky, and walks toward the door. Steps around the blood like it’s lava. Not once does she look down. Like if she doesn’t see it, maybe it didn’t happen.

Skye stops beside Ranger. Which I don’t like.

So, I move too. Plant myself at her other side.

Close enough so she feels my warmth. A wall she can lean on or hide behind.

I don’t know if she’s blaming me. For the plan.

For Locke. For all of it. The beast inside my chest snarls at the thought, scraping claws across my ribs.

Then she reaches out. Finds my hand. Her fingers slip between mine, interlocking them.

It’s small. But it brings me back from the edge.

“This is bad, right?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

Grim’s crouched over Locke’s body, looking like a demon waiting to drag the dead to hell.

He answers without looking up. “Yes. Very bad.”

Ranger runs a hand down his face. “The cops are never gonna buy that their informant killed himself.”

I finish it for him. “We’re fucked.”

Grim stands then, rising to his full height. No emotion. Nothing in his eyes. Just cold efficiency. “I could get rid of the body,” he says, like he’s offering to take out the trash.

I shake my head. “Won’t work. They’ll keep coming.”

“Then we redirect them,” Ranger cuts in, his eyes already calculating. “No one suspected Locke. Not even us. We just have to convince everyone that he ran.”

That could work. “We need to find out how he contacted the DEA, find his contact. We’ll send a message from him, something like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ Make it look like guilt pushed him to run.”

Ranger nods. “There’s no way he used his own phone. Probably a burner. We need to bring the brothers in, only the patched ones.”

He glances at Grim. “You handle the body. His cut’s soaked in blood anyway.”

“All right,” Grim says with a grin.

Ranger leads Skye and me up through the hatch that opens straight into his office, bypassing the common room. Mickey’s already in the office, leaning against the frame of the joining door like he’s been waiting.

“I saw everything,” he says, nodding towards Skye, handing her, her phone. “Already told Caine to sweep Locke’s room. Discreet. He wasn’t an officer. We’ve got some wiggle room.”

He looks at me. “We’ll need someone to ride out. Make it look like Locke bailed.”

“Joker,” I say immediately. “He’s loyal. Built similar. Rough enough to pass. We send him to Locke’s place. Pack a bag, grab all the cash and ride off into the desert. We’ll follow. Stash the bike. Burn what we don’t need.”

Skye speaks up, voice still raw. “What about his neighbours? Won’t they know it’s not him?”

“We wait till dark,” Ranger says. “Hoodie. Bandana. Keep the helmet on. The point isn’t foolproof. it’s momentum. Once we start the lie, we keep running with it.”

He leans forward, both hands on the desk. “We have to move fast. I trust the brothers. But hangarounds? The girls? Too many mouths. Too many eyes.”

I offer the next piece. “Let’s have a party.”

Mickey raises a brow. “What?”

Ranger gets it instantly. “He’s right. Claiming party. Loud. Drunk. Once everyone’s blitzed, no one’s gonna notice who’s on the bike.

Skye furrows her brow. “Claiming party?”

Ranger meets her gaze. “I know this isn’t ideal—”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m fine with it. Just… don’t you need the ceremony first?”

Ranger nods slowly, looking at me. “We’ll discuss it later. With everything you’ve done for us… no one will ever question your loyalty.”

She gives him a tired smile, and I can’t help tugging her hand gently. She laughs, warm and soft despite everything. That sound settles something ragged in me.

Ranger watches us with a wry look. “Why don’t you two head to Skye’s guesthouse? Clean up. I’ll deal with this mess.”

Skye starts to object. “Are you sure?”

But I’m already pulling her along. After everything that’s gone down tonight, I need her.

Outside Ranger’s office, everyone stands as we pass, like we’re walking a prisoner out. Ranger steps up beside us, voice steady.

“The misunderstanding has been resolved,” he announces. “Tonight, we’re having Skye’s claiming party.”

The room buzzes with noise as grown men start to holler and hoot like fuckin’ girls.

“Church,” Ranger orders. Then his gaze flicks to me. “Except Mandrake.”

I grin. Damn right.

Before we head out, I tug Skye toward the kitchen. Might be morbid, but now that she’s safe, I’m starving.

A few clubwhores are perched on the island counter, half-dressed and gossiping over iced coffee. At night, their job is to service the brothers. During the day? I don’t exactly know what they do, but when the food’s ready and the place is clean, I don’t ask questions.

Skye’s changed a lot around here. She stepped into the role of queen without the crown. Sure, she bartends, but she also runs this damn place. Keeps order. Keeps things moving.

Before her, we used to order out more often than not. The floors only got cleaned when someone stepped in something sticky or we were punishing a prospect. Now? Things run like a machine. Her machine.

The women tried to push back at first, especially the one who thought blowing me occasionally made her important. Serena. She thought she ran the show, strutting around like a little boss bitch.

Skye broke her nose. One punch. No warning. No one saw Serena after that.

I open the fridge, dig out some pizza from yesterday, and move to pop it in the microwave.

“Don’t,” Skye says behind me.

I turn. “You want cold pizza?”

She shrugs and plops into a seat at the table. “It’s hot as balls.”

Chuckling, I ditch the microwave plan and toss the whole box onto the table. Two plates. Two glasses. I grab the OJ from the fridge and pour.

She takes a bite without looking at me. I sit beside her and lean back, watching her chew like it’s the first time she’s eaten in days.

“The one time you were away,” I say casually flicking off something on the table, “they order in and didn’t even bother cleaning the tables.”

She rolls her eyes. “No one can control them.”

I smirk. “Pretty sure they’re all scared shitless of you after you knocked Serena out last year.”

She slows her chewing. Looks up. “You remember her name, huh?”

Her tone’s light, but I hear the edge.

I meet her gaze, unfazed. “Yeah, I remember her.” Her jaw clenches, just a little. I grin. “Had to ban her. Guess one broken bone wasn’t enough.”

Skye snorts, then laughs. “She was persistent.”

“She was delusional,” I say, taking a bite of pizza. “Thought just because I let her suck me off now and then, she had some kind of claim.”

Skye gives me a sidelong glance. “Did she?”

“Fuck no.”

She studies me for a second longer, then turns back to her pizza. Takes another bite. Her posture’s starting to ease, shoulders loosening, jaw relaxing.

Suddenly she turns me and barks, “Don’t ever mention another woman getting you off again.”

I nod; regretted it as soon as it came out of my mouth. We sit there for a minute, chewing in silence, the hum of the fridge and distant sound of someone revving an engine outside the only noise. It’s a moment of peace, weirdly domestic, and it makes the chaos from earlier feel farther away.