Page 107 of The Games We Play

Stay strong, Iris. I’m coming for you.

I’m not like Saint, I don’t believe in God, but I find myself pleading with the universe, to anything cosmic that might hear, to keep her safe.

It feels like I’m swimming through tar. Every turn. Every light. Every car in front of me. Minutes take forever to pass, until I pull up in front of her house.

I notice Iris’s shoe on the lawn. And the footprints in the grass on either side of the path. Lots of them. “Fuck.”

Two prospects are slumped on the lawn. I press two fingers to the pulses at their neck. Both alive. One stirs at my action.

He panics for a moment, coiling away from me, before he comes around enough to realize where he is and who I am. “Fuck, Spark. They took her. We tried to stop them, but there were too many.”

Switch abandons his truck halfway on the curb. He runs up the steps. “How bad is it?”

“Both alive. Get details while I look inside.”

I dial her number.

“Hey, this is Iris. Sorry I can’t accept your call right now, but if you leave a—” I hang up. Her voice, there’s a joy and laughter to it. It’s as though someone is stomping on my fucking heart.

The mirror behind the door is shattered, and I almost puke when I realize it’s exactly at her head height. Strands of her hair are caught in the glass.

“Where the fuck is she?”

I close my eyes. That morning in Kabul, I picked myself up out of the dirt and did what had to be done. I didn’t grieve my friends, didn’t even let myself think about them being gone for days. Just dealt with what I had to. I try to find that place. The one where I don’t allow myself to process, just bottle it up.

I breathe. Deep. Box breathing like I was taught. Four-second inhale. Hold for four. Four-second exhale. Hold for four.

With every breath, I tell myself I’m going to kill those fuckers. With each exhale, I visualize Iris and me, sitting on the porch at the cottage, alive and uninjured when this is all over.

“We should go back to the club,” King says.

I open my eyes. “I’m not going to the fucking club. I’m looking for Iris.”

Clutch grips my shoulder, then tips his chin out toward the garden. I see Niro and Halo and Saint, and there is the roar of more bikes coming down the street. “We’re all with you. But we’re better when we’re organized.”

“You holding up okay, brother?” King asks.

“Those fucking supremacist trafficker scumbags have her, so no.”

King nods. “I get it. Felt the same when you told me Los Reyes had followed Clutch and Gwen last month.”

She may be Clutch’s old lady, but she was King’s twin first. I nod.

“They took her to get back at me for killing one of those guys. This is my fault. She doesn’t even have a patch, not an official old lady yet.”

King shakes his head. “We’ve still got both your backs.”

“They’re fucking cowards,” Saint shouts. “Taking a woman.”

Switch nods. “Makes no sense they didn’t come for us first.”

Clutch grabs his phone. “We should call in reinforcements. Want me to call the Allentown chapter, see how quickly they can hit the road?”

I shake my head. “Sure. But it’s still too long.”

“I’ll start calling in nomads, see who’s close by,” King says, but I reach out for his phone.

It sticks in my throat to say it, but I know who can help us with men fast. “Cillian.”