Page 48 of Healed

Riley nodded.

“Will do, boss. I’m actually due to speak to a cousin of one of the Riders later this evening, so I should have a bit more information.”

Riley was our current peacemaker, which was my old job before I became vice president. We knew a lot of moles and rats, and you’d be surprised at the number of people willing to hand over information on their own family members—for the right price.

“Anyone else have a problem with rushing Michael and Carl through to prospect status?” Dante asked, looking around at the table.

“I dunno,” Tools spoke up. “I asked that Carl the other day if he had ever shot someone, and he looked as though he was going to faint.”

“So the kid needs to toughen up,” Dante shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but we’ve got a year, minimum, before he can graduate. We can work through any issues then.”

“Why were you asking if he had shot anyone? You probably scared him,” Riley said.

Tools was a huge, tattooed, borderline feral man with a gold tooth and a mean face. I remembered him scaring us as kids and all we did was steal one of his cars. Complete overreaction, in all honesty, but I could see where Riley was coming from.

“If I scare him, then he has no chance against his missus,” Tools replied, jabbing his thumb in Dante’s direction.

“Hey now,” I said. “In Rachel’s defence, she has calmed down loads. When was the last time either of them set fire to something?”

“Why has this turned into talking about Rachel?” Dante sighed.

At that moment, we heard a screech from the pub, followed by shattered glass and hysterical laughter.

“I’ll put money on that being her,” Sunshine grinned.

“You’ll win that bet,” Divorce sighed.

“And what happens when we find him? Nico? That’s what I want to know,” Eagle said.

Eagle was the president of the Edinburgh charter. Whilst we hadn’t allowed every member of the other charters in here—they were manning the grounds and keeping guard—we had allowed the leaders in. I was surprised Rachel had let him through the doors, but even she knew that she couldn’t mess with Church, no matter how much leeway Dante gave her.

“He’s dead,” Dante said simply.

“Boss...” Riley tried to intervene.

“Whatever you’re going to say, save it,” Dante said. “I know you’re just doing your job, brother, and I appreciate that. But this has gone on long enough now.”

“You know what this will lead to.”

“I do. And that’s why we’re here. Killing Nico will more than likely cause an all-out war. And if that’s the case, so be it. We’ve tried long enough to deal with the Riders. We’ve given them ample opportunity to play nice, and they’ve fought us at every turn. Harming our vice was a step too far. As far as I’m concerned, he’s DOS.”

Dead on sight.

“An all-out war would mean the other charters are involved,” Eagle warned.

“I’m aware. Which is one of the reasons we’ve called you in. Wales and Ireland are fine, the Riders don’t extend that far. But the rest of you need to be prepared—especially you lot in Manchester,” Dante said, looking at Tom-Cat, the president of the Manchester charter.

“Already prepping the troops, boss. I didn’t bring my vice, he’s still at the clubhouse waiting for further information. We had a feeling it was going to come to this. We’ve had issues with the Riders ever since Nico was president-in-waiting at their Manchester charter. We’re already prepared.”

“That’s what I like to hear. As you can see, we’re low on numbers here. We’ve had a lot of war over the past few years, and we’ve lost some valuable members,” Dante said, growing quiet for a minute as we all looked up at the pictures of our fallen brothers on the wall and gave them a moment of silence out of respect.

“But those we have left—well, see for yourselves. They’re some ugly, mean bastards,” he grinned, earning himself some feral smiles in return.

He wasn’t wrong.

We were the smallest we had ever been, but we were growing steadily, and doing so with much more rigorous checks.

We had Dante as president, me as vice. Hacksaw was our secretary, Trent the road captain, and Doc as—would you believe it—the club’s doctor. Riley was the peacekeeper, Chris was the treasurer, and Ant was our Sergeant-at-Arms. He was also in charge of the youth division, the Devil’s Descendents, and had already recruited a bunch of rough lads from the estates, alongside his own nephews he had custody of.