Page 6 of Fury
“Your imagination really worries me, Fury. Really does.”
“What is it, Cade?”
“Me and Caleb talked to one of the girls that had been drinking in Trouble with Tez last night.”
“The one he’s playing away with?”
“Don’t think there’s just one, mate. Seems running a lap dancing club is screwing with his brain. Sounds like he’s been getting round a few of them.”
“Fucking don’t tell Magnet that,” I grumbled, massaging my right temple where the pulsing in my brain was threatening to break through the skin. “He already took it personally tonight.”
“What? Why?”
“You know, family stuff. Can’t get his ol’ lady pregnant yet here is Tez with a bun in the oven and dipping his wick everywhere else.”
“That’s crazy. I don’t get it. Guys have needs.”
I stayed quiet for a moment; the words blurring in my brain, muddled with the haze of alcohol and the fog of tiredness.
“He loves his wife, Cade. Just another reason he’s known as Magnet. She’s his south. Anyway, what you find out?”
“When the masked men broke in, they came through the back door. Distracted Tez at the front but entered through the back.”
“Sounds like my sort of relationship.”
The man on the other end of the phone chuckled, the same laugh echoing in the background, and now I realised I was on ‘loud speaker’ with the Kray twins.
“When they first got in, they asked the girls’ names. But they seemed to be looking for one in particular. Ciara.”
“Shit.” I breathed down the phone.
“Yeah, bruv. I know. Demon needs to know.”
“Aye. He does.”
“You reckon it’s the Hand?”
“Or the Aces. They seem to be the Hand’s puppy dogs at the moment. I’ll talk to Indie. Let him handle breaking the news to Demon.”
“This is other level bike club shit now, isn’t it?” Cade’s voice had changed. A slight strain to it, tension creeping in at the edges. “Yes, Chaos. This is war. This is how it starts.”
The other end of the phone fell silent. A second passed, then another second.
“So, what do we do next?”
“We be vigilant. We put up more CCTV. We watch that and we watch our backs and the backs of our brothers. We look out for our family and we fucking hit back. Hard. Because if we don’t, they’ll know we’re weak. And that’s when people die.”
The young man on the other end of the phone went quiet again. I remembered my first war. I was twenty-two. Fresh out of the army. I’d thought I’d seen things on tour, but in truth, the horrors closer to home, the fighting, the collateral damage, the cruelty, was far worse in the Great Biker War of the early 2000s. Part of me held out hope that this one wouldn’t be so bad. Just a few beatings, some scared clubs would fold. But the other half. The half that had seen it all before knew what was coming.
“I’ll see what Indie wants to do about this intel.” I broke the silence. “Not a word to anyone about this. Not a sausage. Understand?”
“Aye, mate.”
Because if Demon found out before we had time to steer his rage, there’d be dead bodies everywhere, and with a new manager at the funeral home, the ability to hide the evidence would disappear along with our club.
*****
The chime above the door screeched at me, making me jump even though I knew it was coming. It was like something from a TV game show, the noise you hear when you get an answer wrong. ‘And the survey says…’ It says if this new manager doesn’t get this bill right, they’re going to very quickly learn who the fucking Kings are.