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“Where are you going?” I asked, closing my eyes as my heart sank. I already knew the answer.

“We’re going to kill the Riders.”

Chapter 47

Dante

Despite Rachel’s furious glare, nothing was going to stop us from what we had to do – what we should have done a long time ago. We had been too lenient with the Riders. Too willing to trust in an old unspoken truth that war would be devastating for both parties and should never happen.

There was no way murdering Zach could be left unresolved. I had tried to speak to Rachel whilst the rest of the lads were lined up, to explain to her that this was our way of life, and that she would do the same if it were one of her family members.

She had simply shot me a look as though she thought I was fucking moronic, and I remembered who her family was. Rachel had never experienced this type of bond, this type ofloyalty.She didn’t understand what it meant to bound yourself to your brotherhood, to live by the rules of the bikers.

That’s why you never should have brought her here. It’s why you should never bring a woman into this.

Sadly, I was beginning to realise that might just be the truth. When things were good, they were really good. But when things were going tits up, being my old lady was a dangerous occupation, and one that Rachel didn’t deserve to be in the middle of.

“Last corner,” Crash said over Bluetooth, his voice vibrating round my head through the speaker in the helmet.

I gritted my teeth, pushing all thoughts of Rachel out of my head. We were here with a purpose, and one purpose only: to kill as many of these mother fuckers as possible.

We came to a stop a couple of minutes from their territory, deciding to park our bikes and take the last few minutes on foot.

Crash waited until we were all off our bikes before he addressed us. “We get in, we get out. Shoot on sight. Destroy anything in your path, consequences be damned.” His voice wasstrained from the screaming he had done, his eyes still carrying the redness of his tears.

“Pres—” Tools began, only to be interrupted by Crash whipping around and snapping at him.

“What?” He snarled, spit flying from his mouth.

Tools flinched back, but he said what he wanted to say. “We all loved Zach… we did. But are you sure you want to do this?”

“You’re not?” He hissed. “Zach was a member of this club. He was our fuckingbrother. They beheaded him. They took a stick, and rammed it through his fucking neck, and staked him into the ground. They crossed intoourterritory, they…” his words trailed off as his emotions got the better of them.

“Dad…” I said, deliberately not using his name. I was trying to disassociate him from his club, his title, and his role, and instead appeal to the human side of him. But even I could see he was far too gone for that.

“No,” he boomed, his voice echoing out around us. “We do this for our brother. If you can’t do this, if you don’t feel the fucking rage, the love, theneed, to avenge a brother's death, then you don’t belong here, and you don’t belong with the Devil’s. You can turn in your patches and be dealt with as a traitor. Otherwise, shut the fuck up, light the bottles, and throw them at every fucking building you see.”

Chapter 48

Rachel

Fuck this!

Ever since Dante had left, I was sitting around doing nothing, unable to concentrate on anything. Nothing held my attention, because all I could think about was the ridiculous men riding into a potential firing squad. And for what?

Yes. Zach had been murdered. But when would this end? Unless they killed every single Rough Rider, in every single charter, there was more of this to come. And honestly, I couldn’t find the fucking point in any of it, no matter which angle I approached it from.

The only answer anyone ever seemed to give me was that it was theway things were done.

What a ridiculous answer.

Locking women up for reading was once the way things were done, and now we had hordes of women taking control of their own sexualities, their own fucking pleasure, and reading all the smutty, dirty, depraved books they could find – including me!

Times moved on. You couldn’t live your life based on history and the way things wereonce done. It made no sense to me, and the more I thought about it, the more infuriated I became.

Without even realising I was doing it, my hand sank down to my stomach, and the tiny life growing within me. Could I subject them to this life? What if it was a boy? They would be expected to become a part of this club, to live this way, to take on alliances and enemies that had been forged long before his conception. And for what?

Dante wasn’t even sure why the Devil’s Disciples hated the Rough Riders, and why they were hated so much in return. He had taken on his father’s enemies, just like Crash had taken on his father’s enemies.

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