Page 75 of The Bastard's Lily
When his eyes finally meet mine, the look in them is enough to steal the air from my lungs. Deadly. Focused. If anyone touches Beau before we find him, there won’t be a place on this earth safe enough to hide.
Engines growl in the yard, low and hungry. Boots thud across the floor above us as riders take their posts. The clubhouse feels like the eye of a storm—every breath sharp, every sound a warning.
Yeti checks the magazine on his pistol and gives me a single nod, the kind that carries decades of promise. Grimm slips out the side door without a word, vanishing into the night like a ghost on the trail.
Across the room, Rook hasn’t moved. He leans against the wall, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the door as if sheer will could drag Beau back through it. The quiet around him is a different kind of violence—slow, certain, unshakable.
I press my palms flat on the table, steady and cold.We will find him. We will end this.
Ash steps into the center of the room, voice a low command. “Montreal’s here. Ontario’s ten minutes out. We ride the second Grimm calls it.”
Rook finally speaks, the words a quiet blade. “Whoever took our boy has no idea what they just started.”
The room goes still, the promise hanging there like thunder. I straighten, heart steady, the taste of resolve sharp on my tongue. Let them come.
Let them whisper about the Royal Bastards all they want—they haven’t met Calla Lily Blake, the girl who brought Beau into this world bloody and screaming and has kept him safe ever since.
And God help the fools who try to take him from me now.
Calla’sstandingbythegate when I swing a leg over the bike, morning light catching the steel in her eyes. She doesn’t ask me to stay. Doesn’t need to.
I cup her face in both hands and kiss her hard, a promise pressed against the cold dawn. “I’m bringing our son home,” I tell her, voice low but carved in stone.
“I know,” she whispers, fierce and sure. “Go.”
Ash signals the pack, and the engines roar to life, creating a wall of sound that rattles the gravel. Montreal and Northern Ontario fall in behind us, but I’m barely aware of anything except the fire in my chest. We ride fast and silent; the mountains open before us like a wound. My mind narrows to a single point: Beau.
When we hit the junction off Route 3, Grimm signals left towardthe cut road, but something in the air drags me right—a thin trail of smoke curling through the trees, a scent of fuel and cold iron. I don’t wait.
I crack the throttle and tear off the main track, the roar of my engine shattering the quiet woods. Behind me, the pack shouts, but their voices fade.
Ahead, through the pines, a cluster of rusted trailers crouches like predators in the mist. The Scorpions’ holdout. My blood pounds a single rhythm:He’s my legacy.And I’m done waiting.
A shadow flashes in my mirror—too close, too fast. I jerk the bars just as another bike slides up alongside me, engine snarling to match my speed. Grimm.
He lifts his visor just enough for me to catch the grin cutting across his face. “Think I’d let you rescue my best buddy alone?”
The rush in my chest eases a fraction, but I don’t slow. “Could’ve fooled me,” I growl over the wind.
“Yeti’s bringing the rest of the pack,” he shouts back, voice a steady rumble through the helmet. “We’ve got your six.”
I glance at him, the trees whipping past in a blur of black and silver. Grimm’s eyes are fixed forward, calm and sharp, like this is just another night run instead of the fight of our lives.
“Then let’s finish it,” I say, throttle twisting harder.
We ride side by side, the roar of two engines splitting the mountain silence as the Scorpions’ hideout looms larger through the trees.
The road narrows to a scar through the pines, moonlight catching on wet granite and the silver flash of Grimm’s blade strapped to his bars. I downshift, engine snarling low. Every sense sharpens—oil smoke in the air, the copper bite of cold metal, the stink of a fire dying somewhere close.
Grimm glances over, helmet visor up just enough for me to see the grin that means hell’s about to open. “You sure this is it?” he calls.
I nod once. “Lights cut five minutes back. They’re here.”
We kill the engines in the tree line. The sudden silence is a gun to the head—thick, waiting. Far off, a single window flickers. We roll the last hundred yards on nothing but momentum, gravel whispering under the tires. Shadows of bikes and men drift against the corrugated siding of the Scorpions’ hideout.
Grimm’s eyes stay fixed forward, calm and cold, like this is any other night ride instead of a warpath. I meet his gaze, feel the weight of the gun at my hip. “Then let’s finish it.”
He grins wider. “After you.”
