Page 66 of Unmasked Rivalry
I nod. The words sting, but I see the logic. “How—” I swallow, force my throat to work again. “How many people were there?”
He clears his throat. “The explosion did a number. I am not certain we will get a clear idea of how many men were there that day, there is very little left.”
The truth drops like a stone in my gut.
I try to thank him, but it comes out as a cough. He gives me a bottled water from the break room and shows me to the side exit, away from the main lobby, away from the cluster of bored reporters waiting for a story.
When I step outside, the sun is disappearing into dusk, painting the parking lot in orange and blue. I walk a dozen shaky steps before I see the bike at the far end of the lot. Knox leans against it, helmet tucked under one arm. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, jaw dusted with stubble, grief lacing his features.
He pushes off the bike when he spots me, and I collapse into his waiting arms. Neither of us says anything. We just stand there in the cooling air, holding on like if we let go, we’d drop straight through the concrete. He runs a hand over my hair, presses his cheek to my forehead. His chest shudders with a breath. “It’s over,” he murmurs. “That’s the last of it. It’s done.”
I want to believe him. I want to say yes, to let the whole nightmare slough off my shoulders and float away. But I am scared that somehow, it will come back. He pulls back, eyes scanning my face. “You good?”
My laugh is a wreck. “No, but I hope soon, I will be.” I lean in, hook my arms around his waist. “Just...don’t let go.”
He chuckles, broken and low. “Wouldn’t know how.”
Behind us, the world is sirens and traffic. In front of us, well, in front of us is whatever we want.
I swing onto the bike behind him. He passes me a helmet and I put it on. He guns the throttle, and for once, the engine’s rumble is the only sound I want. We ride into the twilight, leaving the town and the smoke and the pain behind us.
I don’t turn around, not even once.
As we hit the first hill, the farm is just a speck on the horizon—a smear of color on the edge of nowhere. Tomorrow there will be endless paperwork, questions, press, and maybe even more pain. But tonight, for just a mile or two, I let myself believe in escape.
Maybe Zane is somewhere out there, laughing at us.
Maybe, I hope, he’d be proud.
I squeeze Knox harder and close my eyes, and for the first time in days, my heart skips a beat for something other than fear. We speed into the night, the wind trying its best to shake us loose, but we hold on. Because that’s all we have left.
Holding on.
THE RUMBLE OF MOTORBIKESrattles my bones as I stare, tears streaming down my face, at the coffin. I know, as well as everyone else, that there is nothing in that coffin but Zane’s favorite things, something from each person in the club.
They still wanted a funeral.
They wanted his memory to be honored.
He would want that, too.
I can’t stop staring at it. It doesn’t look big enough to hold the pieces left of a man like Zane, even if there’s nothing inside but leather and metal and a handful of bad jokes written on napkins. Sable stands closest to it, her face a mask, but I can tell it’s taking every last scrap of will not to jump forward and rip the lid off, just to see if some miracle happened—just to make sure. Nia’s tucked into Talon’s side, and Mera’s next to Wolfe, her hand firmly curled in his.
It’s not even a real funeral, in the traditional sense. All the men wear their colors, a sea of leather that makes my heart stutter. It’s a sight I won’t forget for the rest of my life. There issomething about it, something that is so intense and personal, nothing could ever compare.
The whole courtyard out front of the clubhouse is lined in bikes. The line wraps around the building, every type and era, like a museum made of noise and chrome. Even the grass has been trampled flat by boots, not a stiletto heel or polished dress shoe in sight. The air is thick with exhaust and cigarettes and the faintest, impossible scent of gasoline.
I walk to the coffin, knees shaking, and lay the only thing I could think of, a small angel I got from a store in town, that I thought reminded me of his little girl, right up near the lid. Sable lays a dented flask beside it. Wolfe tosses a single, bullet-cored ring in, the kind you buy at a gas station when you’re already drunk. “For good luck,” he rasps, voice raw as gravel.
One by one, the men move forward, each with an offering. A lighter. A folded photo. A patch. Some of them try to hold it together, but most don’t. There’s no shame, here, in tears. It seems almost expected. The ones who aren’t crying, I’m pretty sure, just don’t have it left in them.
I hang behind the rest, arms folded around myself. When Knox comes up next to me, he just stands in stark silence. I think of all the funerals I ever went to, starched and polite, the air choked with flowers and carefully whispered apologies. This is nothing like that. Here, grief isn’t a disease you catch; it’s the air you breathe.
The priest, or whatever this man they got in is, raises his hands for silence. It takes a while—no one’s in a hurry to let go, not today—but eventually the crowd hushes. “Zane never walked a straight line in his life,” the man calls out, voice echoing off steel and stone. “He never pretended to, either. He belonged to this club, and this club belonged to him.” Heads nod in agreement, some of them hard, some of them with a resignation that hurts to look at. “He wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t always good.But he loved you, each of you, with a fire that couldn’t be put out, and he died the way he lived—doing what mattered. Protecting his family. Now, he is with his daughter for eternity.”
Someone in the crowd lets out a howl. It echoes, and for a moment it’s like a pack of wolves, everyone raising their voices together, a hurricane of sound that makes every hair on my arms stand up. Sable lifts her chin and screams, this ragged, vengeful sound, and then she starts to laugh, tears streaming down her face.
“Only Zane would think this was a good way to go,” Knox says, so low I barely catch it. “Couldn’t just die like a normal man, had to go out with a bang.”
