Page 128 of Love Thy Brother
Lee nodded. Slowly. Meaning it. And it was enough for me. Business was business. They’d fucked up and we’d put them down. Same shit, different faces. Rinse and repeat. The rest of it was something else. Something that curdled his stomach as much as it did mine.
So I left it.
I contaminated the knife with his fingerprints and walked away.
Outside, I waited for Folk. Didn’t want to know what kept him. That was between him and God.
I had a burner in my pocket. Inside, it had buzzed with a message. I opened it up now.
At the bikes. Hurry up.
Charming. I sent a thumbs-up emoji back as Folk appeared beside me. “We need to chip.”
He glanced back at the house. “Sure you don’t want to burn it? There’s still time.”
“Nah. The boss didn’t sanction mass murder. Let’s go.”
Folk shrugged, agreeable as ever, and we set off, ducking through garage blocks and alleyways. “Are you going to tell Cam what happened?”
“Not till we’re halfway home. Can’t vouch for his behaviour otherwise.”
“It’s a trigger?”
“Big time. He’d have killed those cunts so messily we’d all be in the nick by now.”
Folk nodded, understanding. “What about the phone? If the feds come, they might track it if they think someone else has been there tonight.”
I’d thought of that. What I hadn’t considered was that my go-to solution for all things technical was Alexei, and I didn’t fancy explaining to him what was on the iPhone burning a hole in my pocket. “I don’t know. Didn’t think that far ahead.”
Folk held out his gloved hand.
I passed him the phone. Watched as he did all the things I didn’t know how to do. “Sorted?”
“Yeah. Won’t do you much good if you really want to blast him online, though. You’d have to build fake profiles first.”
“I know, but I can’t see him snitching. Even if he gets banged up for attempted murder, he’ll be okay. Nonce-slayers are top of the food chain in prison.”
Folk didn’t answer. We’d run out of time. In the near distance, Cam and River waited, River leaning against his bike, Cam pacing and smoking.
He was on me like a fucking rash. “What the fuck was that about?”
“Nothing.” I ducked around him and straddled my hog. “It’s sorted.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m not. I’m delaying you. Give me eighty miles and I’ll tell you everything.”
I gunned my engine before he could respond and rumbled away, trusting my brothers to follow as I led them home, not giving a fuck about club formation and rules.
At the Devon border, I headed for the coast, to a remote beach where my dad had taught me and my baby brother to swim. Only then did I stop and take a fucking breath.
There was blood on my boots.
Dirty fucking pedo blood.
I ripped my helmet off and strode to the sea, wading out till the cold waves hit my chest.
Folk was a heartbeat behind me. He dove, fully clothed, beneath the surface and disappeared.
