Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 105709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Cars pass us without a second look. No sirens. No black uniforms. No orders.
Still, the back of my neck stays tight. Paranoia doesn’t clock off just because the scenery’s pretty.
“Congratulations,” I say, voice dry. “You dragged our asses across two islands to chase a photo.”
He pulls us over on the side of the road, kills the engine. For a second, silence slams into us so hard it’s almost violent. No humming, no rattling, no distant ferry engines. Just us. Breathing.
Beast turns to look at me, blue eyes sharp, jaw set.
“It’s not just a photo,” he says. “It’s a choice.”
My fingers are still curled around the gun. “Choices get you killed,” I remind him.
He grins, slow and fucked up and familiar. “So does staying put.”
I look past him at Tāwaha. At the water that lightly rolls onto the white sand. At the road curling into a town that doesn't know us for shit and can still kick us out.
Maybe this is where we live.
Maybe this is where we finally die.
“Fine,” I say, shoving my door open, boots hitting gravel. “Let’s go find the life you've had us drive across the country for.”
He laughs, falling into step beside me as we pass a small dairy. “I mean what's the fucking worst that could happen?”
One
Hella
Smoke and old blood has a distinct smell to it. Not copper. Not fucking ash. And this table has seen plenty of that.
Carved by Beast’s grandfather from a native Totara tree, our club Taniwha sits proud in the middle. It was the first and only gift he gave Henry “Candle” Burns before he dropped. Whakairo, Beast calls it, now spends his free time. Which is never lately.
Had too many good memories with Candle. He went far before his old ass time.
Now his chair sits empty down the side, cut off patch folded neat over the backrest. President badge stitched off, Candle’s name untouched. Nobody touches that cut. Nobody touches that chair.
It’s been five years since we rode up from the South Island with nothing but a stolen Chevy, fucked lungs, and Vanguard ghosts chewing at our heels. Five years since Candle took one look at Beast, another at me, and said, “You boys are home now.” Patched Beast as his VP. Slapped the Huntsman badge on my shoulder like he’d been waiting to do it.
Now Beast is international president.
And I’m the one sitting at his right.
“Been over a month,” Bull says, breaking the low rumble of voices. He leans back in his chair, boots planted wide, big hands wrapped around his beer. Beard messy, eyes sharp. Bull being short for Hannibal, we all know what the fuck he really wants to do. “If anyone knew anything, they should’ve piped up by now.”
“They should have,” Beast agrees, voice flat.
He’s not leaning back. He’s hunched over the table, forearms braced, fingers linked like he’s keeping himself from punching through the wood. President patch heavy over his chest, black T-shirt stretched across his pumped up muscle, Tamoko inked down his arm. Cleanly shaved, you can see the tension in his jaw. The fucking circles beneath his eyes. I’ve known Beast since I was fourteen years old and dumped into a government funded system that no one knows shit about. I’ve never seen him fucked up like this.
He hasn’t looked at his father’s chair once. Not directly. Just slides past it every time his eyes move around the room.
Tino Rangitiratanga flag hangs behind him, right beside photos of those passed.
Still not sure if I deserve this VP patch. Wish someone else wore it. Like one of the other founding members who still sit at this table. Toke, with his half-face Ta Moko, or Footy, Candle's oldest friend. Toke would fight the best friend term out since both he and Candle shared similar moko.
I was the club’s Huntsman when I first got here. Now I’m the fucking VP.
“We’re not waiting on anyone to come to us,” Beast says, finally. His gaze drags over each man at the table—Bull, Frost, Toke, Nyx, Ripper, Footy. Eight members of the mother chapter, two prospects. “We go to them.”
“Westbeach,” I say, because we’ve been circling it the whole week and I’m sick of the foreplay. “We head to Westbeach and see if anything has been sniffing around there.”
His eyes flick to mine. Brown, blown out with tiredness and fury he’s trying to keep caged. “Westbeach,” he confirms with a short nod. “Waikato charter. Zane’s backyard. Russians like to sniff around there when they want something from the ports and don't want to drag his daughter in who runs an MC in the Bay of Plenty.”
The Russians. Viktor Baranov and his pet wolves.
Henry’s coffin is still fresh in my head, dirt hitting the lid in a slow, steady drum. I remember Beast standing there, jaw rock solid, not a single tear. I remember thinking if I dig my nails into my palms any harder, I’ll open them up. Give the old bastard one last offering.