I gave him a moment, and then slid to the floor beside him, wrapping my arms around him and holding him as he shook with the pain and grief of having to bury his best friend.
CADE
I was determined to get to the bottom of why Isaac died.
I was going to look under every rock to find who was responsible.
The first person on my list was a ruthless thug called Saber. He was the president of The Knights, and if Isaac’s death had anything to do with them and their bullshit heroin trade, then I was going to find out, one way or another.
And they would pay.
Once upon a time, I would’ve felt apprehensive about walking into The Knights’ territory. Now I didn’t give a fuck. I was so full of anger and the blinding need for revenge, everything else seemed so unimportant.
I rode up on my bike and pulled up in front of the clubhouse. When two prospects stepped in front as me as I went for the front door, I gave them a warning look. Don’t fuck with me. I was there to speak to Saber, and I wasn’t fucking leaving until I got what I wanted.
“You’ve got some balls turning up here with that fucking cut on, pretty boy,” said a prospect with a huge chip on his shoulder and hair like a boy band member as he leaned in toward my face. I didn’t move. Ten points to the kid for trying to be intimidating, but he needed to work on it. He was a joke.
“Nice try, kid. But either you step aside and take me to your president, or I’m going to show you exactly how committed I am to getting past you right now. And I ain’t gonna lie to you, it’s going to hurt you a lot more than it’s going to hurt me. But make no mistake, one way or another, I’m getting inside that clubhouse and I’m talking to your president. Understand me . . . pretty boy?”
“I’ll go get Saber,” the other prospect said, quickly opening the door.
I didn’t wait for an invite. I brushed past NSYNC and entered the clubhouse. It was dimly lit and opened up to an open-plan bar right off the front door. Three Knights in cuts were seated at the bar and turned around when I walked in, while the Knight behind the bar continued drying the glass in his hand. Across the room by the jukebox, a girl in barely there clothes wrapped herself around a scrawny looking dude with greasy hair and facial fuzz. They were drunk and making out between laughing and stumbling around the dance floor.
As soon as my cut became obvious to everyone, the vibe in the room dropped and the air was tight with tension.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?” One Knight growled as he came at me. He was my age, with scraggy hair and a patch on his cut that told me he was their SIA.
“I want to talk to Saber and I want to talk to him now,” I demanded.
“Is that right?” The SIA looked around at the others in the room and laughed. “Pretty boy with the dimples wants to talk to Saber . . . now.” He laughed and the others followed suit. But I said nothing, he could mock me all he liked. I didn’t give a fuck. I just stared at him, my emotions slowly simmering beneath a dark look.
He stepped toward me and grabbed my forearm, pulling us together. “And what the fuck makes you think that’s going to happen?”
I looked down at his hand on me, and then raised my eyes to burn directly into his. My words were slow, my tone low and dangerous. “Get. Your fucking hands. Off me.”
He didn’t move straight away. We were locked in battle and I could see he was weighing just how much of a threat I was to him. Slowly, his grip loosened.
“You’ve got balls coming in here, King.”
I watched him let go of my arm, then I leaned closer. “You put your hands on me again and I will break every one of your fucking fingers. Do you understand me? Every. Single. One. Of them.”
SIA laughed, but it was all bravado. His eyes betrayed him. He wiggled his fingers in front of my face and tried to laugh it off. “Oooooooooh, scary guy.”
I said nothing. But the look I gave him spoke volumes. I would take him down with no fucking hesitation if he got in my way again.
“Mind if I cut in, or is this a private dance?” came an amused voice from the bar.
It was Saber.
“Mind telling me why you’ve pushed your way into my clubhouse? Last I saw, this was a King-free zone.” He gave me his legendary poker face. He was renowned for keeping the same expression throughout every situation. Happy, same expression. Angry, same expression. Stabbing you in the chest with a bayonet, same expression. It made him unreadable, and in the MC world, that was dangerous.