Then he reached for her hand as he turned to his president.“Let’s go end this motherfucker.”
The bikes fired up in the dark, a low, angry chorus.
Dan and Riley rode near the middle of the column, wind cutting through his jacket, the fresh rocker tattoo on his shoulder burning under the leather like a brand.
Ronnie ‘Match’ Valdez had taken enough.
Tonight, it ended.
Chapter Thirteen
Riley
The ride to Wilkins was silent, wind screaming past them at ninety miles an hour.Riley clung to her spot at Dan’s back, arms locked around his ribs, and she tried not to think about how many ways fire could kill you.She’d seen Ronnie light things up before like trash cans, abandoned cars, and once a rival’s pristine ride just to watch the flames dance.He’d always smiled while his handiwork burned.
They rolled up on the trailer with half the club behind them, engines cut a quarter mile out, bikes pushed the distance in silence.Tinder had insisted on numbers, and Dan hadn’t argued.The brothers fanned out like shadows, silent and practiced, cutting power to the single streetlight before they moved.
The trailer was a rusted single-wide, with the aluminum siding peeling away in long curls.It was surrounded by junk cars with missing doors, burn barrels still smelling faintly of old gasoline, and a sagging chain-link fence that had given up any semblance of symmetry years ago.One light glowed behind curtains in the living room window, flickering like someone was watching TV too late.
Dan kicked the stand down and turned to her.His eyes were dark, serene in the way only a man who’d already decided on violence could be.He cupped her face with both scarred hands and kissed her once—hard.
“I’m coming back.You stay with Rocker,” he said against her mouth.
Then he and several brothers melted into the dark.
Riley lasted thirty seconds before she followed.Rocker cursed under his breath but kept pace, keeping close enough to grab her if she did something stupid.She didn’t care.She needed to see this end.
They approached from the blind side, boots silent on dry dirt.Through the thin walls came the low murmur of a television and the clink of a beer can.Then a door creaked—front entry, not the back.Tinder’s voice, low and flat: “Clear.”
Riley slipped around the corner in time to see Dan inside, Ronnie Valdez already on his knees in the middle of the filthy carpet.Dan’s fist was wrapped in the man’s greasy hair, yanking his head back at a brutal angle.The blade of Dan’s knife pressed against the side of Ronnie’s throat, just enough to draw a line of blood that looked black in the dim light.
“You took pictures of my woman,” Dan said conversationally, voice so calm it raised the hair on Riley’s arms.“In my bed.”
Ronnie spat blood onto the carpet, grinning through swollen lips.“She was always a good lay—”
The knife pressed deeper.Ronnie’s grin faltered.