Page 67 of Grave Games

Oh, Josh.

Before I could find an answer for him, Tyr, on a massive beast of a Harley with loads of chrome and T-bar handlebars, rolled up to the bonfire, the crowd parting for him as he went. Several cheered the showy appearance of their leader, but I felt the sudden tension locking Romeo’s body in place.

This wasn’t planned. I could tell by Romeo’s reaction.

Not good. Definitely not good.

“Gravediggers! Eyes front.” After an ear-splitting rev of his bike to make sure he had everyone’s attention, Tyr let it idle while his voice carried over the noise of the engine, the crowd and probably over to the cops on the other side of the street. “Tonight, we celebrate our shared success as a club, a brotherhood, but most of all a family. We work together, play together, and share together in the prosperity our hard work has brought us. We’re successful because we know we are stronger together than we are alone. That’s what it is to be this brotherhood. That’s what it is to be this family.”

A cheer went up, but I’d have to be in a coma to not notice Romeo remained silent and watchful, his unblinking gaze fixed on Tyr.

“Sadly, like all families, we get hit hard by tragedy. Tonight is one of those times. I just got word that we’ve lost one of our brothers.”

Oh, no. No, no, no…

“Arthur, our prospect who was on the verge of earning his patch, has died from his wounds. This makes him the first official casualty of a situation we did not start, but we will now fucking finish. Make no mistake—this is a matter of survival.”

“Smart,” my brother murmured beside me while the reality of the situation churned like broken glass in my head. “He knows LEO’s listening in, so he avoids using words likewarandfight.”

“Arthur.” I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out. Horror and grief stabbed through me, squeezing my chest until my eyes watered and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t care about what was smart, or about LEOs, or anything else. Arthur was dead because I sent him on a silly little errand. If I hadn’t noticed the discrepancy in the food order, or had gone after the delivery man myself, maybe Arthur would still be…

Romeo’s arms came around me and held me close to this chest, and that contact alone stilled the vicious racing of my thoughts.

“So, I say to my brothers and our extended Gravedigger family, tonight we’re going to celebrate our prospect, Arthur. And we’re going to kick that celebration off by sending the patch he earned up to be with him on the smoke of this bonfire.” Tyr held up the familiar oval Gravedigger patch for all to see, “With it goes our solemn promise that we will never forget his name, and to find true Gravedigger justice for him if it’s the last goddamn thing we do. This is how we honor our brother. This is how we honor each other, because if you attack one of us, you attack all of us. Justice will be served for Arthur.”

Another raucous wave of cheers went up, but it was far different from anything I’d heard that night. This was a guttural growl of barely contained fury, a collective roar of rage and pain, and it was the most dangerous thing I had ever heard. It was echoed in the chest I rested against, and I shifted against Romeo to search his face. It was tight with tension and his eyes burned with an inner fire I could almost feel as Tyr approached the bonfire and tossed Arthur’s patch onto the pyre.

Goodbye, King Arthur. You would have been an awesome Gravedigger.

“Now, to my brothers, I speak solely to you.” Tyr headed back to straddle his idling bike once more and looked around at the people bathed in the golden glow of the fire. “Let’s give Arthur a proper Gravedigger send-off by giving him one last rev. Go get your bikes, huddle up around the fire, and let’s make so much fucking noise that it rings out as a warning to both heaven and hell, and that warning is this—prepare to have a force of nature sweeping down on you, because Arthur of the Gravediggers MC is coming your way. Let’s rev.”

Tyr revved his bike while Romeo gave me a squeeze and put his mouth to my ear. “Gotta go, baby. Chef,” he added, looking to my brother. “Stay with your sister while I’m gone.”

“Got it.” Josh moved to take Romeo’s place by my side.

I watched Romeo disappear into the crowd before turning to Josh. “One last rev?”

“It’s an old biker tradition that goes way back to the beginning of motorcycle gangs that formed right after the Second World War. When one of their own dies, his brothers rev their bikes as loud as they can. Think of it as a respectful moment of silence, except completely deafening.”

“I see.” I stared at the bonfire until it blurred under a veil of unshed tears. “Arthur would have loved that.”

“You knew him?”

“Yeah.” I sniffled, then quickly wiped at the tears as they fell. Unlike the revving of engines, Arthur would have hated my tears. “He was my bodyguard. And my friend.”

“Damn, I’m sorry, Shiloh.” He shifted, and his hand brushed mine seemingly by accident. “One way or the other, you’ve been put through the wringer. I wish like hell I could hug you, but even now we’re probably being watched, so I can’t. I’ve done enough damage to your life.”

“Watched? You mean by Hades’s spies? If he has them, I mean,” I added hastily, remembering all too well I wasn’t supposed to know anything about spies.

“Oh, he has them,” came the grim response. “Hades has an army full of devoted moles sprinkled throughout the city, and I have to admit, I’ve never understood why they’re so devoted.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take Tyr for instance.” Josh discreetly tilted his head in the direction of the Gravedigger president. “He’s a great leader, because he acts like he sees every brother in his club as his equal. He doesn’t put himself above anyone else, and he seems to go into the trenches with his brothers to get just as dirty as they do. Hades, though… that bastard sees himself as King Shit of Turd Hill. Everyone else is his servant. No one’s a brother to him. How could they be, when Hades believes he’s as powerful as the deity he’s named after?”

“Maybe the people who follow him like being ruled?”

“Could be, but I think most of Hades’s people approve of the way he interacts with the rest of the world.”

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