Page 7 of Grave Games

“What does that mean?”

“My brother’s a hero, and I’m a zero. Turn right here.” I indicated the driveway that led to the squat brick building where I lived. “Be careful, there’s a speed bump right ahead, but the snow’s so deep you can hardly see it.”

“Thanks for the warning.” He navigated a path close to the front entrance of my building, then put the truck into Park so he could turn to face me fully. “What do you mean, you’re a zero and he’s a hero? Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.”

“It’s not.” After all this time I’d made a numb sort of peace with it.

He didn’t move. “So, is he in the military and some kind of war hero? Or maybe some kind of Wall Street hotshot or money guy, and he looks down on you because you’re a waitress? Which, by the way, is solid work, nothing to be ashamed of.”

“My brother would never look down on me. He’s my hero.”

“How? Like, did he save your life, or—”

“Thanks so much for the ride, and everything else you did tonight. I really am grateful.” Burning with the need to escape, I had my seatbelt unbuckled and door open before he could finish his sentence. Snow crunched under my feet when I slid out of the truck, and I gave myself the meager luxury of looking back at him. He really was the most aggressively masculine, thoroughly hot man I’d come across in a long, long time… but that usually meant all sorts of trouble I wanted nothing to do with. “Please be careful driving home, okay? I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.” Not even sure why I said that, I slammed the truck’s door before he could say anything and hurried into the apartment building.

Chapter Three

Irons in the Fire

Romeo

I flicked the truck’s lights twice at the guard at the gate, before rolling down my window to look at the man coming out of the small kiosk. “Jesus, Tomahawk, you look like the friggin’ Michelin Man,” I yelled above the howling wind. “What’d the hell you do to get guard duty on a night like this? I thought it was supposed to be Brake’s turn.”

Tomahawk, beefy even in a tank top and shorts, looked ridiculous in a parka, snowpants, scarf and knit cap, complete with a fuzzy ball on top. “This is bullshit, man. I’m getting fuckin’ frostbite out here.”

Automatically I looked at his gloved hands and saw only Shiloh’s pink fingers, all but useless as she tried to make them move. I’d never forget the moment I caught sight of them, so raw and obviously damaged, that for a second I’d actually stopped breathing. Then the irrational rage flooded in, eating away at my brain until all I wanted was to smash my fist into the face of the idiot who’d tackled her into the snow. One way or another, he’d suffer some kind of consequence for touching Shiloh. I’d make sure of it.

“This isn’t fucking fair, man. I got slammed by the boss for absolutely nothin’.”

That spectacular bit of whining brought my focus away from Shiloh and back to Tomahawk. “Nothing? I know how the boss runs things around here better than anyone, including handing out shit jobs like this one. You didn’t donothing, Tom.”

“So maybe I grabbed the ass of that new bitch Zee brought in.”

Oh, shit.

“That’s no big deal, right? She wasn’t wearing his patch. She’s not claimed. Bitches that aren’t claimed aren’t supposed to come between brothers. That’s the rule. And if you bring an unclaimed bitch into the clubhouse, they’re candy, and that means they’re for sharing.”

Oh, shit times a million. “That’s not a blanket rule at this new chapter, Tom. We’re the Gravediggers. Not theChicagoGravediggers, so that means we don’t act like fucking animals.”

“But,” Tomahawk went on, because ignoring my dash of reality didn’t fit with his narrative, “someone didn’t tell that bitch anything about that rule. She went wild on my ass just ‘cause I touched her. Then Zee went wild too, so I defended myself by pushing them both the fuck away from me before I wound up with a shiv in my gut.”

I went still. “You laid hands on a bitch? In the club? Where everyone could see you?”

“Look what she did to me.” Instead of answering, Tomahawk pulled his scarf away to display a brilliant set of red claw marks. “She drew first blood, man. First blood. All bets are off when first blood is drawn. You like rules? That’s a rule right there.”

“When it’s acombatant,” I gritted through my teeth, thoroughly pissed off. This loose-with-the-rules shit was how organizations self-destructed, and as Chief of Security I wasn’t about to put up with it. “No matter what they do, bitches are not combatants, so the First Blood rule doesn’t apply.”

“So you’re taking Tyr’s side on this bullshit?”

Jesus. “Where is Tyr? Clubhouse?”

“No, Ride Or Die. Listen, I didn’t do anything wrong—”

“Yeah, you did, and yeah, you earned a spot out here in a fucking blizzard. Now do your job and open the gate, and maybe read up on the bylaws while you’re out here before you get your ass tossed back to Hades. Or worse.” With that, I rolled up my window and waited for Tomahawk to move his lard ass into the kiosk and hit the button. As soon as the fence rolled open enough for me to get through, I gunned the engine only to feel the tires slip a bit.

Fuuuuck.

I scowled as I headed for the huge commercial metal building that housed Ride Or Die Choppers, where the most badass custom-made bikes on the planet were made. I needed to calm my shit down, but careless behavior like Tomahawk’s was a big deal in our world. Our chapter of the Gravediggers—a separate entity from the mother club in the area, the Chicago Gravediggers—was in its infancy. Tyr, our president and undisputed leader, had broken away from the Chicago Gravediggers headed by his uncle Hades, five years ago. Even though everyone in the life officially called us the “new chapter” of the Chicago Gravediggers, it hadn’t been an easy break-up, and we weren’t exactly the most welcome new kid on the block. Just about every force on earth wanted to crush us out of existence, from neighborhood activists that didn’t want us in their area, to LEOs that buzzed around the compound like bees around a honeypot, to the biggest threat of all, Hades and his crew. They constantly reminded us that we should set up shop somewhere else, preferably in fucking Siberia.

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