Page 48 of Heresy
The two brothers fighting alongside Grizz stare at Hex, their faces a mask of pure, horrified shock.
Hex doesn't even look at them. He just looks down at Grizz's body, his face cold stone. "He was the leak," he says, the words a flat, absolute finality. "Now get back on the fucking wall."
The betrayal is handled. And a new, terrifying message has been sent to every man left alive: the enemy outside is dangerous, but the king within these walls is judge, jury, and executioner.
TWENTY-TWO
A NEW KIND OF WEAPON
HEX
The smell of cordite and fresh blood chokes the air. Grizz lies dead behind the barricade, a testament to his own treason. But the sight brings me no satisfaction. Across the room, my brother is dying.
The rage is gone, burned away and replaced by a chilling, razor-sharp focus. The chaos of the firefight, the shouts, the explosions—it all fades into a distant hum. My world narrows to a single, absolute priority: getting Rook out of this slaughterhouse alive.
I see the battlefield with a clarity that is almost preternatural. The Santos are pushing hard through the main entrance, their numbers overwhelming the few loyal brothers we have left holding the failing barricade. The back of the infirmary is our only way out, the path to the garage, to the armored van. To survival.
"Zero!" I roar, my voice the cold, hard command of a president, not the snarl of an animal. "Lay down suppressive fire on the main door! Give me thirty seconds!"
Zero doesn't hesitate, his face a mask of grim determination as he and the two remaining brothers pivot, unleashing a punishing wall of lead that forces the attackers to take cover.
I turn to the scene in the infirmary. Doc is frantically packing Rook's chest wound, trying to stop a bleed that is clearly winning. Rook's face is a ghostly, waxen white. And standing beside them, her face pale but her dark eyes sharp, steady, and infuriatingly calm, is her. Vera.
She is not screaming. She is not crying. She is watching me, her expression a mixture of terror and calculation. She is a non-combatant, a liability, a piece of property I should be leaving behind.
But my gut, the same instinct that told me she was a splinter, is now screaming something else.
I make a snap decision, a gamble that goes against every rule of this club, against every instinct for self-preservation I have. I unholster the Glock from the back of my jeans and shove it, hard, into her hands. The metal is a stark, black contrast against her pale skin.
Her eyes widen in shock, but she doesn't drop it. Her hands, though trembling slightly, automatically adjust to the weight, her fingers finding the grip.
"You know how to use one of these?" I snarl, the question, a test and a prayer all at once.
She looks from the pistol up to my face, and in the pulsing red emergency light, her expression is unreadable. She gives a single, sharp nod.
The unspoken trust, the insane, desperate alliance, is a shocking, electric moment that hangs between us.
"Good," I say, my voice a raw growl. "Cover Doc. Get Rook to the van. We move on my command."
I have just armed my prisoner, my obsession, and placed the survival of my best friend in her hands. The king has officially lost his goddamn mind.
"NOW!"I roar, the command ripping from my throat.
It's a blur of motion and violence. Zero and I lay down a wall of covering fire as two of my brothers lift Rook, carrying him between them like a fallen king. Doc is right behind, his medical bag clutched in one hand. And behind him, moving with a shocking, fluid grace, is Vera. She holds the Glock with both hands, her stance steady, her eyes scanning for threats. She is not a liability. She is a soldier.
We make a break for the armored van in the center of the garage. The air is a hornet's nest of bullets, the sound a deafening, percussive roar. I see one of my men, a young brother named Talon, take a round to the chest as he covers our retreat. He goes down without a sound, his body a final, bloody sacrifice to buy us a few more precious seconds. There is no time to mourn.
They get Rook and Doc into the back of the van. The doors slide open, a gaping maw of safety. Zero provides cover from the side door while Vera, unbelievably, takes a position at the back, her pistol barking twice at a shadow moving near the far wall.
"Get in!" I scream at her, and for once, she obeys without hesitation, scrambling into the back. Zero piles in after her. I empty my magazine toward the main door, then throw myself into the driver's seat, slamming the heavy door shut.
The world inside the van is a vortex of sound—the rattle of gunfire against the armored plating, Doc shouting medical terms, Zero's rifle cracking as he fires through a gun port, and through it all, Vera's voice, steady and clear.
"Two bikes, right side! Gaining!"
I don't have time to question it. I floor it. The van's engine screams in protest, and with a deafening crunch of tortured metal, we smash through the main garage door and out into the dark, industrial streets of Red Hook.
We are not clear. The street is swarming with them. It's an ambush, a perfectly executed trap. Cain's hand is everywhere. A black SUV pulls up alongside us, its windows rolling down, the barrels of rifles glinting in the streetlight.
