I suddenly didn’t want to be the oldest. I didn’t want to be the one to decide. I looked across at Kian and I could see the grim tension in his face. He’d always tried to protect us, as kids, and I knew his instinct was to do the same now...and drop this whole thing.
I took out the photo again and stared at it. I could feel Kian’s eyes on it, too, on that boy with the shy smile and the solemn eyes. Bradan had always been the good one, the least likely to get into trouble….
I glanced across at the table, at the other brothers and their women. And that’s when I made up my mind.
“He should be here,” I said quietly. I glanced at Kian, then back at the table. “He should be sitting right there. With a girl. In love or maybe married or with kids. He’s—” I struggled for the words. “He’s missing, Kian. He’s missing from this fucking world. He was a good kid and they just took him and—”
My voice broke and I had to stop. Kian and I just stared at each other for a second. “We have to put him back,” I said at last, wondering if I was making any kind of sense.
And Kian slowly nodded, reached across and grasped my hand in a death grip.
And I realized I wasn’t making the decision alone. The two of us had always tussled for leadership but, right now, it was us, together, making the call. And I was glad of that.
I let out a long breath. “Where do we start?” I asked.
Kian leaned close. “The President gave me a name. A guy who knows the cult. I called him and he’ll talk to us, but it’s got to be in person, off the record.”
“What do you mean, off the record? Who is he?”
“He’s FBI.”
I felt my eyes bug out. “A fucking fed?” Everything that had happened in Haywood Falls came back to me. I and the rest of the MC hadn’t trusted feds even before that, with the possible exception of Hunter. Now, I’d sooner stuff a rattlesnake in my boot and ride fifty miles than put my faith in anyone bearing a three letter acronym.
“The President trusts him,” said Kian. “So I trust him. If we want to find Bradan, we’ve got to take whatever help we can get.”
I cursed under my breath and looked across at Annabelle just as she let out an easy giggle that bubbled up to the ceiling like goddamn music. Louise had whipped cream on her nose and everyone was conspiring not to tell her. “What?!” she asked, bemused. Annabelle started full-on laughing, bending over the table and hiding her face, and I just wanted to wrap her up in my arms, throw her on my bike and drive her away from all this. She was so precious to me…more than I knew how to tell her. The thought of bringing her anywhere near a fed, after what that bastard Volos did to her, made me want to reach for my shotgun. But if the cult was as dangerous as everyone said, I had to protect Annabelle from them, too. And for that, we needed help. “Okay,” I spat. “Fine. Let’s talk to him.”
“Alright,” said Kian. “He’s in New York.”
12
Carrick
We were in Central Park and Annabelle couldn’t get enough of the New York skyline. As we walked, she kept taking a few quick steps ahead of the group, going right out to the limits of our joined hands. Then she’d stop and turn in a slow circle, staring in amazement, until the rest of us caught up. Then she’d do it all over again. “It’s just—” She had this grin on her face, like a kid at Disneyland. Each time she looked at me, she’d shake her head in amazement that I wasn’t blown away by it, too.
Of course, I’d been close to cities most of my life: Chicago and then LA. Annabelle had grown up on the outskirts of a tiny town and she’d never even seen New York City until I’d brought her there to look for Aedan. And the truth was, I loved seeing it through Annabelle’s eyes and experiencing her wonder. I acted grumpy and unimpressed because I didn’t want to blow my hardass reputation in front of my brothers but, every time she grinned, I had a big grin inside me, too.
This girl was good for me.
We’d figured we shouldn’t all go to meet the FBI guy, because that might freak him out. Kian had to go, since he was the one the guy was expecting. I had to go because I didn’t trust a fed and I wanted to be there if it all went wrong. And that meant Annabelle had to be there because she wouldn’t leave my side. We were still at that stage where we never wanted to be apart. Maybe that would pass, eventually, but I didn’t want it to. I’d happily be right next to this woman for the rest of my life.
Aedan had come because he knew New York better than any of us. Sylvie couldn’t come: as far as Rick, the crooked fight promoter, knew, she was dead. If word spread around the New York underworld that she was alive, Rick might figure out that she had something to do with him getting arrested and he might try to take revenge: even behind bars, people like him still have power. So Sylvie had stayed in the SUV, having made Aedan promise to bring back bread from their favorite deli, coffee from their favorite coffee stand and pizza from their favorite pizza parlor. Sean and Louise stayed to keep her company.
“You miss it?” I asked Aedan as we walked.
He was looking around, too. Not wide-eyed, like Annabelle, but with a wistful look. “Yeah,” he said after a while. “I spent so long here. It felt like home.” He shook his head ruefully. “Chicago still doesn’t.” He slowed to a stop. “We’re here.”
We were at the intersection of paths, somewhere near the middle of Central Park. Four musicians were sitting on chairs, wrapped up in thick coats against the cold. There were a couple playing violins, one on some sort of bigger violin and then a tiny woman, even smaller than Sylvie, with her legs astride one of those fuck-off giant things: a double bass? A cello? I wondered how the hell she’d got it there: it looked far too big for her to carry. They were playing classical music: some sad, slow piece that made me want to grab hold of Annabelle and never let her go. Not the kind of thing I’m usually into at all, but they were really good.
“You like it?” asked Aedan. I’d forgotten he was standing beside me. He must have seen me staring at the musicians.
I coughed. “No,” I lied. I nodded to a spot a little further down the path, where a couple of dancers in leotards were doing ballet steps to the music. “But they’re alright.” At that, Annabelle turned and gave me a look of mock outrage. Dammit. I can’t win. I pulled her close and nuzzled her neck. Beside me, Aedan smirked.
Then I saw something that made me sober up. A woman dressed for running, her dark hair drawn back in a tight braid that bounced against her neck. She was soaked in sweat as if she’d just finished a run and she was just reaching up to a coffee cart to pay for her coffee, head cocked to listen to the music. All fine and normal except—
I nudged Kian. “He’s definitely a guy, right?”
Kian turned to me. “Yeah. Why?”
I shook my head, worried. “Then this is a setup, because there’s a fed over there.”
“What?” Aedan followed my gaze. “Her? How do you know she’s a fed?”
I tried to put it into words. It’s hard to describe but investigators just have this...way about them. The woman’s eyes were never still: even as she picked up her coffee cup and started sipping, she was scanning the crowd, looking for trouble. I’d seen that look too many times, when the FBI and ATF had been sniffing around the Hell’s Princes. They looked the same on duty and off duty: it was just the way they were wired. “She is,” I insisted, staring at her.
“Your brother’s right,” said a voice behind us. “But she’s not with me.”
We all whirled around.
The man who’d walked silently up behind us fitted every image of a fed I had in my head. His gray suit and overcoat might as well have been manufactured by them and he fitted it the way I fitted my leather cut. And he had all that chiseled jaw shit going on: he looked like a goddamn model. “I’m Calahan,” he told us. Then he nodded at the runner. “Lydecker. She’s from my office. Step back a little until she’s gone, I don’t want her to see us.”
He retreated a few steps until he was in the shadow of a tree and we did
the same. The woman—Lydecker—drank her coffee as she listened to the string quartet.
“Is she in the cult?” asked Kian.
Calahan made a disbelieving noise. “Lydecker? Jesus, no. Kate’s a straight arrow. But that’s the problem, if she sees me talking to a biker, a boxer and the President’s daughter’s boyfriend, she’s going to have about a million fucking questions and once she gets a hint of something she’s like a goddamn dog with a bone.” Then he let out a sigh of relief. “There!” Lydecker had tossed her cup—into a recycling bin, I noticed—and was walking off. “She’s alright,” Calahan said to himself. “She just needs to find a guy.”
We all turned to face him. He looked from one face to another and then shook his head. “Jesus,” he said at last.
“What?” asked Kian.
“You. You really think you’re going to take on Aeternus?”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s what they call themselves.” He shook his head again. “You don’t have a fucking clue what you’re getting yourselves into, do you?”
I felt the anger start to smolder in my chest. “Everyone keeps telling us that. Be nice if someone actually told us something useful.”
Calahan looked at me. “Useful? Okay: turn around, go home and forget about these people.”
I looked at Kian. “He’s wasting our time.”
“The President said you’d help us!” snapped Kian.
“I am helping you! Jesus, do you know what I’m risking, just talking to you about this shit? I only agreed to meet you because President Matthews says you’re okay. And the best advice I can give you is to drop this whole thing, right now!”
“Not happening,” I said.
“Reconsider,” Calahan grated, getting in my face. “You are way, way, way out of your depth.”
“Let us worry about that,” said Kian. “I’m tired of this. The President tried to scare us off. Then my dad, now you.”
I nodded. “Maybe it’s just you who’s scared of these bastards.”
Calahan froze at that. He walked right up to me and lowered his voice until it was a thin, cold whisper. “Scared?” he asked. “You think I’m scared?” He leaned even closer. “You’re goddamn right I’m scared.” And something in the way he said it cut right through all my bravado. “I’ve gone up against the mob. I’ve been tied to a chair in Texas, waiting for someone to put a bullet in my brain. I’ve tracked down serial killers who made me seriously question if the devil was walking the earth because I didn’t think any human could do the things that they did. I’ve seen shit you and your little punk-ass MC friends can’t even contemplate. I’ve been scared plenty of times because I’m not an asshole. But nothing has ever scared me like they scare me.”
We shut the hell up and listened.
“You’ve got to forget what you think a cult is. This isn’t some kooky people in white robes praying for a UFO to take them away. This is...changing people. Normal people, smart people. They can do it to anyone, I don’t know how but they can.” He turned to Kian. “The President tell you about how deep they are?”
Kian nodded.
“My fucking boss is one of them,” Calahan spat. We all gaped at him. “Yeah, get your head around that. The President asks me to start looking into them, because I’m the only one he trusts at the Bureau. I get six months in before I work out that the guy I’ve known for over eight years is in the cult. Where the hell do you go from there? Who do you trust?” He shook his head, remembering. “I was already keeping the investigation under wraps but...Jesus. When I think about how many times I nearly talked to my boss about it….”
Calahan sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I worked on it for nearly a year. Hit a brick wall. Had to take bigger and bigger risks to progress, calling in favors at different agencies.” He paused and, when he started again, the words came slow, as if he was having to pry them out like barbs sunk deep into his flesh. “I guess somehow, they got wind of me.”
He stopped. We all stood in silence for a second, a chill wind blowing through our little group, Annabelle’s hair streaming out into a silky red mist. I slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her close.
“I’d been seeing this woman,” said Calahan. “Becky. We’d only been together a few weeks but…” He stared down at the path for a second and, as he looked up, I saw it. He didn’t have to say a word: something passed between us and I understood. He’d felt the same way about Becky that I had about Annabelle.
“Anyway, I wake up one morning and she’s lying kind of half on my arm. I try to reach across her to get a glass of water but I can’t quite reach. So I try to wake her. She won’t wake up. I try shaking her: nothing. I start to panic, roll her onto her back. That’s when I feel how cold she is.”
Calahan drew in a long, shuddering breath. “I call it in. There are a lot of questions: were we doing drugs: no. Were we drinking: no. With there being no known cause of death, of course there’s an autopsy. They say it was a heart attack. That she must have had some sort of undiagnosed condition, but they can’t lock down exactly what.”
“I go home. I’m a mess. Drink myself into a stupor, wake up the next morning, look around….” He bit his lip. “And something’s not right. I’m hungover and my heart’s brea—”—he caught himself and took a deep breath—“and I’m messed up. But I have this feeling, looking around my room, that something’s not right. I know I’m probably just going crazy. But I can’t ignore it. And after almost an hour, I finally figure it out. My water glass is missing.”
He looked around at the four of us. “I find it in the kitchen: someone’s carried it through there and washed it up. And yet I swear, it was on the nightstand when I woke up and found Becky dead, because that’s why I had to wake her, to get to it. So someone moved it, while they were taking Becky’s body away. Someone moved it from the scene of a suspicious death. Why would they do that?”
We all stared at him, barely daring to breathe. I pulled Annabelle closer to my side and glanced down at her. She’d gone pale.
“I pick up the glass. All washed up, no evidence there. I go back to the bedroom and, on the nightstand, I find a few tiny drops of something, some liquid that’s been dripped there and then dried. I get out a field kit, scrape a little off and take it to a buddy in the lab, all off the record. My buddy analyzes it and you know what he finds?”
He stopped. Took a long, shuddering breath. “Insulin. Someone had come into my apartment and dosed my water glass with it. A big dose of insulin will stop your heart and it won’t leave a trace unless the coroner knows what to look for. They meant me to wake up, take a drink and that’d be the end of me. Only, sometime in the night, Becky drank it first. Then they had one of their people—someone with the coroner’s office, probably—wash up the glass to get rid of the evidence.”
“What’d you do?” asked Kian.
“I buried Becky,” said Calahan bitterly. “Then I waited to die. Figured I was a dead man walking. Kept waiting for my brakes to fail, or someone to stick a knife in me. But nothing ever happened. I guess they decided they’d sent me a message. I stopped looking into the cult: I’d got as far as I was going to get, anyway. Worked other cases, life went back to normal. Except….” He looked off into the distance for a second. “Without Becky.”
“Jesus,” whispered Aedan.
“That’s what you’d face, if you went after the cult,” said Calahan, his voice suddenly savage. “They’ll kill the people you love: not just collateral damage, like Becky. They’ll do it to get to you. To hurt you. To make you stop. You want to wake up and find her dead?” he asked me, nodding to Annabelle.
I wrapped both arms around Annabelle and drew her into a bone-crushing hug. The President, our dad...they’d both given the same warning but Calahan’s story made it real. When I looked across at Kian, I knew he was thinking the same thing.
I’d thought that nothing could keep me from looking for Bradan. Nothing. But Calahan had just met irresistible force wit
h an immovable object. I couldn’t abandon my brother. But I couldn’t put Annabelle in danger, either.
We couldn’t go any further. Our search was over before it had begun.
13
Louise
It was a traditional-style Irish pub a few streets away from Central Park, the fixtures and fittings designed to look like something from a hundred years ago, but the place had only been open five. Our men were by far the most Irish thing in there. But the place suited our mood: quiet and dark, and they served Guinness. It was a good place to hide, private enough that Sylvie could join us. Aedan had her hand tightly in his: he needed her. I knew Sean needed me, too. But helping our men wasn’t as simple as being there for them. Sean’s shoulder was pressed to mine, I could feel the warmth of his body...but he still felt a million miles away.
There was utter silence. Not just quiet but a kind of pressure caused by what the FBI agent had said. Kian had filled us in on the drive here. We sat staring into the black of our Guinness: we’d all ordered them but no one was drinking.
None of us could believe it was over.
I could see the men throwing glances at each other. Beneath all the sullen despair there was a white-hot anger, building and building as it reflected from one brother to another. I could feel it coming and looked at Annabelle and Sylvie but they looked as helpless as I felt: what could we do? What could we say?
The tension grew until it became unbearable. The men’s breathing got tighter and tighter. Sean’s arm muscles flexed as he hunched forward over the table. Every creak of Carrick’s leather cut, every whisper of Kian’s suit jacket made everyone stiffen—
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