War of Hearts

by Nina Levine

  I follow him to his office where Ransom and King are waiting for us. He closes the door and turns to us, his expression hard. “The building raids we had planned for tonight are off. Zenith will have been tipped off about that. Axe and Griff are working their asses off combing through every club members’ personal life. We will find this fucking rat and I will deal with him.”

  “Who told us Zenith had ceased business?” I ask.

  “We received some calls from previous customers who’d started using them. They couldn’t get hold of anyone there over the last couple of days, so they came back to us. Griff looked into it and verified their bank accounts had been closed. As far as it appeared, they’d closed everything down and shut up shop.”

  “So what the fuck does this all mean?” Ransom asks, as perplexed as me. None of it makes sense.

  King steps in. “They’re being financed by someone else. The guy we brought back with us after the church attack in Sydney alluded to that, but he talked around in circles so fucking much we didn’t grasp it. Now the pieces are falling together.”

  Winter nods. “It has to be that.”

  “So this changes the fucking game,” King says darkly. “Before, we knew who we were dealing with; now we have no fucking idea and have to start from scratch again.”

  “What’s the plan?” Ransom asks.

  “We find this rat,” Winter says, “and we call in every fucking favour we’re owed to find out who’s fronting the cash.”

  Winter glances around the room. “Tonight we all get rest. Tomorrow we regroup.”

  As I’m leaving, King’s hard eyes land on me. Every second in the same room has been strained, and what I see in his eyes lets me know nothing’s changed between us.

  44

  Zara

  * * *

  “You look like you need to sleep for a year,” I say to Mum twenty-three days after Fury left town. I know it’s been that many days because it’s also been twenty-three days since I gave up sugar. I’ve no idea why I quit it then; it was a dumb idea. I’m pretty sure my body is shutting down; no sugar plus no Fury equals hell.

  Mum continues folding her washing. “That’s because I could.”

  She doesn’t just look physically exhausted; she looks mentally and emotionally spent, too.

  “Stop what you’re doing and sit. I’ll do this for you. And I’ll stay for a few hours and help you with whatever else you have to do so you can have a rest this afternoon.” I say, thankful that Brynn has the kids.

  She sighs. “I think it’s all these little jobs keeping me going to be honest. If I didn’t have a million things to do, I’d have time to think about everything and probably lose it if I do that.”

  “Mum, you and King can’t go on like this. You need to sort things out with him or at least get on that path. I’m worried for you guys if you don’t.” Hell, I’m worried for them either way. Things blew up for them after King sent Fury to Melbourne because Mum begged him to think about his decision and he didn’t like her getting involved. She’s since tried to speak to him about it again, but he refuses to discuss it.

  She nods. “I know and I agree. When he’s home next, I’m going to talk to him.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Hopefully on the weekend.”

  We finish folding the washing and then move into the kitchen where I help her clean out the fridge and write a grocery list.

  “I’m going to talk to him again, too,” I say.

  “I think that’s a good idea. I know he’s acting like he’s not listening, but I know King, and I know he does listen. Sometimes he just takes a long time to work through whatever he needs to before he’ll come around.”

  She’s right. I’ve seen this multiple times in the last eight years. It’s just so damn frustrating that he’s so stubborn.

  “Zara,” she says as I sort through the fridge. “I think it’s time you told King about the rape and how Fury helped you with that. It may help him see Fury in a new light over this.”

  I’ve been thinking the same thing. Besides my psychologist, there are only three people who know about the rape: Mum, Holly, and Fury. I couldn’t tell King about it because I wasn’t ready for that, but I am now.

  “I agree,” I say. “I’ll tell him.”

  She stops what she’s doing and looks at me, her features drawn with love and tenderness. “I’m so proud of you and everything you’ve done to get through the horrible things that happened to you. Anyone in your shoes could have become hardened by it or they could have chosen to numb themselves or check out, but you didn’t. You stood tall and faced it.”

  “God, Mum, are you trying to make me cry?” I’m two seconds away from doing just that. There’s something about your mother telling you she’s proud that settles deep inside and makes you feel even better about yourself.

  She wraps her arms around me. “Only if they’re good tears. The bad ones need to stop.”

  They do. And I’m going to pour my heart out to King in an effort to stop my tears falling over not only Fury but also the distance between King and me.

  I help Mum for a few hours and then I head home after picking up veggies for dinner. My night ahead will consist of a slow-cooked potato and cauliflower curry, a long bath with candles and a guided meditation, and a new book by Trisha Wolfe I picked up today. But first, a phone call with King because I can’t wait until he comes home to have this conversation.

  He answers almost immediately. “Zara. You good?”

  His protective ways mean the world to me, but goodness it must be exhausting to always be on alert. “I’m good. Are you?” I ask him that even though I know he will never tell me if he’s not.

  Today he doesn’t even bother acknowledging the question; that tells me everything. “What do you need?”

  “I want to say something to you and I just want you to listen. I don’t expect you to say anything back, but I hope you’ll think about what I say.”

  “Okay.” His reply is gruff, but he at least gives it to me. I’d half expected him to resist.

  “The night I was mugged, I was also raped. Not by the same man, but by a guy I’d gone home with from the club. My brain didn’t allow me to accept it as rape, though. I believed it was all on me.”

  “Fuck.” The word falls through the phone harshly and I feel King’s emotions from it alone.

  “Fast forward a couple of months and I was losing myself to post-traumatic stress. That was when you encouraged me to see a psychologist. It was also the beginning of my friendship with Fury.” I pause. “It was Fury who helped me see the rape for what it was. It was Fury who made sure I told the psychologist about it. And it was Fury who offered me the kind of friendship a male never had. King, he wanted nothing except to help me. And then, where other guys wanted pretty much just sex from me, Fury refused to touch me until I was ready for that.”

  “Zara,” he says, his dark energy straining through the phone. “What happened between you two isn’t something I want to know about. This shit is between Fury and me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re removing me from the equation when I’m the one smack bang in the middle of it. You’re thinking of this purely from a club perspective when you need to be thinking of this with your father hat on.”

  “This has nothing to do with my job as your father and everything to do with the fact one of my club members went against me.”

  “He went against you outside of the club, and I get that your club is your family, but can you get that you’re my dad and right now I need you to see how this is affecting our relationship.” I take a deep breath before continuing. “One of my regrets in life is that I didn’t get the chance to fix my relationship with my dad before he died. We both played our part in that, but when he tried to fix what he’d broken, I pushed him away. I wish now that I hadn’t, and I refuse to allow my relationship with you to go down that same path. Please think about what I’m saying because I need my father back.” My
voice cracks as I think about our relationship staying strained. I’ll be devastated if that happens.

  I hear some commotion on his end before he says, “Fuck, I have to go.”

  “Just promise me you’ll think about what I’ve said.”

  He takes a beat but then he says, “I will.”

  I stare at my phone after he ends the call and pray he does think about it. I pray that something I said resonates with him and helps him open his eyes in a new way.

  45

  Fury

  * * *

  It’s been three days since Winter started searching for the rat in his club. So far he’s uncovered nothing. We also aren’t any closer to learning new information about Zenith. It’s been three long days of visiting assholes who might know something about the gang and forcing them to talk. It’s also been three long days of handling club business. Storm needs the cash injection after losing too much of it to Zenith. We’re making bank while we can because none of us have any doubt Zenith will be back in business soon.

  “Get some sleep soon, brother,” Winter says just before midnight as he heads out of the clubhouse bar where he’s been talking with King. “We’ve got another long day tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, although I don’t see much sleep in my future. Not with all the shit rattling around my brain.

  The clubhouse is quiet and almost empty. As far as I’m aware, there’s only the three of us here. Winter sent everyone home to their families earlier and is heading home to his old lady, too. He’s walking a fine line between getting shit done and making sure the club doesn’t collapse due to exhaustion and low morale. From what I’ve seen, I’d say he’s succeeding, but every passing week that we’re dealing with these motherfuckers chips away at the club.

  After he leaves, I eye King. The last few days have been tense. Not only for the club but for him and me. We haven’t spoken, not even to discuss club stuff. It’s a weird fucking place to be with him after a decade of working so closely together.

  I stand and make my way over to him. We have shit to talk about that can’t wait any longer.

  As I take the seat Winter vacated, he meets my gaze, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to; the air I’m now breathing is filled with bitterness.

  “I’m not staying in Melbourne forever.”

  The vein in his temple twitches. “I’ll decide that.”

  “No, you won’t, King. I will. I have Noah to think about.”

  “And I have my club to think about.”

  I work my jaw trying like fuck to restrain myself. “In what fucking way?”

  His nostrils flare as he leans forward with such force the table moves. “In the way that I need to decide whether you can be trusted again.”

  “When the fuck have you ever known me to not be trusted with club shit?”

  “I don’t fucking know anymore.” He jabs his finger down on the table. “That’s the shit I have to fucking think about.”

  “That is bullshit. Can you even fucking hear yourself? Since the day you brought me into the club, I’ve done whatever you’ve told me to do. I never once questioned a thing asked of me and I got shit done that only you and I knew about. I never lied to you or spoke out of turn and I always had your back. Fucking always.” I shove my chair back and stand, my muscles tensing with the anger coursing through me. “If that’s not loyalty, I don’t know what the fuck is.”

  His face twists with ferocious anger and he charges at me. Grabbing my shirt, he rams me backwards until I hit the counter of the bar. “It wouldn’t fucking matter if you had my back for decades; as far as I’m fucking concerned, one lie wipes everything. One act of going behind my back wipes it all, too. I can’t trust you now.”

  “No, you don’t want to trust me. There’s a difference.” I shove him away. “I don’t know what the fuck goes on in your head, but I will tell you this: you’ll lose Zara if you don’t pull it out of your ass.”

  He opens his mouth to speak, but a gun goes off and he stumbles backwards.

  Fuck.

  He’s been hit.

  Right as the gun sounds again and the room goes black, I shove him to the ground and crouch next to him, searching for a bullet wound.

  “In my fucking shoulder,” he grunts as he pulls his gun out.

  I reach for mine, too, listening hard to figure out where the enemy is. The bar in this clubhouse is circular in the middle of the room. To have shot King in the shoulder, they were on the other side of the bar, but fuck knows where they are now.

  King signals that he’s moving around to take a look. I signal back my intent to go around this side of the bar.

  I’m tired and my eyesight isn’t at a hundred, both of which make it hard to see. But as I round the bar, I detect a guy coming towards me. I’m low to the ground and see him before he sees me. Capitalising on that, I rush at his legs, wrapping my arms around them and barrelling him backwards so he lands on his ass. Managing to catch him by surprise gives me the split second I need to gain the upper hand, and I use it to crawl on top of him and shove my gun to his head.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I demand, knowing Winter will want this information rather than the guy dead.

  “The asshole who’s going to kill you,” he snarls.

  With that, he fights me for the gun, knocking it from my hand. Jerking up, he attempts to headbutt me, but I see it coming in time and bring my hands up to block him. Gripping his head, I gouge his eyes, inflicting enough pain to cause him to rear back and roar out in agony.

  Punching him hard in the face, I thunder, “The only one fucking dying here tonight is you!”

  I reach for my gun, but he pushes it further away and kicks me in the stomach. Grabbing his foot, I pull, causing him to land on his back. Moving fast, I stand and bring my boot to his face with a hard kick. He wants to fucking kick me? I’ll kick him back. Far fucking harder than he kicked me.

  I reef him up and shove him against the bar. With my hand to his throat in a grip that cuts off his air supply, I say, “You shouldn’t have fucking come here tonight,” before grabbing my knife from its sheath. I stab it into his chest repeatedly until he sags to the floor, his chest a mess of blood.

  The sound of a fight on the other side of the room filters into my awareness and I yank my knife out of the dead guy, grab my gun, and go to help King.

  I find him and another asshole trading punches. King is a strong fighter, but this guy seems to have enough brute strength to match him. The gunshot wound in King’s shoulder, though, is slowing him. I can tell by the way his moves are lagging; I’ve never seen that from him. When he takes aim with his fist and misses the guy’s face, connecting with his neck instead, I know he’s in trouble.

  Grabbing a chair, I smash it into the asshole’s head, trying to give King the opportunity to take control. King’s still struggling, though, and staggers to the side. The asshole barely registers the hit I delivered with the chair, and he keeps going at King, punching and kicking him.

  Taking aim, I shoot the guy’s leg, hoping it’ll pull his attention from King, because my president is fucking crashing.

  When the guy continues on his quest to end King’s life, the bullet to his leg only slowing him for a beat, I shoot his other leg and then throw myself at him. Tackling him to the floor, I go to battle with him.

  We’re a frenzy of punches and kicks that don’t get us anywhere except down some energy and up a whole heap of fucking injuries. He winds me hard enough at one point I struggle for breath, but I keep on going. There’s no option but to do that.

  King and I are fighting for our fucking lives here.

  That much I know.

  What I don’t know is whether King is still breathing, because I don’t allow myself even one second to look away from this asshole. Whoever this guy is, he’s fucking good. He has nine fucking lives. Each time I think I’ve knocked him out, he gets the fuck up and comes back for more.

  And then it happens: the moment where I
wonder if my run of success with never losing a fight is about to come to an end. The moment where I see no future with Noah and Zara. The moment where he aims his gun at my head and prepares to pull the trigger.

  My mind races with possibilities to escape this bullet.

  But there are none.

  There’s just death.

  His smile of victory reaches my beast inside, though, twisting and slicing until I know I can’t give up.

  If I’m going to die, I’m not doing it standing fucking still.

  I lurch forward, arms wide, ready to circle him and take him down with me.

  His gun explodes, the noise ripping through me.

  We crash to the floor together thanks to the momentum of my movement.

  I’m on top of him.

  My ears are ringing.

  I can’t see.

  I blink.

  I blink again.

  I feel nothing.

  No pain.

  “Fury.” King’s voice sounds from above. “You good, brother?”

  I move, pushing up off the asshole, finally taking in the fact his head is an angry mess of blood and flesh.

  “Yeah,” I grunt, eyeing the gun he used to save my life. “You?”

  “Nothing a fucking whisky won’t fix,” he grunts back, looking like he needs a whole lot fucking more than whisky to fix him.

  Putting his phone to his ear, he calls Winter. “We need every fucking member back here. Shit just escalated.”

  The assholes who got into the clubhouse—after killing the four club members running security outside—weren’t Zenith. Axe confirms that at around 2:00 a.m. They were hitmen we suspect were sent by Zenith or whoever is funding them, but that’s yet to be confirmed.

  “How’s King?” I ask, entering Winter’s office after I shower and clean up.