Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men #6) - Giana Darling Page 0,133

went to console Phillipa, and I respected that. They had their own friendship, and truthfully, I was glad my mum had someone to comfort her because, for once, it couldn’t be me.

“You ready to make a biker babe transformation?” Harleigh Rose crowed, jumping to her feet and rubbing her hands together with an evil little grin.

Lila whooped as she got to her feet and hip-checked H.R. “Yes! Let’s get gorgeous.”

“Already gorgeous, Flower Child,” Nova noted with a lazy up and down look at his woman. “But you wanna lose some clothes, I’m down for that.”

“Me too,” Boner added with a lecherous wiggle of his dark brows.

Nova shoved to his feet and pinned him in a headlock. “You hittin’ on my woman?”

“If I had a chance in hell, I would,” Boner asserted even though Nova was choking off his air.

I laughed; the feel of it, of them, warming my belly like a shot of Z’s favourite whiskey. There was relief there too, knowing that in all the chaos and fear of the serial killer haunting my life, at least I’d found my place in life, the one home where I knew I’d always belong. It wasn’t what I’d always imagined it would be growing up—a nuclear family, a stable job, a normal life—but thank God, it was so much more than I ever could have hoped for.

* * *

* * *

No one knew what to expect from the Thunderbird Squad. They mostly operated on their reservation or within the network of other First Nations’ communities on the mainland, so The Fallen didn’t much care what they did so long as it didn’t step on their toes. I wasn’t even sure if anyone other than Zeus had even met one of their members.

It was clear, though, when they rolled onto the compound that they knew of The Fallen.

They rode in no clear formation the way our men did, just an amorphous mass of bikers in leather cuts and bandanas. However, one man was at the helm who radiated authority just seated on his Harley leading the charge onto the lot.

He was the first to swing off his bike.

The first to take off his half helmet and reveal the tanned, surprisingly young face beneath. He had to be around Zeus’s age, late thirties or early forties, with a wide, strong body that made him seem shorter than he really was. His hair was cropped military short, an ink blot on his scalp, and his eyes, even from a distance, were a clear, pale brown like sunshine through maple syrup.

He commanded everyone’s attention instantly, and he was aware of it. His broad shoulders rolled back, feet braced, and he stared down the entire Fallen MC as if he planned to go to war against them.

For his sake, I hoped he didn’t.

Zeus stepped forward then, his massive bulk dwarfing the T-Squad’s leader, his swagger a smooth roll of his powerful frame. Just seeing him walk forward, proud, powerful, completely unruffled by a potential enemy rolling through the gates, released some of the palpable tension in the group.

“Nicholas Rivers,” he greeted with an extended hand. “Pleasure to fuckin’ meet ya.”

“Not sure the pleasure is my own,” Nicholas said, cutting straight to the chase. “You got a man here by the name of Priest?”

My man stepped forward from where we stood locked together on the stairs of the clubhouse. We hadn’t separated since his return from the police station, and I wasn’t eager to let him go then, but he moved away inexorably.

“You got a problem?” Priest called out casually, strolling down the steps as though he didn’t have a care in the world even as he cut a menacing figure all in black, his red hair shining like blood in the bright lights of the lot.

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed, and he moved beyond Zeus to face Priest. “You the motherfucker the police said were involved with these murders?”

Priest cocked his head to the side in that robotic, chilling way he had as he considered his opponent. Finally, he tucked his hands in his pockets and shrugged one muscle-heavy shoulder. “Think I’d be behind bars if they had any kinda proof of that.”

“We’ve all heard the rumors about you,” Nicholas fired back, rolling onto the balls of his feet as though he was prepping for a fight. “Maybe you’re just clever enough to get past the fuckin’ pigs.”

“We can both agree on that,” Priest practically drawled, obviously bored of this conversation already. “But this murdering arsehole is obsessed