beside the remains of her body. ‘What peace can there be, so long as the whorings and the sorceries of your mother Jezebel are so many?’”
One of Zeus’s hands clenched into a fist, then released, flexing so hard the veins and tendons stood out in stark relief.
“We got a murderer out there killing mothers, I got a problem with that,” he growled. “Don’t give a shit it’s not one’a our women. When I took this club over from that piece’a shit Crux, I fuckin’ vowed I’d keep Entrance safe for everyone.”
“They don’t live in Entrance,” Heckler groused. “We just fuckin’ established that.”
“What if it was Hannah?” King asked, as always, hitting at the heart of these men. He looked next to Skell, to Bat, to Axe-Man and Cyclops, to every single brother with family outside of these four walls. “What if it was Winona, Mary, or Cleo and Tayline? We don’t let shit like this stand.”
“We just got some peace,” Kodiak spoke up uncharacteristically, his voice husky with disuse but flat with reason. “We start signin’ up for every war in the province, we’re gonna burn out.”
“Live free, die hard,” Zeus reminded him of the club motto, but it wasn’t in the voice of absolute power. He wanted the discussion, and we were used to giving him our opinions. We wouldn’t leave here until it was settled and agreed on by the majority. That was just the way Z worked, even if it wasn’t the MC standard.
This was why I’d stayed twelve years ago when I got off that godforsaken freighter and encountered Zeus in a narrow corridor between shipping crates. He’d taken one look at me and offered me a coffee. Didn’t even wait to see if I’d follow, just turned on his heel and gone ahead, knowing somehow I’d follow.
The kinda man he was, he led like a general, not a king. First into battle, leading any kinda charge as the point of the knife.
“Let’s vote it out, brothers,” he suggested. “But I’ll say right now, I’m inclined to help ’em. Somethin’ happened to my family, I’d take any help I could get and make damn sure to reward the giver, yeah?”
There were some murmurings and nods, but a commotion outside the closed Chapel doors roused us all to something bigger.
Instantly, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Because I could hear her.
Bea.
No one had a voice like that, so sweet and smooth like honey poured from a jar.
I was standing, pushing back from the table so I could vault myself over it, one hand to the wood as leverage to leap over the bulk. Curtains and Blade shoved aside to make room for me to land with a jarring thud on the other side between their chairs.
Because that sweet voice was raised in alarm and it was calling me to her like there was some direct link between us, some line only she could reach.
I was throwing open the doors before anyone else could get there.
Bea stood just inside the clubhouse surrounded by the biker bitches, tears tracking down her cheeks, voice raised as she demanded Ransom and Carson let her into the meeting.
Quickly, I scanned her for injuries, but aside from the small splint on her left hand, she seemed unharmed.
The great knot in my gut, as complicated as the Dara, untangled.
“What the fuck is goin’ on?” Zeus demanded from behind me.
Instantly, Lou went to him and fit herself into his ready arms, but I ignored whatever she said softly in his ear.
Because Bea was there, and something was wrong.
Alarm bells were still ringing, blaring so loudly in my head I thought it might explode.
Tired of waiting, of not knowing what I was killing for frightening Bea so badly, I stalked forward until I loomed over and demanded coldly, “Tell me.”
Her lips parted, so pink and soft I was almost distracted, but she didn’t tell me.
She showed me.
She lifted the flower box in her arms and pulled back the lid.
Inside, a perfectly severed forearm.
There was swearing and gasps around me, but I just studied the dissected limb for clues.
It had once belonged to a woman, obvious because of the sparse brunet hairs dusting the forearm, the carefully cut nails and the silver ring on her middle finger. It had been severed cleanly so the murderer had used a hacksaw, the only tool that could do a decent if arduous job of dismemberment. On closer inspection, it seemed the gift-giver had even cleaned up