Chapter 1

(Saint)

He who is without Sinn

“Relax.”

If there was ever a word spoken in the human language that had the ability to cause the opposite effect it was intended to, relax was that word. In fact, Saint couldn’t think of a single instance in the history of the word relax where someone had responded to it by calming the fuck down. His brother should know that but judging from the way Mark was kicked back in his chair nursing his beer, he’d clearly forgotten what it was like to have it uttered at him when he was stressed.

“Brutha,” Saint cautioned, slamming his empty bottle on the desk, and taking satisfaction in seeing it shatter, “if you tell me to relax one more time, I’m gonna forget we’re blood and kick your ass to the beach and back.”

Mark didn’t even have the decency to look at him as he swallowed the last of the liquid in his bottle. “Save your energy for when we find Sinn.”

“You mean if we find Sinn!”

“We’ll find him.”

“You can’t promise that!” Saint raged, “You can’t promise he’ll be okay either!”

“No, but what I can promise is that whoever has done this will be made to pay.”

Snarling, Saint slammed his hand down and wound up with a piece of glass embedded in it. “And that’s supposed to be comforting?”

“Did I say…”

Saint cut Mark off by whipping a heavy glass ashtray at his head. Fucker didn’t even have the good graces to try and get out of the way. Would have been nice if he’d pretended it had come close to hitting him, but Saint’s aim had always been shit when it came to throwing. Mark probably figured moving would be what got him hit. That or he just didn’t give a shit. He didn’t flinch when glass and plaster exploded outward from the dent the ashtray put in the wall, nor did he twitch when shards slit his cheek and sent blood spilling down it much like the flow trickling from Saint’s wounded palm.

“If this was Teddy, Kat, or god forbid, one of my nephews, you’d have destroyed half the town by now!” Saint roared.

“And you’d have been right there with me.”

“Then why the fuck aren’t we out their doing it now?”

The casual way Mark reached up and brushed glass fragments out of his hair took Saint to a whole other level of pissed off. “Because we’re older and supposed to be wiser at this point in our lives, and we both know the cops are itching to swarm this place and lock us under the jail. Between those fuckheads taking a shot at me in the diner and sending Lucky to the hospital, and the brawl with Shaw’s crew, we’re on thin ice with the local authorities, or have you forgotten the warning they issued when Kat bailed us out that day?”

Saint groaned and rolled his eyes, knowing his brother was right, despite not being in the mood to hear him sound reasonable. “Wasn’t going legit supposed to keep them off our asses?”

“Could be we underestimated how difficult it was gonna be to keep the personal from spinning sideways even when the businesses were on the up and up.”

“You think!”

“Saint! Cool it! I mean that shit too. I can’t think with you going ballistic every twelve seconds and I’m tired of telling you that no one has called in to report the smallest damn thing.”

“Well, what the fuck are they waiting for?”

“To find something would be my guess!”

The low rumble of approaching Harleys quickly turned to a roar. Someone, maybe multiple someones, had taken the baffling off their bikes, making them extra loud, which meant it was no one in their club. Town noise ordinances had cured them of straight piping years ago, when they got hit with so many fines they had to throw a rent party just to pay them. Saint grabbed the sawed-off shotgun and headed for the door, his brother at his back with the pump action. The gate was engaged, no one would get through without the code, but that didn’t mean they’d go away peacefully.

Mark cast a glance at the looming antebellum house they shared with Kat and Teddy, a reminder of the life they’d fought for and the people they loved, one of them absent. If the fuckers roaring up to their gate had anything to do with Sinn’s disappearance, then there was going be hell to pay.

It was the second time this year they’d gathered everyone for a lockdown. Enemies these days were cowards, or maybe they’d always been, and he and his brother had just been too deep in the bloodshed to realize it. Terrorizing one another over territory and criminal enterprises had always been the outlaw way. Parents, siblings, children, spouses, anyone connected to a patched member was fair game in a world where playing the long-odds and cutting corners was the only way to get ahead.

As young men, riding on the wrong side of the law had been a thrill. A way of thumbing their noses at a society they felt was designed to keep them from ever rising above their dirt-poor beginnings. Now in their fifties, their mission was to leave the next generation of their family with options they’d never fathomed when they’d assumed the mantle of leadership over the Jokers from their old man.

If that meant blasting holes in a few fuckers along the way, then let the fireworks begin. One thing the club had always guaranteed was that a member’s family would be provided for, their homes and bikes would be maintained, and there would always be money on their books.

Resolved, boots crunching gravel as they approached the gate, Saint thought he was prepared for anything, only to be thrown at the sight of Cody, Bellamy, and Wreck flanked on either side by seven other bikes, each rider bearing the same colors Bellamy had on his kutte before his patch over.

“I’m sorry Pops, I should have called and warned you we had reinforcements,” Cody stammered. “We just wanted to get here.”

There were dark circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept, or at least, not more than would have been necessary to keep the bike upright and between the lines. Saint was touched by his nephew’s consideration and the friendship he’d formed with Sinn. It was far more than Teddy, with his tendency towards jealousy, had exhibited.

One thought kept spinning over and over in Saint’s head, something he hadn’t shared with his brother because the wrong answer could lead to the kind of confrontation one of them wouldn’t walk away from.

Ever.

But if Teddy was behind this. If something he’d arranged had harmed one hair on Sinn’s head….

The gate slid open between them with a rattling clang. Cody didn’t bother to wait, he shoved through the moment the gap was wide enough.

“Any word?” Cody asked, bypassing his old man to get to Saint.

“None yet.”

“Where do you need us?”

Saint was tempted to tell them to crash for the next few hours, it was obvious they all needed it. Cody wasn’t the only one with greenish-black shadows beneath his eyes. There were haunted looks among the men Saint didn’t know. Stories he’d be curious to hear once his lover was back in his arms, safe.

“We’ve got teams working outward from Charles St. where Sinn went missing, showing his picture around to everyone they come across. We’ve got teams in every armpit bar within a hundred miles, skulking in shadows, hoping to hear anything that can give us a clue as to who took him. So far, nothing. Since you brought a crew, let’s hit factory row. I’ll get a few of the others to join us. With seven buildings to cover, it’s gonna take a while.”

“We drove all this way to search factories?” A burly brunette with a thin, droopy mustache snarled, nose wrinkling like he smelled something foul. When his upper lip curled, the yellow of his stained teeth revealed a lifelong smoking habit, the sour stench emanating from his clothes. Saint knew the type. Enforcer. He was there to beat on someone and go home. He opened his mouth, only to have his nephew beat him to the punch. Was eerie how much Cody sounded like him and Mark in that moment.

“No, we drove all this way to get Sinn back from whoever the fuck took him. If that means searching factories, repelling down chimneys, or climbing on the back of a rabid bull, then that’s what the fuck we’re gonna do.”

“Heard and understood,” Yellow Teeth replied.

He shut the fuck up after that and eyed the concrete pad beside the garage. Usually lined with bikes from end to end, the only machines that remained were his and Mark’s. It’s emptiness and the desperate reason behind it, was a stark reminder of how grave their current situation was. Everyone was quick to check weapons. Saint heard rounds being chambered before engines roared to life again and hurried to his bike to co-lead the charge.

Located on the edge of town in what used to be known as Industrial Park, it was only a ten-minute ride, but to Saint it felt like forever. How the fuck could this have happened? How could a quick trip out the back door of the club owned tattoo parlor to hit a joint have led to Sinn vanishing without anyone seeing or hearing what had gone down?

“So, what’s the story with this place?” someone asked once they’d arrived. It sounded like Bellamy, yet not exactly. Maybe a relative? Hadn’t Bellamy told them that all the members of his club were related to him in some way, shape, or form?

“Used to be the place that employed someone from every family in this town,” Wreck explained.

Saint managed not to snarl who gives a damn, by searching for any sign of the man who’d made each day better since tumbling into Saint’s life and lap after stumbling over a boot clad foot. If he were able, Saint knew Sinn would leave clues along whatever path he’d been dragged, even if that meant plucking a bald patch in his distinctive hair, or tearing off pieces of his t-shirt, but there was nothing among the trash and broken bottles to show that he’d passed through here.

“Most of our great-grandfathers helped build this place,” Mark explained. “Every roofer, carpenter and jack of all trades in this town was hired to work on these buildings, and in less than three generations, this is all that’s left.”

“Holy shit, how’d it happen?”

The voices were starting to blend. They hadn’t taken the time for introductions, not that Saint would have remembered a single one of them with Sinn’s fate weighing heavy on his mind. He just couldn’t understand what any of this was about. Their club wasn’t at war with anyone. They had tenuous relationships with a few of the chapters around them, but nothing that had kicked off into trouble, at least not in the last few years.

Unless they’d decided that the Jokers had gone too soft, and they were looking to push them out, Saint mused. This could be a first step towards a territorial dispute. The last time they’d had one of those, the Jokers had been the ones taking vests and busting heads, engaging in some downright terroristic means of striking fear into the hearts of the other club. Maybe it was their turn to be on the receiving end. Karma coming back to roost. Only Sinn, for as much as he didn’t want to be, was a civilian, and Saint would be damned if he allowed the man he loved to become a casualty.

“In some cases, mismanagement, in others, corporate suits decided it was better for their bottom line to contract with overseas companies where cheaper wages were the norm,” Mark rambled on. Only the fact that they weren’t alone kept Saint from elbowing the hell out of him.

“Pay less, charge more, that’s the American way,” someone muttered.

They were all silent after that, while waiting for the rest of the riders to arrive, something Saint appreciated. There was only one voice he wanted to hear, and the growing fist of dread in the pit of his stomach was starting to make him feel like he’d never hear it again.