Creed’s Honor by Simone Nicholls

When I arrived at the clubhouse, bullet holes decorated every wall, doors were smashed, and bikes were on their sides, used as shields. I’d never seen a clubhouse this gutted.

“What the fuck happened?” said Viper, my VP. He was meant to have been patched at the chapter today to the position of president.

My eyes took in a sight I had never seen before. The whole clubhouse was empty, and half the club bikes were missing. But there were two bikes of importance missing. Hades and Kobra.

“It started here,” I said, taking in the shattered war zone. “But it didn’t end here.” I knew the boys. They’d been ambushed, but it was clear that the Mother Chapter being what it was had stood its ground. Then, when the enemies were retreating, the boys followed them. Mounting my bike, I moved it around the fallen bikes and took off, my men following.

Hades’s blood rage would have just taken after them, wanting to end them. That was when I saw it up around the bend—the parked sedans. It had been a trap.

Whoever had attacked the Mother Chapter knew they had to get them away from the club. So they got the boys to take off after them, leaving the safety of the club’s guns and endless weapons. To this. A fucking roadblock, which was now swamped with police and media.

The roar of my fifty men behind me made all the cops look up, and seeing a road filled with bikers in front of them, the police naturally reacted.

They were on guard because they were currently surrounded by bodies covered with white sheets. The few bikers that had survived were on the sidewalks and handcuffed. While my boys were waiting on my call, Viper pulled up beside me.

“Secure the clubhouse,” I shouted over my bike while watching the police.

Viper nodded his head but then jerked it in the direction of two bikes on the ground—Hades’s and Kobra’s bikes.

The club was in fucking trouble. I lifted my head, acknowledging it, and Viper led the bikes around, heading back to the clubhouse.

I took off in the direction of the only place Holly and her family could have been if they were alive—the hospital.

I was tearing up the main street when I saw the Chevy driving on the other side of the road. My head followed it, taking my eyes completely off the road. I saw Holly looking at me, as well, as she slowed down. The island in the middle, dividing the four lanes, forced me to ride up to the next break, turn the bike around, and then cut cars off. I took off up the road, chasing her. I saw her pull over, and I parked the bike behind her, getting off just as she opened the door.

Her clothes were sprayed in blood. Even her blonde hair was tinted crimson.

“You okay?” I asked, hearing my own panic levels in my tone. My gaze ran over her. “Hades, Kobra, what the fuck happened?”

“They’re in surgery, no word yet.” Holly ran a hand through her hair, and tears welled in her eyes. “I broke Ollie’s arm, she’s…” Her eyes went to the passenger seat before looking back at me. “I don’t know where to go.” She was breaking, and this time, her brother and father weren’t there to help her.

I cupped her face. “I’m here,” I said, and I looked in the car, seeing the cast on little Ollie’s arm. I then walked back to my bike, took the key out of the straddle bag, and walked to Holly.

“What are you doing?” Holly asked as I left my bike.

“Taking you home, Holly, to the clubhouse.” I gestured with my head for her to get into the car. “Don’t care about the bike,” I said before she even questioned me on it.

Hades and Kobra, the heart of the brotherhood, were fighting for survival. They couldn’t protect the brotherhood or their family right now. But I could.

Holly got into the car and pulled Ollie, who was asleep as a result of what I assumed was pain killers, into her arms.

Gripping the steering wheel, I knew now everything Wrench had taught me before he stepped down and every phone lecture I had gotten from Hades over the last two years would be what I depended on to get the Mother Chapter to survive this.

I knew what I had to do. Protect the family—the brotherhood. Never wanted to be the Mother Chapter president. Patching up as vice president scared the shit out of me. But the laws laid down by Hades was that if this were to happen, the North got the power, and I was the president. Thus, the responsibility on getting the club through this, keeping Hades’s family safe, all fell to me.

Everyone knew the Mother Chapter was the heart, and all other clubs came off it. Whoever had done this had attacked the Mother Chapter, planning to wipe out the heart of the club.

I was now acting Mother Chapter president.

They had called a war and won the first fight, but the war was far from over. If they thought they could wipe us out without us fighting back like a dying wild animal, they were wrong.