Chapter 9: The Rusty Bell

The Rusty Bell sat on a bend of Route 25 with a gravel lot and a neon bell that had burned out years ago.

It was nine in the morning, and thirty motorcycles crowded the front.

I killed the engine and looked at the black windows.

"I'm going in alone," I said.

Ronan stood beside me with his arm in fresh gauze and his jaw set.

"No."

"If you walk in there with me, it's two Saints against two clubs. If I walk in, it's a girl asking for her dead father."

"Roz."

"You told me you'd keep my rules."

He stared at me for a long moment, and I watched him swallow the whole argument.

"I'll be at the door," he said. "If you say my name, I come in."

"I won't need to."

I took the tire iron from my saddlebag and went up the steps.

The door was heavy and sticky, and the bar inside was dim and long and smelled of beer and old wood.

Thirty bikers sat at the tables.

Half of them wore Red Hound colors, and half wore the black and white of the Dark Pines.

They were Saint allies, men who had come to my father's funeral.

And at the far end of the bar, with a drink in his hand and my father's urn sitting next to it, sat Bronco.

His eyes slid to me, and he grinned.

"There she is. Everybody, this is old Burnside's daughter. The one who made a fool of the Iron Saints last night."

Heads turned.

I walked down the middle of the room with the tire iron hanging at my side.

My cheek was purple, and my arm was wrapped, and I did not care what they saw.

"Beau Beauchamp," I said, loud enough to carry. "You were suspended thirty-one days last night by your own president."

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