The MC gets to the warehouse the day of the meet-up to pick up the guns, to discover that the locks have been broken off the doors. Inside, it doesn’t take long for us to confirm the worst: all the crates of 9mm pistols and AR-15s are gone.

“Jesus fucking Christ goddamn son of a bitch!” Angel shouts, running his hands through his hair. We’re standing in the warehouse, looking around at the empty space where the crates were stacked the last time Brick, Thorn, and I were out here. Some of the other shit is gone, too, but it’s clearly the guns they were after.

Rock is angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He turns to me. “When were you here last?” he barks.

“Two days ago,” Brick says. “To pack everything up for transport. Everything was locked up tight when we left.”

Tweak comes up to us, looking grim. “Looks like the surveillance cams have been shot out. The ones I’ve looked at so far, anyway.”

“Goddamnit,” Rock seethes. “Go check the rest of them. See if you can get any footage out of them at all. We need to figure out who did this.”

“You think it’s possible the Death Devils did this?” Ghost asks, his face a mask of anger. “You think they’re fucking playing us?”

“It’s possible. Hell, anything’s possible.” Rock is silent for a moment, but he looks like he’s going to explode. “But if it was them, it’s not like anything we’ve seen from them before.”

“Yeah.” I nod. “It’s been pretty much peaceful coexistence with the Devils up until now. The Iron Spiders, on the other hand…” I don’t bother to finish my sentence. The rest of the men know exactly what I’m thinking. The Spiders have been trying to push into our territory for a while now. They’ve got plenty of motive to try to fuck with us.

“How would they know where this warehouse is?” Gunner bites out.

“I dunno. Shit, maybe they have someone working for them in our territory.” After all, they managed to turn Charlie Hurt, Jenna’s old landlord. He’s dead now, but the Spiders could have other people spying for us. It stands to reason that they’d try, anyway.

“Anyone else it could be?” Angel asks.

“No one else really has the capacity to do this kind of a job,” Ghost growls. “It’s got to be one of them.”

“Well, we’re to be at the drop in less than an hour,” Thorn mutters. “I think we’re gonna find out whether the Devils are playing us by what happens when we tell them we don’t have their inventory.”

Grimly, I realize we may be headed for a war. The stony faces of the other brothers tell me they’re thinking the same thing.

The meet-up is just outside our territory, at an old factory that looks like it’s been closed for many years. When we get there, we drive inside a huge open doorway that looks like it was made to accommodate large construction vehicles. Inside, a couple dozen Death Devils are there, with two vans to transport the guns we don’t have.

All of the Lords, on the other hand, have come on bikes. There was no reason to bring trucks, having nothing to transport in them. And what trucks and vans offer in terms of protection, they lose by being slow. If there’s gonna be trouble, I’d rather be on a bike than in a cage any day.

A large, deeply-tanned man with long dark hair and a thick beard stands in the middle of them, wearing a plaid shirt and a leather cut. I don’t even need to look at closely to know his lapel patch says “president.” I’ve never met Ozzy before, but he commands a respect among his men that’s immediately evident by the way they stand and wait for him to speak. It’s like he’s the center of gravity or something.

If Ozzy and the Death Devils are behind the break-in and gun theft at our warehouse, then he’s the best goddamn actor I’ve ever seen in my life. The exact moment when he realizes we haven’t brought any vehicles large enough to transport product is obvious. He throws Rock a sharp and suspicious look of anger. The rest of the men come to stand in a disciplined half-circle around him. It’s pretty clear they’re getting ready for the possibility of violence.

Ozzy’s face grows dark and steely when Rock tells him about the break-in. He is fucking pissed.

“We had a deal, Rock.” His voice is cold, menacing. “You promised us guns. We promised our people guns. We now have a problem.” It’s not clear whether he believes us, or whether he thinks this is a set-up.

Rock takes a step forward. “Ozzy. Our clubs have never had a problem with each other. I don’t plan to start one now.” He looks briefly over at Angel. “We think we have a pretty good idea who did this. They will pay. We will get the guns back. And we will deliver them to you as soon as we do. The deal is still on. It’s just been unfortunately delayed.”

Ozzy seems to relax just slightly. The change in his face is hardly visible, but it’s there. “Spiders?” he asks.

Rock nods once. “We think so.”

Ozzy’s eyes narrow, his lip curling slightly. He says nothing, but it’s pretty clear what he thinks of them.

“As I said, we promised our people a shipment of guns,” he says. “I am a man of my word. I don’t appreciate being made to go back on it.”

Then he shouldn’t have made a promise until the guns were in his possession, I think.

Rock’s voice grows hard. “Soon, Ozzy. We’ll have the guns back very soon. I’ll be in touch.”

He nods once, not waiting for an answer from the other president. Then Rock turns and lifts his chin to us, the signal that it’s time to go. We walk out in silence, in a show of confidence, but I’m half-expecting a shout, or gunshots, to ring out behind us. The fact that Ozzy lets us leave without any problem is a good sign. But even so, this is not a great way to begin a solid future partnership if necessary against the Spiders.

“Well,” Brick murmurs to me as we walk toward the bikes, “I guess we know what happens next. The Spiders just bought themselves a war.”