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“Sorry, guys. We’re closed. I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.” I stare at the men with as much strength as I can muster because this is my business, and I won’t let anyone destroy it or my reputation. “Now.”
“Let’s go,” Nogales growls and turns toward the door, working hard to walk without the limp he’d walked in with.
Cyrus reaches out for me, and I shake my head. “I’ll drop you off at home first.”
“No, thanks. I’ll grab an Uber.”
“I’ll get you home, Boss.” Willow’s offer is the perfect reminder that I’m not alone, even if it feels like it.
“Maven,” he pleads.
“Let the bitch go,” Nogales growls. “We got shit to do.” He glares at me and pushes the door open with more force than necessary, simply because he can.
Cyrus looks at me with a mixture of anger and sorrow. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he promises, and then, after another long look, he follows the bikers across the parking lot.
“What the fuck wasthat?” Willow’s question echoes my own thoughts, but I’m too shaken to offer any kind of explanation.
All I can think about is the fact that Cyrus isn’t the man I thought he was just a mere ten minutes ago.
Who the hell is he?
Chapter Two
Wilder
“Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.” Ace is still pissed about whoever killed Hector, and he’s not mincing words tonight. Gone is our good-natured President who takes no shit.
In his place is the Ace I can picture in the military, kicking ass and taking names without batting an eyelash. “It’s just past ten o’clock. Where the fuck is Coop?”
Shades slips inside the room just as Preacher shuts and locks the door so Church can officially begin. At Ace’s glare, Shades drops down in his chair beside Ace and lifts up his hands.
“Sorry I’m late, man. Kelsey is in labor, and Coop is a mess, so I drove them all to the hospital. Kenna texted you,” he adds to take some of the sting off Ace’s anger.
Ace nods once, the only indication he accepts the explanation. “Fine. You all know why we’re here so fucking late at night instead of at home with our women. Hector Santos was killed in my club when I explicitly fucking said that he was not to be fucking touched. I want to know two goddamn things: who killed him and why.”
His voice echoes in the room, and we all eye each other with something akin to suspicion, not because we don’t trust each other. We’re brothers and have been for years, but someone clearly entered The Chamber and killed Hector. It has to be one of us.
Joaquin leans forward on the table, fixing his gaze on me. “Don’t we have some kind of surveillance camera that way?”
“Nope,” I confirm easily. “Considering the shit that goes down inside The Chamber, we can’t have a trace of that shit in existence. Not the door leading to it, not even the blueprint filed with the county. As far as anyone outside the MC knows, that room doesn’t exist.”
I cast a look at Ace, but I don’t bother to remind him that was his unilateral decision and one I disagree with wholeheartedly.
“Shit,” Joaquin growls. “I hate to say it, but that means the unthinkable.”
I can’t disagree with our newest patched member. He continues. “Hector’s throat was slit, practically ear to ear, which means whoever did it showed up with the purpose of killing him and doing it quietly.”
That much is fucking clear, but that’s not all of it.
“There’s no trace of any unknown person or persons entering or leaving the rest of the property,” Joaquin explains as though we don’t already know that. Between the clubhouse, Angel Harbor Choppers, Ace Motors, and the armory, the place is wired up like a fucking military fortress, and no one had come onto the property or left it.
Dix stares at me for a long time before he starts nodding absently. “Okay, we know what happened. Someone slipped inside and slit the fucker’s throat—may he rot in hell—but we need to be smart about this.”
“Meaning what, exactly,” Shades growls.
“Settle the fuck down,” Dix growls back. “We can’t just start turning on our fellow brothers willy-fucking-nilly. We need to think about this shit like we actually got brains. Which of the prospects carry blades? For that matter, who carries a blade that isn’t seated around this table?” Dix’s unspoken words make all of this shit terrifyingly real.
One of our brothers has betrayed us. It’s what we’re all thinking, even if no one says it out loud.
