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I approach the massive tent, fully aware that I’m being watched every step I take. The plastic tarp crinkles as I walk through to the other side. I’m not sure what to expect. If it’ll be the whole MC waiting for me or a handful. If they’ll have Sydney on display somehow or if this has all been another game of theirs.
A guy about my age, who I’ve seen around before, stands beside Velma. He’s clutching an assault rifle that he has resting against his shoulder and watching me with a hunger in his eyes that tells me he’s been waiting for this moment for a long time.
I jut my chin at them. “You wanted me here. I’m here. Speak your fucking piece.”
He glances at Velma then back at me. “So you really are Cutty’s son. Cocky like a motherfucker. For no reason.”
“And who’re you? Am I supposed to give a shit what you’ve got to say?”
“You wouldn’t know me. Name’s Auden. Nate Rollins’s son. I’m filling in for my pop behind bars.”
“Nate Rollins was a piece of shit who murdered my mother.”
“He murdered your mother because your cowardly father wouldn’t give him answers about the rat.”
“Tom had nothing to do with any rat. Your dad’s locked up ‘cuz of his own stupidity. But I’m guessing this crusade of yours is in his name?”
“Sure is. Me and Velma acting on his behalf. We’re gonna return the Reaper’s to their former glory. Everything going on between you and the Hellrazors? You can thank us.”
I direct my murderous stare to Velma. “You’ve been a Road Reaper all along, Velm? Is that right?”
“Velma has some sins to atone for,” Auden says, speaking for her. “She betrayed my father way back when. Turns out, she was the rat he was looking for. But she’s fixing her mistakes now.”
“Your old man gets locked up ’cuz of Velma’s snitching and you decide to destroy two other MCs?”
“It’s more complicated than that and you know it, Cutty. Way back when, there used to be respect. We all coexisted. The days of your old man and mine. That all changed when the feds got involved. The Kings and Hellrazors still thrived. But that wasn’t the case for everybody. That sound fair to you?”
“This was before your time. You were a kid. So was I.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, shaking his head. His sheets of greasy brown hair drape his shoulders. He’s almost as tatted up as Ozzie, right down to the Reaper insignia on his cheekbone. “It doesn’t matter, Cutty, ’cuz the past affects the future. The sins of our fathers are the sins of their sons. This is a new era, but it’s been defined by the shit that’s led up to it.”
“Then spit out what you want.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Your surrender. Your territory. Give up your MC and every piece of land you own, money in the bank, and all those fancy steel beauts you got. Then we’ll stop. We’ll leave you the fuck alone. You won’t have jack shit left, but that’s not my problem.”
“Where’s Sydney?”
A slow grin comes to Auden’s gaunt face, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Sydney Singer, adopted daughter of Jacob Singer, former prez of the Hellrazors. Old lady of Mason Cutler, current acting prez of the Steel Kings.”
I get a sick feeling twisted up inside my stomach by how he’s speaking. He’s talking about her like she’s no longer around, like the fucker’s eulogizing her.
“Birthdaughter,” Auden goes on, his grin widening. “Birth daughter of none other thantheHawk, former Reaper vice prez.”
“Hawk,” I repeat, and then it comes to me. “Kurtis Hawk? He was killed back when I was…”
A kid.
It was before Mom was taken out. Maybe some months ahead. I only remember ’cuz Mom and Tom got into it at the dinner table, and me and Logan overheard. She was shaken up by it because Kurtis had been trying to leave the lifestyle behind. He was gunned down anyway.
Sydney’s birth father was a member of the Road Reapers. Something even she has no clue about.
This revelation almost makes me forget the urgency of the situation.
Velma intervenes. “I knew Kurtis well. He used to visit my bike shop. It was a real shame the Reapers had to take him out. But he should’ve known better than to leave the club the same time a rat was around.”
I growl at her. “You were the fucking rat! It was ‘cuz if you Sydney’s parents were gunned down. And it was ‘cuz of you my mom was!”
I’m blacking out, feeling out of control like a feral beast the way I start husking out ragged breaths, and rage consumes me.
