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She wasn’t sure of the answer and was suddenly afraid to ask.
But as soon as they stepped inside, Dante pulled away. Sage shivered at the loss of contact.
See, he doesn’t need you.
That’s fine. You don’t need him, either.
You don’t need anyone.
She always believed that but now? It sounded like the biggest lie Sage had ever told herself.
“The lounge. Move it,” Gage bellowed, and she quickened her steps on instinct.
When the president gave an order, every single one of the members listened. So too, did Sage.
Sage wouldn’t have believed that a biker crew obeyed any kind of rules but apparently, whatever the president said and did, was law. They were obedient to him.
Prior to this, the only reference point Sage had when it came to MCs were romance novels and true crime shows. And her research. But it was different when you were living inside that book. And inside the reality of that crime, that investigation.
She knew aboutwhothe Hellraisers were and now she was starting to understandwhy. The more she interacted with them, the more the pieces in the puzzle fell into place. All them had a story, a history as to how they’d ended up here. Like Dante, who was running from a painful past. From trauma he could never fully escape. Conventional life had fucked them over and so, they created their own order.
They made their own money, their way. And mostly off of people’s vices. There would always be a demand for drugs and guns, and gambling and anything else. Laws didn’t prevent that. People always found a way to get what they wanted.
Now you’re trying to justify their way of life? What’s happened to you?
Sage had no idea. Ever since she’d agreed to work with the Hellraisers, with Dante, the line between what was right and wrong started to blur. And she didn’t know if she’d ever see it clearly, ever again.
And now Blane…
Just thinking about her brother having dealings with Rosemary’s murderer made Sage’s blood turn to ice.
A gentle hand steered her towards the lounge, and she looked up, jolted by surprise.
It was Gage.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he commented in a quiet voice as they made their way down the hallway.
He looked at her with concern in his eyes.
“Sort of. Except the monsters are alive and well,” Sage replied wryly.
Gage shook his head. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a new development and it comes in the form of my brother.”
Gage looked as shocked as Sage felt.
They entered the lounge and most of the members were already seated. Her eyes met Dante’s and it was clear that he was not comfortable being near her in this scenario. Instead of moving towards him, Sage took a seat beside Avery, who was on her phone, typing away. Xander and Jesse were the last ones in the room.
Gage stood up. “Listen up! So far, the cops got nothing in terms of hard evidence when it comes to the arson. That’s good and bad. Good, they got nothing to charge us with. Bad, they ain’t looking anywhere else either. They asked me a fuckton of stupid questions but they got nothing. For now, our lawyer feels it’s not going anywhere.”
“When are we gonna retaliate and show Midnight Carnage the door?” Wyatt yelled out from the back of the room.
Claps and hollers rang out.
Gage whistled to silence everyone. “I’m getting to that. First, Xander has an update.”
Xander stood up. “Video footage from our security cam the night of the fire shows a figure throwing what I assume is a Molotov cocktail into the window of the bar and then the bodyshop, just after midnight. No distinguishing features so that’s a dead end. My contact confirmed the fingerprint ID from the severed hand - it belongs to Cashel Flood. Also, the hand was previously frozen. We know that he was part of Midnight’s club for the past few years. Also, we suspect he’s involved in the death of Rosemary Benson since he was one of three of their crew known to be in the area around the time she went missing. We’ve learned that Rosemary threatened to go to the cops with info she learned about Padraig’s smuggling operations. And we also got a new development today thanks to the phones Sage managed to steal. It turns out that Sage’s brother, Blane, has been in contact with Raven Matthews, one of Padraig’s VPs. Blane is a gambler, and we think he’s doing favors for them in return for wiping out a debt. It’s still not clear how or why. But there were a lot of calls between them, especially around the time Rosemary disappeared. The next step is to have Sage contact her brother and set up a call. We’re gonna lure him here.”
