Epilogue
Gideon held up the paint swatches. “They look the same to me.”
Carver chuckled. Leaning against the counter, he looked from the color options to Gideon’s face. “Then just pick one, sweet boy. I don’t give a fuck about which is which. As long as you don’t choose something hideous, we’ll be good.”
“But what do you consider hideous, babe?” Gideon winced with the pet name. They were still working through what would come naturally to them.
So far, they were striking out at every turn. Gideon was about two seconds away from trying out Daddy just to see if he’d been wrong when he said he didn’t want to explore that kink months ago.
It still amazed him that he’d been with the Angels for this long. While some days flew by, there were several that didn’t seem to want to end. Either way, you couldn’t convince him it had been nearly a year.
The place he’d lived before was long gone. The nightmares he had were fewer and fewer as time passed. He felt normal—whatever that meant. Or rather, he felt settled.
“I think you should go with this one.” Carver plucked the card on the left from Gideon’s hand.
“Why this one?”
“Because then we’ll be done with this discussion. We still have a million choices to make, and you’ve been stuck on this one for two weeks.”
The words weren’t said with any judgement. It was more like worry. Gideon knew Carver had wanted to get them moved as quickly as possible. While the prez loved his men and the club, he loved Gideon more.
But neither wanted to risk something being done wrong. And Carver especially pushed for Gideon to only make a choice once he was fully sure. He didn’t want there to be anything to dislike about the final product.
As Gideon looked at the color in his hand, he laughed. “It’s really silly of me, isn’t it? You’re right. This one works.”
Carver smiled at Gideon’s happy reply. “Glad you think so. Now then, I want to go spend some time with you…”
Before he could finish the thought, Trix rushed into the room with his laptop in hand.
“Boss! Little Boss! Glad I found you.”
Gideon giggled as Carver sighed. “What’s up, Trix?”
“I got a message from Dante this morning. It was a request to do some digging.”
“Hold up,” Carver said. “Since when are you and Dante close?”
Trix rolled his eyes. “Around the time y’all worked on the JV project.”
“JV project?” Gideon asked. The two men were practically speaking in code, which made him feel left out.
Carver shook his head. “Old business. Nothing to worry about. Trix, tell us what Dante wanted.”
“That’s what I was trying to do,” Trix sighed.
“Dante wanted to let me know he’d been investigating some stuff after overhearing some cops at a diner a few weeks ago.
Apparently, there’s a serial killer on the loose.
It hasn’t made big news because they only just connected the murders to a single person. ”
“Ok. Why does that matter for us?” Carver frowned.
“Well, it doesn’t. Except when I had Dante send me the details he knew, and I went digging myself, I realized—”
Trix was cut off by the sound of shouting from the main room. Gideon’s eyes went wide. He’d never heard that many people yelling at once.
The three men rushed to find out what was going on. What they found only confused Gideon more.
Several of the Angels were off to one side of the room surrounding Slash and some other man as they argued. Slayer was hovering behind Doc as he bent over the pool table. It took Doc shifting for him to see there was a body on the table.
“Oh my god!” He rushed over to see which of the Angels had been hurt.
“Gideon!” Carver shouted as he reached out to stop him from getting closer. “Wait, sweet boy. It’s Sapphire.”
“Sapphire?”
“Slash and Slayer’s baby sister. That’s who's on the table. And someone needs to tell me what the fuck is going on!”
At his roar, the noise in the room dimmed. The men parted enough to reveal Slash and the other man. Slash wrapped his hand around the guy’s bicep and dragged him forward.
Gideon noted the bruises and blood coating the second man’s skin. He was obviously connected to Sapphire. But how?
“Boss,” Slash said, voice deep and full of rage.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Colby here showed up with my sister’s bleeding body. That’s what the fuck happened.”
The Colby guy sneered at Slash. “You act like I did this. I would never hurt Sapph. She’s as much a sister to me as she is to you. I brought her here because you’re the only damn safe place I could think of.”
“Oh shit.” Trix’s soft spoken words rang out like a shot. “Boss… I think this is all connected to what I was trying to tell you.”
Carver waved his hand for Trix to step into the circle of people gathered. “Share it then.”
Trix turned his laptop toward everyone. “Dante sent over some stuff about a serial killer. I pulled the police files to review what they had. The similarities are pretty intense. But most importantly, every victim was of a certain age and had a certain look. They also all complained of having a stalker before they were eventually murdered.”
Slayer stalked forward, his hand snatching the laptop from Trix. He held it for a moment, then turned and threw it at the wall. The sound he let out was inhumane. Gideon had never heard anything like it.
Trix blinked a few times at the massacre that was his laptop. “I’ll give you a pass for that since this is so fucked up. But maybe next time, don’t destroy what I intend to use to find this asshole. He hurt an Angel. Let me do my job to track him down.”
Everyone watched as Trix left the room after his mini speech. Slayer looked a bit green at what he’d done, but the anger was still looming over him.
Gideon tugged on Carver’s arm. “What all does this mean? How does it affect the club?”
Carver wrapped an arm around Gideon to pull him tight. “It means we’re going to hunt down a serial killer for hurting one of our own. I think it also means we’ve got two new house guests while we sort it all out.”
Slash groaned. “He can’t fucking stay here.”
At the same time, Colby said, “That’s not a good idea.”
Carver turned Gideon so his back was to Carver’s front as he addressed the two men.
“I don’t give a damn what either of you want.
I make the law here. And I’m saying you and Sapphire stay here.
We need to find out exactly what happened to get to this point, and I’m not chasing your ass around the city. Understood, Colby?”
The other guy swallowed thickly, his expression more reserved. “Understood, Mr. Boss, sir.”
“Slash?” Carver asked.
“Yes, Boss.” The words were forced from his lips.
Gideon had never seen Slash so upset. There was more to the story than he understood.