Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
WES
“Thanks for meeting me.”
“Always got time for you, Wes. Thanks for the coffee.” Butler raised his decaf latte and drank.
I cleared my throat as I pressed my hands over the five notebooks on the table before us, my double espresso staring at me, untouched. It was late morning and the Meager Grand wasn’t crowded. We were alone at a table in a far corner.
“I hear Alicia sold the house?”
“She did.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I’m cool with it. It’s time. She doesn’t need it, and I don’t want it. And the cash will be real nice to have.”
He grinned. “You got plans for it?”
“Not yet, no.”
Setting his mug down, he leaned forward on the table. “What’s up?”
“I found something of my dad’s at the house and I wanted to ask you about it.” I passed him the first notebook. “I found these notebooks in a secret hiding place he’d made in my closet years ago. Said it was only for us. He always kept a lockbox in there. I opened it and found these.”
Butler opened the notebook and scanned each page, flipped pages. His big shoulders went rigid, his jaw tightened. His broad chest expanded with a breath.
I leaned in closer to him. “Did you know about this?”
“That he was running a side hustle with another club for years?” he spit out.
And the answer is NO.
I knocked back my coffee.
He closed the notebook. “Did your mother know about this?”
“I don’t think so, and I haven’t told her. She never knew about the hidden compartment he built in my closet. But I asked her about Zed, and she had all sorts of stories of how she and Dad were close to him and his old lady. Partying together, hanging out, going on runs.”
“That’s right, that’s how it was with them.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead, his gaze stony.
“What’s wrong?” My heart thudded in my chest.
“This explains a fuck of a lot.” He pressed his hands down over the cover of the notebook.
“Like what?”
“Back in the day, Dig, Grace’s first husband, was VP when your dad was Sergeant at Arms. Dig had all these creative ideas about us forming alliances to strengthen our territory and our trade in our area. For him that meant hooking up with a powerful ally.”
“The Flames of Hell.”
“At the time, Finger was VP of the Flames, and Dig had set up a meet with him to open the lines of communication, offer to do them a few good turns, build trust. Back then, the Flames were supreme lone rangers. No allies, no nothing, only pure one percenters full steam ahead and fuck you if you even dared glance their way.
“It was a hot idea, exciting—to most of us. But Jump? Hated it. Flew off the handle about it. Threatening Dig to stay away from Finger. None of us could explain it, his extreme reaction over and over again for years.”
“Did Dig go ahead anyhow?”
“He tried, but shit fell apart at the last minute, and it didn’t work out then. Jump was thrilled, and he kept shoving it in his face way after the fact.”
“Pure Dad.”
Butler folded his hands together over the notebook. “But, years later, years after Dig got killed, I felt that idea was more important than ever, and so, when I went nomad for our national, I contacted Finger, did some work for him that I shouldn’t have, but I wanted to prove to him that I was trustworthy and useful while still being a Jack. I tried to show him it would be a good deal for the Flames too.”
“Did he bite?”
“Slowly, we forged a relationship. We needed the Flames on our side because the Smoking Guns were coming for all of us. And when I got back to Meager, I wanted to bring that opportunity to the table, and that’s what I did.”
Butler had been exiled for a few years after he’d let his drug addiction get the best of him.
“How did Dad react?”
“Blew up at me. Of course he wasn’t happy about taking me back in the first place.”
“He didn’t trust you anymore.”
“Jump was pretty damned absolute when he mistrusted someone. Nothing was going to change his mind. Could have been a small thing from years back, but he always remembered it and would find a way to use it against you even a hundred years later.” He slapped a hand on the notebooks, his back going straight. “Man, you don’t need to hear this. I shouldn’t be talking shit about your father to you.”
“I want the truth, Butler. We all knew he was a selfish prick, my mom before everybody else. I learned it the hard way.” I leaned over the table and whispered, “Nothing and nobody mattered as much as what he wanted. Not even his club. That I can’t wrap my head around, and I never will.” I gulped the last of my coffee. Ice-cold. “What do these notebooks tell you?”
“That the reason he was so anti-Flames and anti-Finger was because of his secret alliance with Zed. Zed’s club and the Flames were enemies, so any proposed alliance with the Flames would have threatened that special relationship and any potential plans those two may have been cooking for the future.
“When your dad became president, his number one principle was that any kind of alliance was a bad thing. That we didn’t need anybody. But times were changing fast, businesses were changing, and it became a major pinch point for him. He blew a lot of smoke about it and we could never figure out why.”
“Now you know.”
A growl left Butlers’ throat. “Wasn’t some philosophy about the purity of the brotherhood. He was filling his own pockets.”
My fingers slid up and down my coffee cup. “It’s funny how when I was so hell-bent on getting justice for Dad, you told me I could’ve ruined his reputation, blackened his whole life’s work with the shit I was up to,” my voice seethed. “Seems like he’s done that all on his own.”
Butler’s sharp gaze drilled into mine, drilling way down into my gut. “You understand loyalty.”
“Damn straight I do.” My gaze trailed out the window. “After Zed died, the Blades blew up, right?”
“Six months later, give or take.” He tilted his head. “These were the only notebooks?”
“Yep.” My pulse pounded in my head as I fingered my empty coffee cup, my one leg jittering under the table.
“There was nothing else in that lockbox?”
“A couple of knives, a few hundred bucks,” I lied again, my shoulders stiffening. “You going to tell the men about this?”
“No point. But I’ll tell Boner. He deserves to know. You okay with that?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you showed this to me. No matter what, there’s nothing better than knowing the truth, even after all these years. I’m glad I know.”
I put the notebooks in my backpack. “In the end, Dig’s original vision became reality, and you made that happen.”
Butler winked at me. He was trying to be cool for my benefit, but it was the way he let out a breath, moved his gaze to the window, curled his lips, that I knew deep in my gut that this news had upset him.
I zipped up my backpack. “I realize you can’t tell me much, but any news on Pick? Where he might be? Who’s got him? If he’s alive?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Speaking of, I heard from Dawes that Lindy was at your house last night?” Butler’s forehead creased.
“My mom had ordered something from Lenore, and Lindy dropped it off when I was there.” I shrugged. “We ended up talking, catching up.”
“All caught up now?”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I’m still not her favorite person, but we were able to … communicate.”
“Communicate?” Gripping his mug, he slid it back and forth across the table absently. “That’s good.”
“Things are real rough for her with her dad missing. I didn’t know her mom had passed away after they got to the Flames.”
“Shit, that’s more than rough.”
I slid the strap of my backpack on my shoulder. “I got to get to the tattoo shop.”
He stood up from the table. “How’s that going?”
“It’s going good. Real good.” We left the Grand and stood on the sidewalk out front.
“I’ll say it again, you want to prospect for the Jacks, you’re in.”
“B—after this little discovery…”
Butler grabbed my arm. “Wes, what Jump did, how he behaved, has nothing to do with you. Nothing at all. You hear me?”
I shot him a lame grin. “See ya.” I walked off toward the shop.
“Wes!”
I didn’t agree. And I didn’t think I ever would.