CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dinner was the usual slop that some old woman tried to make appealing to the club. They had several cooks but not one of them could make shitty ingredients into a decent meal. Tank looked around the room then back at Neela. The others noticed his gaze and gave a nod.
“Where’s Bunny?” he asked.
“Bunny left,” Neela said, keeping her voice level even as every man around the scarred table stared at her. “Packed what mattered to her and walked away before dawn.”
“No,” Spider said. He leaned forward, forearms planted on the table. “That’s not an answer. That’s a story, and it’s not even a good one.”
Neela folded her arms.
“It’s the only answer you’re getting. Bunny made her choice. She’s gone.”
“She wouldn’t leave her bike,” Mack said from the wall. “Wouldn’t leave her jacket, either. Both are still in the garage.” Neela cursed herself for thinking hauling the bike back would throw everyone off. She should have left it at the damn impound.
“Then maybe she wanted a clean break.” Neela looked from one hard face to the next. “People do it every day.”
“Not Bunny,” Deacon said. “She fought for her patch harder than half the men in this room. She didn’t just wake up and decide none of it mattered.”
Neela’s jaw tightened.
“You knew the version of her she wanted you to know.”
“And you knew something else?” Tank asked. His voice was quieter than the others, which made the room settle around it. “Then tell us.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Spider shoved back from the table, the legs of his chair scraping the floor.
“You called us here, told us Bunny was gone, and expected us to nod along? We’re not fools, Neela.”
“Then stop acting like children who think they’re owed every secret in the house.”
Mack pushed away from the wall.
“We’re owed the truth when one of ours disappears.”
“She left the club,” Neela snapped. “She left all of you. If that bruises your pride, take it up with her when you find her.” Deacon’s eyes narrowed.
“You don’t believe we’ll find her.” For one dangerous second, Neela said nothing. Then she lifted one shoulder.
“I believe Bunny knows how to stay gone when she wants to.”
“There,” Spider said, pointing at her. “That pause. That’s the truth you’re trying to bury. You killed her. Why?”
Neela stepped toward him.
“Watch yourself.”
“Or what?” Spider asked. “You’ll tell everyone I walked away, too?”
The room went still. The old refrigerator hummed behind the bar, and the clock above the office door struck each second like a hammer.
Neela locked her knees to keep from shifting.
Her pulse beat visibly in the hollow of her throat, and she curled her fingers into her palms before anyone could see them tremble.
Every minute they held her here was another minute Olive could move farther beyond her reach.
Tank broke the silence.
“Bunny isn’t the only thing missing.” Neela turned slowly.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
He set a thick folder on the table, then spread bank statements across the scarred wood one by one.
“I checked the operating account, the investment account, and the repair reserve. Your monthly reports say we have four hundred and eighty thousand available. The banks show less than half of that. But we all know there should be millions in there. So tell me, tell us, where the rest went.”
“You had no authority to go digging through those accounts.” Neela heard the thin edge in her own voice and hated it. She reached for the nearest statement as if anger could disguise the need to see exactly how much he knew, but Tank planted his hand over it.
“I had every reason,” Tank said. “Vendor payments are three months late. We can’t even get our fucking kegs refilled.
We can’t get deliveries of food. Two certificates were cashed out.
Transfers went through a private holding account, and every authorization traces back to Olive.
Not you. Olive. A girl who never even lived here in adulthood. ” He slid another page toward her.
“Your signature appears on the reports, but the bank doesn’t recognize you as an owner, a trustee, or even an authorized controller. So, how about you tell us what the fuck is happening and why Olive, a kid, is named on it all.”
Heat rushed up Neela’s neck, then vanished so quickly she felt cold. Tank had found the seam she had spent years hiding. He was smarter than she’d given him credit for. If he had the holding account, he was one search away from the deeds, the voting rights, and the trust documents.
She needed a few more days—three, maybe two—to find Olive, get her home, and force her to sign before the club learned Neela could not legally move a dollar without her daughter’s approval.
Or at least, that was what was on paper.
But for years she’d convinced the brokers, agents, and bankers that her daughter was incapacitated and couldn’t sign for herself.
“The records are complicated,” Neela said. “Bunny handled more of the books than any of you knew. If she made changes before leaving, I need time to untangle them.”
Tank tapped the folder, no longer softly.
“This started years before Bunny vanished. Who owns the clubhouse? Who holds the deed to the land? Who controls the investments, the trademarks, the garage, and the accounts? Say the name, Neela.”
“The club does.” The lie came out faster than she intended. Several men exchanged looks, and Tank’s face hardened.
“No,” Tank said. He pulled a final document from the folder and turned it toward the others. “The club doesn’t own any of it. Olive does. Your dear departed husband made sure of it. The deed is in her name. He knew you would fuck us over.
“Legally, she is the sole beneficiary of the holding company, the controlling signer on the accounts, and the owner of the investment portfolio. Even the club’s name and insignia are registered through her company.”
Neela’s breath caught. The room seemed to narrow until Tank’s finger on Olive’s name was the only thing she could see.
“Leave my daughter out of this.”
“We can’t,” Tank said. “She’s the daughter you were prepared to sacrifice for it all because you’re a fucking greedy bitch, Neela. Olive can freeze every account before breakfast and she doesn’t have a fucking clue about any of us, who we are.
“She can sell this building, close the garage, call in every investment, and strip the club of its name without asking a man in this room. You don’t control the club, Neela. You never did and you knew it and still played with our fucking money. Still risked our necks.
“You had us chasing a girl we couldn’t even fucking recognize because she’s been gone twenty-five years!
Suddenly you say you’ve found her and you want us to believe that it’s all coincidental.
You control access to Olive—or you did. That’s why you want her.
You obviously only recently discovered all of this. ” His stare held hers. “Where is she?”
Neela opened her mouth, but no lie arrived in time. Around the table, disbelief hardened into calculation as the men understood that every key, every account, and every patch depended on a missing young woman—not on the leader standing before them.
A slick line of sweat slid between Neela’s shoulder blades.
Bunny’s absence had brought them to the table, but Olive’s name had taken away Neela’s power.
She needed to find her daughter before Tank did, before Olive spoke, and before the club realized Neela had never owned anything except the story she had told them.
If they got to Olive first and she signed everything over to them, Neela would have nothing and she’d still owe the Swamp Rats twenty-million.