CHAPTER 51
Maverick
Kaya has been downstairs for five hours already and I’m just about ready to carry her up here over my shoulder. When she gets into something, there is no stopping her. I love that she’s so passionate about helping the club, but at the same time, she needs to learn balance.
Most of the guys are either at the garage or out searching for traces of Flip.
Eli is out in the shack, and I’m on clubhouse guard duty, which pretty much means sitting at the bar.
Shade is out handling something so I have his dog Howie at my feet, while Rascal is napping on one of the couches with that ridiculous fucking cone collar on.
Howie is a rambunctious Jack Russel with a clipped ear and one eye.
His head is orange with a white stripe from the center of his head to his snout.
The rest of his body is white. He’s probably my favorite out of all of Shade’s dogs I’ve met so far.
Maybe it’s because he likes me, but it might be because with the one eye he appears to be winking at everyone and everything.
I stare down at him and he barks. “Go get the ball.”
Howie tilts his head at me.
“I’m not throwing it until you bring it back.”
He barks again. I look across the room to the red ball I threw moments before. It’s under the pool table staring at me, knowing damn well I’m a sucker who will go get the stupid thing to throw again.
I finish my beer and put the bottle on the bar as I get up to fetch the freaking ball. As I cross the room, the basement door opens revealing Kaya with wide eyes. “I need Ace.”
My spine stiffens. Oh shit. She found something. “You ok?”
Her eyes are swirling with worry. “Just get Ace and send him down.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m still throwing the ball for the dog that never quits while waiting for Ace and Kaya to come back upstairs.
Grayson, Leo, and Riker came back with no news on Flip and joined me at the bar.
Riker and I agreed to keep the other night quiet.
He apologized for being a dick, and I did not apologize for laying him out. Win, win.
I know he was drunk which is the only reason I’m letting it slide, but mark my words, if it happens again, I will fulfill my promise, whether he remembers it or not.
“You know what’s going on?” Riker asks. “My pop sent me a message telling us to get back here because Kaya said she found something.”
I shake my head. “Must be something big. She took your pop downstairs twenty minutes ago—”
The basement door flies open and Ace explodes out of it. “Church! Tell everyone they have five minutes to get their asses here!”
I jump to my feet meeting Kaya as she walks through the door with her brows in a straight line across the center of her head. “What the hell is going on?” She’s carrying papers in her left hand.
She shakes her head. “Just go to church,” she whispers. She takes my hand and I can feel how clammy hers is.
“After this you’re taking a fucking break.” She doesn’t argue, just gives me a nod as we head into church and sit down.
It takes fifteen minutes for everyone to arrive. What surprises me is the presence of Grayson’s mom, Jackie. Grayson looks just as puzzled with her sitting near the head of the table in between Ace and Deuce.
“How was your appointment?” Deuce asks Tank, who is back in his regular seat.
“All good! The bandage needs to stay for a while with fresh dressings and shit and I’ll have PT for at least the next six months but otherwise everything is back to normal. Tink promised me a blowjob every time she has to redress the arm.” He laughs.
“I’ll be glad when he can drive his own ass to these appointments. It’s embarrassing watching him hit on every nurse and doctor that walks into his vicinity.” Cipher says.
“Come on little brother, I’ve got a few weeks of flirting to make up for. Have to make sure I didn’t lose my touch.”
Everyone laughs for a moment but it dies when one by one everyone takes notice of Ace’s face as he takes his seat next to Jackie. He’s wearing a mask of stone, taking hard deep breaths. He purses his lips and gives Jackie a small smile before picking up the gavel and banging it on the table.
He looks at Kaya. “You ready darling?”
Kaya lets out a deep sigh, her throat working on a swallow.
“I’ve been working for days trying to figure out what would make Flip turn on all of you.
I figured it wouldn’t be something as simple as money because you guys would have helped with that.
I ran into dead end after dead end until today.
” She swallows again. “I went back to the beginning and really looked into his life just before Carnage.” She frowns at Grayson before schooling her face again.
“He had been lifting competitively in just about every competition he could enter until five years ago…on July 18th.”
Jackie lets out a gasp. Ace wraps an arm around her shoulder.
“I knew the date sounded familiar so I started looking into the night Joe was killed. I then looked at Flip’s financial records which led me to this.” She pulls out one of the papers and places it on the table. “It’s a payment to Colton Collision Center dated July 20th.”
“Son of a bitch!” Grayson screams out.
Kaya lets out a shaky breath. She knows her words are about to break people’s hearts, but at the same time, they need to be said. “I then tapped into the DMV’s records and found that during this time Flip was driving a Blue Mazda Miata.”
Grayson punches the table and Jackie lets out a sob.
She then pulls out another paper and places it on the table. “I brought up the photos of Joe’s bike. There is an obvious blue paint transfer on his gas tank.”
The room erupts in chaos. Grayson, Ratchet, and a few others rise to their feet.
“Are you telling me that motherfucker killed Joe?”
“When we find him, he’s going to die the slowest death Carnage has ever dealt out!”
“He sat at this table and looked us in the eye, knowing he killed our brother!”
Jackie’s face meanwhile has changed from devastated to murderous.
When she starts speaking, everyone goes quiet.
“He ate my food and held my grandbabies… Joe’s grandbabies.
He called my son, brother knowing that he stole his father from him.
” She slowly glances around at each one of us taking in our angry faces.
“You find that bastard. You find that bastard and bring him back here so I can look him in the eye before he dies. I want him to know the pain he caused this family and I want him to feel it.”
Everyone agrees in what sounds more like an amen in a religious church than an MC church. Jackie then rises to her feet and gives Ace’s hand a squeeze before walking out the door.
“I know we still have to watch out for Bishop and his men, but this,” he jams a finger into the table. “is top fucking priority.”
Kaya raises her hand.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Ace asks.
“I don’t have anything proving he talked to the feds. We can assume he did, and obviously the evidence is damning, but I don’t have a path leading from him to the feds.”
“That’s ok, darling.” Deuce says. “You did an excellent job. When we find him, we have all we need to make him talk.”
“Okay.”
“Now, you take the rest of the week off and enjoy some time taking care of yourself and that baby you’re carrying.” Ace says, giving her a small grin. It’s forced, but the sentiment is there.
Her eyes shift to mine and I give her a wink.
“Everyone else, get out of here and find that motherfucker.”