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When I got to the hospital, the rest of the club was already there. Sully, Ghost, Petey, and Brawn were standing around the waiting room. They all had their heads down like something was obviously fucking wrong. It wasn’t the first time I ever got bad news in my life. The feeling was always the same. That fucking gnawing in your stomach like rats trying to escape.

I clenched my jaw as I walked up to them, hoping that they weren’t gonna say some shit I didn’t wanna hear though I knew it was inevitable.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Garnet’s in the room right now,” Ghost said.

A few seconds later, Garnet walked down the hall toward us. He had his hands on his hips. He was staring at the floor like he couldn’t look any one of us in the eye.

“He’s in critical but stable condition,” Garnet said. “He lost a lot of blood. We’ll know a little more once the surgery is over. But right now, it’s anybody’s guess if he’ll make it.”

“Shit,” I muttered. “What the fuck happened?”

“We were all at Finn’s,” Ghost said. “We were all doing our own thing.”

“Did any of you see him up to anything?” Garnet said.

“I talked to him,” Sully said. “He was messing around with Stephanie.”

“Stephanie?” I said. “Do you think—”

“I doubt it,” Sully said. “Stephanie was inside of Finn’s when those gunshots went off. I saw her but Nate wasn’t anywhere around her.”

“Maybe Stephanie set him up.”

“Stephanie’s been around a long time,” Ghost said. “She’s just some slut trying to get some. Why would she have anything to do with Nate getting shot?”

“Maybe someone put her up to it,” I said.

There were still so many details to figure out that I just started throwing every idea out.

“That’s a possibility,” Garnet said. “But if Stephanie is involved, she’s not alone. It’s not her we want. It’s whoever else is behind this.”

Everybody had their heads down as they tried to figure out what was going on. It was so quiet in the waiting room. It felt like being at a fucking funeral. Considering the circumstances, it might as well have been that.

The entrance to the waiting room opened up and Sheriff Sutton walked inside. The old man was flanked by Officer Rose.

Ben Rose was a young guy who came to Ivory more than a year ago. He certainly looked the part. He was always so wide-eyed and bewildered, like he wasn’t sure of his surroundings. His neatly combed hair. His unwrinkled uniform. Even the way he stood there. It all made him look like some schoolboy. The kind of schoolboy who couldn’t wait to tattle on his classmates.

“How’s the kid?” Sutton asked.

“He’s in surgery right now,” Garnet said.

“Damn shame,” Sutton sighed.

“You know who did this?” I asked.

“I might have an idea…”

Sutton straightened up.

“…You know we found someone else there,” he continued. “It took us awhile to identify him. His prints weren’t in our records.”

“But once we looked up the federal database, we were able to pin him down,” Rose said.

“Wait a second,” I said. “There was someone else there?”

“Another body,” Sutton explained. “He was identified as a Wei Ling. The name sound familiar to any of you?”

Sutton eyeballed each and every one of us. But none of us were gonna break. The name was unfamiliar. Shit, even if we did know him, we wouldn’t have said anything.

“That’s him,” I said. “That’s the man who shot Nate.”

“It’s possible,” Sutton said. “We found Nate’s gun at the scene, too. He discharged a few shots. Autopsies take a long time. A few weeks. But the bullets in Wei’s body look like they’re from Nate’s piece.”

“Wei shot Nate,” Petey said. “Then Nate shot Wei in response. He was just trying to protect himself.”

“That makes sense,” Ghost said. “Nate’s not the kind of man who would shoot someone without good reason.”

“Maybe he had a good reason,” Rose said.

The tension started building in the small waiting room.

It was no secret what the club was up to. Sutton knew better than anybody that we were involved with some shit. He may have been old but he wasn’t blind.

“Look,” Sutton said. “I don’t know what happened. This is an ongoing investigation. You guys like to do things your way. This is one of your boys that got shot. I can’t stop you from trying to get to the bottom of this. But Ben and I have a job to do. So don’t get in my way. If you know anything—”

“We don’t know anything,” Garnet said. “We’re still trying to piece this puzzle together the same as you.”

Sutton stared at Garnet. There was a skeptical look in the sheriff’s eyes but there was nothing he could do at this point. Everybody was trying to get to the bottom of what happened.

“I’m sorry about what happened to that boy,” Sutton said.

“We’re all sorry,” Ghost said.

“I’ll do what I can to help. And… I’ll stop by the clubhouse to let you know if anything comes up.”

Sutton bowed his head to us and turned around to leave. Rose gave us all one last look before joining the man that he worked for.

The tension in the waiting room disappeared. We all looked at one another. If there was another step for us to take, it wasn’t clear.

“Now what?” I said.

“We can’t do much for Nate,” Ghost said. “It’s up to the doctors now.”

“That still doesn’t mean we can’t get to the bottom of this,” Brawn said. “We gotta start somewhere.”

“Wei Ling,” Sully said. “Does that name sound familiar to any of you?”

I shook my head but there was something about the name that made me stop to consider it.

Wei Ling…

“He’s Chinese,” I said.

“Chinese…” Ghost whispered.

“What the fuck is a Triad doing by himself in Ivory? And what’s Nate doing shooting at him?”

“Defending himself. I doubt the kid would be dumb enough to just shoot a man for no reason.”

“That’s not it though,” Garnet said. “The bigger problem is why is there a Triad hanging around Finn’s? Once they drop off their product, they’re gone.”

I sighed in frustration and scratched the sighed of my head.

“This is big,” Ghost said. “A Black Reaper got shot and a Triad gangster is dead.”

“No shit,” I said. “There’s something going on.”

“Well, what the fuck are we gonna do?” Sully said. “Two men were in that alley. One of them is dead and the other is laid up. We’re not gonna get any answers.”

“What about the scene?”

“Can’t go back there,” Ghost said. “Cops have it taped off like a biohazard.”

“That’s all right,” Garnet said. “Any evidence they find, Sutton will know about. He knows the right thing to do. He’ll bring it to us.”

“I’ll track down Stephanie,” Sully said. “She was one of the last people to talk to him. Maybe she’ll have something.”

Everybody had their heads down. We were all lost in thought, trying to put together a puzzle without knowing what the fuck the picture was.

A prospect was in the hospital. A guy who was probably a Triad was dead. This wasn’t some shit the club was gonna handle overnight.

“Anybody else got any ideas?” Garnet said.

He looked at all of us but nobody said anything.

“All right. We’ve all had a long night. Head back home. And make sure you watch your backs. If Nate got hit, maybe whoever did this is going after Reapers. There’s no telling—”

Garnet stopped when his phone rang in his pocket. We were all staring at him as he looked at the screen then answered it.

“Yeah?”

Garnet stared into the distance. I could hear a voice on the other line but I couldn’t make anything out. I was trying to read the expression on Garnet’s face but there was nothing. He was calm as the voice on the phone just kept going.

“Yeah,” Garnet sighed. “I got it.”

He hung his phone up.

“Who was that?” I said.

Garnet just stared at the screen on his phone. He hesitated for a second.

“It’s someone,” he said.

“Someone who?”

“Someone who wants to know why one of his men is dead.”