DAY TWO…

 

JON

 

This was more than just a prospect getting put in the hospital. Lin had a gun to our heads. The entire club was on the line.

We all sat around in the chapel that afternoon. Nobody looked like they got a good night’s sleep. Every man in the room was miserable.

“Everything is on the table. What have you got?”

Garnet looked at everybody. I had my doubts that anybody had come up with any answers.

“I’ll keep an eye out for Stephanie,” Sully said. “She might have been the last person to talk to Nate. You guys know where she’s at?”

“Steph will pop up,” Needle said. “A slut like that will be waiting to get on her knees for a club member. She might even be back at Finn’s tonight. A shooting isn’t gonna stop anybody from having their fun.”

“All right,” Garnet said. “We’ll keep an eye out for Stephanie. Anybody remember any other faces around Nate that night?”

“Maybe we could check the security cameras,” Brawn said.

“No chance,” I said. “They don’t have cameras in that alley in Finn’s. There’s no footage.”

“Almost like whoever did the shooting knew what they were doing,” Petey said.

Petey was the man with the most technical expertise in the club. Computers. Explosives. Weapons. He knew how shit worked.

“There might be other security footage,” Petey said.

“They won’t let us get to it,” I said. “A swarm of investigators already combed over the place. With a Triad gang member involved, Lieberman probably swooped in and confiscated all of the footage to go over it herself.”

“All right,” Garnet sighed. “We don’t have any witnesses. We don’t have any footage of the incident. What else do we have?”

He looked at everybody but nobody had the answers he was looking for. He shook his head and leaned back in his seat, staring off into the distance.

“One of our boys was shot,” he said. “We don’t have any leads.”

“Maybe we can narrow it down,” I said.

“How would we do that?” Needle said.

“It’s no secret that there are people out there who have beef with us. The Cobras for one.”

“Nah,” Needle said, shaking his head. “I don’t have any love for the Snakes but Katrina wouldn’t let her brother do some shit that would involve me. She knows better.”

“Maybe. There are other clubs, too. Maybe they’re jealous of our deal with the Chinese. Maybe they’re trying to take us out so they can take our place like the Vultures.”

“There are a lot of clubs in this town…”

“Look, all I’m saying is it’s a possibility.”

I turned to Garnet and he shrugged.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s a possibility.”

“What do you suggest we do then?” Needle said. “We start questioning every club. It’s not like those motherfuckers are gonna give us a straight answer.”

“It’s worth a shot,” I said with a laugh. “I’m sure Brawn’s up for it.”

The big man winked at me. We were the only two men laughing at the situation. Needle started to get more frustrated.

“All right,” he said. “It might be another club. Maybe it’s a Vulture, too.”

“A Vulture?” Sully said. “We took care of all of them.”

“Did we? What exactly do we know about that fucking club? All we know, Cross had some more men working for him to avenge his death.”

“Now that you mention it…” Garnet said.

Everybody looked at the president but he kept staring off into the distance, lost in his thoughts.

“…Cross said something before he died. He talked about there being someone else. Someone more dangerous than him. Someone we should be worried about.”

He looked right at me. I wasn’t sure how to respond.

“…That’s a possibility,” I said. “If it’s someone even Cross is afraid of, they could pull something off like this. The problem is figuring out who that person is.”

“Lieberman,” Garnet said. “That’s who Lin mentioned. Cross was only trying to get the deal with the Chinese so he could rat them out. He was trying to save himself from getting locked up.”

It made some sense. Agent Lieberman had a vendetta against the club. Ever since she got here, she made that shit clear as day.

“Now we’re finally getting somewhere,” Needle said.

“Are we?” Sully said. “That doesn’t explain what happened. Lieberman killing a Triad member and then shooting Nate… Is she really capable of something like that?”

“Right now, I’ll believe anything,” Garnet said.

“Even so, that still doesn’t move us forward. If Lieberman is responsible for all of this, what the fuck are we gonna do? She’s a federal agent. We touch her, we’re getting locked away for the rest of our lives. That’s if the Triads don’t decide to kill us.”

Lieberman was dangerous. She wasn’t a friend of the club. She was gunning for the gang that we’d made a deal with.

“I don’t think so,” Sully said.

“What are you saying?” Needle said.

“I’m saying whether or not Lieberman is responsible, she’s not the one who got her hands dirty. She wasn’t the one responsible for the scene in the alley. That’s who we have to worry about.”

“I think I see what you’re getting at,” I said.

A light bulb turned on in my head.

“We start at the bottom,” I continued. “We find out what happened in the alley that night. Then we work our way up. Whoever is on top will get what’s coming to them.”

Garnet nodded to me. There was a bit of relief on his face. It made sense, all things considered. We were actually making some progress with the situation.

“Okay,” Garnet said. “We start at the bottom. We’ll get our answers. Lieberman. Another club. Out-of-towners. Everything is a possibility. This is our town. They can hide but they won’t escape.”

Garnet looked around the table to see if anybody else had anything to say.

“Start looking,” Garnet said. “Needle, take Brawn with you and start talking to some other clubs. You’ve got some good will with the Cobras. Maybe they heard something.”

“This is just great,” Needle sighed. “Talking to a fucking Snake…”

“Petey, see what you can do about getting that security footage. Sully, track down Stephanie. Ghost…”

“Yeah?”

“…Check on Nate. You put him up. I think it makes sense you watch over him. He’s not dead yet. Maybe the person who did it will be looking to finish the job if he makes it.”

“That’s a good point. What about you?”

“I’ll talk to Sutton. Lieberman probably has her hands all over the scene because of the Triad involved but Sutton will give me some information on how the investigation is going.”

“Anybody else got anything?” I said to the other club members.

Everybody remained silent.

“All right,” Garnet said. “You’ve got your orders—”

“Hold on a second,” Sully said. “We’re forgetting something.”

“What’s that?”

“Nate was in that alley with a Triad member. They’ve both got bullets in them from each other’s pieces. What if that guy was trying to kill Nate? What if Nate really was just defending himself?”

“What are you saying?” Needle said. “You think Lin would really put a hit out on us?”

“Maybe it was a warning. Take out a prospect to keep us in line. We’ve all seen Lin for ourselves. He’s not happy about having to get his hands dirty by coming to Ivory. Maybe he’s planning on taking all of us out. You know, tie-up loose ends.”

“Cross ratting on him might have gotten him spooked,” I said. “He might be looking to burn all of the bridges that lead to him. It’d be the best way to avoid Lieberman.”

“All right,” Needle said. “Let’s say the Triads are coming for us. Then what? We gonna go to war with the fucking Triads?”

“What’s wrong?” Sully said. “Scared?”

“Not scared. I’m just not an idiot. The Chinese aren’t from Ivory. They don’t give a shit about this town. Collateral damage isn’t a thing to them. They’ve got numbers. They’ve got money. Everybody would be in danger. Including Gina.”

Needle eyeballed Sully. He knew exactly how to get through to him. It wasn’t just the club that was at stake when it came to dealing with the Triads. This wasn’t just dealing with some punks in another club.

Garnet remained silent the entire time because he knew how serious this would get if the Chinese really were the ones behind all of this.

“What do you think?” I said to Garnet. “You really think Lin might be behind all of this?”

Garnet sighed a deep breath through his nose and shook his head.

“It’s something we have to prepare for,” he said.

“Prepare for?”

“Petey. Make sure we’ve got an armory in case shit goes down. We might need the whole arsenal. Brawn. Tighten up security around the clubhouse. We need more people around here in case they wanna start shit with us directly.”

“Are we really gonna go to war with the Triads?” I said.

“Someone put Nate in the hospital. We’re already at war. We just don’t know who we’re fighting yet.”

Last night, we were trying to find answers to what happened. Now we had more answers than we knew what to do with. The amount of tension in the room was bothering everybody. I could tell just from the looks on everybody’s faces.

Garnet must have sensed it because he raised his hand to get everybody’s attention.

“We’ve all had guns pointed at us before,” he said. “This isn’t the first time the club has had a target on its back. Now it seems like everybody is gunning for us.”

“Life as a Reaper is never simple, is it?” I said.

Garnet looked at me and smirked.

“That’s why the men in this room now are the only ones worthy enough to wear the patch.”