REAPER'S KISS(31)

I had Ava in the clubhouse. She was in the back in a spare room that I used as a f*ck pad. Her father ended up getting all worked up at the hospital and needed to be sedated. The nurse filled in the gaps. The son of a bitch had been so hopped up on pills that his heart couldn’t handle it. There was a risk of heart attack, the possibility of surgery, and, shit, he might just croak right there in the hospital.

It was a f*cking mess.

Ava was doing her best to process basically a life of lies.

I tried to be there for her, shutting my anger down.

Christ, imagine it… she had a secret brother. And that brother killed her mother. Jake confessed that the murder involved money and jealousy. Glen was jealous that Ava had a normal life and he didn’t. He was a brutal man.

And I was about to find out just how brutal.

“Glen was a prospect for the MC,” Sid said.

The entire table lit up with grumbles. Sid whistled and waved a hand. Everyone shut their mouths.

Sid kept his stare to mine. “He was brought in by some old guys. I was sitting VP to Spade. We were rebuilding after a bloody war way out in Reno. We were focusing on the small town feel again. Glen was fast paced and no fear. That’s what caught all our attention. He was intense. A month into things he started going too far. Breaking out of his role. Hurting people. Getting picked up for dumb crimes. And then we got word he was working behind our backs. Going to the guys that were connected, wanting to trade favors. In my opinion Glen wanted to blackmail the Bitter Aces into a leather cut. That didn’t fly with Spade. Or me.”

“He was voted out,” I said. “Lost his prospect cut but not his life.”

Sid nodded. “We had no concrete proof. We weren’t in a position to start taking out our own guys. So we made some cuts to our prospects and we included him. He got pissed off. Really pissed off. He promised to come back at us, hard. We took it for what it was worth. Spade had him roughed up a few times and then he slipped away. That was the end… or so we thought.”

“Until he attacked me,” I said.

“Yeah. By then he was moving up the ranks in his own gang and shit with the MC was getting shaky. We prevented a war by killing Arnie, even if Glen slipped away. Spade called a truce and let it all slide. I swear to you, Jace, I voted against that. I sat in the VP seat and…”

“Sid is telling the truth,” Bill said. His face was worn with heavy bags and wrinkles. “Sid almost lost his patch over it. But the table decided to move forward. As a sign of respect to you, Jace, we gave you a leather cut. Patched you in. You were on the table anyway for vote but we decided to speed it up. A sign of appreciation.”

“Once Glen finished with you, he went to the store and murdered Jake’s wife,” Sid said. “So the PD was heavily involved. We tried to get as much of the paperwork to go missing or get destroyed but there was only so much. That was another deciding factor. Plus, with the PD chasing him away. And that was right around the time we got pulled into a retaliation war with another club.”

I slammed my hands on the table. I stood up. “Son of a bitch. This prick tried to kill me. He killed Ava’s mother. Fuck. He killed Frank. Killing his number one guy - if that was who Frank was - means he’s scared. I know a way to do this.” I looked around the table. I had never stood like a leader before. Shit, I even had Sid staring at me.

“Go on,” Sid said. “What do you have?”

“What I have to say… it cannot be voted on… it has to just happen…”





chapter twenty-six


(ava)



NOW



“We’re leaving,” Jace said to me.

“Right now?”

“Right now,” he said. “I want to take you home. My house. You don’t need to be here anymore.”

I grabbed his arm. “Hey. What’s going on? We’ve been hiding here for days now…”

“It’s just time, sweetie,” Jace said. “If you trust me like you say you do, then you’ll keep quiet and come with me.”

What else was I supposed to do?

My life kept crumbling by the second and Jace was the only one there to sweep up the pieces and make the world seem right again. He held me when I cried and didn’t ask what was wrong. Which was exactly what I needed. I knew everything in my life had been messed up but I didn’t realize how bad. And while I wanted to be angry with my father, he was the one in a hospital bed, suffering. Maybe in some f*cked up way the universe got its revenge on him for me.

All I could think about though was staying alive. That I had a secret brother who was hell bent on killing me. The guy that killed my mother. The guy that tried to hurt Jace. All my feelings for Jace were based off bad things happening to us.

So I followed Jace through the clubhouse and out the door.

I climbed onto the back of his motorcycle.

I slid my hands around his body and held tight as we sped away.

Jace rode back to his house and took my hand as we walked inside. All my days and weeks had gotten so jumbled together and I had this feeling as though me and Jace had been together for a long time.

He pulled me right to his bed.

We crashed to the bed, me almost on top of him. He kicked off his boots and ran his hands down my body to my lower back. I touched his face, digging at his scruff. He was chiseled and beautiful as a man. The killer I used to see in his eyes was now replaced with a protector. With a lover. With so much more.