Soulless (Lawless #2)(59)

Chop twiddled his thumbs. “Son, if I had her, don’t you think I would have delivered her fingers and ears to you in a f*cking box by now?” The gunfire outside the office grew louder.

Closer.

Apparently Chop didn’t get the message that it wasn’t f*cking story time. “You were five years old,” he said, pouring himself a glass of whiskey from the bottle on his messy desk. His eyes were fixed on the glass as he spoke. “Your mom was acting fidgety. Had been for a while. Should have suspected something sooner, but believe it or not, I loved that stupid bitch. Gave her an old lady’s cut. Even gave up other * for her.” He finished his drink in one swig and set down the glass. “She was family, and almost as much of a Bastard as I was. She loved the life, or at least I thought she did.” Chop looked back to me. “But then she started asking questions. Questions about meetings. Money. Where it came from, where it was going. Things old ladies didn’t need to know shit about. I didn’t even think anything of it for a while. She was always more involved than the other bitches who hung around. She was smart too, so I never thought she’d actually be dumb enough to cross me.” I’d never heard Chop talk about my mom. Not since the night in the woods.

Not once.

Chop rested his hands on his desk and looked absently at the door. “Guys started to go down for shit we’d never had heat about before. We owned the f*cking law but the county sheriff was suddenly all over our asses. I wised up. Hurt like f*cking hell, but I tested her. Leaked something to her, something I made up. Told her that we were making a gun run. Told her the when and where and what route we were taking. I went with Tank and a few of the other boys who weren’t on probation. When we got there, no one was there. No FBI no ATF. I was so relieved and so f*cking happy. Waited a full hour just to be sure.” He poured himself another glass, emptying the bottle and downing it faster than the first. “Came to the conclusion that it was all in my head. Convinced myself that we’d just been unlucky.” Chop slammed his fist on the desk. “It wasn’t until we were pulling out that the ATF swarmed the van.”

Chop laughed, but in a way that told me he didn’t find shit funny about what he was saying. He cracked his knuckles. “The only good thing about that night was the look on the ATF’s faces when they opened the doors and only found a bunch of bicycles we had fixed up to donate to the Y.”

I stood over him, searching his face for any traces that he could be lying. “That’s not true,” I said, although something deep in my gut told me it was.

Chop reached over to the shelf behind his desk and I cocked my gun. “Just getting a drink, son.” He grabbed a fresh bottle of Jack and poured himself a glass. He tipped it back and downed the entire glass in one swallow. “If you’re going to blow my f*cking head off, I at least want a last drink.” He slid a cigarette from the open pack on his desk and lit one. “And a smoke.”

“You’ve got three f*cking seconds before lights out. I’m done playing your games. We do this my way. Tell me where Thia is or I’m pulling the f*cking trigger.” My jaw was clenched so tight it hurt. My anger solely focused on Chop.

Chop threw his hands in the air. “You know what? I wish I had her, but I don’t. I wish I could have finished what I started and show you what real hurt feels like. Betrayal. It broke my heart when I found out your mother was a rat, but not nearly as much as when I found out that you were just like her. Like mother like son. Dirty. Fucking. Rats,” he hissed.

I scrunched my face. “What the f*ck are you talking about, old man?”

Chops lip raised in a snarl. “You’re more f*cked up in the head than I am if you really thought that I wouldn’t find out what you and King and that Preppy kid were up to. Well, guess again, because I have eyes and ears everywhere. We started taking more heat again, losing runs, losing work. It was like the shit with your mother all over again. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

“I never betrayed the club. Not f*cking once. Not f*cking ever,” I seethed.

Chop rolled his eyes. “Bullshit. But you know? I didn’t believe it either at first. Don’t you see what I was doing? I was giving you another chance. I was giving you one more shot to prove to me that you weren’t the dirty f*cking rat I thought you were, and just like your mother, you disappointed me. You chose them over us. You chose going off on your own over your club and turned your back on me.” He finished his glass again and slammed it down on the table, the bottom of the glass cracked, a crooked line snaked up the side. “If Gus hadn’t told me what he saw? What he’d heard? What you had confided in him? I would have never believed it. I’d still be searching for the rat to this day. But lookey here,” he said, staring up at me. “I don’t have to search anymore. ’Cause the rat is right in f*cking front of me.”

“What the f*ck did you say?” I asked, his words still ringing in my brain. It didn’t make sense, but it wasn’t until he mentioned Gus that I started to piece it together. “Who told you I was a rat?”

He raised his eyebrows. I stayed still as stone, fearful that if I moved it would be my trigger finger first. “Gus. Surprised, eh? Thought he was loyal to you because you didn’t pop him in the head when you had a chance? Guess again. That little f*cker was more loyal to me than you would ever be, and you think that—”