Devil's Game (Reapers MC, #3)(64)

“Wait—” she started to say, but I hung up.

“This had better be really, really f*cking important,” I told my club brother. “You got shit timing.”

“It is,” he said. “Put away your joystick and get your ass downstairs. We got serious trouble.”

I walked painfully down the narrow stairwell to the living room. Damn house was a hundred years old and it showed. Zipping up my jeans hurt like a bitch and I decided the next time I needed information from someone, I’d torture the f*cker by making him talk to Em, then turn off the call and force him to put on my pants.

Like most Friday nights, we’d had company. It hadn’t been a formal party, but Skid and the other guys had invited a group of slutty girls over. Not quite a real clubhouse, but better than nothing. Now two of those girls were naked and making out on the couch. Another had passed out cold on the floor and I heard more laughing in the kitchen.

Typical night for us.

It wasn’t normal for the girls to be playing alone, though. They were putting on a hell of a show, and it went against everything my club brothers believed in to miss live girl-on-girl action.

“Down here,” Skid yelled. I followed his voice to the basement stairs. It was a dankish pit kind of a place, but it had its uses. Smoking out, storing product, laundry, and even one memorable night when this hippie chick did some kind of weird talking-to-spirits thing …

It was also where we had church. Not that we were a real chapter or anything, but we essentially functioned as one, complete with formal meetings and the occasional vote.

“This better be f*ckin’ good,” I muttered as I climbed down. Clutch lay back on the ratty couch next to the semifunctional washer and dryer, his bum leg propped up on the armrest. Grass paced back and forth, muttering, while Skid leaned against the washer, fingers tapping a rhythm restlessly against the ancient metal.

“Got news,” Grass said, eye twitching. Fuck, was he tweaking? I’d told him no more, but it’d been a rough couple of weeks. He stopped pacing and rubbed his chin mindlessly, the motion spasmodic.

Yup, he was. Great, because we needed one more thing to worry about.

“Toke is dead,” Skid said. I glanced at him sharply.

“How?”

“They found him this morning,” he replied. “Still in protective custody, but his throat was slit. No explanation. Word just filtered down—I guess Picnic called Burke.”

I raised my brows.

“No shit?”

“Gets weirder,” he continued. “Reapers want to know how we pulled it off. Burke bullshitted them, bought us some time to investigate. He wants to know if you arranged something. You been playin’ games without tellin’ the rest of us?”

I cocked my head, feeling something dark building inside me.

“Don’t care for your tone, brother,” I said slowly and carefully. “One, I didn’t do shit—but if I had, that’d be between me and Burke. Two, why is Burke talkin’ to you and not me?”

Skid offered a twisted smile.

“He called you first, *. You didn’t answer. What were you doin’ that’s more important than takin’ a call from your VP? Seein’ as I found you on the phone with your dick hangin’ out, you might wanna consider what you plan to tell him very carefully.”

Shit. I shut my eyes and shook my head, rubbing my temples.

“Jesus, Skid,” Grass snapped, his voice high-pitched and trembling. “Stop being such a little bitch. What are you, jealous?”

We both looked at him, startled. Grass threw up his hands, clearly frustrated and even twitchier than before. He wasn’t done yet, either.

“What does Burke want from us?” Grass demanded. “I’ll bet it’s the Reapers that took him out. He f*cked them over, and now they’re tryin’ to blame us. Use it as an excuse to end the truce.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Skid snarled. “Jesus, Grass. You need to lay off that shit, it’s makin’ you paranoid. Reapers want peace, too. They don’t need an excuse to go to war. They wanna fight, they’ll just start shooting. It’s entirely possible they killed Toke—f*cker betrayed his club, no surprise there. But I don’t think they’d come callin’ if that was the case.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot!”

“Shut the f*ck up!” I roared. The two men jumped. “Christ, what are we, f*cking children? Skid—did Burke have anything he wanted us to do?”

Skid scowled.

“No,” he admitted. “Although he said to watch out. Until we know who killed Toke and why, we need to assume there’s a new player.”

“Cartel?” Clutch asked. “You think they have the contacts this far north to pull off a hit in protective custody?”

We all stilled. Shit. Not a comforting thought.

“Okay, we need to assume there’s someone local we don’t know about, someone with that kind of power,” I said slowly. “Time for more security. Make sure you check in with each other, and we all start carrying. Grass, when you stop seein’ shit that isn’t real, I want you to make sure Clutch has a place in his truck that’s safe from a search, okay? Can’t risk a parole violation. Anyone else need help rigging up something for their bikes?”