Gypsy King (Tin Gypsy, #1)(79)

“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “When was this taken?”

“The night before Amina was murdered,” Dad answered. “He must have come here, broken in while I was with her in the motel, stolen my knife, and then waited until I left to kill her.”

“Any idea who he is? How he’d know you’d be with Amina?” I asked Dad, getting a headshake in return. “Emmett, can we print that out?”

He nodded, ripping a sheet from the printer below his desk. “Already did.”

“When we leave today, turn all the sensors back on,” I ordered Emmett. “And ask Leo to come over and board up the basement windows.”

“Will do.”

“You need to call Tucker,” I told Dad.

“Yeah. Let’s talk in the chapel. Bryce looks like she needs to sit.”

My attention immediately shifted. Her face had lost all its color, and I rushed to her side. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She waved me off, her face souring. “It smells funny down here.”

“Come on.” I gripped her elbow, leading her upstairs. It didn’t smell great in the party room either, but once we reached the chapel, the rotten beer smell was gone.

The chapel was the heart of the clubhouse, located directly in the center. You got in through two double doors off the party room. It was one long, open room with a table running its length. The table had been built to accommodate about twenty members, but there had been years when it was standing room only. The officers and senior members would sit. I’d spent plenty of years against the wall, listening as decisions were made.

The black high-backed chairs were all pushed into the table. The room had been left in pristine condition except for the dust. The walls were lined with pictures, mostly of members standing together in front of a row of bikes. The Gypsy patch had been made into a flag that hung on the wall behind the head chair at the table.

The president’s chair.

Dad had given up his seat, passing it to me. He went for it, but then realized his mistake. Had it not been for Bryce, I would have sat there to put him in his place. He didn’t deserve that seat.

But instead, I pulled out one of the middle chairs for Bryce, sitting at her side.

“What’s the raccoon incident?” Bryce leaned over to ask.

“This winter, Emmett and I got an alert from the motion sensors. They went off at three in the morning on the coldest night we’d had in months. We hurried down, nearly froze our dicks off, and found three raccoons in the kitchen. They’d crawled in through this old vent hood.”

“They were making a goddamn mess, shitting everywhere,” Emmett grumbled. “It was cold as hell so it took us forever to get them out. I don’t know why they’d leave their dens in the first place. Maybe to find something warmer.”

“After that, we closed off the vent hood and decided to leave the sensors off,” I told her. “The place was empty. There wasn’t anything in here to steal.”

“Or so you thought,” she murmured.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “So we thought.”

Dad pulled out the chair next to Emmett. He wasn’t in the president’s seat but a shift came over the room as he sat down. Like a meeting coming to order. When he sat, no one else dared to talk until he gave them permission.

Even though I’d sat in the head chair for years, I’d never had that kind of commanding presence. I’d worried about it for a while, wondered if I’d be revered like Dad. Maybe it would have come, in time. But we’d already begun to shut things down when I’d been voted in as president. My job hadn’t been to lead the Gypsies into the future. I was the president who’d made sure we’d covered all our asses so we could live a normal life.

“What are we going to do about the Warriors?” I asked, leaning my elbows on the table. “Tucker lied to us.”

“Or he didn’t know,” Dad countered. “Yeah, there’s a chance he ordered this. Or he’s as clueless as we are and it’s someone’s personal vendetta. Someone who’s been following me around, saw me with a woman for the first time in decades and used it as their opening to strike.”

“For what?” Bryce asked.

Dad scoffed. “Hell. A million things.”

“A million and a half,” I muttered.

We’d burned down their clubhouse once. It had likely cost them a fortune to rebuild. The two Warriors who’d tried to kidnap Emmeline had been Dad’s guests in the basement, their last breaths taken inside those concrete walls.

“What do we do?” Emmett sighed. “Go after them? Start up another war?”

“We’ll lose,” I said. “There’s no chance at winning.”

“I don’t want a war. Not this time.” Dad shook his head. “First, I’ll go to Tucker, show him the photo and see what he does. Maybe he’ll give us a name and it can end. But if it comes down to it, if he covers for his men—which I suspect he will—then I’ll take the fall for Amina.”

“They’ll put you away for life.” Yesterday, I was okay with it—when I was furious and in a rage. Today, now that I’d calmed down, the idea of him in prison didn’t sit as well.

“I’ll go if that’s what it takes to keep you and Nick free of this.”