Page 68 of Ravage

Prez glanced over at Ace, then shook his head and grumbled, “Damn. That’d be a hell of a play.”

“Yeah, it would be… But that means whoever’s behind all the bullshit knows enough about both of our clubs to fool us into thinking a truce was broken that we’d had for years,” Blade snarled. “And we bought right into it.”

“We need to find out who the fuck is behind this bullshit and end them,” Tank barked. “And end them now.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more.” Prez turned to Vicious and ordered, “Time to get some answers.”

Vicious nodded, then turned and started out of the bar. Once he was gone, Tank asked, “He going where I think he’s going?”

“He is.”

“Will you let me know what he finds out?”

“I will.”

“Appreciate it, and I’ll let you know if I hear anything on my end.”

Without wasting any time, Tank turned, and he and Blade started out of the bar. The door had barely closed behind them when Prez’s burner started to ring. He pulled it from his pocket, and he’d barely answered when he looked to Ace and barked, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!”

He didn’t bother explaining. Instead, he charged out of the bar, and we all followed suit. We got back to the dungeon and found Vicious standing at the door with a cold expression on his face. Before I could ask what the hell was going on, he motioned his hand toward the two-way mirror.

I turned and felt the air rush from my lungs when I found the guy he’d been working on hanging from the very chains we’d used to bind his wrists. His body was slack, his boots hung inches from the ground, and his head was tilted back at an unnatural angle. Blood had dried at the corner of his mouth, and his face had gone pale beneath the bruises. I didn’t have to ask. It was clear the guy was dead. “How the fuck did he manage that?”

“Desperate men do desperate things,” Ace answered.

Vicious looked to Prez with regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Prez. I should’ve secured him better.”

“No way you could’ve known he’d pull a stunt like that.”

“Gotta be pretty fucking terrified to do that.” Ace looked to Vicious as he added, “Just gotta wonder what he was more afraid of. You or whoever he’s tied to.”

“Or maybe he wasn’t scared at all.” I glanced back over at the twenty-something-year-old kid who was hanging lifeless in the next room. “Maybe he was trying to protect someone… He knew we would want answers and didn’t trust himself enough to keep his mouth shut, so he ended himself. It was the only way he knew to make sure he didn’t talk.”

“Aw, hell. Can’t be right in the head to do some shit like that.” Reaper shook his head. “Who the hell are these motherfuckers?”

He was right to be concerned. Hell, I was, too. Loyalty like that didn’t just come from fear alone. I shook my head as I told him, “Don’t know, and now we’re nowhere closer to finding out.”

Needless to say, it wasn’t how we’d hoped to end the night.

But now we weren’t looking for these guys alone.

Tank and his crew had been checking in on the daily, comparing notes, checking locations, and tracking down any leads that might come our way. So far, we’d come up with a whole lot of nothing.

Mercy had been doing everything he could to find out more about the guy who’d hung himself. He checked his ID, his phone, and even his clothes. The Viper cut looked to be the real deal, which meant someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make us believe this little show they were putting on. And they’d done a hell of a job covering their tracks.

Someone was moving pieces on the board, and we didn’t know who the players were. And that bugged the hell out of me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was headed our way, and all we could do was wait for it to show its ugly head.

I spent the better part of my day at the garage, trying to lose myself in my work, and usually it did the trick. Engines didn’t care about territory or rivalries, and they certainly didn’t care about guys who were impersonating Vipers or who had been trying to start a war between us and the Vipers.

Normally, I could just dig in and tune everything else out, but no such luck today. Every time the garage went quiet, I’d find myself going back to that damn kid in the dungeon and how he’d hung himself to keep from talking. That shit took commitment, the kind of commitment that didn’t come without having a couple of screws loose.

It was that thought that had me reaching for my phone. I dialed Ava’s number, and she immediately answered, “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Something wrong?”

“No. I was just calling about the kids.”