Damien: Billionaire Bad Boy Romance (33 page)

CHAPTER TEN
 

RAFE

If the information Tristan passed along to me was right, then the Hell’s Spawn had everything to do with Jason’s murder, just like I thought. His text confirmed he saw one of their prospects at the club house earlier in the afternoon Jason was gunned down. When I tried brining the information to Gray, he shot me down.

“You leave them the fuck alone, Rafe. Unless you have real proof, I’m not starting a fucking war over your gut feeling.”

My fists begged to push his nose a bit to the left, but I managed to keep my cool. I couldn’t get to the bottom of the shit pile if I didn’t have the club’s backing. “Fine.” I growled at him. “Tell me what you’re doing to look into it.” I placed my hands flat on the table and leaned over, giving him my undivided attention.

He ran his fat tongue over his yellow tinted teeth and shook his head. “We need to shift our focus here, Rafe. We need to get this club united, pull together like the brothers we are and start working our way out of the shit storm. Now, I want us to get out of the gun running and all that other mulling we do, but first we need the funds. First we need to get our bankroll large enough to finance the strip club. This town needs a good titty bar, and once it’s in place we’ll be rolling in the cash. Between the liquor sales and the cut of the dancer’s tips, we’ll never need to run guns again.”

He almost looked convinced of his own fucking lie, but I knew Gray, and he loved the gun running business. He probably did want to start up a titty bar, but only so he wouldn’t have to ride clear across town to get to the other one. I’d been on a few runs with him over the years, and he got a high off the thrill. If the cops showed, all the better for him. I wasn’t buying his load of bullshit.

“What does any of that have to do with Jason being gunned down?” I shoved away from the table and walked around the meeting room, trying to get my temper back under control. Why did it seem like I was the only member who gave a shit that Jason was killed? Our new president didn’t seem all that intent on finding his killer.

“I’m saying we’ll keep looking, but you don’t even have a description of the guy. Only that he was on a bike.”

“I had my back to him, and when I turned around he shot me,” I snapped at him. “But Jason knew who it was, he saw him clear.”

“And he didn’t tell you who it was.” Gray nodded along with me.

“So what, we just let it go because there were no fucking eye witnesses? Who the fuck else knew he was out there at that warehouse?” I started pacing the room while he just watched me with an almost bored expression.

“Rafe, you’re grasping at straws, man. Look. Let’s get the club in order, then we’ll play detective.” He stood up from his chair and ran his hands through his hair.

Knowing when I was getting the run around, I nodded. I didn’t need his help anyway. “Fine.” I headed out of the room, ignoring his outstretched hand. The clubhouse usually had a dozen or so members at any given time, having a beer or trying to talk up one of the girls. I noticed that only three guys were in the house, and prospects at that. Sweeping up the floors, changing light bulbs and shit.

I put it out of my head and hopped on my bike, deciding to head over to Tristan’s. One the ride over, I started thinking about the woman I left behind that morning. No matter how I turned my thoughts, she ended up front and center. And not just her fucking body either. That little smile playing on her lips when she caught me playing with Madison’s dolls with her. Well, I held up the doll and Madison made it talk. The way she was patient when the five-year-old had a tantrum over her breakfast reminded me of my mom, long ago before the double shifts and late rent took their toll on her.

I never considered myself as a one-woman man. I loved fucking women, and never did I double dip, but I could see getting comfortable with Beth and that little girl of hers. JC had checked in twice to let me know that she was staying put and there was no activity around the house. I wasn’t sure the assholes from the mall were really gunning for her, or just trying to scare her off, but she definitely had something to do with their presence.

After I left and called JC and Tristan to head over to the mall and check out the activity, they found only tread marks near where she was parked. Even the cops weren’t all that concerned as no one had been shot. All injuries had to do with flying glass from stray bullets, and all the bullets came from the same direction. There was no war, or brawl, just a bunch of guys shooting off into the air. Something didn’t sound right.

If something had happened to her in that parking lot, it would be on my head. If it weren’t for me, she’d have no connection to the club. She would just be going along with her hospital shifts and taking care of Maddie. How could I even think of pulling her into my life? What if Maddie grew up and turned into a club whore? No fucking way. I wouldn’t allow it. That girl would get her ass to college and make something of herself like her mom.

Why? So some fucker like me could show up one night, drag her to the back office of a bar and fuck her brains out? I revved my engine and tore down the highway, heading over to Tristan’s, forgetting about the speed limit. I needed to forget about long-term shit with Beth. It wasn’t going to happen. Even if I could settle down with just one woman, she deserved a hell of a lot better than a biker. She deserved a man like my brother. Educated. Stable.

Tristan’s garage door was up when I pulled into his driveway. His bike laid on its side, the engine cut off. Pulling off my sunglasses I looked around the empty garage. “Tristan?” I pushed the door to the house open. “Tristan! It’s me, Rafe.” I put on hand on my gun, ready to pull it at the slightest movement. “You here man?” I took one step into the kitchen.

Two steps in and I saw him. On the ground, keeled over to the right was his lifeless body. I felt the familiar twist in my gut and carefully stepped around him to get a better look. A gunshot to the back of his head. Blood splatter covered the dining table and walls. Executed in his own fucking kitchen.

Tristan had been the only one to say anything funny happening around the clubhouse the day of Jason’s murder. He’d seen a prospect hanging around the clubhouse, and now he was fucking dead. Hell’s Spawn.

Clenching my fists, I left Tristan and jumped on my bike, tearing out of his driveway and heading to the other side of town.

***

Halfway to the Hell’s Spawn clubhouse I spotted a few of their members hanging outside Dunkin’s Dive. I pulled in, parking beside their line of bikes. Damien, their president, appeared to be among them.

The bar reeked of cigar smoke when I stepped inside. The place was half empty; since our clubhouse reopened none of our guys hung out at the townie bars. I spotted Damien right away, sitting in the middle of several half naked club whores. They had their own clubhouse, why head out into town and bring the same girls he could have been fucking at home?

I could feel the eyes on me as I made my way across the room in his direction. No one would touch me, not without Damien’s say so, unless they wanted to feel Anarchy’s Reign heating up their asses. One of his girls saw me coming first and angled her body toward me, shoving her tits at me. The skimpy thing she called a dress barely covered her body and I could see some of her nipple poking out of the dress.

“Rafe.” Damien nodded to me when I stepped to his table. Two of his guys stood up from the table next to his, but took their seats again when Damien waved them down. “It’s fine,” he told them. “Girls, go get something to drink.”
“But we have our beer right here.” The short redhead picked up her beer. She must have been new to his little circle and didn’t understand a dismissal when she heard one.

“Janey, let’s go.” The blonde rolled her eyes at her. She pulled her by the arm over to the bar, carrying their drinks in their hands.

“I heard about Jason. My condolences.” He pointed to the chair across the table from him and I sank into it, keeping my eyes fixated on him. Some men spent their entire lives lying and hiding the truth, it was harder to make out when they were sincere or not. He gave the appearance of not bullshitting me.

“Thanks.” I waved off the waitress that ventured to our table. “He didn’t deserve to go down like that. Being shot in a drive by like some little gang rivalry.”

“Rivalry? You don’t think we have anything to do with that shit, do you?” His eyes narrowed, but other than that his expression remained stoic.

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying Jason deserved better than to be gunned down like some street thug.”

“I’ll agree with you on that.” He nodded. “Hell’s Spawn had nothing to do with it.” He grabbed his beer and took a long pull. “I’m going on record with that shit. We didn’t touch Jason. No reason to.”

“No one’s accusing you,” I reminded him, and folded my hands on the table. The image of Tristan’s body lying in that thick puddle of his own blood entered my mind, and I clenched my fists. Who the fuck else would want one of us dead? “Business okay?”

“Why you asking? Of course it’s fine.” Damien leaned a bit toward me. “I hear Gray got the votes. That must have been a kick in the gut for you.”

I cleared my throat, every muscle in my body wanted to jump across the table and shove my fist through his teeth, but it would have to wait. This fucker knew something about Jason’s murder, and probably Tristan’s.

“Nah. He got the votes, I’m still VP. I’ll get my time. Or I won’t.” I shrugged. “You talk to Jason recently? I mean before he was killed?”

“Why would I?”

“Maybe you were working out a deal with that Javier asshole and wanted Jason to help set it up since we’ve worked with him before? Not sure, but one of your prospects was poking around the club that afternoon.” As a probe it was pretty thick.

He flattened his hands on the table and stood up. “I’m not talking club business with you. If your president wants a sit down, you can tell Gray to give me a call.”

The tight smile I’d managed to hold onto since walking in dropped. The chair scrapped along the peanut shelled floor as I pushed away from the table. “Not official conversation here, just having a chat.” I put my hands up in front of me. “I didn’t come in here looking for you, I was looking for Tristan. He was supposed to meet me. You seen him?” I watched his expression closely, looking for a flinch, a change of posture, something to tell me Tristan’s name threw him off balance. Nothing.

“No. We’ve been here all night. Fucking gas leak at the club house kicked us out for a night.”

I nodded, looking around at the guys starting to circle behind him. “Yeah. Okay.” I nodded and stepped away from the table.

If Damien knew anything about Tristan, he didn’t’ show it, and if he had anything to do with Jason’s murder, he was holding it real close to himself, too. I needed more information, more of a reason for them wanting Jason dead.

Damien and Jason hated each other, but they respected each other. But respect didn’t mean shit if Damien was looking to get into a trade Jason didn’t want to see happening around our town.

“Gonna swing by the club, maybe he went there.” I waved my goodbye and headed to the door. I almost made it through when I heard one assclown mutter something under his breath. “What was that?” I turned around, stepping up to the half-drunk asshole.

He craned his neck and stuck his face right up to mine. “I said. If you hadn’t been such a pussy, you’d have taken that president’s gavel from Grays’ fucking hand. You had more right.”

“A vote is a vote, you asshole. You should fucking know that.”

“Fuck that. You were crying too hard to do what you should have done. And now you’re sniffing around here about Jason getting gunned down. You were there, weren’t you? Right there when he took a bullet to his gut? Bet that sucked to see your best friend die right in front of you, and then you fucking turned his club over to Gray.” He shook his head and tsked his tongue.

Enough of that bullshit. My fist landed on his left jaw. Blood spewed out of his mouth before I heard him grunt. He stumbled off his stool and lunged at me. Too drunk to put all his weight behind it, it only knocked the wind out of me. I tossed him to the ground, ready for him to spring up.