“Not Rory,” I growled, ready to take on any and every single one of my MC brothers in that room if that was what it took. My girl was loyal, the years away from each other only attesting to that even more. “She would never do shit like that. And she wouldn’t have anything to take back to her father any
way. Club business stays club business. I don’t talk. Ever.”
“We don’t think it’s Rory,” Hawk assured me, his eyes going to Colt. “Kelli is who we suspect.”
Colt jerked against Spider’s hold, but not even his strength could budge the enforcer. “You don’t fucking know that. She would never betray me.”
“Like she wouldn’t let Quinn start dancing at Paradise City while we were gone?” Raider taunted, his eyes shooting flames at his little brother. “You don’t even really know that bitch. She could be fucking the mayor behind your back for all you know. She could be fucking that damn senator just like her whore mother.”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” Colt roared, making the windows actually shake. “Don’t you fucking ever talk about her like that again.”
“Chill out, Colt,” Jet commanded, his voice booming, and got between his two youngest brothers, despite Spider still not having released his hold of Colt. “Raider is right. You don’t really know Kelli. Did she tell you that her mother used to fuck the douchebag who brought in the motherfucking ATF on us? Hell no, she didn’t. Did she tell you she had seen Bubbles, or let you know where we could find that skank? No. She’s kept secrets, major ones. What the hell else has she not told you?”
“I don’t know, goddammit. Okay? I don’t know.”
“Then we need to find out,” Bash growled at him. “And you need to keep your damn head before you fuck it all up and she goes running to Michaels with something that could put us all away. You, more than anyone, know he’s about to nut off in his expensive suit when he gets his hands on us once and for all.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Colt muttered. “You won’t have to worry about Kelli anymore.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Raider demanded.
“It means I’ll motherfucking deal with her, brother.”
“How?” Jet snapped.
“My way, and that’s all you need to know.”
“You know she’s going to have to be taken care of if you do find out she’s been leaking shit back to them, right?” Hawk bit out.
Colt’s eyes turned wild, but his voice was calm when he spoke. “I know.”
“You sure you can do that?”
“I guess we’ll find out if I ever have to cross that bridge.”
Chapter Nine
Rory
OTHER THAN RAVEN, THE ONLY other people in the kitchen were Flick and Willa, all of them making sandwiches for the masses. As I entered the room, all three of them stopped talking and gave me weak smiles. The three women still had damp, swollen eyes, which tore at my heart a little more. I’d gotten to know them a little since I’d gotten back to Creswell Springs, and I looked up to all of them. These three had a strength I only wished I possessed.
“Hey, thanks for coming to help out.” Raven motioned me over. “As you can see, we have plenty to do but not much help. Quinn is watching my kids in Raider’s room, and Gracie is outside with Trigger, watching Bates snoop around. Everyone else is still kind of in shock or too fucking lazy to help.”
I looked at the huge island counter that was covered with stacks of bread, platters of veggies, and bowls of different salad spreads for the sandwiches Willa and Flick were already putting together. There was enough food there potentially to feed the entire county, but having seen the MC brothers eat together before, I knew this would only barely feed everyone.
I washed my hands and then stood on the side of the island with Raven. Taking a bowl that looked like ham salad, I started putting sandwiches together. “Who made this?” I asked as I licked a smear off my thumb. “This is delicious.”
“It’s one of Aggie’s recipes,” Willa informed me as she cleaned out her bowl of egg salad and grabbed a new one. “Everything we make comes from one of her recipes. She’s a mastermind at throwing flavors together that make your tongue feel like it’s having an orgasm.”
“How’s Matt doing?” Flick asked as she covered a full platter of sandwiches with plastic wrap and set it aside.
“He’s…” I paused, not sure how to answer that. “He’s not himself,” I finally told her honestly. “I’ve never seen him like this, and it’s breaking my heart.”
“They were really close,” Flick murmured, her eyes filling with tears again, but she blinked them back. “They had always been each other’s best friend, but when their parents died five years ago, they pulled together and bonded even more.”
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Raven said with a shaky sigh. “I keep waiting for him to walk in here and ask me for something to eat. Or to run his stupid mouth. Damn it, he was a pain in the ass, but…he was our pain in the ass.”
We were all quiet for several long minutes, each of us lost in memories of Tanner Reid as we made sandwiches on autopilot.