Wow. Really?
“How did we miss that?”
“Don’t know. Sasha says she doesn’t know where Trish is, but I don’t know if she’s telling the truth. My instincts say she’s hiding something, I can tell you that.”
“None of this makes sense. Trish hasn’t gone off grid since all that shit went down six months ago. Why now?”
“I know,” he agreed, “but there’s something else. Sasha said she spoke to Trish and saw her leave the Blacktop at around nine p.m. How is that fuckin’ possible if Tricia’s been missing longer?”
“She must have been hiding from me.” I slammed a fist on the surface of the table. “She knows I watch over her. I haven’t kept it a secret, so it doesn’t make a lot of fucking sense that she’d disappear.”
“Maybe she’s just playing a game with you, brother.”
I stood so fast my chair tipped over. “I don’t think so. None of this is a coincidence, including the Scorpions who showed up at the Blacktop shortly after you arrived. Somebody knows something and I’m betting that sweet little piece of ass in your room has plenty of her own secrets.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Do you really think Sasha is holding back?”
“Yes, she has to know more than she’s saying. Trish and Sasha work together. There’s no way she never met Acid and his club. Not with the way shit went down six months ago. Even if Sasha didn’t know Acid, we know Trish did.”
The reminder didn’t make me happy.
“Fine. Take her on the Devil’s Ride.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
***
Sasha was spooked enough to spill everything she knew to Bodie. I sat back in church, listening to him as he filled everyone in.
“It seems Acid and the Scorpions haven’t been idle since all the shit went down at the Blacktop six months ago. We already suspect that he sent a narc to check out our MC, but I’ve got proof now. Acid, Dawg, and Zook kidnapped Sasha and planned to rape and kill her, le
aving her body for me to find. I’m positive they were gonna show up here at the Crossroads, but Sasha fought them off and escaped. They believed Suraya and Sasha were the same girl. I don’t think Acid realized that they were identical twins, at least not initially.”
Stunned expressions filled the faces of my brothers around the table. No one realized it, not even me. I was too consumed with Trish. There was so much shit going down that piece of crucial Intel slipped through the cracks.
“This is fuckin’ personal,” Bodie continued, “Acid has had it out for me and Grim for a long time. I believe he planned this for months in order to start a war between us and the Scorpions. He must have seen me with Suraya. Maybe he wanted her, maybe he just wanted to fuck with my head. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter now.”
“It fuckin’ matters, brother.” Patriot’s hard stare focused on Bodie and he nodded. “It always matters. That disrespect doesn’t go unpunished.”
Brothers always had each other’s back. Loyalty was part of our code and every single one of us followed it without regret or hesitation. The club was life. It was family.
Nothing ever came between the club and its members.
“Acid has been hitting our shipments, attacking our deliveries off and on for the last few weeks. Rael and I found a bunch of botched invoices. Sending that fuckin’ narc was the last straw.” Mammoth looked ready to spit nails he was so pissed. “This has to end. We need to respond. Now.”
“Agreed.” Rael ticked his head toward Grim. “We don’t let this slide, pres.”
I nodded. “The Royal Bastards aren’t taking any shit from the Scorpions. I got a call from a few of our brothers in other chapters. Acid isn’t the only one starting trouble.”
“He wants a war,” Hannibal growled low, “Then he’s got one.”
We made plans to draw out Acid and his club while dealing with our shipments and supplies. Shit was starting to escalate, and I knew it was only a matter of time before it got worse. That was the thing about MC life. Bullshit seemed to come in waves of stink. Felt like one thing after another for the last six months. If I was honest, nothing had really stopped since the day Keys died.
After the bombshell dropped that Sasha was alive and Suraya’s twin, we all knew Acid was coming. Bodie ran into the common room of the Crossroads the following night. Frantic, he was searching the entire space in a panic.