“It wasn’t them,” he said, confirming my theory.
“Are you sure?” Gunner asked with obvious disbelief.
“One hundred percent. They were all in New Orleans yesterday morning, participating in a big ride. There are tons of witnesses, and the news even did a report on it because of the large turnout. Every single member of Devil Riders was there.”
“Shit,” Bones said, kicking the leg of the pool table as hard as he could. It didn’t even move.
Now, we had no idea who could have done this and the doctors didn’t know when Ink would wake up and tell us. All they could do was wait and even then, he might not be able to give us the answers we needed. It would depend on whether or not the injury affected his brain, and the doctors wouldn’t know that until they could run cognitive tests.
Basically, no one knew anything, and we had no leads.
It was maddening and as we cleared out the second pool table, we all started speculating about who else could have done this. Numbers suggested the mob, since we used to do business with them—arms dealing, mostly—but that was shot down for the same reason as the cartel. Those organizations had a history of making a statement with their attacks. If either of them was involved, they’d want Rebel Saints to know it. There would be a specific message. Besides, according to Bones, there was no bad blood with the mob. When we’d stopped doing business with them, Devil Riders was happy to step in, so it wasn’t like they were losing any money.
After the second pool table was outside, placed next to the badly burned one, we’d started cleaning the place up, working together. The smoke had affected pretty much everything in the bar, so there was a lot to do.
After a couple of hours, I realized I needed to leave. “Sorry, guys, I gotta go pick up my son.” Just saying those words still felt weird. I was a parent now, my life was so different than it was just a couple of weeks ago.
“How’s that going, anyway?” Bear asked.
“Really good. He’s spending the night with me for the first time.”
Naomi and I had talked about that last night after we kissed each other on the couch. We decided his use of the word ‘dad’ was a good indicator that he was ready for it. I had a spare room I’d used mostly for storage, but in the past few weeks, I’d painted it blue and transformed it into a room for Gavin, complete with a sheet set with his favorite superheroes on them.
I felt excited to have him at my place for some quality one-on-one time. I was really starting to care about him, and it was more than biological. He was a smart, sweet kid, and I was proud to call him mine.