“Do you want to say goodbye to her?”
“No. I will see her when this is all over.”
Nodding, I said nothing more as Caroline walked towards the waiting SUV and got in the passenger side. I saw my brother Shadow nod right before Caroline closed the door.
I stayed sitting on the picnic table, watching my life drive away, as the darkness of the night billowed in around me. I wanted so much to call Shadow and tell him to turn around that I would find another way to do this. But there wasn’t. I knew, and so did he. We all thought of every contingency. What I didn’t plan on was having a four-year-old daughter without a mother. That changed things for everyone. Now, it wasn’t just about the club. It was about protecting Rebekah.
As the taillights of the SUV faded off into the distance, I got to my feet and turned to see Grimm, Viper, Bayou, Hammer, Massacre, and Phantom.
“Time to get to work.”
Over the next couple hours, my brothers and sister I trusted more than anyone, including Reaper, helped me go through every fucking file that Reaper’s grandfather, William Doherty, kept.
This whole mess started with him.
“This can’t be right,” Hammer said, looking at a file. “Reaper’s granddad was in Vietnam, right?”
“Yeah,” Phantom replied, looking up from her computer. “He was part of the 101stAirborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Why?”
“It says here that he was never in Vietnam. He was in Laos?”
“Let me see that,” Massacre said, grabbing the file. “It says, Platoon leader Lt. William Doherty, US ARMY, and firm deployed into Laos on September 18th, 1965. They captured and killed known resistance leader Akamu Nyguyen under specific order from Director Ronald Wheatly of the CIA.”
“I have something too,” Bayou began. “Lt. William Doherty, US AMRY and firm deployed to Cuba on October 21st, 1963 to meet with Russian informant?”
“Give me that,” Phantom sighed, grabbing his file.
“What does ‘and firm’ mean?” Bayou asked, picking up another file and flipping through it. “Because it’s in all these files, they all do.”
“They shouldn’t say that. It should say and platoon. It’s like it was worded that way specifically, for a reason,” Phantom said, scouring another file from the table. “See if any of these files list the names of the men in this so-called firm. Maybe we can get more information out of them because these files are useless.”
“Not sure about names, but I have a picture.” The gruff voice said from the doorway. We all turned to see Reaper standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, tired but pissed off. “Care to explain why I wasn’t invited to this meeting? After all, it’s my church you are in.”
When nobody said a word, Reaper turned and looked at me.
“I was going to tell you in the morning.”
“It’s morning.”
Sighing, I nodded. Reaper wasn’t going to leave, and I was tired and needed help. His grandfather was at the heart of the mystery, and though I was asked to keep him out of it, I couldn’t anymore. The sins of the father indeed lay at the sons’ feet. “The day your dad died. You know about him sending me off to investigate. Well, I left a few things out. He didn’t just want me to investigate Pavlov. He wanted me to investigate everyone and clean up the mess his father got the club into. Your father gave me a storage key. He didn’t tell me where it went, and it took me three years to find the right facility. What I found there were three boxes of files. That’s it. Nothing more. What was in those files was so shocking, I didn’t believe it at first.”
“Get to the point.”
“The point is your grandfather didn’t just start the Golden Skulls when he got out of the military. The Golden Skulls were started well before that when he was in the Military. He was dirty Reaper. He hooked up with some evil fucking bastards that set this club on a path of degradation, such atrocities that, if ever found out, would not only bring the whole club down but major players around the world. I’m talking money laundering, gun running, drugs, trafficking, murder for hire, you name it, your grandfather was a part of it.”
“What else?”
“Darden is a part of it somehow. He knew about my back. I know he worked with Reynolds on profiling traffickers to find and capture.”
“Reynolds is dead. He is no longer a threat. Remi killed him.”
“And neither is Pavlov, thanks to you. However, Darden is. He was Mia’s biological father.”
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“He’s telling the truth Reaper,” Massacre added as Phantom turned her towards Reaper, clicking through screens so he could see the evidence for himself. “See, right here is Mia’s actual birth certificate, along with a DNA Report stating that Jeffery Denton was Mia’s biological father. He raped your mother to get back at your father when a transfer went wrong. When your dad found out, he went after Denton. Messed him up pretty bad. Denton has a limp as a constant reminder. Your mother was going to press charges, but after your father threatened to end Denton, Denton signed over all legal rights to Mia, and your father adopted her.”
“Did Mia know?”