Phantom
3 days before the Wedding…
Do not trust Reaper. Leave the club now. Take Gadget and disappear.
“What do you mean?” I moaned for the millionth time, looking at the cryptic message I finally broke on the thumb drive. Leaning back in my chair, I closed my eyes and prayed for clarity. It took me a few weeks to decode the password, but once I was in, everything I saw and read confused me even more. I’d been at this message for over four months now. Given to me by Savage, it was a message specifically for me. It was a simple thumb drive that Kitty left me. Nothing conspicuous, just any old thumb drive I could buy at any store, but the contents confused me.
It didn’t make any sense!
I tried everything. No matter how often I looked at the message, it never changed. When I cracked the passcode and finally got into the thumb drive, I didn’t know what to make of the message.
I still don’t.
Why doesn’t she want me to trust Reaper?
Since I arrived at the Golden Skulls compound, Reaper has never, not once given me any indication not to trust him. I mean he’s been shady with some things, but in the end he comes clean. In fact, he’s been straight with me, hiding nothing. He welcomed me into the club with open arms even when I told him the cliff note version of my past. Yet, Kitty never trusted him for some reason and I couldn’t figure out why.
Getting to my feet, I left my office.
I needed a break.
That message was seriously fucking with my head.
From the moment I read the message I’d been on guard with everyone. Men I considered my brothers, now had me looking at them suspiciously. There wasn’t a day I asked myself if they were hiding something. At one point, I got so suspicious that I ran background checks on every member of the club again to see if I missed something. All because the seed of doubt had been planted.
It had taken root.
It was no way to live.
Spotting Ghost sitting at the bar, I asked, “Where is Reaper?”
“In church with the door locked.”
Fucking great.
He was at it again. He had been having a crap-ton of secret meetings for a man who wanted no more secrets in the club. I wasn’t stupid. I knew there was shit Reaper was still hiding. Hell, I was still keeping a few big ones myself. Whatever secret Reaper was keeping was causing a rift within the club. He had to see that. Whatever it was, he needed to air it and let the chips fall where they lay.
“Alone?”
“Yeah. He’s on the phone.”
“Who’s he talking to?”
“No clue. He got another phone call, headed for church and locked the door. He’s been in there for an hour.”
Walking towards the church door, I tried the handle.
Ghost was right. It was locked.
Leaning against it, thinking I might be able to hear something, all I heard was silence. If he was in there, he was being quiet.
Since Savage left four months ago, Reaper, the asshole, had been acting weird. Not like crazy weird, just weird. Off somehow. He was always on his phone. He destroyed Church on more than one occasion. Whoever he was talking to was seriously pissing him off. Which was nothing new. It seemed everything angered him lately.
I tried talking to him once about it and all I got was silence.
The man looked through me as if I wasn’t even there.
Even Ghost, his best friend and Vice President, tried talking to him and got nothing. The only emotion we got out of Reaper was when he was with his woman and kid. I would see some semblance of the old Reaper we all knew and loved on those rare occasions.