Page 17 of Deception (Deranged Drifters MC #22)
Chapter Seventeen
Griffin’s Beach Colt
“ W e’ve had a lot of closed-door meetings with small groups lately,” TK says and closes the Chapel door behind him.
Colt sits in his spot at the head of the table, and Jennings sits directly across from him on the other side. VP and TK take their natural spots to his right and left while Ky and Venom sit in their respective seats.
“We have a problem,” Colt says to their predecessors. “And I need all of us to determine the best way to handle it. I have a few ideas, but you’ve been in my spot before.”
“Someone’s talking to the cops,” Jennings says. “I’ve had that same look you did when we were raided.”
Venom’s head snaps towards him and gapes. “Wait, what?”
“Alex McKenzie told Grayson that someone’s giving Julian information. That’s how he’s been able to get the warrants and knows where our hiding places are in the clubhouse. Neither of them knows who the informant is, but we have a rat.”
“And you’re just telling us now?” Ky asks with betrayal written all over his face. “You don’t trust us?”
Holding his hand up, he shakes his head. “It’s not that. Between trying to find some asshole named Phillip who was supposedly trying to kill my wife and this, I haven’t exactly been in a position to share too much.”
“But you think it’s a member?” VP asks.
“No,” Colt admits. “I don’t.”
Venom and Ky share a look while TK and VP shake their heads. No one but Jennings catches onto what he implies. The option no one ever thought possible before.
“If it’s not a member, how is Julian getting information?” his father asks.
He looks between his father and father-in-law. “I’ll take responsibility for the vendetta against us. I pissed him off, but he’s been searching areas that he wouldn’t know exist. And not the areas we know we have things hidden.”
“But wouldn’t that make it a member?” Venom asks. “Like the false walls in here. I didn’t know about them until the raid because we haven’t used them.”
He nods. “Because we don’t use them anymore. We have new hiding places to reduce the risk of old information being given and outing us. Not to mention the warehouses and storage at the Puffy Taco.”
This isn’t the first time there’s been a rat. Hell, it’s not even the second time. The one thing no one knows for sure is how much has been shared and with whom.
“And the office. How’d he know there was storage hidden in there?” VP asks. “We haven’t used that for years other than to put extra documents for the shop.”
“Which means it’s someone who’s been around for a while,” TK says, frowning.
Colt’s father-in-law snaps his head up and glares with pure hatred. “You think Zane did this?”
“We’d be stupid to exclude him,” Ky says. “He’s officially off his fucking rocker.”
Everyone except VP wanted to murder Zane for attacking Lex like he did. He may be blind to his son’s actions, but no one else is. And there’s no question in anyone’s mind that he would have killed his sister if Colt hadn’t shown up to stop him.
His unpredictable and psychotic actions stripped him of his leather. Without the club, he took off and left his daughter with his father. Everything Zane does is motivated by selfish needs and desires, and it’s not outrageous to think he could be getting his revenge this way.
“You want to put this on my son?” he shouts. “Zane would never rat!”
“The same way he’d never try to kill his sister?” Colt snaps back. “Because you’re fucking wrong about that, too.”
He slams his hand on the table and lifts out of his chair slightly as he leans forward. “He would have stopped!”
“Yeah, when she fucking stopped breathing,” Ky says.
“You weren’t there. You’re never fucking there when she needs you.
And sorry, Nash, but your word means shit to the rest of us because of how you baby Zane.
You’d rather ignore everything he’s done than think rationally and see it could be him who did this. ”
“You really think Zane would have killed Lex?”
“Why don’t you ask your granddaughter who watched it happen?” Colt asks, his voice low and angry. “She called you because her dad scared her, and the reason he attacked not only Lex but Lucas, too, was because she refused to let him take his daughter on his bike while he was drunk.”
Jennings and TK stare at VP in annoyance at his lack of accountability, but he just shakes his head. “He just lost his wife. You don’t understand what that’s like.”
“Yeah, because my mom wasn’t murdered by a rival club when I was sixteen and had watch my dad lose everything, including himself. As far as I know, he never tried to take off with Ashley or me while he was drunk off his ass,” Ky says.
No matter how much times passes, Nancy Short’s murder never gets easier. Colt only had a glimpse of the bloodbath back then, and he can’t blame Ashley for her addiction problems. She’s the one who found her mother, and what happened broke Diesel.
“So, he was going to take out himself and his daughter, too? Tell me, were you going to blame Lex for letting him kill himself like he blames her for Lane’s death?” TK asks.
“He was fine,” VP growls.
Jennings shakes his head. “How much time did it take to clean up the clubhouse after your disaster of a wedding? Nash, you gotta open your eyes, man. Your son’s a train wreck, and you only help him derail rather than keep him on the tracks.”
Jumping up, VP slams both hands on top of the table. “So, this is my fault? That’s what we’re back to? It’s my fault Julian’s coming after us because I ruined my son, and you think he’s talking to the cops out of spite? All because I’m a shitty father?”
“You’ve got half of it right,” TK says.
Venom leans back with a smug look on his face as he glares at the man. “I didn’t think he’d ever admit it.”
“You say you love Lex, but you never once protected her. Not when it comes to him. You got so butt hurt when we found out she was in therapy because of her childhood, but I don’t understand it,” TK says.
“You think you’d be with okay with being told you ruined your daughter’s life?”
He shakes his head. “If Klaire came to me and said I failed her as a father and made it so she had to talk to a therapist, I’d want to know where I fell short. You just get defensive and deflect. Take accountability for once in your fucking life, man. Be the man you couldn’t raise Zane to be.”
“Failed,” Venom says. “He fucking failed.”
“Fuck you!” VP shouts.
Standing, he walks around the table. “Your oldest son is MIA while you raise his daughter because you never taught him to deal with his feelings without throwing a tantrum like a fucking two-year-old little bitch. And your youngest wants nothing to do with you because you walk around like Ray Charles—blind to your shortcomings. Yeah, fuck me.”
“I think we’re getting off-topic a bit,” Jennings says.
The former President may be right, but Colt will never get sick of people putting VP in his place.
“As much as I’d love to see VP and Venom duke it out, you’re right.
For the record, though, Zane’s not the only male in the family who needs his ass kicked.
I don’t think we can beat common sense into people, though. ”
Jennings gets up and guides Venom back to his seat as VP backs down. “I don’t disagree, but we have something bigger at play. Do you really think Zane’s the one talking?”
“No, I don’t,” Colt admits.
“Then who do you think it is?” Ky asks.
Taking his seat, Venom shoots a glare to VP before leaning back. “If it’s not Zane, which member am I beating to a bloody pulp and burying six feet under?”
Colt locks eyes with Jennings. “I don’t think it’s a member.”
“I’m fucking confused,” Ky says, his hands tossing in the air.
“He thinks it’s an old lady,” Jennings says. “And I have to agree.”
His father whips his head, looking first at Colt and then to Jennings before turning back to Colt. “What?”
“The information Julian has is old information. The same information many of the veteran women would know just because of proximity and time spent in the clubhouse, but we wouldn’t have told them about the changes we’ve made.”
“Which rules out the newer women. We wouldn’t have told them about old hiding places. It never would have come up, and they wouldn’t have seen it,” Jennings says.
Ky’s jaw drops as he looks at Venom. “Who do you think it is?”
“We can’t rule out too many until we know more,” Colt says.
“You can’t be serious,” Venom says. “Sure, your wife is talking to a professional about her shitty childhood, but you can’t believe Lex would ever rat on anyone here. No matter what someone may have done to her.”
“We have to look at everyone,” Colt says, but he avoids looking at Venom.
The Sergeant at Arms jumps up, his chair sliding back hard enough to hit the wall behind him. “Colt, look me in the face. Do you honestly believe Lex could be behind this?”
“Venom—”
“If you think she could do this, I’m handing in my leather right now. There’s no fucking way, and I want to beat your ass for even implying it.”
Finally looking at him, he shakes his head. “No, I don’t. I’d bet my patch and my life that it’s not her, but my belief can’t cloud how we look at this. We have to be objective, and she’s a veteran who knows more than the average old lady. She’s up there with Tess and my mom. Even Felicity.”
“Felicity wouldn’t,” Ky says. “If she was going to talk to the cops, it would’ve been when I was in the doghouse last year. She’d never wait until Gavin was almost a member to take us down.”
“Unless she thought the club would be behind bars before he was affected the same way,” Jennings says. “It might be a situation where the ball got rolling, and she can’t stop it now.”
TK sniffles. “It’s not your mom. She had ample time to take us down when we weren’t good, and she never did. Hell, she stayed married to me to protect the club.”
“Tess is happy to have me stepping back, and we’ve got a solid retirement plan set up. One that depends on me being in the club for at least a few more years. She’d never risk that,” Jennings says.
“Lex is loyal to a fault. Hell, she almost died when the Slashers took her, and she still gave up nothing,” Ky says. “I would bet money on it being Tess or Karmen before I’d believe it could be Lex. Even Felicity.”
Relieved no one seems to be pushing the issue, Colt nods. “I don’t think Emma knows enough to talk to the cops. But we still have a long list to go through. Lily probably knows the most, but it wouldn’t make sense since she’s our lawyer.”
“It’d be kind of shitty for her to betray us,” Venom agrees. “What about that redhead with Elliot?”
They run through the old ladies, determining who can be completely ruled out, who falls in the possibility category, and who would be the most likely offender.
“What about Autumn?” Ky asks. “She’s been pretty distant, but she did catch Rocco cheating. Not to mention they both had to get treated for the clap before that because of his wandering dick.”
“Yeah, I was here that night,” TK says. “That wasn’t pretty.”
Colt shakes his head. “I don’t really get the rat vibe from her. Yeah, she’s a veteran like Lex and Felicity, but if she hasn’t left Rocco for it, do we really think she’d get him locked away for life?”
“I’d believe it was her before Felicity.”
“I also don’t know if I really know her anymore to have a good sense of what she’d do. It just seems unlikely that would be her choice of revenge.”
The more they talk, the less Colt feels like he has a grasp on who it might be. He’s even less sure than when he walked in because exes are now being thrown around. Everyone from Kai’s mom to Cinder gets put on the table, and his head spins.
“What do we do here, Pres?” Jennings asks.
“I think we need to talk to Lex,” he admits. “One, to completely rule her out, but mostly because she has a better handle on the women than we do. Maybe someone will jump out at her.”
“What do we tell the rest of the club?” Venom asks. “I mean, we can’t just keep this a secret, right? They need to know to keep their mouths shut.”
Letting out a sigh, Colt nods his head. “Yeah, let’s get everyone together. All charters. Let them know someone’s talking to the cops, but we won’t give any details about our speculations. We’ll shift things to the other charters to cover ourselves while we look into it.”
“What do we tell people when they ask who we think it is?” Ky asks.
“Just tell them we have no answers, and we’re not starting a witch hunt until we have them,” Jennings answers for Colt. “You know Lex is gonna be pissed we’re entertaining her as a possible rat, right?”
Smirking, Colt chuckles. “Yeah, I do. But she’ll understand. And she’ll want to find who’s betraying us as badly as we do. Loyalty means as much to her as it does to every one of us.”
“When are you going to do it?” Venom asks. “I might have to be sick that day.”
“I want to give it a little time. With our inventory moving away, there won’t be anything to find. I’m hoping we can figure it out on our own, and she’ll never have to know we considered her.”
Ky snorts. “Fat chance you’ll be able to keep your trap shut about that.”
He’s probably right. Colt knows it’s not Lex. But who the hell is it?