Page 216 of Lost Lyrebird

“Yes, we got that info straight from the lawyer,” I confirm.

“Right before I shot him and buried his ass.”Finn tacks on.

Bodie’s hand rubs against his mouth.“Fuck.Right under our fucking noses.”

Dozer shares a grim expression with Finn.“Is it possible the others are being manipulated into giving them intel?”

“Grinder, I think so.Stone and Croc, could be, but I don’t think so.”

Dozer then turns to Deeds.“Tell us the rest.”

“The cartel is behind it.They’ve infiltrated your club by using the Thirteens, and they’ve infiltrated mine.They’re plans are to cut out the middlemen, you could say.Pappy’s aware of it, but he thinks we have more time before they make their move.I don’t.I’d like to clean house now and face the fallout, but he’s not willing to risk it.Thinks it’ll set off a chain of events that we’re not yet ready for.He’ll push it until the last moment, and who knows what that will look like.

Mainly, he wants to keep doing business.Profit as much as possible before all-out war breaks out.

So yeah, we need to know who we can trust, strengthen the club by recruiting the right men, and build alliances before it comes to a head.

If we can hit them with enough force before they’re ready, we’ll have a better chance of putting the balance of power back in our favor.They don’t know we know, and that’s our advantage.”

“How did you figure this out?”Dozer asks.

“Little things at first and Gypsy.”He motions to me.“She’s how I knew for sure.”

“Lily,” Finn says sternly.I roll my eyes at him and grab his thigh.He lays his hand over his mind and grasps it tightly.

Deeds smirks at him.“Sorry, man.Just habit.Lily.”

“She was able to confirm some things after working different angles and then shits just been off with the cartel, so we took a page out of their book and got some people on the inside on their side of the border.Once they made their way up the ranks, we were able to confirm that they are planning to eliminate any crews like ours by infiltrating their personnel into our clubs, much like sleeper agents.Like the Thirteens, they are forming crews on this side of the border and pushing their product, running their activities through them.The money all goes south, though, and they want a larger part of the take, so they’re cutting out anyone they have to pay to get their shit in and out of the U.S.”

“Holy fuck, are you for real, man?”This comes from Bodie.He looks shaken by the news.

Dozer thinks about it all for a long time before he speaks again.“When were you going to share this information with us?”

Deeds purses his lips and shadows flicker over his eyes, because he and I both know what he’s about to say isn’t going to land well.

“When we had to.When we knew who we could trust.”

Dozer stands and lays his hands on the table.“Which was going to be when, never?”

“I don’t know, okay!We were still working that part out.”

Dozer shakes his head.His icy gaze is leveled on Deeds with deadly intent.

Deeds is completely unaffected by it.If anything, it boils his blood too and fires up that demon that lives under his skin.“Look, asshole.This isn’t something you can go sayin’ at church.This is who needs to know bullshit, and so far, your club hasn’t seen any ill effects.I was making inroads and was gonna come to you when the time was right.This is exactly why I sent, Lily.I needed to know who to trust and who wasn’t a rat posing as a HOC.”

“Well, you sure and the fuck knew I wasn’t.”

“Look, man, the point was I didn’t know who you would trust with it and didn’t have solid information until recently.You can throw shade at me, but I was doing my level best to figure this shit out.”

“Why didn’t Pappy come to Cap with this.Why you?”

Deeds is silent for way too long.

Dozer reads him, though.“He doesn’t want out of business with them, trying to find a way around it.”

Deeds just stares back at him, his face blank.

Dozer chuckles humorlessly.“My dad has always said that Pappy valued green more than people’s lives, and that was one line the HOCs would never cross.I get it now.Why he left.”