Page 107 of Reaper and Ruin

I stiffened at being so close to him.

If he noticed, he didn’t show it. “Hey, fellas?” he called into the darkness, then chuckled when there was no reply. “Levi, right? Come on, man, come out and say hi. You and I have so much in common. Shame we weren’t in the same prison. We could have been friends.”

I wanted to spit out that Levi would have never been friends with a sniveling weasel like Travis but I bit my tongue, knowing I needed to keep my cool and my head clear, no matter what he said.

“Who else is out there? Wyatt DeLeon, am I right?” He finally glanced over at me. “How does it feel to be so fucking fat and ugly that you have to settle for a man who’s been between the thighs of a thousand women?”

He didn’t bother waiting on my reply. “And Knox. I think we all know you don’t go anywhere without your guard dog, do you, Violet? Excuse me if I don’t call them by your little code names. I like to be more personal than that. I did my research. I know all about Knox’s brothers and his parents and his sweet niece.”

There was a rumble of a growl from the darkness that I knew without a doubt belonged to X.

Travis didn’t look bothered. He just pointed the gun at me and kept running his mouth. “I know all about how Levi fell onhis sword for a club who doesn’t give a shit about him. And I know all about how Wyatt killed his own family with his shitty driving.”

Red-hot rage coursed through me.

Travis let out a low whistle. “You seriously know how to pick ’em, little sis. What a fucked-up, pathetic group of men you’ve surrounded yourself with. Though I use the term ‘men’ loosely. They’re just boys, aren’t they? Little lost boys who couldn’t save their kids, who got screwed over by a biker gang, who have spent their entire lives pretending to be one thing because they know their family would never accept the truth. You ever wonder why they picked you? You ever stop and think it’s ’cause they’re so fucking broken themselves that nobody wants them?”

He finally focused on me, and the depth of his hate and revulsion hit me full force in the chest.

“And you’re just as scared and pathetic, aren’t you?”

“I’m not scared of you,” I muttered.

Travis moved fast, knocking the purse off my lap, unveiling the knife in my fingers before I could even react.

“No?” he asked. “If you’re not scared, why haven’t you plunged that knife into my neck yet?”

I wanted to. My fingers shook with the need to use it. “Where’s Nyah?”

He leaned in close, not bothering to answer my question. “Pathetic,” he whispered in my ear. Then he stood, scooping the purse up from the grass and opening it, checking inside. He raised an eyebrow, then closed the zipper again. “Not going to lie, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get a cent out of you, but I’m pleasantly surprised that you’ve proved me wrong.” He shrugged. “So you get a free pass tonight. You can go home to that shitty apartment and sleep soundly, knowing all your friends are safe in their beds at the MC compound. And for tonight at least, I’ll leave them alone.”

He went to walk away.

I couldn’t just let him leave. “And Nyah?”

He twisted and grinned, his voice dropping to a chilling tone that almost perfectly matched the monotone, robotic one of the voice changer he’d used at both the warehouse and that night up on the bluffs.

“You followed the rhyme, you followed the thread— But you’re far too late, your girl is dead.”

They didn’t sound like the words of the boy I’d known. He’d been mean and angry. But this version of him was sharp and cruel. His laughter echoed as he walked away from me. I forced my feet not to move. Forced my entire body to stay still and not budge an inch.

He was still laughing when he got back in his van and drove away.

One by one, all three men emerged from the darkness. Levi sat beside me on the bench, and X took the knife from my hand. Whip stood, staring after Travis like he might come back at any second.

“Did you do it?” I asked, trying to ward off the violent shaking I couldn’t seem to control.

Whip turned back around and bent to brush his lips over my forehead. “You did great. Tracker is on his van.” He pulled out his phone and brought up an app. He flashed it in our direction, showing us a green dot traveling a map of the streets of Saint View.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Maybe we should have just killed him now and been done with it?”

Levi shook his head. “No. That would have been sloppy. He had the upper hand.”

Whip’s lips flickered at the corner, though he didn’t look up. “First rule of Murder Squad, patience.”

X let out a whine. “I thought it was no witnesses? And no innocents? You guys have got to stop making up new rules! It’s very confusing!” His eyes brightened. “But hey! You called it Murder Squad! You know what we need? A symbol. A calling card. So the cops know it was us. We could brand our kills. Ooh—maybe a duck. For Reginald.”

No one replied.