He picked up the remote and flicked off the TV, not a moment too soon, the sound of Tim Allan’s laugh was grating on my nerves.
“Look, all I said was you were a good guy.”
“A good guy?” I questioned. He nodded. We both knew that wasn’t true. “And they read into that what you wanted them to, I guess.”
“They read whatever they wanted to read into it.”
“That is a problem for me, Ranger.”
“When Randy Beillo shows up at my door I know shit has hit the fan,” he snapped. “Nytro is fucking everything up,” he said angrily, then started to cough. I waited him out. I knew from experience he wouldn’t want me to attempt to help him. He was too proud for that. He usually got a handle on it pretty quickly. “They took King’s daughter.”
I grimaced, so they’d come to him to find out what he knew about that and they’d sent their Enforcer. And he gave them my damn name. Fuck. I didn’t have all night so I decided to get down to why I was really here.
“How much do you know about what happened when the Cartel hit us.”
“Why are you bringing that up?”
I arched a brow and he used his good arm to wipe away some spittle that had landed on his chin.
“They were tipped off about something?” I said.
“The Cartel? Tipped off about what?”
“That Tank wasn’t going to pay them, that they could get a better deal elsewhere.”
Ranger stared at me. He may not be as quick as he was before, but he wasn’t stupid. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Answer the question.”
He was about to give me hell for saying that but then he remembered, he wasn’t my President anymore and I watched with a heaviness inside me as he completely deflated before my eyes. I hated doing this to him but he started it, when he gave the fucking Devil’s Chaos my name.
“I don’t know anything about that. Tank was a dark fucking stain on the club. You know I hated his guts. He deserved what he got for the shit he brought down on us.”
The story went the Cartel killed him. It was months after the whole shit show of owing them money and selling off family members to repay the debt. I’d never been sure it wasn’t an inside job or if the Cartel really had just waited. That wasn’t their style.
There were a lot of secrets and lies hanging around my club and I didn’t like it. Under Ranger, I’d worked with him to try and fix things. Everything we’d done to make the club better was being systematically unpicked with Nytro at the helm. And Danica in his ear.
“But in answer to your question, no…I don’t think anyone tipped them off. You mess with the Cartel, your whole family winds up decapitated on the front lawn. They wipe everyone out, no questions asked. If they thought we were backstabbing them, no one would be alive to tell the tale.”
Thought as much. Danica clearly didn’t know everything. Like how bloodthirsty and vengeful a Mexican Drug Cartel could be. So that begged the question, was she lying, or did she really believe it? I debated whether to ask questions about her, or her sister, but in the end decided to leave it. Ranger didn’t know I was the one sitting on Waverley and that line of questioning would give too much away.
As much as I hated to see Ranger like this, he wasn’t a part of it. He’d already had Devil’s showing up at his door. Seemed they hadn’t harmed him, which in itself was a concern to me. He was totally at their mercy and they’d left him? They could have tried to use him against us. They clearly hadn’t known he was out in the cold, or they wouldn’t have come to see him, but they hadn’t used him as leverage to get Waverley back. I pondered for a moment. I didn’t understand their reasons for that.
“Messing with the Devil’s Chaos is a bad idea,” Ranger said darkly.
I gave him a knowing frown. If he thought I’d gone along with the plans to mess with them, he was an idiot. I’d tried to be the voice of reason, to talk him down, but Nytro wouldn’t hear it. Danica was hisaunt. If she was spewing shit to Waverley, then she was doing the same to Nytro.
He’d hated his father but he loved the club, or more accurately, he loved being incontrolof the club. He was the kind of guy who got off on adoration and power. Didn’t matter that he didn’t deserve it, or that on the sly some members of the club were coming to me to express their dislike and distrust of Nytro.
I hated what was happening, but I had little control. Nytro didn’t see me as his VP, to him, it was name only. Our meetings were a mess, the books were all over the place, he was doing business with rival factions all the time, trying to undercut them. He was going to end up getting us killed even before he decided to go after the Devil’s Chaos.
He was too stupid to realise he’d lost control months ago. Danica had been subtle initially, supporting him and whispering in his ear. She’d done it from afar, but I’d taken notice of where he was going and who he was talking to, long before Ranger had his accident, because I was a good VP and I gave a shit about my club. She’d played the doting aunt, encouraging him and filling his tiny brain with an impossible sense of self-importance.
Until he got made President, then she started doing things a little differently. I’m sure he didn’t realise she was manipulating him. He’d go to his deathbed denying it but he was deluded. She was good though, she’d done it all without anyone really catching on, or realising Nytro didn’t make any decisions without running them by her first. And Mad Hog, the fucking asshole best friend of his who he’d made Sargent-At-Arms. They grew up together and were both as dense as each other.
I’d been sucked into the vortex of his insanity, but I’d held my ground and luckily the brothers were on my side when it came to places within the council. I wasn’t ousted like Ranger was. But I did get fucked over with stepping up to the President role, which was club rules.
First thing I did was let Danica know she couldn’t sway me. She caught on quickly, she knew not to mess with me, but she also knew how to get to me. Putting me on Waverley was her way of doing that. I didn’t care what Danica said about wanting to look after her daughter. She was looking after one person and one person only. Herself. And as much as it pained me to say it, I didn’t trust Nytro to be around Waverley.
