I needed him to hurry the fuck up and tell me what they were because my pulse was racing, and I felt like I was about to burst out of my skin.
“Danica’s body. She’d been shot through the head.”
“Holy fuck,” I breathed out. King had kept that information close to his chest. We knew Danica was dead, and she had a lot to do with this, but shot through the head, which brought out a hell of a lot more questions. Like, who did it? Why and what did it have to do with the Devil’s Chaos? War told me all of this matter of factly. Seeing his mother’s dead body didn’t affect him enough to react.
“No questions about what happened to her. Why, is a different matter?” He voiced my thoughts.
“How could he be sure it came from the Kingsmen?” I asked.
“Because King got a separate text asking for a meeting in relation to the parcel.”
I frowned at that. King had not agreed to meet the Kingsmen. In fact, as far as I was aware, he’d made no contact with them at all. Just brought Waverley here and went on the offensive with the guys who hit Connor.
“They knew we kicked Danica out years ago, and it was unlikely King would react to what they sent, right?” So what else was there that had King so spooked?
War nodded, his face screwed up in a grimace.
“What were the other pictures, Warren?”
He turned to look at me. I didn’t use his full name often these days. I could see pain in his eyes and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, that scared the shit out of me. I held my breath as I waited for him to go on.
“Wave, outside her apartment in North Carolina,” he blew out a breath. He sounded like he was in pain when he went on. “With cross hairs drawn over her face.”
I don’t know how long I’d sat at the lake after War headed back to the compound. We hadn’t talked much, War reiterated why it was so important that Wave was here. They knew how to get to her, where she was, and just how to force King’s hand.
I didn’t get why King hadn’t contacted the Kingsmen to talk about what it meant. I appreciated what War said about him not bowing downto their threats, but surely he would want to speak to them and figure it out.
That was why I wasn’t an officer involved in the serious decision making for the club. War said he hadn’t wasted any time getting to Waverley and bringing her back here. What I hadn’t known was a chapter nearer to her had been keeping an eye on her until War and I arrived.
He hadn’t stopped to discuss what the pictures and documents meant with the other officers. All he cared about was getting her home safe. I also understood why he didn’t want to give Waverley all the details. He didn’t want to scare her. I didn’t doubt his reasoning behind it, but, I wondered if it was right keeping that from her.
Waverley had always been a willful pain in the ass, and I could already see she was getting anxious about being locked up here. Connor and Rosa were the only things keeping her from kicking up a massive stink about it. But it was only a matter of time before she defied King somehow and that could cause all kinds of problems. Especially with the Kingsmen lurking around, being brazen enough to throw a fucking bomb at the compound gates.
Sometimes, the best way to keep someone under control was to give them a bit of information, enough to scare them into compliance. I’d learned that from Ballistic, albeit for quite different reasons to this.
Case in point was his threatening that Kingsmen guy with his girlfriend and son. That knowledge had stopped him from doing something stupid, even if he knew he was going to die for it.
When I’d suggested telling Waverley, to my surprise, War shot me down. I wasn’t convinced he didn’t agree with the idea. King told him under no circumstances was Waverley to learn it was a death threat, a very real one, that had brought her back here.
I was so damn conflicted I didn’t know what the hell to think. The overall conclusion I came to was protecting Waverley at all costs. No matter what happened between us, seeing her dead wasn’t an option. I would rather die myself than allow her to be hurt.
I crouched at the water’s edge, leaning back on my heels as the sky got lighter, the black changing to a midnight blue as the orange of the rising sun hit the horizon. I was exhausted from the events of the evening and all the revelations, but I was lost in thought about the complicated relationship between Waverley and me.
Painful memories took over, and I dropped on to my ass as my mind went back to that night, the night when everything I thought I knew shattered into a million pieces.
Wave was upset I wasn’t going to senior prom with her. She’d had it all planned out. Despite not being much of a girly girl, it was something she had wanted us to do and had even chosen the tie she was damn near forcing me to wear to match her dress.
King pulled us aside before we were due to get ready, saying he needed us on a job. I’d protested once but got shut down. Part of me suspected King was testing Warren and me to see if we were loyal to the club. Over his own daughter.
He knew what he was asking of us. And as much as War and I both hated letting her down, we didn’t have a choice. War didn’t want to see her upset, but he wasn’t crying about the fact he was missing senior prom. He was putting on a show, taking one of the vapid blonde bitches from school. He hadn’t wanted to go with anyone, but he also couldn’t risk anyone asking questions about why he was going solo.
Telling her we weren’t going was hard. I hadn’t expected her to cry about it. Waverley wasn’t that kind of girl, and she hadn’t disappointed. She was pissed, that much was obvious, but she didn’t let it show, had even kissed me goodbye before she left.
I wasn’t being let off the hook. I’d understood Waverley would bide her time and get me back for it. I just hadn’t known how.
I felt fucking awful about it. Even though I hadn’t wanted to go to a stupid school dance, it meant a lot to her, and she meant a fuck of a lot to me. I wanted her to be happy. Yet, I’d watched her leave in that car with Joanna, her best friend back then and her boyfriend.
The job we were supposed to go on fell through. War wasn’t interested in coming along, said he would make it up to Waverley another way and headed to the party that was starting in the clubhouse.
