I suppress a flinch and shake my head, innocently.
“People are saying that’s who Mr. White was. Big wig politician who got hauled in with a trunk full of cash and blow and O.D.’s name on it.”
“Wow,” I say noncommittally, playing dumb.
“Yeah. Far as the boys are concerned, it’s all bullshit. Media hit job. Election year. Who knows?”
I wait for her to say more, but it doesn’t seem like she knows much about it.
“What happened at the clubhouse after?” I ask. “After…that night. What’s the vibe?”
“It’s weird, you know? Like a ghost town. Just a few of us living there, going through the motions, but everything’s changed. Then two days ago, bunch of guys in suits showed up. Two black SUVs, no badges.” She lifts her brows. “Not ATF. No logos, no sirens. These ones came quiet. Felt scarier.”
My skin prickles. “What did they do?”
“Fucking walked in like they owned the place. Holding guns, knew exactly where they were going. Went straight to Billy’s office and then they hit Silas’s nerd cave. One guy had this little black device he put on the fingerprint scanners and the doors just opened.”
She snaps her fingers.
“Brothers who were left didn’t like it,” Babydoll says. “Didn’t like strangers acting like they owned the place. But what were they gonna do? Get shot protesting? Billy’s gone. Silas is gone. Ryan’s fucking…gone.” She darts an uncertain glance at me, like she’s afraid she might offend me.
I nod—yes, he’s gone.
“Club’s a joke right now,” she continues. “The people who are there are scared, but they’re not stupid. They know the party’s over.”
“What did the suits do?” I press.
“They went into all the locked rooms,” she says. “Took anything that beeped. Computers, boxes from Silas’s room, whole bunch of papers, too. They kept asking us about mirrors.‘Is anything mirrored? Are there mirror systems? Any data stored off-site?’Like we were gonna fucking help them.”
“Silas did run a ton of surveillance,” I try. “Cameras and mics. Maybe it was about that stuff.”
“Yeah, he was always jerking off to his screens,” Babydoll says. “You couldn’t pick your nose without him seeing it.”
“So if the suits cleared out all his hardware…” I trail off. “What were they missing?”
“No idea,” she says. “I stay out of nerd shit. All I know is they hauled a fuck ton of stuff out of Silas’s cave.”
She hesitates, then adds, “Thing is, they never went out back. Not really. They did one lazy walk around the yard, but they didn’t step foot in those new bunkhouses.” She gives me a pointed look. “You know he spent a lot of time out there, right? Whatever he was doing, nobody said anything about it. We kept our mouths shut and hoped the suits would take their boxes and fuck off.”
She drains her glass and studies me for a beat.
“I’m glad you’re okay, kid,” she says, softly. “I never liked any of that stuff Billy did to you, the collar and everything. Thingswere getting real fucked up around then, you know? Like, with Danny and everything?”
Danny. I remember the way the news ripped through the clubhouse. Billy shot a prospect execution-style because he walked off his post.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Things were getting bad.”
“They were fucked,” she agrees. “Guys were scared to breathe wrong. Silas knew where everyone was every second. Billy started needing bigger and bigger shows of loyalty. And then you show up on a leash and it’s like…yeah. That tracks.”
Shame burns hot under my skin, even though none of it was my choice.
“Now you’re standing in front of me dressed like a college kid,” she says with a rough laugh, looking me over again. “No collar. No brothers in sight.”
Babydoll’s always called them that,brothers—old-school clubhouse language.
“Not sure I’d call any of them ‘brothers’ anymore,” I say.
“That’s the thing,” she says, leaning back. “The ones left at the clubhouse, they’re the ones who still believe that word means something. The originals, you know? The guys who were there when the O.D. was about rides and runs and maybe some light felonies. Not trafficking and politicians and whatever the fuck Billy turned it into.”
