“He did,” Parker replied calmly.
“What?” I snapped, turning to stare at him.
“He did tell someone.”
“Who? Who the fuck knows about this? Because any brother of mine who knows about it would have said something, and whoever rammed him off the road—the Razorbacks or whichever dumb fucker it was—they would be in the ground now.” I was raising my voice when I needed to be calm. I knew it but I couldn’t keep calm. I was angry and wanting to break something, but I was stuck inside that fucking cell with no way out.
“Keep your noise down! They don’t know I’m in here!” Parker hissed at me.
“Who gives a fuck?” I yelled. “This is club business. This is family business. And I want to know now so I can destroy everyone who had a hand in Butch’s death.”
The sound of footsteps coming closer had him backing up. “Keep your mouth shut,” he mumbled to me as another guard walked into the room.
“What’s going on, Parker?” the new guard said. Fat son of a bitch too—looked like he’d been greased up like a fat hog ready to be spit-roasted.
I glared in his direction, warning him away from me.
“Heard him shouting and thought I best come check it out,” Parker replied, completely blanking me like he hadn’t just told me news that would tear my world in half.
The other guard stepped forward, pulling out his baton, and I stepped toward him, gripping the bars. “The fuck you looking at?” I asked, my voice tinged with unhinged rage.
“Looks like he’ll live,” he replied with a sneer. “The man you almost beat to death. Good for you, too, or it would be a murder charge you’d be on. Though I think we should line men like you up and just shoot you down. That’ll teach you people who’s in charge.”
I laughed in his face and spat on the ground at his feet, not giving two fucks right then whether the man who had pushed my woman to the ground lived or died.
“You bikers, you’re all the same—none of you give a damn about the lives you ruin!” He shook his head and swung his baton at my hands clasping the bars and I let go quickly, the baton just barely missing my fingers. “I’ll be making sure he presses charges against you and you get sent down for it, don’t you worry.” He took a step back from me. “Come on, Parker. Let’s leave him to sweat alone in the dark.”
He turned and walked out of the room and Parker watched after him.
I stepped forward again. “Who did he tell?” I whispered angrily.
Parker looked back at me. “I don’t know. What I do know is that it was someone in your MC. And whoever it was, it was the wrong man, because less than three hours later your brother was dead.”
My body was humming with anger and restlessness, but with no outlet for it, all I could do was try and breathe through it. The possibility that Butch hadn’t died for something like drinking and riding, but because of club business, that somehow made me feel both better and worse.
“How do you know he told someone?” I asked. “Unless you were there, there’s no way for you to know that shit,” I said, the cogs turning as I tried to piece everything together.
“Because he told me,” Parker said almost bluntly. “He was at my house, and he said he needed to make a phone call—asked me to leave the room since we always promised to keep our work out of everything else.” He smiled. “Our jobs didn’t exactly make us compatible.”
“Why the fuck would he be with you—a cop, of all people? Now I know you’re bullshitting me, and I swear to God, Parker, I won’t always be in here so you better be fucking careful what you say next, because my brother ain’t a rat.”
“It’s not my place to tell you Butch’s secrets, but I promised him I’d watch his back, and when the time came I couldn’t, so now I’m passing my promise on to you.” Parker paused and I stared at him. “I have to tell you, because I need your help.”
“What the fuck are you going on about?” I snarled at him, wishing that there wasn’t bars between us because I was ready to destroy him for tearing my world apart. His words were going to rip my club in half, and my club was the only thing I had left. But he had to be telling me the truth, didn’t he? What reason would he have to make that shit up?
Parker took a deep breath and dragged a hand down his face. “Butch was a good man. After the day when I came to your house, we met up more and more and became friends.”
I laughed. “Butch wouldn’t be friends with some fuckin’ cop, asshole!”
“I wasn’t a cop then,” he bit out, his temper flaring to life.
“But you are now, fuckwad! He wouldn’t have put you out if you were on fire! Yet you expect me to believe that you and he were best buds? Get fuckin’ real.”
Parker glowered at me. “We were more than friends,” Parker said, and the words sank into the pit of my stomach as guilt washed over his features. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why? Because you’re a piece of shit liar?”
“No, because it wasn’t my secret to tell.” He took a deep breath and looked away from me. “I had no right to tell you that.”
