Slater nodded once and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the surface of the table between us.
“You two were getting Owen in the truck when Eric pulled me aside. One minute you were there, and the next you were riding out, and Eric turned to me and asked me to torch the training room.”
“Why?”
“He wanted rid of all the evidence of what we’d just done to Sinclair, but more than that, I think he wanted it to look like Owen had turned against the club, and he’d set fire to it to hurt us, and then he’d run. He was covering his bases. Our bases. I don’t know.”
“And after that?” I asked, fisting my hands together in front of me. “Once you’d agreed to it?”
Slater shrugged. “I got to work.”
“And what did Eric do?”
“He…” Slater stopped and frowned, taking a moment to think. Deeks, too, looked lost in concentration, his eyes searching the surface of the table.
“Last I saw of him, he was talking to Jedd and the kid,” Deeks answered.
“The kid?” I sat forward, my heart rate picking up speed. “Rubin?”
Deeks lifted his eyes from the table to me, offering a small, understanding nod for my obvious concern. “Yeah. Rubin.”
“Fuck,” Slater whispered.
“Did Eric take Rubin anywhere when he left the yard?”
“No,” Deeks answered with absolute certainty. “No, Eric left not long after you. He was with Slater before he moved to Jedd and Rubin, and then he threw himself on your bike like it was a Playboy pussy, and he rode the hell out of there.”
“Was Rubin around when you set fire to the training room, Slate?”
He reached up to scratch his beard, blowing out a long, tired breath. “Not a clue, Drew. I was lost in wondering how the fuck I was going to do what I had to do without fucking it up. I ran to Deeks to tell him what Eric had asked of me, and the next thing I know, the yard is half empty, everyone’s running into The Hut, and Moose, Kenny, and Deeks are heading my way to help me. I think Deeks went into the pawnshop to get some of the documents out of there in case it spread farther than we wanted it to.”
“That’s right.” Deeks nodded slowly.
“And no one saw where Rubin went?”
“I did,” Moose called out from behind us. I raised my head to look at him, trying to recollect how many times I’d actually heard him speak before.
“Where did he go, Moose?”
“I don’t know, but he had his pushbike with him, and it wasn’t long after Jedd went back inside The Hut to grab something that Rubin was pedaling out of the yard as though he was trying to win some kind of race.”
I leaned back in my booth, throwing an arm over the back of it and glancing Ayda’s way. There wasn’t anything I could say to her or ask her, so I simply stared into the beautiful blues that sat hidden behind her marred and swollen skin, still needing that connection, despite seeing her wounds.
“What the fuck is going on, darlin’?” I asked her softly.
Ayda took her time before answering, her glance bouncing around the faces that surrounded us in the booth. The men she’d come to love as her family were mostly all here, but her confusion was still obvious. It looked like she was trying to put two and four together and coming up with one.
“I wish I knew,” she finally answered. “Rubin would do anything for any of you, so I know anything Eric asked of himhe’d do without hesitation, but that’s all I’ve got.”
I turned back to Slater and Deeks. “Did they give you any idea how long they planned on holding Jedd?”
“None.” Slater shook his head, but I saw something on his face: a twitch of his nose, a subtle shift in his gaze as he tried to side-eye Deeks before looking back up at me.
“What was that?”
“What?”
I slammed a hand down on the table, making Ayda and the men around me jump before I leaned forward and ground my teeth together. “Slater Portman, don’t lie to me.”
