“Because they had put “Revenants” in their contacts, literally.”
His brows rise. “That’s fucking stupid.”
“They are fucking stupid. Now, can we move this on?”
“I assure you, Jack, we would never do such a thing. No matter what you believe, my MC wasn’t involved in snatching a girl.”
He’s got old school manners, but I know it’s all asmoke screen. This man would gut another man with a spoon if he needed to.
“Well, you already took our shipments, unprovoked,” I point out. “There was no need for that. There hadn’t been any trouble between any of us before you guys did it, so what are we supposed to think?”
Beau makes a low rumbling growl in his chest and narrows whiskey-colored eyes at me. “We did the shipment raid as a warning because we’d been given information by some of our men that you guys were going to hit us. We didn’t want that to happen, so we took some of your weapons. Call it a pre-emptive strike.”
I grit my teeth. “You didn’t think to pick up the phone first and ask me if this information could have been correct?”
“Oh, come on.” A hint of a smile plays at his mouth, but it never quite reaches his eyes. “You know the kind of world we live in. That’s not how it works. If you had been planning something, there’s no way you would have admitted to it. But you’ve got some guys in your outfit who talk too much, and they talked to my men, who then came to me. It’s one thing for us to take some weapons because you were going to fuck with us, and quite another for us to take a girl. I wouldn’t fucking do that, Jack.”
There’s real sincerity in his voice. I can see Ace processing, and I bet he’s having the exact same thoughts I’m having. Somebody from the Revenants told Beau that we were going to attack. They said they got this information from our members. They then attacked our shipment with information that, presumably, they genuinelydidget from us. And they also took Camile with informationthat they got from our group. But the initial information was a lie.
I sigh and look at Beau. “I think you’ve got some men in your club lying to you,” I say. “The same way we do.”
He taps two fingers against his lips. “You think there’s a small group working together to bring both our clubs trouble?”
“Sure looks that way. Just out of interest… the men who gave you the information indicating that we were going to attack you, where are they right now?”
Beau glances back at the trucks and gestures with two fingers for someone to come and join him. An exceptionally tall man steps down off the truck and walks toward us. He’s as skinny as he is tall, and he almost looks like an alien in the light beam from the trucks.
“This is Fitz. He’s friendly with the two who reported that you were planning to hit us.” Beau looks to Fitz. “When was the last time you saw Garth and Sutton?”
The one called Fitz shrugs. “Not sure. Got to be at least twenty-four hours, though. They looked like they were headed out.”
“Did they say where they were going?” Beau asks.
“Nah, sorry, Prez. I didn’t think to ask them.”
Beau looks back to me. “When was the girl taken?”
“During the night, last night. We know at least two men came onto our compound. We think it was the three of ours who let them in, cut a hole in our fencing and disabled our security cameras. Luckily, we had additional cameras that weren’t on our mains.” I shoot a look to Ghost, who has zero reaction at my mentioning the cameras. I’m sure he’s telling himself he did the right thing by not disabling them the moment Camile went into the house, considering what’s happened.
I go to take my cell back out of my pocket to show Beau the footage, but the moment my hand moves, a dozen weapons are aimed in my face.
“I’m just going for my cell phone, fellas,” I tell them. “You can chill.”
Their own Prez jerks his chin to tell them it’s all right, and they lower the weapons again.
After Camile had been taken, I’d gotten Ghost to send me screenshots of the footage of the men grabbing her. I pull up those images now and show them to Beau and Fitz.
“Does this look like your guys?”
Fitz sucks air in over his teeth. “Kinda hard to tell when they’ve got their faces covered, but yeah, that could be them.”
Beau lifts both hands. “First of all, just let me say that we had nothing to do with this. Yeah, those could be two of our guys, but I swear they never came to me with any kind of plan. I’d have quashed it instantly. Stealing guns is one thing, but taking a young girl…? Nah, that’s not what we’re into.”
“Someone is,” I point out, “and if I don’t find her soon, I’ll hold everyone who has ever had any connection to the assholes who came onto our compound and took her to account.”
“I hear you.” Beau turns back to his guy, Fitz. “You’ve got a contact in the local sheriff’s office, right? Think they might be able to run a license plate check on Garth’s and Sutton’s vehicles over the past twenty-four hours?”
“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll do that.”
