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Chapter One

Wyatt

My eyes burn as I scan over the file in front of me again. It doesn’t matter that I have read this same information a hundred times in the past week, I still search for more. There has to be more, something I missed along the way that will finally make all of this make sense. Sighing, I run a calloused hand over my face and grab my beer off the table as I lean back in my seat and take a sip. It’s warm now but I don’t give a shit. To be honest, I can’t even taste it because I’m consumed with these cases. When I wake up in the morning, I look over the files. Before I go to bed at night, I look over the files and anytime I find a spare moment in my day, I look over these goddamn files. It’s become my obsession and I know there is something here. I just need to see it. The rest of the Bayou Devils MC might like to believe that this is all just bad luck but I refuse. Three girls are dead, girls that we helped, girls that we were responsible for and there is no way in hell their deaths are simply a coincidence. No matter what my brothers think.

Leaning forward, I slam the bottle of beer back onto the table with too much force before scooping up the top file and scanning it again. Girl number one was Dina. She came to us for help to escape her piece of shit husband who liked to talk with his fists instead of his words. When she ended up in the hospital with bruises all over her body, a nurse slipped her our card and she gave us a call. We couldn’t let her go back home to him so the nurse agreed to shelter her until we could get her to safety. Chance and Storm were on that run and shit went bad when her husband, Mitch, showed up at the nurse’s house and tried to take her back by force. In the end, it all worked out and we took her to a hotel to keep her safe but almost two weeks later, we got the news that she was dead. At the time, we all assumed it was her husband but now… I just don’t know.

Flipping the page, I read over the crime scene report Detective Rodriguez was able to give me and blow out a breath. A maid at the hotel where she was staying found her when she came to clean the room and called an ambulance. When paramedics arrived, she was barely breathing and they rushed her to the hospital. The doctors ran numerous tests before it was determined that there was no brain activity and her mother decided to turn off life support. She slipped away a few hours later. We were all hit hard by her death but we understood that it was a part of what we did, a sad reality of helping women and children in these volatile situations.

The Bayou Devils MC used to be a real outlaw club, running guns and drugs, just out to make a quick buck but after one of our members, Henn, was sent to jail and our President, Blaze, was shot, things started to change and when a frantic woman crashed into Blaze at a gas station, everything changed. We started helping people and we opened up a legitimate business. This is all secondhand information, of course, since I didn’t join until after the club started down the straight and narrow but I have heard enough stories from the guys who have been around longer than I have to know how chaotic things used to be. For me, joining the club after years of aimless wandering was like finally finding the place where I belonged and I loved being able to use my skills to help people without the restrictions that held me back in the past. Although, I can’t help but feel like I am failing them now.

Barely holding back a growl, I toss the file down on the table and grab the next one before flipping it open. The second girl was Detective Rodriguez’s girlfriend, Laney. We first met Diego Rodriguez a few years back when Blaze’s son, Nix, and his girlfriend, Emma, needed our help and ever since then, he has helped us out on cases when he could and we return the favor. When he called us in to help on Laney’s case, he had just started digging into it and all we knew was that she had been getting weird phone calls from a man. At first, all he did was breathe on the other end of the line to scare her and when that wasn’t enough anymore, he escalated to commenting on her outfit that day or the errands she had run - anything to let her know that he was watching her. Just before we were called in to help watch over her, he told her it would be such a shame when he had to kill her. While Rodriguez dug into the case, we kept an eye on her and made sure she was safe until he tracked down Owen, the man responsible for harassing her. But just a couple of weeks after he was locked up, Rodriguez came home and found Laney in a pool of blood. After that, he kind of lost it and our main focus was to keep him from spiraling out of control.

As I scan through the facts of the case, I notice a note scribbled at the top of the page about a man that Smith saw at Laney’s funeral and scowl. It would be incredibly moronic for the killer to show up there but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. Then again, it could have just been someone visiting a dead relative. I read over the note again and me knee bounces underneath the table as I sigh.

Average white guy, kind of tall, brown hair, slim.

Shaking my head, I flip through the file and pull out the dark, grainy photo Rodriguez got off of a surveillance camera near the pay phone this guy used to call Laney when he was stalking her. You can’t see his face, but he matches Smith’s description from the funeral to a T which is the biggest problem. He’s perfectly average, the kind of guy you don’t even notice, the one who can slip through a crowd without a single person remembering the features of his face. The kind of guy that can get away with murder. Shaking my head, I toss the file down on the table and grab my beer before finishing it off.

“You need another one, Fuzz?” Cleo, our bartender, asks and I nod. She flashes me a coy smile as she fishes another bottle of beer out of the fridge and opens it. Her hips sway back and forth as she walks over to me and normally, I might be interested in what she’s offering up tonight but with the cases on my mind, there is no way in hell I can focus on anything else. She sets the beer down in front of me and I nod as I scoop the third file off of the table.

“Thanks, Cleo.”

She winks. “Anytime, babe.”

I watch her as she sashays back behind the bar before taking a sip of my beer and flipping the third file open. Girl number three, Sammy, was just killed a little over a month ago and her death was the catalyst for my newfound obsession. In the first case, it was safe to assume that Dina’s husband came back to finish the job and for Laney, I suppose we were all too busy looking out for Rodriguez to put the pieces together but with Sammy… it was different.

The club first got into contact with Sammy through her sister, who asked us to help her break Sammy away from her insane boyfriend. We later realized that her boyfriend was Biche, the guy who was responsible for Henn going to jail, but before we could do anything, we lost contact with her. She resurfaced a couple of years later, called us and we swooped in to get her away from him. The plan went off without a hitch and Sammy was starting a new life on her own when we got the call that she had been killed. Normally, we would assume that Biche got to her again but with him not in the picture anymore, it’s just not possible. Which left me wondering if there was more going on here than any of us realized and started my trip down this demented rabbit hole.

“Church!” Blaze calls from the door to the war room and I release a breath as I close the file and toss it on the table. Grabbing my beer, I run my hand over my face and stand up, taking a sip before I follow the rest of the guys into the room. We all file around the table to our regular seat before Blaze grabs the gavel and bangs it on the table, nodding to Streak. Streak stands up and passes a sheet of paper to each of us.

“First up this week, we have Marina who hired us to investigate the man her father went into business with. Her father has run a very successful Italian restaurant for many years and took on a partner last year to lighten his workload but Marina is concerned that Mr. Girouard is taking advantage of her father. Fuzz and Smith, this case is yours.”

I glance over at Smith and nod.

“Second up is a security detail for Mikayla Silva. She’s a witness to a murder and Rodriguez has requested our assistance in keeping her safe through the trial.”

“Storm, Chance, Kodiak, and Henn, y’all will rotate shifts round the clock to keep her safe,” Blaze says and they all nod in agreement. “Anything else we need to go over?”

Nodding, I sit forward and meet Blaze’s eyes. “We need to talk about the cases I’ve been looking into.”

Kodiak sighs from his spot two seats down and I flick an annoyed glance in his direction before focusing back on Blaze. From the very beginning, Kodiak has been adamant that there is nothing going on and I’m afraid that other people are starting to believe him but I know there is something here. Call it experience or intuition but either way, I’m convinced that the death of these three girls aren’t just coincidence.

“What about them?” Blaze asks, his brows furrowed. “Have you found anymore evidence?”

I drop my gaze to the table and shake my head. “No.”

“That’s because there’s nothing to find,” Kodiak snaps, slamming his hand on the table and my head jerks up.

“Look, if you want to bury your head in the damn sand like a coward, that’s your business but if we ignore this and I’m right, the next one to die could be someone important to all of us. Y’all have wives and families now that you have to think about and you can’t afford to dismiss this.”

Kodiak growls. “Leave Tate out of this.”

“Or what?” I snarl as I square my shoulders and meet his gaze. He stands, his hands balled into fists but before I can jump out of my chair, Blaze slams the gavel down on the table, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“Enough.” The roar of his voice echoes through the room as his gaze flicks between the two of us, anger lighting up his eyes. “It will be a cold day in hell before I let you all turn on each other. That’s not the way this club works.”

I deflate as I nod my head and Kodiak murmurs his agreement as Blaze turns to me.