Page 44 of Bishop

I had to still my hands from lashing out at the beaten man. Though I wanted nothing more than to curb-stomp his face for saying that shit about my Brothers, I needed to listen to what he was saying. Though I might hate hearing it, we’d suspected for some time that there might be someone on the inside who was a traitor. The cop that had kidnapped my sister had said as much before Hawk had beaten him to death and scattered his remains in the desert. We’d also had a problem when Reaper’s woman was sold back to her piece of shit cult leader by someone who had inside information on where she would be. Denying it was pointless. Both of those deceptions had spelled corruption from within.

Prez looked at me hard before he turned back to Taz. “What else did Penn say?”

Taz shook his head. “Nothing. Just that there was a rat. That it was on the inside of your club. That he’d been there for a while and you couldn’t find him.”

Reaper considered his words before repeating, “That’s all?”

Frantically, Taz searched his crack-fried brain for more, knowing it was best to keep us talking so we couldn’t fill our time with other things. Like slitting his throat and burning his corpse. Both of which we planned to do once his intel had been exhausted.

“If you let me go, I can dig up dirt for you. It’s like you said, people tell me shit. I’m mostly invisible, man, but I have my uses. I can work for you. Be an asset and?—”

The sound of gurgling preceded his final word. Reaper had silenced him permanently with the knife he’d been toying with during the interrogation.

Taz’s eyes bugged out as he belatedly realized what had happened. His body jerked, his feet kicked, and he paled to the color of his shirt as he bled out onto the tarp-covered floor.

We watched him until the last sign of twitching, and then Reaper looked at me. “What do you think?”

“I think we can’t deny it any longer. We’ve got a rat in the Club. And, if we don’t figure out who it is soon, they’re going to bring the whole damn MC to its knees.”

After the prison time I’d done, I wasn’t interested in going back. I was motivated as hell to figure out who the scumbag traitor was.

Reaper scrubbed an enormous hand along his bearded face. “Yup. It’s a real fucking problem.”

The stink of Taz’s corpse drew my attention. When Reaper had cut his throat, the man had shit himself. He’d already pissed himself earlier, so now the funk was really getting interesting.

Something popped into my head then. “You heard what Taz said,” I began, thinking it through as I started to work at the knot that tethered the dead man to the post.

Reaper handed me his knife so the process could go faster. “What part?”

“The part about gathering intel from unlikely sources. Hell, the bastard just might be onto something.”

Reaper’s gaze sharpened. “How so?”

“I think we need someone like Taz who's accepted into the darkest circles but isn’t really seen when traveling through them. Someone who people talk around, but largely goes unnoticed.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Reaper agreed. “Got anyone in mind?”

Freeing Taz’s limp body, I watched it crumple to the floor onto the plastic sheeting we’d laid out beneath him. “Nope. You?”

“Maybe. But I’ll float it by Hawk and German. See what they think.” He smiled brightly. “You sure are smart for someone so pretty.”

I flipped him off before cigar-rolling Taz into the tarp. “With all due respect, Prez, go fuck yourself.”

“I’ll get right on that, dick face,” he shot back, before changing topics. “By the way, where’d you go last night?” he asked, as he walked over to help me with the disposal process. “Your sister was pissed when she couldn’t find you. She got Angel all worked up as they searched for you around the Clubhouse. Since you got back from Cantiville, Amelia gets nervous as shit whenever you disappear.”

I’d noticed. But, hell, I couldn’t be mad at her. She cared. And there were worse fates for a man than that.

“She’ll settle down after I’m home for a bit,” I said dismissively.

“Not likely,” Reaper returned. “You of all people know women don’t work that way. And don’t think I didn’t notice you ignored my question, asshole.”

Nothing got by Prez. He was as smart as he was ruthless. “I left to hang out with someone.”

Reaper studied me as I bound up the plastic on my end so Taz didn’t accidentally slide out. The last thing we needed was for his blood, piss, and shit-covered body to leak all over us during the disposal process.

“Is that someone the hot chick who cooks for us at parties?” he asked observantly.

I shrugged noncommittally. I was keeping my mouth shut until I could lock that shit down and make her my Old Lady.

---