Page 89 of Tempting Fate

So little time.

Countless ways Lily can get hurt while I unravel everything.

“What if?” Senses prickling, I pause to look around to see if anyone is standing close enough to overhear me. Happy that we’re out of earshot, I ask, “What if the Shamrocks had a rat, and they were workin’ with the Bishops, who we know are workin’ with Joseph Kingsley?”

“No—”

I hold up a hand to halt Angelis’ objection.

“Hear me out… it could’ve been a coincidence that church was changed from Mondays to the exact Thursday afternoon Lily was kidnapped, but it becomes too farfetched to write off as happenstance when that decision is stacked with the bomb threat and the raid led by Joseph as well as the deliberate hindering of Cub while he was searchin’ for ways to track Lily.”

Gabriel hisses. “How was Cub able to track her?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute.”

“You sure fuckin’ will... if you have the tech to track Cherub, then it needs to be spread club-wide, so we don’t end up in another Fret situation.”

“We were slowly rollin’ it out, but we had to stop ’cause we noticed some strange shit a few months ago?—”

Angelis jabs me in the left pec with his pointer finger. “Around the time you were nommed for your VP patch?”

“Around then, yeah.”

“Is Hades still at Cass’ house?” he asks. I cock my head to the side, curious as to his query about the location of my father and Brutus’ twin brother. It’s an odd question in the context of our discussion. Angelis sees my perusal and adds. “Some old fuckery we thought was long forgotten could be about to rear its head. I’ll get Duke to meet us at Cass’... us second-generation patches might needa put our heads together for a bit to work out exactly what’s goin’ on.”

“With the club?”

“No.” Angelis elaborates after receiving a loaded scowl from Gabriel. “It’s mainly family stuff. Woman stuff. Stuff I thought was laid to rest thirty-odd years ago, but it could blow back on the club if it gets out.”

This time I’m the one giving meaningful looks.

To Slash.

My best friend is as confused as I am.

Thirty-odd years ago would mean this “old fuckery” could be about us.

We’re the third generation.

We began popping out just over thirty-two years ago.

Slash’s deceased brother is the oldest of us. He was eight when he died but would otherwise have been closing in on thirty-two now. Toker is next in age at thirty-one. Slash and I have just turned thirty. Gabriel’s sons, Apollo and Isaiah, are twenty-six and twenty-four respectively. Then there’s an eighteen-month gap to Sander and Lily, with Fret as their Irish twin since he was born in the same calendar year as them. After their births, there’s a two-and-a-half-year break until Hunter came along, followed by Wyatt and Nate, who were born in quick succession over the next fourteen months.

Now, from the stories we were fed as kids, our parents have always been the same close-knit bunch we grew up idolising. They had a friendship we were driven to emulate. Because, to hear them tell it, they practically lived in each other’s pockets, before and after settling down to raise their children, a cohesive unit that looked out for each other. Angelis’ comment about “family stuff; woman stuff” doesn’t make sense unless they’ve been lying to us since we were born.

My gut drops at the thought.

I’m ninety-nine percent sure that we’ve been fed shit our entire lives.

Are Brutus’ antics the result of some ridiculous grudge?

It seems far-fetched, but it would explain his growing animosity toward me and Slash.

Gabriel rips me out of my reverie with a typical lawyer inquiry. “I’m sure you have more than a couple of coincidences leading you to feel like Brutus is a rat?”

“I didn’t say it was Brutus.”

He waves away my protest with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “Who else could it be? Rescheduling church and ordering Cub about—only the president can do that.”

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