Page 18 of Grave Games

Again Tyr nodded and looked to me. “You?”

“He talked.” For me, that was the bottom line. “That wagging tongue put all our lives on the line. Because he couldn’t keep his fucking tongue still, he needs to lose it.” Then I glanced around the table at my brothers, chilled and furious that one of them wasn’t what he seemed. “I’m fine with that.”

“So there you go,” Tyr said almost jovially, while everyone sat as if they’d become frozen in place. “Skinning. Burning. Losing your goddamn traitorous tongue. And that’s just the beginning, traitor. You think about that while you sit here, surrounded by your enemies. Now, let’s get on to other business. Yesterday—”

“Wait, what the hell.” Tomahawk put up his hand. “We’re just going to move on from that? Like… shit, I don’t know. Like nothing’s changed?”

Tyr gave him a hard stare and let the silence spin out until Tomahawk dropped his hand and seemed to shrink in his seat. “Interrupt me again, any one of you, and we’re going to have a real problem. Now, to answer the question, Tom, yeah.Moving onis exactly what I’m going to do. From my perspective, nothing has changed. I’ve known for weeks that there’s a spy in our house. The only thing that’s different is now you know it too, and so do they. That fucks them up in a big way.”

Tomahawk’s face couldn’t have been blanker if he’d been a robot whose circuits had blown. “What do you mean?”

Tyr’s smile was like looking into the face of Death. “Do you really have to ask?”

“Think what they must be going through, listening to Tyr,” I said, locking my eyes on Tomahawk while clocking each movement of the men around me. “As of now, they don’t know if any information Tyr gives out is something they can reliably pass on to their master, or if it’s a false flag.”

“It could be something I fed them in order to reveal them,” Tyr expanded when the other man continued to stare. “For instance, some of our guys might be taking a specific route on a long haul to the border. Is it legit, or did I just set up an ambush, knowing that particular long haul is going to be hijacked?”

“Jesus,” Zee muttered, looking grim. “Fucking 3D chess.”

“Then again, it could be legit shit that they don’t know they can trust, so they don’t follow through on my orders, or they act in a weird way,” Tyr went on, ignoring him. “That’ll make him look just as guilty.”

“Damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” Slash said, smiling gleefully. “Fuckingawesome. I’m gonna read up on skinning.”

“And if they’re really smart,” Tyr went on, “they’re sitting here wondering if I’ve already fed them false intel that’s put them in my crosshairs, and now I’m just fucking with them. They’re sweating now, wondering if I already know who they are, because all those false flags I’ve fed them has made them stick out like a virgin in a whorehouse. Maybe now they’re thinking I’m just waiting for them to fuck up one last time so that my suspicions about them are confirmed, and that’s the real motivation behind me telling you all this now. Iwantthem to fuck up. So yeah. It’s time now for me to move on to other business. Gravedigger business that puts roofs over the heads of your families, food on the table so your babies don’t starve, and quite possibly, puts a final nail in the traitor’s coffin. Show of hands of anyone who has a problem with that.”

Again every man went statue-still, and I couldn’t help but give the point to Tyr. This was some high-level psychological warfare. In that moment I had no doubt that the traitor in our midst would have to change their damn shorts once this meeting was over.

“As I was saying, yesterday Romeo was approached by one of our former brothers from Chicago Gravediggers MC, a guy we all know and love. Radar.”

“That asshole,” Ajax muttered while Zee made a sound of disgust from his end of the table.

Tyr waited until the worst of the grumbling died down. “Now, since it was at the Harley-Davidson store, this surprise meet-up could’ve been just a coincidence. Thing is, Romeo’s been on special assignment for me, working on a project for the past month. No specifics, since we now know Hades has eyes and ears in the club, but Radar happened upon our brother Romeo while he was on the clock.”

“Really?” Ajax looked to me, frowning from behind his sunglasses. “Did it feel like Radar was targeting you?”

“It felt like he was an enemy that got too damn close, too damn fast.” And I was still furious with myself for not clocking him before he rolled up on Shiloh and me. If he’d had any intention of hurting her, I wouldn’t have been able to stop it. That was unacceptable. “Whatever his target was, if any, you can bet that after all was said and done, Radar did what he’s known for—he went straight to Hades and reported everything he both heard and saw, which hopefully wasn’t much.” I’d slammed Shiloh into a dressing room as fast as I could, something I was sure I would have to answer for later. But, better to have my Shy girl pissed off at me rather than spotted by an enemy.

“I don’t know,” Zee said, also frowning. “If he’d been given a mission to follow you, I doubt he’d suddenly roll up on you as noisy and obvious as a brass band and make himself known. Not even Radar is that dumb.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Slash said with a high-pitched laugh. “Question is, what did he see? Were you with anyone, Romeo?”

“That isnotthe fucking question,” Tyr muttered, shooting a quelling glare at Slash. “Iknow what Romeo was doing, andRomeoknows what he was doing. The real question is whether or not anyone else here wants to take their eye off the damn ball—which is Radar and why he was there—to gossip about club members’ movements. Don’t ask questions about a brother’s club business again, Slash.”

“In case you’re not getting it,” I said when the silence became explosive, “things have changed here for us. We need to be smart, we need to lock our shit down, and most importantly we need to understand that we’re neck deep in a cold war that could go nuclear-hot in an instant. Radar crossing my path is a shot across the bow, as far as I’m concerned. So as of now, my eyes are wide open looking for any sign of danger, and the only thing that matters to me is making sure that the things I care about most in this world are protected.” That included Shiloh, whether she liked it or not.

And I was sure she wasn’t going to like it.

“We have to assume we’ve got eyes on us everywhere we go,” Tyr said, looking like he was one stupid question away from tearing someone’s head off. “I want each and every one of you and the crews you run to be ready for anything. Also, no one does anything alone, understand? Unless you’re carrying out specific orders from me, I want everyone moving around the city in pairs. Lock down your homes and places of business and put everyone in your personal circle on alert. If someone tries going off on their own, I want to know about it. When you’re out in the world, keep your eyes open and your mouths shut. And when you’re here… same goes. If someone questions you about what you’re doing for the club and why you’re doing it, tell me about it immediately. Questions?”

“Shit,” Tomahawk muttered, looking down at the table.

“That’s not a question, Tomahawk.” Ajax, like everyone else, now sat ramrod straight in his chair. “You got something to say?”

Tomahawk looked around the table, his expression torn between fear and what looked like an oncoming tantrum. “This is like, Gestapo tactics, man. Looking over our shoulder. Having us look over everyone else’s shoulder. Snitching on each other. That’s not what the brotherhood is supposed to be. That’s not whowe’resupposed to be. You all are my brothers, goddamn it. Mybrothers. How the hell am I supposed to snitch on any of you?”

“Aww, look, Tommy loves us,” Slash cooed, earning himself a one-fingered salute from Tomahawk.

“If a brother is responsible for putting a shiv in your back, is your loyalty to him going to keep you from bleeding out?” I wanted to know. “Because that’s what the traitor’s doing to each and every one of us—shivving us right in the back like the spineless bitch he is.”

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