Page 163 of Golden Atonement

“Yeah, boss,” Massacre piped up. “Asshole ain’t even part of the table. We owe that suit nothing.”

“You want to prevent beef with Sinclair, then we need to find Thena,” Bullseye whispered.

Looking at my brother, I shook my head. “I can’t do that, and you know it. I promised Remi I would leave the woman in peace.”

“This is bigger than a fucking promise to your wife, Reaper. We can’t have some asshole causing problems if shit goes south with the Soulless Sinners. You know it and so does everyone else.”

Bullseye was right.

Crispin Sinclair had resources I couldn’t even begin to imagine. From what I’d learned so far about him, the man wasn’t one to fuck around with. Hell, if the rumors were true, he had already gone toe to toe with Montana and was still fucking standing. Add in the fact that Malice was once part of Sinclair’s little group as well as Pippen being the brother of a man working for Sinclair.

“Seems to me shit has already gone south,” Hangman spoke up, capturing everyone’s attention. The man still spent most of his days drunk in his room, still grieving the loss of his sons, so to hear him give his two cents was shocking. “I’ve spent a good portion of my life watching the powers that be fuck up everything good in this world. I will not sit around and watch it continue. I know I’m not an officer, but from my standpoint, you only have one course of action, Reaper. You want to keep your promise to your wife and this club, then you already know what you have to do. Stop being a pussy about it and just fucking do it.”

“Hangman’s right, boss,” Ravage added, staring me down. “You know my truth. While I won’t speak for anyone else, I will tell you that if you want to keep the past from repeating itself, then you have to cut the head off the snake. To do that, you need to find Thena before anyone else does. You can keep your promise to Remi and still give Thena the peace she needs. You already know everything going on stems from the Trick Pony. Like theSociety, secrets are stumbling out of that place faster than anyone can contain them. You do nothing and war will most definitely ensue and, brother, this is a war no one will win.”

“I agree.” Player nodded. “The war with theSocietywas about us, this club, but this shit with the Trick Pony doesn’t involve us. But like most things in the underworld, we will soon find ourselves having to make a decision, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I fucking refuse to lose any more brothersbecause of some fucking family rift, and that’s exactly what this shit is. A fucking family feud.”

Matrix sighed, shaking his head. “My brother Jonathan is out there right now in hiding because of what Ace and the rest of his team found at the Trick Pony. I know my brother. He plays it straight. Jon will follow orders to the letter, but if it compromises his team or family, then all bets are off. I can only assume that Ace felt the same, considering what he’s done. So that begs the question. What exactly did Ace find? Because I’m telling you straight, boss, I’d bet everything that Ace found concerns either this club or someone in this club.”

I said absolutely nothing as my eyes locked on Ravage. My brother didn’t even fucking flinch. Not that I thought he would. There was a lot about Jackson Williams that no one knew about. Shit that this club, and more specifically Pops and Moonshine, kept hidden from everyone. I would continue to do the same until Ravage was ready to tell his story. But in the meantime, my brothers were right. There was only one way forward in the coming war, and to ensure that my brothers survived it, I was going to have to step into the political arena, so to speak. While I never had any aspirations of doing so, it was clearly the only thing to do. Everyone involved was doing their part. Now it was time for me to do mine.

Leaning forward in my chair, I said, “This is what we’re going to do.”

With my brothers all on the same page, the only thing left to do was talk to Remi. While I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of going back on my promise to her, I really didn’t have any other choice. The only way to ensure Thena’s safety and Remi’s peaceof mind was to locate the woman and move her to a place where no one would ever find her. And to do that, I needed Remi to tell me everything she knew about the woman.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Max. I only knew Thena for a few brief weeks before she helped me and another girl escape. She could have escaped too, but she stayed behind to give us the time we needed to run. It’s not like we exchanged life stories or phone numbers.”

“Baby, anything you tell me will help. Right now, we know absolutely nothing about this woman other than Crispin Sinclair is looking for her and she hails from the Trick Pony,” I said as I watched my woman look down at her hands before turning away from me, bracing herself on the kitchen sink.

Cautiously, I stood, walking over to the love of my life. Standing right behind her, I whispered, “Baby, you were there too, weren’t you?”

When she hung her head, I knew the answer.

Wrapping my arms around her, I held her close, and she leaned her head back against my chest, breathing heavily as she closed her eyes.

“Does Vladmir know?”

“No. I never told anyone. It’s something I’ve tried extremely hard to forget about, and I wish you would too. That place is evil, Max. I mean really evil. The things that go on there, the stuff I’ve seen, only the very sick and depraved venture into that hell. You know, when I learned Ivy was raised there and that her father was Devlin Scott, I actually sighed in relief.”

“Why?”

Turning in my arms, my wife looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Because Devlin Scott was not the monster that lurked in the darkness. He was just the warden.”

“What does that mean, Remi?”

“It means now that the warden is dead, the monster is running free,” she said ominously, before adding, “I’m tired. I’m going to go lay down.”

“Okay, baby,” I muttered as she walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs. The second I heard our bedroom door close, I walked out onto the back deck and sat on the steps, looking up at the stars while my mind whirled with what she just said.

I knew my time in the cage was nothing compared to what Remi endured. What bothered me was how all this shit was still affecting her. From the moment she came back to me, it was like she knowingly stepped back into the hell she escaped and this time I wasn’t sure how it was all going to end.

Reaching for my phone, I dialed the only number I knew that could possibly give me the answers I needed. I couldn’t fight what I didn’t know, and if I was going to protect my wife, I needed answers, because I was not above burning down the whole fucking world to protect her.

“What the hell do you want?”

“Answers.”

“Get in fucking line.”

---