Page 8 of What Lies Within

“Talk.”

“Fuck’s sake.” Connor manages to lift a knee between their bodies, pushing against Tyke’s leg to get him to relent. “This what won you over, Rae? Fuckin’ assholes forcin’ themselves on you?”

“Not like it would’ve been anything new, right?” she seethes.

I grind my molars tight.

“Fuck.” Connor brushes his shirt off now that my brother stands at a respectable distance for conversation. “To be honest, it fucking surprises me that you’re all here, demanding names as though you seriously can’t figure it out for yourself.”

“You think we’d suffer through your snivelin’ shit,” I say, “if we didn’t have to?”

“You really don’t know.” The fucker manages to hold back a laugh.

“Your old man got her?” Tyke clips, patience wearing thin.

“No.” Connor snorts the reply. “He’s arrogant, but he’s not suicidal.” He sighs, the slight turn of his head telling me he surveys how we crowd him in. One word leaves his lips. One word that has my blood lava before the final consonant sounds. “Fox. Fox has her.”

Tyke rears back as though slapped with the words. "How do you know this?"

“Remember how I told you it was a Reaper who told us about Tom?” he addresses Rae.

She nods. “Yeah.”

“That’s who it was.”

“He ain’t a Reaper anymore,” Tyke growls as Connor continues.

“My old man has dealt with his traitorous ass since before he left Red River,” Connor drops as though it’s the name of some fucking recipe we just asked for. “Your brother,” he says, flicking his lighter again, “seems to think walking away from your little after-school club put his life in danger. He wanted assurances.Insurances.”

"And your fuckin' father couldn't help himself," Tyke says with a sigh.

“The man offered my father insider information on a fucking silver platter, and all for a few hundred bucks a week spent on muscle to follow your jilted sibling around.” He shrugs. “Menhave paid more to get whores in the bed of their enemy. It was a bargain.”

I should have shot the asshole when I had the chance.

Tyke paces to the cabin and slams a firm hand against the siding, the timber creaking and rattling under the force. “He wearin’ a patch when he meet with your old man?”

“What does that matter?”

“It fucking matters!” Tyke spins with such ferocity that, to my surprise, Rae steps between the two men.

Can’t guarantee he wasn’t about to throttle the kid, either.

I scan our surroundings again, catalog the shadows, the shapes of the trees, and the lay of the land. For all I know, the stop-start, erratic flicker of Connor's lighter is morse code.

“He wore it a few times, yeah.” Connor shrugs. “I wasn’t there for all of them.”

Stripped of words, Tyke spins and walks away with a stunted sigh. His boots eat up the overgrown grass, his strides quick. I can imagine most of what runs through his head, none of it good.

He was the one who ex-communicated our big brother.

And he was the one who let it go when Fox refused to turn in his patch. Using it for unsanctioned club business, hell, using it in any way that gives the impression he's still under our banner, gives the fucker the death penalty.

“Where is he now?” I ask Connor.

Terry's son glances at Rae and then at my brother's back. "I want to set terms."

“Are you fucking serious!” Tyke marches back to our little huddle.

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