Page 7 of Wiley A.F.

“The hell? You did what now?” Ghoul leaned forward, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Apparently, my President was utterly clueless when it came to the subject. “In English. We aren’t waiting for you to open Pandora’s box; we just need the facts.”

“Someone in a high place has a soft spot for your club.” She huffed. “May I continue now?”

I waved my hand in front of me, motioning for her to give us the details I was certain I didn’t want to hear, but I had to. A cold sweat beaded across my forehead, and my panicked heart thrummed within my chest. My family was dead and had been for some time.

“We stumbled upon Garrett Townsend’s name by accident. Since our last meeting, we have been working diligently to stop child trafficking so that a list of such magnitude as the one you all eliminated may never happen again. He was Nicholas Kingsley’s more recent contact for West Virginia, Ohio, and Tennessee—you know, the tristate area.”

If Garrett was alive, there was no way I was going to fulfill this agent’s request, and I hadn’t even heard it yet. He was my younger brother, and although he might not be my favorite person in the world, I would never kill him, much less let the FBI do so with or without our club’s help. I didn’t know whether to be relieved that there was a small chance my brother was alive or drop to my knees and pray to God, begging him for mercy on my soul for the things this woman was saying he did to our mother.

“When you say contact, what do you mean?” I asked her. I didn’t accept people being vague on a general note. Quite frankly, I saw it as pointless, and it pissed me off when other people pussyfooted around subjects. So, when it came to my family, especially the fucked-up implications I thought she was getting at with my brother, I was going to need a little more information. I was losing what little patience I had fast, and if she didn’t spit the truth out soon, I wouldn’t be held accountable for my actions.

“Garrett Townsend was Nicholas Kingsley’s wrangler.”

“Meaning?”

“He gathered the children like cattle for the slaughter and took them to the buyers,” Spider explained in a grave voice and sighed. “That about right, McFaye?”

“I wouldn’t have put it so crudely, but yes. That was precisely what he did, as far as we can tell. He kept the older ones for himself, though.”

“Seems like your mind is already made up. Why do you need me, or any of us Bastards for that matter? Why didn’t you just arrest him, make him pay for his alleged crimes?”

“If we expose him, we expose everyone, and as you all are all too aware, some of the names tangled into this aren’t ones that will ever be released.”

I raked my fingers through my hair and closed my eyes. “What in the hell is it you actually want from us? While we’re on the subject, I have countless tattoos, aka distinguishing markings, permanently on my skin, so you don’t need shit from my body. I’m sure there are surveillance photos of my alleged brother in that fucking folder. Why don’t you show us? Obviously, that would clear up all of this bullshit,” I spat out as fast as the thought popped into my head.

“You mean these tattoos?” her well-manicured hand plucked a photo from underneath the folder, and she held it up for all of us to inspect.

“I see what’s going on here. You altered it to pin these crimes on Wiley. I won’t stand for this shit!” Ghoul growled, his fist pounding the glass, rattling it from the force. I gritted my teeth, waiting for shards to fly, but surprisingly the table withstood the blow.

“Care if I take a closer look?” I asked.

“Be my guest,” Agent McFaye passed the photo to me.

“Fuckstick really lost his shit,” I murmured to myself, staring in disbelief. Every visible inch on his body was an exact replicate of my own. The most disturbing part was I had gotten all of my ink after Garrett and Mom died in the housefire our freshman year—the same year Dad was granted custody of me and moved me to Cleveland.

“So, Wiley, you’re admitting this is your brother and denying this is you?”

My head slowly shook from side to side, disagreeing with what they were suggesting. I wasn’t giving her anything. If she wanted answers from me, she was going to work for them.

“I’m not admitting shit about shit, and I also won’t be giving you a sample of anything.”

“That isn’t something I can let happen.”

“How about this, I’ll give you my word if the fuck did even a fraction of what you’re saying he did, then I’ll handle him myself. That’s the only damned deal you are getting from me.”

“We could arrest you right now,” she warned.

“No, the hell you couldn’t, or you would have already done so. Give me this man’s whereabouts, and we’ll look into it, not for you but to clear our brother’s name. After that…We. Are. Fucking. Done. Got that?” Spider sneered through gritted teeth.

“He’s currently living about an hour outside of Nashville, Tennessee, with his fiancée.”

“We all know we’ve been up each other’s asses on and off for fucking years, so you are more than fucking aware my ass hasn’t been shacked up with any damn woman in Tennessee,” I snapped, my vision blurring with rage. If we didn’t leave this room soon, I was going to fillet this bitch’s skull out of sheer principle. She acted as if she was being helpful, all the while withholding information to try and pull more info from us. I didn’t give a damn if it was her damned job to do exactly that; it pissed me off when she dicked us around.

Her shoulders rose and fell just before she really dove into the information they had on my so-called brother. Although the probability of someone having plastic surgery to the extent of looking like my twin was incredibly unlikely; however, it was not impossible. I was clinging to that small fraction that someone had really done this, but dwelling within the pit of my stomach, I knew no one found me that interesting.

I carefully inspected each photo of the man, searching for a blue dot beneath the corner of his right eye. My brother had what was referred to as a Blue Naevus, which basically was the medical term for a blue mole. None of them were close enough to see if this man had one. If that was my only wildcard, I had as a way of identifying my brother, I was keeping it to myself. If that fucker was alive, he had some explaining to do, about thirteen years of it.

6

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