Page 26 of Renegade

I closed my eyes and tried to recall last night’s events. David had gone off with some woman he met…I stayed for a little bit longer…drove home…shit. I’d called for back-up on a suspected drunk driver. Along with the guy failing field sobriety tests, the car itself was a fucking goldmine. We popped the trunk and quickly realized it had a false bottom in it. Underneath was a hefty stash of cocaine and semi-automatic rifles.

I sighed and looked at my old man. “We busted a guy for drunk driving and uh- we found some other stuff while searching his vehicle.”

He rocked back on his heels. “Yeah, you busted Crossbones. Now your ass is gonna have to fix this shit before it gets worse.”

I laughed even though it felt like an ice pick was being driven into my skull. “Okay, sure. I’ll just hop in my fucking time machine and go back to last night.”

His jaw clenched and he clamped a hand around the back of my neck before hauling me out of bed. “Get the fuck up! Let’s go.”

I tried to maneuver myself out of his grasp, but it was obvious that I was going to have to put more effort into working out at the gym and less into fucking the women there if I wanted to be able to take my old man in a fight.

He dragged me down the hall and into the living room before unceremoniously dropping me onto my ass. I scrambled up onto my feet, ready to fight, when I saw I had another visitor.

My mouth slackened and I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. I had alcohol poisoning, that had to be it. I found the bottle of tequila in the back of the liquor cabinet. I couldn’t recall when David and I bought it. It was tainted, plain and simple.

“Alcohol poisoning. Or I’m still drunk,” I mumbled the words to myself and stared down at the palms of my hands, as if they held the answer to my hallucination.

The figment of my imagination stood up and came over. “Do you need to sit down, Mikey? You’re looking a little pale.”

I shook my head. “You’re dead—they said you died. Oh my god, I’m never drinking again.”

My father laughed. “Junior, calm the fuck down. Grey, tell him why we’re here so we can get the hell out before the roommate decides to show up.”

He’d died, hadn’t he?

That’s what the letter had said. After getting on the force, I’d looked into his case. He was missing and presumed dead. After October 18, 1996, James “Grey” Sullivan had simply ceased to exist.

I sank down onto the couch and put my head between my legs. The combination of the hangover and shock had me on the verge of puking or passing out—I hadn’t decided which.

“There we go,” Grey patted my back. “So, I guess I should start by saying that I’m alive and let you know that you arrested my road captain last night. I’m gonna need you to get the charges dropped.”

My stomach rolled at the thought of helping them. I’d worked too hard to get where I was. It didn’t matter what happened with Patrick, I’d gone straight and I wasn’t prepared to do anything that would jeopardize my career.

“I can’t do it, Grey. It’s out of my hands.”

My old man cackled again as he stretched out on the couch across from me. “That ain’t the way to make friends, Junior. Now, I believe the Pres issued an order. Don’t make him repeat it.”

Sweat trickled down my spine. I thought my old man had supported what I was doing with my life, but it was quickly becoming obvious that he’d planned on using me to draw attention away from the club the entire time.

I shook my head. “I won’t do it. I worked too hard for this. If I got busted tampering with evidence, I’m not just looking at losing my job. I’m looking at time in a federal prison. Do you get that?”

Grey ignored me and looked over at my father. “Show him what we’ve got.”

He pulled a phone from his pocket and began scrolling through it. “These pictures look familiar to you, Junior? Because I gotta be honest with you; they don’t look real good for you.”

He scrolled through them and my stomach dropped through the floor. I was fucked. Bastard hadn’t shown up that night in Galveston to help me out of a bind. He’d shown up to blackmail me. Patrick’s empty eyes stared at me throughout the various photos. He’d managed to get, not only the body, but David’s truck and license plate in them. He could pin the whole thing on my best friend.

My old man stifled a yawn. “Got some surveillance from that old strip club too. Guess the owners had some break-ins not long before you showed up for fight club.” He switched screens and there it was, in grainy black and white, me committing a murder. If that got released to anyone, David and I wouldn’t see the outside of a prison cell ever again.

I jumped up and began pacing. “You just show up from the dead and expect me to drop everything and help you? I was just doing my job, for Christ’s sake. How was I to know he was one of yours? He wasn’t wearing a kutte. Can’t we just agree from here on out that I won’t arrest your guys and we chalk this up to a minor mistake?”

Grey remained seated. “Things got complicated and the club decided it was best if I went dark for a while, at least until things calmed down. It got the feds off our asses, along with a couple of clubs that seemed to have forgotten their place. If shit goes south again, I won’t hesitate to remove myself from the equation to keep the club intact.

“As for this? It isn’t a minor mistake, Mikey. I’m out a fuck ton of money thanks to the Lubbock PD confiscating my merchandise and my man. That leaves a lot of loose ends; loose ends that could lead every goddamn agency in the country back to my doorstep. And that really chaps my ass.”

My father, who up until that point had appeared to be fast asleep, opened one eye. “He really hates having his ass chapped, Junior.”

This was it.

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