Page 116 of Ruin
“Exactly.”
My attention turns toward the bar. The lights are on, but it’s quiet. Too quiet. Someone is always there because someone has to be on the property in case something goes down—usually it’s the prospect who’s required to be there, but a few of the guys end up hanging out. The quiet is all wrong.
I carefully and quickly go to my truck, pulling a handgun from beneath the driver’s seat and point to the glove compartment.Kaison opens it to get the second gun I keep in here. I don’t bother closing the doors, so we don’t make any noise.
The ground beneath our feet is a mix of dirt and rock, that doesn’t make much sound as we walk. Once upon a time, it was all gravel. I remember my father shoving me so hard I fell, and a small pebble embedded in my knee. I was only eleven, and I had to go home and dig it out with tweezers. It hurt like a bitch, and I still have the scar on my knee.
We move as quietly as we can across the lot, with not much of anything for cover except the building and the tall grass that hides the buildings from the road. We walk through a dark patch that keeps us hidden until we’re in the light of the bar. It’s still too quiet.
Kaison makes a motion for me to stay, and he moves forward, toward the door. He hesitates a moment before pulling it open and ducking inside. I grab the door before it closes and move in after him, bumping into his back.
“What the fuck,” Kaison grumbles, sounding upset but not quite angry.
I step around him to see Trudy gathering up her clothes from the top of the bar to cover her naked body. I roll my eyes and shove my gun into the waistband of my pants.
“Do I want to know who the guy is?” I ask.
“Fuck both you pricks,” Trudy says, dropping behind the bar. Her arms raise in the air as she puts her shirt on. “You all get to fuck who you want, when you want, where you want. No one is around, so I wanted to have a little fun!”
“Why is no one around, Trudy?” I call out.
“Coyote took Ghost to the clubhouse!”
“No one is at the clubhouse,” Kaison says, giving me a concerned look.
“Well, that’s what they said!” Trudy says as she pops up from behind the counter, running her hands through her hair to tame it.
“How long ago?” I ask, eying my brother.
Why would they need to go over to the clubhouse together? And why did they leave?
“I don’t know. Twenty minutes, maybe?”
I turn to head out the door to go back to the clubhouse.
“If your man ain’t making you come within five minutes, you need a new one!” Kaison calls out with a chuckle.
“He was working on number two, smart ass!” she calls back.
I shake my head as we make our way to the clubhouse and let ourselves in. There’s definitely nobody here, and Coyote is officially late—or missing. He was here, according to Trudy. Now he’s not. Where the fuck is he? And where the fuck is Noah?
The rumble of a bike sounds in the distance, getting closer. Kaison flips on all the lights inside and I go to the front door just as Coyote pulls into the lot with Ghost behind him. They park across from my truck and share a few quiet words before Ghost heads to the bar and Coyote walks toward me.
“What the fuck was that about?” I ask.
“Just went for a ride,” he says.
“When you’re supposed to meet us?” my brother says.
“You weren’t here yet,” he argues.
“We were on time,” I argue, even though we were a few minutes late.
He scoffs, then walks deeper into the main area and turns down the hall to go into his office. I raise a brow at my brother. Not only do we have to worry about Trudy, now we have to worry about Ghost too. He’s an iffy one—I can’t be sure which side he’s on. If this were Grizz, I wouldn’t be worried. Rhino either. But I don’t know about Ghost. Him, Spam, Tank, and Bullseye are a younger crew, all in their twenties and closer in age to Coyote. They don’t know him any better than we do, but they don’t have ties to this club like me, my brother, Rhino, and Grizz. We go all the way back to our grandfathers, while they only go back to their fathers. And this is the problem. We shouldn’t be looking at the club like this, but with everything going on, it’s hard to trust people.
“What do we do?” Kaison asks.
I glance at him, then down the hall. I pull the gun from my waistband and walk toward Coyote’s office.
