Page 91 of Menace

He looked at the photo of the kid and saw not one similarity with his Fortier cousins or his mother.

“Fils de putain(Son of a bitch). He swore viciously.

“Lucky, brother, get it together. We’ve got to sort this shit and if this is indeed your boy we need to find a way to get him home.” Dive said.

Jesus. What if it was his boy?

What about Harper and her boy? How would it affect them?

Who was more important - Harper and her son, who might be his, or a boy who has been left to the mercies of the Los Rojos cartel?

How was he supposed to choose?

Breaker tapped the table and moved the photos until the baby photo lay front and centre.

“If this boy is your son, and I have to say I doubt he is, it means they’ve had him for the last fifteen years. Years to indoctrinate him, years to make him believe his father and the club is the enemy.”

He tapped on the photo, then tapped each of the others, leading their eyes to the last photo. A photo of an unsmiling young teen posed against an adobe wall.

“What if we bring him back, bring him into the inner circle of our club and he’s a Trojan horse? A child turned into a tool to help the cartel to destroy us from the inside out? Sixteen year olds have been turned into foot soldiers across the world, but especially with the cartels.”

Lucky found it hard to believe a teenager could take them down.

“He’s a teenager, brother, what could he do to us? We’re not a bunch of civilians who are easy to trick.” Lucky couldn’t peel his eyes off the photos.

Breaker’s next words had his head jerking up in shock.

“Teenagers all over the world have been killing people. They are driven by strong emotions and with the right triggers and indoctrination can and do become killers.”

With his hands on his head, fingers laced tightly, he prowled around the room, trying to regulate his breathing. The idea of children being used as killers chilled him to the bone. Swinging around he dropped his arms and faced his brothers.

“C’est fou(this is crazy), thinkin’ about a child bein’ trained to kill, but I do get it. I know this shit happens, I just don’t want to think that a boy that might be mine is one.”

He looked back down at the photos and shook his head.

“He has a resemblance to Gloria but he doesn’t look anythin’ like my family, not that I can see. I want to email the photos to my parents, maybe they can clear this shit up for me.”

Dive stood with a hand over his mouth frowning down at the photos. Looking up he drew in an audible breath and tapped a finger to his chin.

“Isn’t there like a computer program to compare photos of children and parents to spot familial similarities? We need Byte on this shit.”

He scooped up the photos and shoved them back into the envelope, then paused as he picked up the two pieces of paper.

“Fuckin’ bitch. She’s some piece of work, brother.” He waved the papers at Lucky. “These are the boy’s birth certificates, yes, you heard me right, two birth certificates. The one naming Lucky as the father, the other with the father’s name left blank. Gloria Garcia is named as the mother on both. And we know her name is not Gloria Garcia, so these are fuckin’ fakes. To be sure the kid is hers we need to check the birth date with the date she supposedly died. Byte will check it.”

Lucky opened his mouth to speak but Dive waved him silent.

“No, brother, no. We’re not talkin’ about this shit. We need to take it to Maniac and get Byte to do his thing. The longer we fuck around here the longer it takes to get to the bottom of this bullshit.”

With that he shoved the pieces of paper in the envelope and stalked to the door, flung it open and walked out. There was nothing to do but follow him. So he did.

While they had been out of their chapel Maniac had obviously finalised the meet, they were now all waiting on them. With a sigh he sat down and watched as Dive handed the envelope to his president.

Maniac shook out the contents on the table then used a fingertip to arrange the photos in sequential order. He passed the two birth certificates to Byte without saying a word. The brother scanned both and passed them back to their prez.

After passing the photos to Grave, Maniac sat back and started swinging his chair from side to side. Yes, even here in their chapel he had a chair that he could do that with. It didn’t take Grave long to look through the photos. He looked down at them with a pissed look on his face before he passed them back. Maniac made them into a little pile and passed them to Byte, who once again did the scan thing before passing them back. The pile of photos then slowly started to make the rounds of the table.

Iceman broke the silence. “Is this kid supposed to be yours, brother?”

---