Chapter Twenty-One

Brooks

"Who are they?" Perish growled as we stood in Cali's ruined living room.

I knew the man well enough at this point to know what he was saying.

Give me their names. I'll handle it.

What's more, I believed to my core he was not only serious, but fully capable of making that happen.

The world probably wasn't as scary a place when you were so big you were practically a continent unto yourself.

"I don't know yet," I admitted as I walked through the disaster area that had been Cali's whole life.

"Want me to pack some clothes for her?" Nave asked, glancing into the dressing room.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Pack as much as you can. Clothes, jewelry, makeup. Anything she might need for a week or two." Or as long as she wanted to stay with me. Even after I figured this shit out and handled it. I would understand completely if she didn't feel safe coming back for a while.

I rifled through the cabinet under her TV, looking to see if the folder was there, with no luck.

"Where do you guys keep important documents?" I asked. "Birth certificates, shit like that?" I asked.

"I have a safety deposit box," Nave answered as he rolled one of Cali's shirts and stuffed it into her eggplant purple rolling suitcase.

"Box at the top of my closet," Perish said, shrugging.

Cali didn't strike me as a safety deposit box sort of person, so I made my way toward her hall closet, then the one in her dressing room.

Sure enough, wedged at the top, far enough back that you didn't really see it, was a box.

Inside, sitting on top of a bunch of other paperwork, was the folder I'd given her. Thank fuck. These guys didn't need to know about bank boxes or anything else he had in there.

I handed it to Nave to stuff in the suitcase, nodding my thanks to Perish as he picked up all the food off of the floor, and started tossing it, then made my way up to the loft.

I didn't know what to expect of the loft. It was an enclosed space with slanted ceilings that made me have to duck a bit in spots.

Toward one end there was a small cutout that overlooked the living room, but Cali didn't have anything over there. Not even some decor. The whole bedroom was pushed to the other walls, safe from overlooking either the rest of the apartment or even the window.

The open window.

The escape ladder was still hanging down.

Walking over, I leaned out, seeing the descent. Not horrible, by most people's standards, but for someone who was afraid of heights, fucking unbearably high.

My mind flashed to her dangling there above the ground, body trembling, panic overtaking her system, and the rage that spread through me was something I'd never experienced before.

I wasn't, by nature, a killer. I didn't thirst for violence the way a lot of the guys in the club did. Dezi, for example. Perish. Even Callow, who had a dark side he didn't show often.

Sure, I was ready and willing to do whatever it took to protect the club and my brothers. But I never really craved vengeance before.

Now, though?

Now, I wanted to track down every fucking man who was involved with Clay's car crash and making Cali dangle from a fire ladder and run for her life, beat the ever-loving shit out of them, and then put a bullet in their worthless heads.

Carefully, I pulled the ladder back up, dropping it onto the ground inside in a heap, then closed and locked the window before making my way back downstairs.

"Got her all packed. Perish took the trash down," Nave said. "Didn't see any clues about who might have been in here. But I wasn't really expecting to."

"I think I have a way of figuring it out," I told him. "Back at the clubhouse."

With that, we made our way back.

Church was over, but Fallon had hung back instead of going home to his wife and kids.

"Nothing?" he asked.

"Not yet. But I might have answers for you in an hour or so," I told him, hand tightening on the handle of the suitcase.

"Alright. Just let me know before you head off to knock some heads together."

"Will do," I agreed, nodding again to Perish and Nave, then making my way into my room, finding Cali sitting against the headboard, legs pulled up to her chest.

"You okay?" I asked, setting her suitcase next to the dresser.

"Yeah. Just tired now that all the adrenaline is gone."

"You can take a nap," I suggested, thinking it might be easier if she was asleep when I brought out the flash drive.

"I want to know too, Brooks," she told me. I opened my mouth to argue, but she shook her head. "He was my brother. I was just chased out of my home. I want to know why."

"Even if you learn things about Clay that will mess with your memories of him?"

She was silent for a moment before giving me a nod.

"Even if."

"Okay," I agreed.

Sure, I wanted to protect her from the truth. But she was a grown woman. And no matter what was on that drive, I was going to have to explain it to her eventually anyway.

"Alright," I agreed, taking a deep breath as I toed out of my shoes, then gathered my laptop and the flash drive before climbing onto bed with her. "Whatever it is," I started as I waited for the laptop to power up, "remember how Clay tried to protect you from it. He didn't want anything happening to you."

"I know. Trust me, Brooks, I know my brother was a good man. Even if he was doing bad things, he was good. There's not a doubt in my mind about that."

"Good," I said, giving her leg a squeeze before inserting the flash drive, watching the password screen pop up, and typing in the code she'd deciphered.

I don't think either of us breathed as we waited for whatever was hidden inside, that was worth killing for, popped up.

A folder labeled ‘evidence' was what we found.

"Evidence of what?" Cali asked herself as I scanned through the titles of each file. Which included documents and images.

"You can turn away now," I gave Cali one last out. "I won't judge you."

"I want to know," she demanded.

"Okay," I agreed, reaching to move the cursor over the first file. An image.

The label on a package.

The next image, the contents of the package.

"Is that—" Cali gasped, leaning closer.

"Heroin, yeah," I said, nodding.

This was one of the possibilities I'd been considering.

That because Clay had been working for this delivery company for years, someone might have approached him with a scheme to have him cart drugs. Either as a partner, or under duress.

"Does this mean he was… not doing it willingly?" Cali asked, putting the pieces together as I clicked the next file. A document full of dates, times, and locations.

"Don't have enough evidence yet," I said, clicking the next image.

A man's face.

Then another.

"That's the one," Cali said, stabbing her finger at the screen.

"At your apartment?"

"At the fight. The one with Clay's watch."

The file was titled his name.

Ryder Griffin.

The other files with names were, I imagined, more of the same crew. I studied their faces, but didn't see any that brought any sort of familiarity. I would need to show it around to the other club members, see if they recognized them. If they didn't, I could always reach out to Junior to see if he could use facial recognition or whatever the fuck else hackers used to track someone down.

After that, there were snaps of license plates, the fronts of stores, men accepting the boxes from, it seemed, Clay. They were shot from his back, so you never saw his face, but the frame was right and the angle was so that it seemed they were taken from a camera set on the dash of his delivery truck.

"It looks like he's creating a file on this crew," Cali observed.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"But then why was he driving around a car he couldn't afford?" she asked, voicing my own questions. "And have that cash in his bank box?"

"Good questions," I said, clicking through more images of more deals, these ones catching the other faces better.

It could have been something he'd done because he felt he'd had no actual choice, but he'd still been compensated for. And that crisis of conscience had led him to compile all of this information to, I don't know, one day bring to the authorities. Even if he got himself in trouble as well.

I clicked the second to last image.

"Fuck," I snapped, whipping the laptop away from Cali.

But not quickly enough, judging by her gasp, by the shocked horror on her face.

Fuck.

I knew I should have looked at this shit ahead of time. Saved her from seeing that.

The last image was of a man on the ground, a halo of blood around him, a hole wedged in his forehead. His eyes open. Stuck in that fearful look as he looked down the barrel of the gun that would take his life.

"Sorry, baby," I said, reaching for her head, pulling her down on my shoulder. "You shouldn't have seen that."

"He was dead."

"Yes," I confirmed, knowing there was no good in lying to her at this point.

"Did Clay…?"

"No, baby. No. I don't think so," I said, stroking up and down her arm as my gaze slid to my dresser where the gun was resting.

He wouldn't have left that for us if he'd used it to kill someone. What would be the point of that?

"No, I think he stole the gun as evidence," I told her, turning the laptop a little further from her, but allowing me to see still as I clicked on the final image.

And there it was.

The proof of my theory.

That guy from the other picture, the one Cali had seen at the fight, Ryder, he was standing with an arm extended, a gun in his hand, pressing it near the head of the man who would become his victim.

Wanting to assure her, I lifted my hand to cover the ugly part of that image, and turned the laptop back, showing her Ryder.

"It wasn't Clay," I told her, actually feeling the tension leave her body as she saw what I was seeing.

"How did he get the gun?" she asked.

"Stole it? Or maybe Ryder told him to get rid of it, and he decided to do that by stashing it somewhere safe to work as evidence in the future."

"You think they found out about all of this?" she asked.

"It would explain why they would kill him. Why they would come after you, looking for whatever Clay had."

"Why wasn't his place tossed?" she asked.

That was a good fucking question.

"I don't know," I admitted. He'd clearly been prepared for that, leaving the place as neat as possible, with the only evidence hidden in code on his messy desk. "Maybe they'd tossed it more gently, in case there was an investigation of any kind. There could have been street cameras that caught them chasing him or some shit if his death was ruled suspicious."

"Why be careless with my place then?"

"Desperation? Or not thinking you would link it back to Clay. Crime happens, even in reasonably safe places like Navesink Bank."

I didn't have the answers she needed.

What I did have, though, was a plan to figure them out.

One way or another.

But I had to wait.

Until Cali was calm. Until she was asleep.

I closed the lid of my laptop, setting my mind to getting her relaxed, running my hands up and down her, holding her close, feeling the tension slowly seep out of her, and hearing her yawns as she got closer and closer to sleep.

Then, about an hour later, she was out cold.

I waited a few more minutes before sliding out of bed, taking the laptop with me, and heading out to show Fallon and the others what I'd figured out.

"No, sorry, man," Sully said, shaking his head after looking at the images.

"Didn't you say she saw them at the fight?" Dezi asked.

"Yeah."

"Jax should know who they are," he told me. "If they were there, they were betting. He keeps track of that shit."

"I know shit has been… tense with Jax," I said to Fallon.

Years back, he'd pulled some bullshit that pitted our club against the rival club in Navesink Bank—the Vultures—that only managed to piss off both clubs and even the club's former owner, Jax's father, Ross Ward.

"That was a long time ago now," Fallon said, shrugging. "You can talk to Jax if he might have the answers you're looking for."

"I'm in," Perish offered again.

My gaze slid back to Fallon. "Always good to have backup the size of him," he said, nodding. "Bring the twins, too. I want a report on how they handle themselves in… different sorts of situations."

"Cali is—"

"Safe here with me," Sully said. "I'll keep her good and distracted while you're busy. Got some new rom-coms on some of the streaming channels I've been meaning to watch," he added with a smirk.

Only Sully could admit shit like that and not have anyone bat an eye.

"Callow and Nave will be here too," Fallon reasoned. "If that's not enough, I can call some others in, just to be sure."

"I'll hang," Dezi offered.

"And I'll have Voss come back too. She'll be safe," Nave promised.

Knowing they were right, that she was in the best hands possible, I gathered Perish and the twins, and set off across Navesink Bank in the club's SUV, wanting to keep as low of a profile as possible as we sorted this shit out.

Luckily for us, Jax was every bit as obsessed with his work as his father had been during his reign, and after dealing with the guard outside, we made our way into the underground fight club.

Perish let out a low whistle as he looked around.

No one expected a luxury bar type establishment in the basement of an old school.

"Jesus Christ," Jax said, coming out of the office, his sleeves rolled up, gaze sliding up the long length of Perish. "The fuck did your mom put in your bottle, Miracle-Gro?" he asked, making Rune snort out a laugh.

"Jax…" I started.

His gaze cut to mine. "Yeah, just one minute," he said, pinning Perish again, his keen eyes taking in Perish's prison-fit body, the scars smattering across his knuckles. "Ever give a career in cage-fighting any thought?" he asked.

"Jax," I said more firmly. Only to have him ignore me again.

"You could clear a cool couple grand a night," Jax continued trying to court Perish into the cage. "Your club might be holding some grudges, but I'm sure we could all act like adults and—"

"Shut the fuck up, Jax," I snapped. That got his attention. If for no other reason than no one talked to him like that. "Recruit on your own time, not mine," I demanded. "I'm here for a reason."

Jax watched me for a second, his expression unreadable.

"Alright. What do you want, Brooks?" he asked.

"Have you seen these men?" I asked, flashing my phone at him, after having snapped pictures of my laptop screen.

"Even if I had, why would I—"

"Because they killed my best friend. Because they're after my girl. Because I will drag your ass into that cage and beat the shit out of you if I need to if you don't."

His brows rose at that, his lips quirking up ever so slightly.

"Maybe I should be offering you a job too. It's always the quiet ones with all the rage," he said, addressing the twins. "Alright, well, maybe I know them."

"There's no maybe about it. My girl saw them here at the last fight."

"Did she now?" Jax asked, interest piqued. "And who is your girl?" he asked.

I wasn't proud of the couple of pictures I'd snapped of Cali when she wasn't really paying attention. But at least they came in handy now as I found them and turned the phone toward him.

"I remember her. Was she your girl then?" he asked. "I might have been considering taking her home after."

"She's mine now. So stay the fuck away from her. But she was here. And she saw these fucks. I know you keep meticulous records. Who do they work for? Where do I find them?"

"This one is the only one who placed a bet," he said, taking my phone and scrolling back to Ryder's picture. Ryker or something like that. I'd have to look."

"Ryder," I corrected.

"Right. Ryder. Nice watch. Big stack of cash. That he lost. And wasn't happy about. Had to have him and his crew escorted out. Dante," he called out, then waited for a giant guard in all black to come out. "Ryder, the fuck you had to escort out at the last fight."

"What about ‘em?" Dante asked.

"Weren't they hollering shit about their boss on the way out?"

Dante snorted. "Yeah. Fucking pathetic."

"Who was it?"

"Landon. Landon Fisher."

"You know who that is?" I asked.

"Just some local gang. Bunch of fucking middle class kids whose lives were too boring, I guess, so they decided to become criminals. Why?"

"Where do they operate?"

"The fish store," Dante said, shaking his head. "Think it belongs to one of their families or something. But that's where they hang out."

"Fish store?" Rune asked, brows furrowed.

"When you lived here, it was still a restaurant," I explained. "Over by the old toy store. Any idea how big of a crew it is?" I asked.

"No more than maybe eight of ‘em. Think they were all on the same baseball team in school."

"Okay. One last question. Any idea who this is?" I asked, holding out the picture of the victim.

To their credit, neither Jax nor Dante seemed impacted by it.

"Not familiar to me," Jax said, shaking his head.

"I can't be sure, but…"

"But?"

"I feel like I've seen that guy with A."

"A," I repeated. "Andres Alcazar?" I clarified.

"Yeah."

Jax shot me a smirk.

"Looks like you might not have to handle the dirty work all on your own," he said, then turned his attention back to Perish. "Get in touch. You'd make me a lot of money."

"Thought you said you'd make me a lot of money," Perish shot back.

"Exactly," Jax said with another of those smiles of his before he disappeared.

"Thanks for your help," I told Dante before we headed back out.

"You got options," Rune declared as we made it back out into the fresh air.

The wind was kicking up, the air wet. A storm was coming.

"Options?" Perish asked, head cocked to the side.

"Yeah," Rune said, suddenly having an air of authority that only reinforced my suspicions that he was running some sort of crew while the twins were in Puerto Rico. "Option One. You take all this shit, box it up, and feed it to the cops. That seems like it was Clay's plan. But that might be because he was a do-gooder. Or because no one he cared about had died yet."

"And two?" Perish asked.

"Two is… you get in touch with this Alcazar guy," he said, lacking the familiarity we had with the man since he'd married one of the club princesses. But Rune and Croft hadn't been around for that shit. "I'm assuming he's the one dealing H in this area."

"Yeah," I agreed.

"They killed his man. They're stepping on his toes. He'll handle it for you. Option Three is… you get your revenge. Dunno how strong that urge is in you. Hence the options."

"And if I choose the third?"

"We'll be there," Rune said, nodding. I didn't have to ask Perish. He was always down.

"Might want to consider your girl too," Croft said, drawing my focus over to him. "What she would want."

I never had to consider someone else's feelings about my actions before. Rules of the club? Sure. But no one's feelings.

What would Cali want?

She'd want justice.

But what would that look like to her?

"I think she'd want the police to handle it," I said.

"But?" Rune prompted, sensing something in my tone.

"But they could get off. Get out. Come for her. Ten years, twenty. Lots of time inside to build up a grudge. I'd always be looking over our shoulders. I want this done."

"Then let's get it done," Rune said, nodding.