Chapter 20

CHAPTERTWENTY

If River didn’t sit his ass down I was going to duct tape him to a chair.

“Has he been like this the whole time I’ve been away or does something have him extra tweaked today?” I asked the room at large.

Cole chuckled from his place across the table from me. Sitting next to Cole, Rhode snickered but didn’t look up from his laptop. Jack didn’t make a sound but he smiled and pretended to be reading whatever report he had on the table in front of him.

“You’re not tweaked?” River inquired.

“No, I’m pissed as fuck, brother, but I’m not trying to wear a hole in the carpet. Sit your ass down, you’re freaking me out.”

River turned his icy blue eyes on me and squinted.

“I got a pregnant wife who will not no matter how many times I beg her take time off of work. She’s due any week now and she’s acting like she has months. On top of that, I’ve got a cop who sits at a desk in an office next door to mine who’s a fucking prick and getting cagier and cagier by the day. We got a dead seventeen-year-old who took her own life because she was used to blackmail cops. As you know, Blake and Johnson are cooperating. They handed over the pictures but they’re not in possession of the recording.” River’s lip curled in disgust. “Zeus ambushed Blake while he was getting gas and showed him the recording. He caught Johnson coming out of the grocery store. But still, both men were mailed the pictures. Since Philips isn’t talking we can only assume something similar happened to him. But now I’m wondering, how deep is Phillips? Blake and Johnson couldn’t get that shit off their conscience fast enough when they were approached. Both men admitted they were fucked up and didn’t know how to get out from under this without going down as a pedophile. Age of consent in Idaho is eighteen. Even if it was younger seeing as both men are cops, therefore in positions of power, they’d be charged. They knew this and couldn’t find an out for a stupid fuckup but an innocent one. Now with all that, I think I’ll stand and pace.”

Now I felt bad I opened my mouth.

I didn’t touch on the topic of Letty. The woman thought she was superwoman, though she loved River and was so over-the-top happy to become a mom I knew she’d never do anything to jeopardize the baby.

“How deep is Phillips?” I asked.

“Don’t know but my gut says Zeus has something else over him.”

“He’s married. The other two aren’t.”

“Thought about that, but still something’s not right. IA gave him an out. Pending the investigation if termination is the outcome, which in a way is fucked but they’re gonna be fired. Bottom line is, Sommer Levine was underage. But if the investigation goes their way the records will be sealed. They won’t get a letter of recommendation but it won’t be public record why they were let go. So, Phillips could lie to his wife about why he was fired and she’d never know.”

“Or she could push him to file for wrongful termination,” Cole put in. “They have a new baby at home.”

“Or Sommer wasn’t the only girl Zeus supplied to Phillips. Or he’s been giving Zeus information. Or he’s been covering for Zeus giving him safe passage. Whatever it is, something is not right with that asshole. I can feel it. Blake and Johnson are torn up. Full of remorse. Almost sick with it. Phillips? He’s walking around whistling Dixie like he’s living high on life.”

I turned to Wilson who was at his normal seat at the head of the table.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know the man like River and Brasco do. Though Brasco thinks he’s an asshole and wants his ass canned, he thinks he’s not cooperating because of the wife and kid.”

“And he might be right,” River conceded. “I could be way off base with this but my gut says there’s more.”

If River felt something was off, I believed him. But there was feeling something and then there was being able to prove it.

“Butch agreed to a meet,” Rhode announced. “Thirty minutes. Riverstone Park.”

Riverstone was twenty minutes away with no traffic. It was spring in Coeur d’Alene which meant there’d be traffic.

“And he wants Davis at the meet,” Rhode went on.

This wasn’t surprising. I’d married Zeus’s sister; no doubt he wanted to know what was going on.

“How much does Butch know about Jane and me?”

“Everything,” Wilson said then amended. “Or I should say, everything up to the wedding. He’s not in the know that you’ve fallen for your fake wife. Which I didn’t get to tell you last night, is impressive. I figured it’d take at least six months before you got her to thaw.”

“Life’s too short to fuck around,” I returned.

“Ain’t that the truth?” River muttered.

“Says the man who waited fourteen years to make his move,” I quipped.

“Yet, here we are, my ring on her finger and my kid planted in her belly. How long did that take me?”

To the best of my recollection Letty was pregnant within a few months of River moving to Idaho and he snuck her off to get married shortly thereafter. He might’ve waited fourteen years but when he decided to stake his claim the man moved across country and did that in record time.

Still, I had him beat.

I’d fallen for Jane almost instantly. Fought that attraction for less than a day. Circumstances were such she had to marry me to get safe. But a smart man knows when to press his advantage. She was my wife and I had no intentions on letting her go.

“You know you fucked me with that,” Rhode piped up. “And then Reece did when he married Sadie. Now Davis. My woman’s unhappy we’ve been engaged for freaking ever and we’re still not married.”

“So take a personal day, take your woman and son, and go get hitched,” Wilson reasoned. He stood. “But you need to wait until Davis and I get back from our meet. I need you to get into Stone Phillips’ computer, phone, cloud service, all of it. If you need help call Shep.”

“It goes without saying I didn’t hear anything about hacking a police officer’s devices. Though, if I were you I’d check out the wife, too.”

“Got it,” Rhode muttered and went to work.

Forty minutes later Wilson and I were walking the path around the man-made lake making our way to the amphitheater.

“Jane okay after what happened this morning?” Wilson asked.

“She says she is.”

“But you don’t believe her?”

“She said that this morning wasn’t as ugly as she’s gotten from her brother. That I believe. She wants to hate him but she can’t. She remembers the boy who protected her when she needed him. She can and does separate the two. But, no, I don’t believe she’s okay after the shit her brother said. No sister can be okay with that. Fuck, Wilson, the asshole called her pussy right to her face. She didn’t even flinch.”

“Love’s a strong emotion. It drives us to do all sorts of fucked-up shit. It can be the most beautiful thing in the world or it can slice you to shreds and make you wish you were dead. I get how she’d struggle with that.” Wilson paused and blew out a breath. “Don’t let that shit fester in her. She’s gotta get it out.”

“Got any bright ideas how I get her to stop loving a fucked-up piece of shit?”

“Love her harder than the memory of the boy who protected her.”

“Come again?”

“Love her harder,” Wilson slowly drawled. “Once she knows the feel of a healthy, genuine love, she’ll understand what she feels for her brother isn’t love and it never was. It’s a memory. You can love a memory but not love the person attached to the memory. That’s what she needs. That’s what will get her through.”

Fuck if he wasn’t right.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Butch came into view. The man looked worn down and ragged.

“Christ,” I mumbled under my breath.

“He wants out,” Wilson said. “He’s had enough of this shit. I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks to be pulled.”

If Butch quit, the DEA’s case would fall apart. It would take years to get someone patched into the MC and in a place of knowledge. Butch was the DEA’s only shot at taking Zeus down.

“I heard congratulations are in order.”

Not the lead-in I’d expected from the man but still, I dipped my chin.

“Got something for us?” Wilson cut to it.

I watched the muscle in Butch’s cheek jump—a clear sign the guy was agitated. I hadn’t known him long, but I’d never seen him show any emotion. I knew Wilson saw it, too, when he frowned and uncharacteristically used a tone that was reserved for the women who were part of the family.

“Brother.”

Butch cleared his expression, looked me dead in the eye, and got down to business.

“Zeus is pissed as fuck. Last few days all he’s done is rant about you. Wilson delivered that money and the dumbfuck twisted that as disrespect.”

I couldn’t stop my smile.

“I see you think that’s amusing, but trust me, nothing that asshole does can be categorized as anything but what it is—jacked up, fucked up, and stupid. Word’s flying he has a sister, something he’d managed to keep under wraps all these years. Which proves he’s a dumbfuck, with all his ranting about how you paid for snatch and how that pussy belonged to him, he’s now exposed her.”

I clenched my jaw. I didn’t like hearing that shit firsthand out of Zeus’s mouth and I didn’t like hearing it secondhand. But I had bigger problems than some jackass calling my woman ‘snatch’.

“I got Jane covered,” I told Butch.

“Yeah, heard about that, too. Even though Zeus was in the know and played a part now he’s bitching how you’ve claimed her. At first I thought he was playing the part, towing the line so word would hit the street and make it back to Satan. Now I’m not so sure. I think he thought, this being fake, either you’d get shot of her when it was over or she’d dump you. After this morning I think he now understands his sister is no longer his in any way she could’ve been.”

“It’s good he understands that, Butch. She’s mine. I’m keeping her. I told him this morning and I’ll tell you, he pulls that shit again or harms her in any way you won’t have to quit because you’ll be out of a job when I put Zeus to ground.”

“Maybe you can make my year and do that soon.”

“Working on that,” Wilson told him.

Butch fell silent and seemed to be struggling with something.

Wilson and I patiently waited for a man who was at the end of his rope work out what he needed to work out.

“I can’t see my way through this,” Butch rasped. “The longer I’m under the less I can get clean. I go home at night and still the stench lingers. I need the fuck out. That has to happen soon. So my dilemma is, do I go all-in with Takeback and fuck the DEA’s case or do I suck it up, find the fortitude to see this through, and take down Zeus and his supplier?”

“You gotta do what is right for you,” Wilson immediately answered.

“Yeah, and if his supplier’s a cartel out of Mexico that’s on the rise and getting to the top at an alarming rate, what then? Does your advice change?”

“You’ve got to do what’s right for you,” Wilson answered again.

Butch blew out a breath and ran a hand through his greasy hair. He didn’t hide the disgust when he wiped his hand on his dirty jeans.

I’d only ever known this version of Butch. I wondered what he was like in his daily life before he grew his hair long, stopped washing it, and maintained an unkempt beard.

He looked the part of outlaw.

But it didn’t fit.

He looked like he was coming out of his skin.

“I’m digging around for those recordings and pictures.”

“We need an admission,” Wilson told Butch.

“Working on that, too.”

Fuck yeah. If Butch could get a confession that would move this shit along.

“Last thing and this is just talk right now, he’s talking about selling off the girls. He’s bitching it’s too much hassle keeping a stable of whores. Though the way he takes freebies, not sure he’ll actually do it since he likes to get laid and he can’t find a woman in a thirty-mile radius to give him head since he’s such a twat, much less fuck him, I’d bet he doesn’t actually sell.”

If there was an award for King of the Douches Zeus would hands-down win.

“Whatever you need we’re here,” Wilson offered.

Butch gave Wilson a chin lift and started to turn when Wilson went on. “Anything you need, whenever you need it, no questions you call any of us.”

“Appreciate that, Wilson.”

With that he walked away.

“We’ve got to step this shit up. Brasco’s ready to explode. River’s a loose cannon. And that man needs to get the fuck out before he suffocates.”

Wilson was not wrong.