REAPER: GOLDEN SKULLS M.C. by Rebecca Joyce (best e book reader TXT) 📕

location. I wanted so much to talk to Remi, but knowing what I now knew, I couldn’t look her in the face and tell her that her brother and sister weren’t coming as planned. I still didn’t know where they were, but if anyone could find where those kids were moved to, it was Player. Until I learned more, I was just going to have to wait.

As I walked through the clubhouse, I wanted nothing more than to rail against the world, kill everyone in my path and burn the place down around me.

They destroyed everything. The bar, which was once a solid, beautiful piece of mahogany wood, hand-carved by some of my Pop’s brothers, was now nothing more than kindling. There was glass everywhere. All the furniture was ripped to shreds or destroyed. The kitchen was nothing more than a shell of its former glory. Moving towards church, I didn’t have to look inside to know what I’d find. The rest of the clubhouse spoke volumes, but I needed to see it for myself before my brothers returned. Opening the door, I stood shocked.

The room was left unscathed. Not a single item was out of place. It made no sense. None at all, considering the rest of the clubhouse was destroyed. Yet, lying there on the table, where father and Uncle hand-carved our emblem into the wood was a piece of paper—nothing more, nothing less. I moved towards it and peered down to look at it.

Consider this your only warning.

~ the Collector.

I roared, picking a chair up and throwing it against the wall, listening as it shattered into pieces.

“I don’t think Chisel is going to be happy that you broke another one of his chairs.”

“Not now, Ghost.”

“Yes now.”

I rounded on him, grabbing his cut, shaking him as I shouted. “Why the fuck weren’t you here! I needed you, and you weren’t here!”

“I’m here now.” Ghost did nothing as I continued to shout and get angry. That was one of the things I loved about the man. He was a rock when needed, never saying a word. Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “It’s too late, anyway.”

“It’s never too late.”

“What the fuck do you want? Don’t you have someplace you’d rather be?”

“My journey led me back here. What I’ve learned will rock this club. I’m here now. So, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you better think of something fast because I just drove here from San Francisco. Your sister is missing.”

“What?” I turned on my best friend and V.P. “She was yours to protect! What the fuck!”

Though it wasn’t known to everyone, it didn’t take a genius to see how Ghost felt around my baby sister Mia. I knew that Ghost would never do anything while she was a minor, and he honestly believed that was why he left all those years ago, that it was becoming too much for him. I understood, I really did, and that’s why I never said anything. Yet, knowing what I did know, the thought of Ghost losing the one thing he cared for seemed odd, which was why her disappearance was a shock.

“She never made it home. After we talked, I thought I’d head down there to make sure she stayed out of trouble, but she’d already headed for home. I backtracked and made it to your Mom's, but she hadn’t seen Mia. Then I received this.” Ghost said, handing me his phone.

UNKNOWN SENDER: You have my hard-drive, and now I have something of yours. Give me what’s mine, and I will give you what’s yours.

“What the fuck is this?”

“It’s from Sergio Pavlov. For the last several years, he’s a Russian arms dealer who has helped the Collector traffic women and children. That’s why I was in Montana with Farmer and Doolittle. Their woman is Pavlov’s sister. She had the drive and gave it to me. I’ve been searching for him since.”

“Why am I hearing about him now?”

“Because your Pops swore me to secrecy,” Ghost admitted, then added. “Pavlov was the one who ordered the hit on your pops, Max. He was the one who killed him, and I wasn’t able to stop it.”

“My dad was killed at a drop gone wrong, not the Collector.”

“I’m sorry, man, but that isn’t true. That’s what we told you. Your Pops was particular about how he wanted things to go down after his death. I just followed his instructions, so did Hellhound. As for Pavlov, he’s a middleman for the collector. It was a hit. Your pops got word that something bigger was going down. He went to investigate and was murdered. I found out too late.”

“Where is the hard-drive?”

“In a safe place.”

“This fucker has Mia, Ghost.”

“I know, and I will get her back, but there is so much more going on that you don’t even know. That’s why I’ve been gone for so long. I promised your dad I would keep you from this mess, but I can’t anymore. It’s all intertwined. You need my help, and I need yours. I’m home, brother, for good.”

I looked at the man who had been my best friend since birth, and though I was happy to hear Ghost say those words, something told me they were a little too late.

Instead, I nodded, reaching for my phone. It didn’t take me a long time to send out the mass text, knowing that soon all my brothers would be coming home.

FIFTEEN

REAPER

The time for secrecy was at an end. This whole fucked up mess was bigger than I thought, and now the vultures were at our door. It was time to come clean with the club and let the chips fall where they lay. Talk about a gut punch, though. I believed my Pops died in a drop gone wrong for several years, only to find out from my closest friend and V.P. that it was the fucking piece of shit that hurt Remi all along. Well, one of his