Property of Drex (Death Chasers MC 2)

It’s raining, so we’re not taking his bike tonight. I’m grateful he lives close to where I’m staying, since he can give me a ride every day.

He answers as soon as we get inside, and I move some of my wet hair away from my face.

“Because I have to trust someone I hire. You’ve heard how those guys just rattle on while I’m inking them up. Especially the ones waiting their turn.”

He’s right. It’s amazing how much they run their mouths in front of me there when they were zip-lipped in front of me at the warehouse. I’ve learned more about the Death Dealers while working in the shop for the past week and a half than I ever learned about them when I lived amongst them.

It’s weird.

But every time someone mentions Drex being a loose cannon, they always let their eyes drift toward me as though they’re waiting on me to comment. And I always feel that void in my chest ache a little harder with each mention of the man who has marked me for life in so many ways.

“I see how that could be tricky.”

He nods. “I’m neutral ground. If I trust someone, they trust them. I don’t act like I hear anything, and I keep my mouth shut. Anyone I hire has to be able to do the same, hence the reason you’re a godsend. Just that ink—which you wisely show off—gives you automatic trust. Drex wouldn’t just let any girl walk around with his name and his club’s logo, and I wouldn’t ink it on anyone without his direct consent.”

The small skull with a grim reaper outline is the background for the text. Drake made it look amazing. But it’s meaningful to me. Or at least it was. Drex didn’t just have the generic DD put on my inner wrist. He gave me something special, something that meant something to him.

“It’s weird how they treat me differently here than they did there,” I sigh. “Things might have been different for Drex and me if everyone hadn’t acted like they wanted me dead all the time.”

He snorts while rolling his eyes, driving slower when the rain starts to pummel the Mustang.

“It’s because there, you were suspicious. You were new to the group, and Drex kept you hidden away most of the time, from what I heard. At my place, you’re out in the open, I’m neutral ground and happen to value my life. In other words, if they talk about shit in front of us and you leak it, I have to suffer the same fate as you.”

I’m not even afraid when he announces that, because I know Drex wouldn’t allow anything to happen to me. I wouldn’t talk, and he wouldn’t let them just assume I had.

But then something does hit me pretty damn hard.

“Holy shit,” I blurt out, and Drake slams on the brakes, sending us skidding across the road while the rear fishtails.

“What?” he barks when he regains control of the vehicle.

“No. No. Nothing in the road.”

“You don’t say something like that when a man is driving in the rain! Damn it, woman. Are you crazy?”

“Maybe a little crazy, but that’s beside the point. I just realized something. Cecil.”

He curses as he leans up on his steering wheel to see better.

“What about him?”

“Cecil disappeared for a ‘family’ thing right before all the fed issues and he hasn’t come back. The guys have been pouring in to replace their appointments they had with him.”

“I fucking know that. Bastard. You have any idea how hard it is to pencil in a bunch of impatient assholes when you have a six-month waiting list?”

“Yes, I do. I’m the one penciling them in for you, but it’s easier since all the Hell Breather appointments have been cancelled. That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“The point is that Cecil heard all the same chatter you did. They talk, but not about specifics.”

“The ones talking don’t know specifics. Only Drex’s and Herrin’s inner circles know the details of shit.”

“Drex was on the phone one day when we were at his house—before the big bang incident—and he alluded to the fact the mole was someone without the details. Cecil is out of town. General pieces of information have been spilled… Cecil is the mole. Not one of the crew.”

He slows the car to almost a stop, pulling off on the shoulder as cars go by. As soon as he puts it in park, he turns to face me.

“You realize an allegation like that could get him killed. What if you’re wrong?”

“I didn’t say I was going to call Drex and tell him. I was just working it out. It makes sense. Any chance Cecil was in trouble with the law and would rollover on the Death Dealers to get out of a sentence?”