Zero Apologies (Lost Kings MC 14)

“Is it possible she was scheming with Shadow?”

They both glance at her still form. One arm hanging out of the bathtub. Dried blood trails down into a small puddle next to a needle. “Anything’s possible, I guess,” Rooster says.

“Shit,” Jigsaw mutters, staring at the used needle. “Hope whoever fucked her wrapped their dick.”

“Asshole.” I punch his arm and he backs up a step. A worse thought occurs to me. “You think this was a set-up and someone made it look like a suicide?”

Rooster glances around, studying the bathroom and hallway. “It’s such a shit hole, it’s hard to tell. Maybe. Or maybe she found out the charges got dropped and figured we were on our way over to have a chat with her.”

“Fuck.”

“I’m not a doctor but she looks—and smells—like she’s been dead for a while,” Jigsaw says. “Can we get the fuck out of here now?”

Rooster grabs the cell phone and plays with it for a few minutes before shutting it down. “I’ll take this back and go through it. See what else is on there.”

“What if someone realizes it’s missing?” Jigsaw asks.

“I’ll dump it as soon as I download everything.”

“Let’s get out of here.” I glance back at Josey one last time before pulling the door closed. Given that she tried to have me locked up for the next twenty-five years, I should be glad she’s dead.

Back at the clubhouse, Rooster heads into the office to work his magic on the phone.

“I’ll round everyone up for church,” Jigsaw says.

“We’ll sit down as soon as Rooster’s done.”

Before we do that, I need to have a talk with Steer.

I catch him in the parking lot and motion for him to follow me to the side of the clubhouse, where we’re alone.

He glances over his shoulder a few times. “What flew up your helmet, Prez?”

“You’re my SAA, right?”

“Yeah,” he answers carefully.

“Security for the club is your job.”

He remains silent.

“Josey was the girl who gave me up for the arson.” Still disturbed by the afternoon’s events, I lower my voice. “Her brother’s a cop. Just like I said I was worried about.”

“Jesus Christ—”

“I’m not finished. She was also a junkie.”

“Was?”

“We found her this afternoon. Looks like an OD or suicide. Hard to tell. We didn’t stick around long.”

“Prez, how’d you even—”

“Met with Trey and he gave me the tip.”

“Why didn’t you have me go with you?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

He meets my stare head-on. “You don’t trust me.”

“I thought I did. But this isn’t good, man. I asked you to find out what you could about her.”

“Jesus, Z. For years we’ve just let the girls come and go. I got her name and license number. I was going to check her out when I had a chance”

Shaking my head, I grasp his shoulders and stare him down. “This needs to start being a priority.”

After everything I just shared with him, he can’t argue with me. “All right. What are we doing about the cop brother?”

“Nothing for now. The problem’s been solved for us. Rooster’s going through her phone now. To make sure there isn’t more to this.” I don’t feel like explaining to Steer that Josey had some weird, fucked-up crush on me right now. Fact is, he should’ve been paying better attention to who was coming in our doors.

“All right, Prez.” His tone’s sincere and his stance more humble. “Where do I start?”

That’s the attitude I’m looking for.

“For now, let’s set up a point of contact. Just one. Anyone who’s going to hang out here—male or female—needs to have a basic background check. They show up with someone unannounced, you gotta ask questions, check ID, something, brother.”

“All right.”

I gesture toward the parking lot. “Maybe we need to think about a gate out front. Surveillance.”

“That’s gonna cost us. Bring some attention too. People will be wondering why all of a sudden we’re fortressing up.”

“I get that. No illegal shit’s going on here, so fuck ‘em. This is about club safety and what’s best for the club.”

He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at the ground for a few minutes. The defensiveness seems to melt out of him and he shakes his head. “Between Shadow and this, I’m not doing such a great job. You want my patch?”

I’m stuck for a minute. A brother questioning whether he can do his job? Yeah, any other time and place, I’d rip his fucking patch off myself. There’s no room for fuck-ups or forgiveness in our world.

But he stuck by me and handled the Shadow mess with integrity. Something I shouldn’t be too quick to discount. Who the fuck am I to blame him for letting Josey in when I don’t even remember fucking her at some point in my life?

“No, brother. I don’t want to remove you. I want to work on rebuilding this club together with you. Shadow was a big blow to all of us. If you hadn’t stepped up then, it could’ve undermined the whole club. My arrest was another attack on the club. We came through both. Now let’s fix it together.”

He holds out his hand and I take it, pulling him in and slapping his back.

“Let’s do it, brother.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Z

The afternoon’s events aren’t sitting well with me.

I can’t get that girl’s face out of my head.

It’s not guilt bothering me.

Okay, maybe a little guilt. I certainly plowed through enough women over the years and didn’t give any of them a lot of thought. That one of them had some creepy-stalkerish crush on me and I never realized it makes me want to re-evaluate a lot of things in my life.

More importantly, I don’t want Lilly to ever find out about this. No point in giving her a reason to reconsider our relationship.

My sit-down with the brothers will be brief and to the point.

“The rat is no longer an issue. Well, she wasn’t even a rat, since she was lying.” The whole situation continues to piss me off the more I think about it. Why the fuck was someone like Josey allowed in our clubhouse in the first place?

My fist hits the table, rattling the glass of water next to me. Every brother turns my way. “Steer will be implementing some changes to how we handle security around the clubhouse from now on. You want to invite someone to the party, don’t give a fuck if it’s a potential hangaround or club girl, we need their name and some basic details about ‘em. Is that clear?”

Suds raises his hand.

“What?” I growl, not in the mood for excuses.

“We can start having prospects man the door again.” He glances at Tiny. “Or the recent patch-ins.”

“Yeah, Prez. I don’t mind doing that again. If it keeps the club safer,” Tiny says. “Until we have more prospects we trust.”

I blow out a breath. “Thank you for stepping up.”

Rooster glances at me, checking, I guess, if I want to explain why this is an issue.

“How many of you know one of the girls, Josey?” I ask.

“Like in the biblical sense?” Hustler asks. “Uh, probably all of us.”

Brewer reaches over and high-fives him.

“Well, her brother’s a cop, so I hope she was worth it, guys,” Rooster says.

“Fuck me.” Hustler whistles. “You serious?”

“She’s the one who pointed the cops in my direction for the arson. Fuck knows what other lies she told them about the club.”

“Uh, Prez, we don’t exactly talk to club girls, if you know what I mean,” Suds says.

I cock my head. “I have no idea what you mean, please explain, fuckwad.” I take a deep breath before continuing. Outside, I didn’t want to tell Steer this part, but in here, I feel compelled to be honest with everyone. “I don’t know if I met her here or somewhere else. But from the looks of the photos we found on her phone, she’d been following me around for a while.”

“Oh shit!” Hustler bursts out laughing. “Z has himself a stalker.”

“It ain’t funny, bro.” Jigsaw glares at him. “Bitch is dead.”

Everyone stares at me. “We went to have a talk with her and found her dead in her bathtub. She’d been there a while.”

A bunch of curses are muttered around the table.

“Sorry, Prez,” Hustler says. “That’s fucked up.”

“Looks like she was a junkie. Whether it was a recent problem or long-term, I have no idea, but this is another reason I want more thought given to who we let through our doors.”

“You want us to all start pissing in a cup for ya?” Brewer asks.

“Do I need you to?” My sharp tone wipes the smile off his face.

I stare each brother down. “You’re all grown men. Do I need to explain how one brother’s bad habits can bring down the whole club? Josey’s a perfect example. Her cop brother caught her with heroin and she tried to turn my ass in to save her own.”

“None of us are rats,” Steer says evenly.