Blaze shook his head. "I'm so sorry," he said. "They'll pay. They will." Behind his eyes was the kind of fire, the same intensity that I had seen in Axe's eyes, and I felt my heart race. I had no doubt that they were going to destroy the men who were responsible for this.
I just hoped that Axe didn't destroy himself in the process.
Or us.
Benicio stepped forward. "I'm sorry that we meet under these tragic circumstances. And for the loss of your father. Your wife."
Cade shook his head and clenched his jaw. Neither he or Crunch said anything. Crunch just kept staring forward, barely blinking. He was the one I was worried about. Cade at least was talking; Crunch had barely said anything, at least to us. I thought that his grip on sanity seemed tenuous at best.
Benicio gestured to chairs, and I sat, beside the only other woman in the room, Dani.
She smiled at me, her mouth tight, and leaned over. "I'm so sorry to meet you like this," she said. "Are you okay?"
I nodded, too numb to say much of anything else.
"Blaze said you brought documentation of Mad Dog's theft," Benicio said.
"I have copies of the paperwork. It's been going on for a while," Crunch said.
Benicio nodded. "Unfortunately, Mad Dog's duplicity was not a surprise. Blaze, you know that you've been like a son to me, and I trust that you are uninvolved in any of this."
"Of course not," Blaze said.
"Mad Dog has never sat well with me," Benicio said.
Before we had left Colorado, Cade had explained the scenario with the club to me, trying to get me to change my mind about coming with him, or at least trying to make me understand the mess I was about to get myself involved in if I decided to join them. If what had happened to April and Stan had not happened, I would have considered staying in Colorado. The outlaw biker world did not sound like the place for me, no matter how much I cared about Cade.
But April and Stan's deaths changed that. I had made a promise to Stan that I would take care of Cade, and I would keep it. And I didn't care anymore if my hands got dirty. I didn't care if my hands had blood on them.
My mind drifted for a while when Benicio and the men talked business, until I heard Benicio say, "Blaze asked us to keep tabs on you, Axe."
Blaze held his hands up. "Not because I thought any of this was going down," he said. "Hell. I had no idea Mad Dog was involved in anything like this. I asked because I thought you were in a bad place, is all."
Benicio nodded. "Which is why my men weren't tracking you very well, just checking on you every so often."
"It was your men who got picked up in West Bend," Cade said.
Benicio nodded. "I instructed them to keep their distance. They were picked up before we knew about the Inferno members in West Bend. My intel did not indicate Mad Dog knew."
"Who - you knew we weren't killed in the warehouse? How?" Cade asked.
"My investigators," Benicio said.
"But the other bodies - " Crunch said.
Benicio shook his head. "There were no other bodies. I suspected this was some type of power play by Mad Dog and I had promised Blaze to keep an eye on you. When we saw that it was members of your own club who were responsible, I needed to buy you some time."
So Benicio faked their deaths.
"How?" Cade asked.
Benicio waved his hand dismissively. "I have warehouses in Vegas, a route through the southwest. It's in my best interest to have certain people on payroll. And journalists aren't difficult to bribe."
I looked at Blaze, whose jaw was set. "Mad Dog was stealing from you, but we obviously want to take care of this ourselves."
"I would expect no less," Benicio said. "But my men are at your disposal. You would be wise to use them."
Axe nodded. "But Crunch and I will be the ones to kill them. It will be our hands that do the deed."
"As is your right," Benicio said.
I looked at Axe, his hands clenched, his jaw set.
Could I do this? Could I follow him into the abyss?
I guess the better question was, how could I not?
Outside Benicio's house, Blaze and Crunch and Cade talked. I caught snippets of the conversation.
"Benicio can provide the muscle, but we need to take it to the club. Take it to the brothers we know are loyal," Blaze said.
Cade shook his head. "None of this goes to the club. We can't trust anyone."
"It was Mad Dog, not the whole club..." Blaze said.
Dani turned to me, her expression grim. "It's not always like this," she said. "All of the...bad things happening."
I nodded, but I wasn't sure I believed her.
Axe
“You’re a hundred percent sure you don’t want to leave?” I asked. “You can still turn around and head back to West Bend, forget about all of this.”
June’s face looked somber, and she smiled wanly. I was afraid she would be eaten alive by this.
“I’m not turning around, Cade,” she said. She said it slowly, deliberately, but her tone was emotionless, detached. She had been that way since my dad and April were killed.
Three days ago.