Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,159

as the last ones had been destroyed in the blast, my intent to head for the construction site, only, when I made it there, I saw it.

A package.

Fuck, had the Italians thought they could leave another bomb? Finish us off?

Fuckers.

But as fear hit me, the realization that the package was far too small to contain any kind of explosive sank in. I knew there were all kinds of tech on the market, stuff that was revolutionary, but this was paper-thin.

As I stared at the package, I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to figure out what the best thing to do was.

Was it likely that we'd be hit again when the evidence of the devastation of the previous attack was clear from the roadside? What else was there to destroy outside of a bunch of hired construction equipment?

We knew Pop’s bike had been rigged, and that was how the bomb had infiltrated our compound, but this was a different MO.

And that truck, the way they'd been driving, spoke of panic.

They didn't want to be caught in the act.

Maybe I was a dumb fuck, or maybe I was just desperate for answers that nobody could give me yet, but I left my bike, headed over to the package, and crouched down in front of it.

I'd never handled explosives, but I knew they had to have a scent. Cruz would recognize them—should I call him in?

Or would that be bringing him into the line of fire?

If I opened the package, I was the only one who would be hurt. The brothers who were working on the clubhouse were too far away to be injured in a blast from a bomb this size.

I wanted no more collateral damage.

I needed answers.

So I reached for it.

Sucking in a breath that I held for far too long, I ripped open the package with a penknife Pop had given me a long time ago, and as I held the reassuring weight in my grip, I hoped this wasn't going to be the last breath I took.

The relief was sweet when I registered the scent of paper. Old paper. It was like when you walked into a used bookstore. There was that musty smell as each tome collected a million scents from the previous owners’ homes.

Frowning, I twisted so that I was leaning against the bars of the gates, then settled my ass onto the gravel.

As I pulled out the sheets of paper, I flipped through them, trying to piece together what it was I was actually seeing.

The documents were sheathed in a brown card folder stamped with the shield of the NYPD 42nd precinct. But it wasn't somebody's record, it looked like a case file—from the beginning of an investigation to the guilty conviction the investigating officers had successfully won.

"Jason Banks," I read, repeating the name under my breath, trying to think how I knew it and where I might know it from.

But as I dug through my memory, the only thing that registered was Mom’s maiden name before she’d married.

That had been Banks.

The thought was enough to trigger a wave of memories, only Banks wasn’t exactly a rare name.

God, it had to be over two, maybe even three, decades since I'd heard it, though, and the age of the file was clue enough.

Banks had been in jail for a very long time, but why would somebody send this to the clubhouse?

There was no name on the package, so I had no idea who it was addressed to, but as I started reading about the case the 42nd precinct had built against Banks, I saw my mother's name and it confirmed what I’d already suspected.

Jason Banks was my uncle.

Christ, how had I forgotten that?

Scowling as I read, confused as to why this was important enough to deliver to the MC, it was only as I plowed through the different pieces of evidence the police had used against Banks that I registered the truth.

When he was supposed to be killing a drug dealer, it was on my birth date. There were pictures of Jason with us in the hospital. I even remembered when Mom had showed them to me. It was the only time she ever mentioned his name.

Racking my brain, I tried to process everything that I was reading, tried to remember everything she'd said, but there were few stories about the man himself, only the one about how miserable labor had been for her, miserable enough that they'd only had one kid. If I remembered