Torch (Great Wolves MC) - Jayne Blue Page 0,63

my mind go there. Except I knew the truth. It pulsed through my veins. Uncle George did this. He’d sold this information to whoever Juice was. He’d set the frameup in motion. Now I just needed the documentation. My word for what I’d overheard wouldn’t be enough on its own. Any prosecutor worth his salt would use my relationship with Torch to discredit me.

But why did Uncle George do it? He’d been loyal to the club for over a decade. They paid him a ridiculous retainer and made him a very rich man. What on earth would have made him risk his own reputation and the club’s freedom?

Then the back door slammed shut.

“Shit,” I whispered. I threw the ledger back in the drawer and shut it as quietly as I could.

I looked frantically for a place to hide. There was only one I could get to fast enough as footsteps neared Uncle George’s office.

I threw myself behind the couch on the far wall.

The door opened. I saw my Uncle George in profile. His face was wet with tears. He took a staggering step forward, and I realized he was drunk.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he murmured to himself. He plopped down behind his desk then started opening the very same drawers I’d been looking through a moment ago.

He pulled out the same day planner. The same steno pad, and a few of the club’s files. Then he walked over to the shredder he kept in the corner and started feeding pages into it.

I acted on instinct.

“Stop!” I yelled, rising from behind the couch. “It’s too late.”

My Uncle George went rigid as if he’d been struck by lightning. Then his eyes widened, and he looked at me as if he saw a ghost. He rubbed his eyes, maybe to clear them. I realized maybe I wasn’t too far off. “You,” he said. “You’re ... oh God. Sydney?”

I came around the couch. “What have you done?” I asked.

He shook his head. His hands fell to his sides. The notebooks and papers dropped to the ground.

“Are you real?” he asked.

“What? Yes, I’m real. You’re drunk.”

“Not drunk enough,” he said. He rubbed his chin. No sooner had he said it than I watched his eyes begin to clear. Whatever shock he’d gotten from seeing me, it appeared to be working to sober him up quickly.

“We need to get you out of here. I have to think.”

“What are you talking about? Uncle George, you’ve done something to the club, haven’t you? The drugs in that truck. You know who put them there. You helped them. I heard you. The other day, I was in the office when that man came to see you. You called him Juice.”

Uncle George shook his head and came to me. “No. You don’t understand. It’s not safe for you here. They’ve already ... I don’t understand what’s happened. They said you were ... You were supposed to be on that plane. Why weren’t you on that plane?”

“Because I have unfinished business here,” I said. “And I’m done taking orders. You need to tell me what you did. And you need to undo it. You helped them frame the club. Was it the Devil’s Hawks? Do they have something on you? God, please don’t tell me this was just about money.”

He lunged at me, grabbing me by the shoulders. His fingers cut into me. His eyes were wild.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he said. “They told me …”

I heard a loud crash, like thunder. Someone had busted the front door down, ripping it off its hinges. Uncle George screamed.

“Take your fucking hands off her!” Torch had murder in his eyes. He pointed his Nine straight at my Uncle George’s head.

“I ... I ... Torch ... this wasn’t me. You have to believe it wasn’t me,” Uncle George sputtered.

Torch’s eyes filled with tears as he looked at me. “Baby? Are you real?”

And he was the second man to ask me that in the span of ten minutes. What the actual hell was going on?

“Torch,” I said. My voice choked out of me. I cleared my throat. I saw the boy in those pictures in Torch’s face. He was cold. Hard. I knew in my heart he’d gone to the place that had sought justice and vengeance for Irene Barrett all those years ago. I also knew he was about to pull that trigger.

“Torch!” I cried out. “It’s me. Look at me. Not this way. There’s something you need to know.”

Uncle George carefully