that, if she washed her hands of Lanie when Lanie made stupid choices, or you because what she felt for you couldn’t survive the life you lead, you wouldn’t have wanted her and obviously you wouldn’t have gone on to build the life you have with her. In other words, you wouldn’t have it any other way and you went in knowin’ just that. I don’t know what’s gonna go down with Rebel. We haven’t even had a date yet. But just so you know, I’m goin’ in knowin’ what I’m getting into. And if the promise of her is real, heads up. Because I already know I want just that.”
Tack studied him for a few beats.
Then he nodded.
Right.
Rush knew his father.
His father knew him.
It had been Tack who’d nicknamed him Rush in the first place.
That was done.
Time to move on.
“She’s givin’ money to Harrietta Turnbull, seein’ as Harrietta told her she could get Chew to confess to her friend’s murder.”
Tack’s mouth tightened.
Yeah.
That had been his reaction.
“She knows she’s bein’ played now and that’s gonna stop. But she says Harrietta is also in with Valenzuela,” Rush continued.
That made his father’s eyebrows rise. “Seriously?”
Rush nodded. “Rebel thinks it’s also because Valenzuela wants Chew, and Harrietta is dangling him at them both.”
“Just when you think this shit can’t get more fucked up, it does,” Tack muttered.
“And there’s another suspect in Diane Ragowski’s murder. It’s Digger Benson of Bounty.”
“Shit, fuck,” Tack growled.
“Yeah. That’s not a coincidence, Digger and Chew both goin’ at that woman.”
Tack shook his head. “Bad blood between those two, Rush. Back in the day, Chew was taken on by Chaos, Digger was a huge pass. They were tight. Chew scraped him off for his new Club. Digger wasn’t a fan of that.”
“Stands to reason they’d make amends after Chew renounced the Club, wanted to see us hurt and set about doin’ that.”
Tack lifted his chin but said, “Doesn’t jive, Rush. Wouldn’t put it past Chew not to mind sharing. But the reason Digger was a pass for Chaos was that even back then, with Crank in charge, he was not Chaos material. Man’s a deviant. I had to call it, straight-up pedophile. Saw pictures of her. Diane Ragowski would not be his thing. She was beaten down by drugs, but she was very much a woman.”
“She was dressed in a school uniform when she died, Dad,” Rush reminded him.
His father’s mouth twisted as he said, “School uniform and schoolgirl are two different things, Rush.”
“Can’t say I know how a degenerate’s mind works, but maybe he took what he could get. But bottom line, there’s the link between Bounty and Valenzuela and Chew. It’s Digger, and they got more in common than twisting Digger’s club up in this shit.”
Tack drew in breath and replied, “I’ll tell Mitch and Slim.”
“When Rebel’s out, we need to hand all of this shit over to them.”
“Rush,” Tack sighed.
“Valenzuela is off Chaos. We can retreat from the ten-mile radius back to the five-mile radius we claim as ours and hand criminal shit off to people who get paid to deal with criminals. Then when it’s all done, we can quit with that vigilante gig altogether and just run Ride.”
“How ’bout we table this until we see the end of it by finding Chew?”
“How ’bout we let Slim and Mitch or Hank and Eddie find Chew, we get Rebel out, and see the end of it?” Rush returned.
“Son—”
“Dead bodies on our picnic table, Dad?” Rush pushed.
Tack leaned back and aimed a staredown at his son.
Rush was no longer eleven.
His father’s staredowns didn’t work anymore.
So he kept at him.
“Natalie dead?”
“Not our doing,” Tack growled.
“Valenzuela’s got the bones of two men Chaos took out. Every brother who was a brother back then is on the line for that. Especially Hound.”
“It’s been nearly twenty years and those bones have been moved, Rush. They won’t have the crime scenes. They don’t have the weapons. They have no witnesses. Fuck, son, they haven’t even identified those skulls.”
“One of those skulls being Crank, they find that out, they’ll look to Chaos. And Chew knows who they are, where they were done, and they’ll eventually have him.”
“He wasn’t there. He doesn’t know dick. And even if he leads them to the scenes, they’ve been scrubbed. There’ll be nothing to find.”
“We’re vulnerable.”
Tack uncrossed his arms, straightened from the car and put his hands to his hips. “As much as this sucks, Rush, it’s a fact and you gotta learn it. You can be tough. You