Malice looked directly at me and said, “Everything.”
“Tell me you didn’t, Gideon.” Torment sighed.
“I told him no,” Malice admitted. “Words were said and he fucking left angry. Haven’t seen him since.”
“Hold up.” Trout stepped forward. “Why would Danny want to forget everything?”
“To protect my secret,” said a beautiful blonde-haired woman. Dressed in black leather, with superb ink covering both her arms, she stood glaring about the room, along with one of my fucking Retirement Rejects, Popeye. The woman reminded me of a female Viking warrior and my gut was telling me she could definitely handle herself. The second her sky-blue eyes landed on mine, I stiffened as long forgotten memories of my childhood rushed forward while a familiar face I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager stood before me, and that’s when the mystery I had been trying to solve for years fell into place.
Malice gasped. “Thena?”
“Hello, Gideon.”
“YOU ARE THENA?!” I yelled while Reaper rolled his eyes.
Rounding on me, Reaper shouted loudly, “I am standing right next to you, asshole!”
Ignoring the fucker, I narrowed my eyes and glared at the lying conniving bitch when Reaper asked, “Val, do you know where Sypher is?”
So, this was Valhalla, the president of the Nyght Nymphs. The elusive all-female motorcycle club that preferred to stay off the radar and keep to themselves. Too bad for her, I fucking knew who she really was. Had I met her sooner, I probably would have figured this shit out quicker, but hey, better late than never, right?
“Where is the fucking kid?” I sneered.
“Why should I tell you?” Valhalla challenged. “From the very beginning, you’ve done everything in your power to fuel this fucking war. All Sypher wanted to do was end it.”
“Please,” Chipper spoke up, walking over to her. “I know you don’t know me. Danny’s my little brother. I don’t give a damn about anything else. Where is he?”
Val sighed. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. When he didn’t come back after the meeting with Sinclair and the others, we got worried. Popeye and I have been looking all over the city for him and came up with nothing.”
“Did he tell you his plan?” Reaper asked.
“Yes, but you’re not going to like it. He planned on using himself as bait to lure Pandora out into the open. Sypher believed if he could get close enough to Pandora, he could plant a tracker on her.”
“How the fuck is that going to help shit if that bitch kills him?” Ace yelled.
Sitting back down, Reaper whispered, “That sneaky son of a bitch.”
“Wanna let us in on what you figured out?” I snarked, tired of all this fucking cloak-and-dagger shit. Why couldn’t anyone just speak plainly and say what the fuck they mean? I did it all the fucking time. Didn’t want any misinterpretations before I fucking killed a motherfucker.
Looking up at me, Reaper simply said, “He’s sacrificing himself to save all of us.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snarked. “I don’t need him to save me.”
“Sypher fucking knew the only way to stop this fucking war was to force us to work together and systematically get rid of everyone connected to that cunt, before the table learned the truth.”
“What truth?” Mercy asked.
“But that didn’t work, did it? We still don’t know who’s all involved or where the fuck that bitch is at,” I groaned, then I finally caught on to what Reaper was saying. “Holy fuck. You know what that means, right? The first fucking thing the table will do is issue his kill order.”
“Exactly.” Reaper grinned. “Which will go out to everyone in the underworld. Including us.”
“And whoever takes the contract will reveal themselves.”
“YO! Thelma and Louise,” Ace shouted loudly. “You two bitches wanna let us all in on what the fuck is going on in those warped fucking heads of yours?”
“Sypher’s known all along who the guilty were. He’s been compiling a list since he got into the Trick Pony’s servers. By giving himself up, he’s forcing the guilty out into the open,” Reaper explained.
Picking up where Reaper left off, I added, “The kid knew by giving himself up, the table would order his death. Those guilty of colluding with the bitch would want him dead, because they would want to silence him before he revealed all their secrets.”
