I rolled my eyes and push further into Marcos’s dorm room. I don’t need to see that shit, not when my own jealously flared to life. I never used to be jealous of my brothers’ relationships with her, but since I’m still on the outs with Maya…I can’t help but feel a bit out of sorts about the whole thing.
Luke followed me into the room and we quickly headed over to the dining area. We managed to set up the living side of the suite with both a living room and dining room in a sense, but really it was a dining room table behind the couch. It fit and it worked, and I doubted Maya would mind.
Eventually they all filed into the room and joined Luke and I at the table. Marcos and Nico set down the bags of food and trays of drinks, and Luke cheered happily. “Yay! I’m starving.”
“This looks awesome guys.” Maya smiled happily as a cheeseburger was set in front of her.
Another pang of jealously hit me. Simple things like this always made Maya happy, and yet I couldn’t seem to be the one to do that. Resolution settled within me; after we had church and the conversations we needed with other brothers, I was taking my girl home and romancing her in my own way. I just needed to figure out what that looked like.
“This was Buckley’s room?” Maya asked a while later while we’re all still stuffing our faces. She looked around the room with a curious eye.
“It was,” Marcos answered. “I had it painted and then Jase and Nic helped me furnish it. I haven’t even stayed here yet since it became mine. But there’s a bed and bathroom in the other room.”
Maya frowned but didn’t comment.
“We bought the house, and I gave up my apartment, so I don’t really need this place, except for times like this.” Marcos shrugged.
“I like it, Dad!” Luke grinned.
“Thanks, buddy,” Marcos murmured.
As if sensing that Marcos was a little out of his element, Nico immediately jumped in. “We got you guys hooked up with TV and internet. You can watch movies while we conduct business, and as soon as we’re done, we’ll head home, ok?”
“Ok,” Maya agreed.
“After talking with Maya about things that had happened in the past before she left, and what happened during those ten years she was away,” Marcos addressed the club, “We discovered something we didn’t know back then about Buckley. He was working with Dax Hillcrest, even back then.”
Grunts and cursing went around the table as the group of leather clad bikers grumbled over their old president. All of them had voted to kill Buckley, and let Johnny Taylor have his revenge, but you never knew who still had hard feelings overthings. It was good to see the group was upset about Buckley and Hillcrest teaming up.
“Maya told me that Buckley was feeding Hillcrest to drive her away. We have reason to believe he was behind Trish coming into the clubhouse that night before Maya left and started the fight with her. Hillcrest has been threatening Maya for the last ten years, because she witnessed him kill the mayor,” I said, drawing all eyes to me.
My father cursed and shook his head. “We heard,” he motioned to Bear beside him, “what Trish said to Maya that night, talking about Dax, how he wanted to make her his plaything. Maya was shook-up really bad. She also told Maya that Hillcrest couldn’t wait to kill the three of you and share her with his crew.”
Marcos growled.
“She also mentioned,” I pressed on, ignoring Marcos, “that Hillcrest sent her flowers in Chicago as reminders to stay away. And when she finally got the courage to come back here, and started looking at apartments, Buckley had Marcos and I arrested for those bullshit battery charges—from when Buckley told us to go after Davies. He set the whole thing up. Hillcrest informed Buckley that Maya was getting ready to move back, and Buckley sent us after Davies. They organized our arrest at the same time they knew Maya would be in the bank across the street,” I concluded.
“What. The. Fuck?” Axel growled.
I nodded solemnly.
“All this fucking time, that fucking bastard has been working with the snakes?” Axel went on.
“Yes, seems like it,” Nico said.
“I need to know what else you guys know about Buckley’s relationship with Hillcrest. Any side jobs you might have done because your president asked you. I don’t care about the ancienthistory, I’m looking for clues to anything that might lead us to Hillcrest now,” Marcos ordered.
“I had always wondered why Buckley had killed that girl before you guys got a chance to question her yourselves,” Bear muttered. “It was like he was covering something up.”
“Yeah, his fucking involvement,” I spat.
Grumbles went up around the table.
“He once had me deliver a payment to a house in Dixon. It’s about an hour north of here. It was a mansion in the middle of nowhere,” Phoenix said.
“I’ve done that run before.” Nickle nodded.
“Us, too,” Trick said, motioning between him and Ransom.
