Page 94 of Devil's Dilemma

“Red?” Red raises his chin toward Demon. “Your town, your mess to clean up if we confront Skull again.”

He means move it to the physical level. I want nothing more than to get my hands on the man who’s hurt my woman so badly, and hopefully in a dark alley. If I do, he won’t be walking away alive. But as Demon has suggested, me satisfying my lust for revenge would bring blowback on the Vegas club. Cops will be watching the Devils carefully, and particularly if Skull gets so much as a scratch. While I don’t like it, Demon’s right to take any decision out of my impulsive hands and give it to Red instead.

“That’s what we’re about to thrash out, Demon.”

Demon nods, and sits back, folding his arms across his chest, giving Red the floor.

The Vegas prez looks around the table. “To sum up, we found the fucker Colorado wanted found. Most of you were outside heard him admit he infiltrated the club as a plant.”

“Agree with what I heard,” Crash, the Vegas VP offers. “He’s found nothing, Colorado got away clean. Like us, they don’t run drugs or guns or take part in organised crime.”

“He could have been put in there to get dirt on other clubs,” Sparky suggests. “We cross paths with the Wretched Soulz from time to time.”

The Wretched Soulz are the dominant club across a lot of the states. Yeah, they’re into shit we wouldn’t touch, but they don’t normally involve us in any of their business, though they do have closer links with the Tucson chapter. But if that’s what Skull was hoping to find information on, he’d wasted eighteen months of his time working out of the Pueblo club.

“Why did he take an old lady?” Indian throws a look of sympathy my way.

I frown as I remember. “He encouraged Mel to get close to Vi, get her to talk about the club. When she reported back she’d learned only the rules and regulations, he wasn’t happy.”

It’s Red who takes over from me and expands my answer to their sergeant-at-arms, named because he rides an Indian instead of a Harley. He glances at Demon then suggests, “I surmise he wasn’t getting anything from discussions around the table. Maybe he thought there were things as a new patch he was being excluded from. Things which may have been discussed with a prez’s old lady.”

Demon snorts, and a ripple of chuckles go around. Shows how desperate Skull was becoming if he thought for a moment club business was shared as pillow talk.

“He was playing the long game.” Again, my brow furrows as I think back. “He brought Mel to the club before he went about claiming her. Wanted to make sure she was a good fit, he said, and that she could accept the club. Didn’t seem unreasonable at the time.”

“He’d have ditched her if there was going to be any problem with her, if she didn’t get on with the club, or them with her,” Titch, an older member with grey hair puts in. “Gave him a chance to see whether he’d found someone suitable. Your woman,” he raises his chin to me, “she must have proved herself.”

It might have been better if she hadn’t, given the way things had gone down.

“What no one’s brought up, is are we going to let him get away with it?” a biker called Hammer asks.

Red glances at Demon, then Beef, then looks my way and raises his eyebrow. I toss him a glare, but I can see why he’s silently asking me. I, in turn, look at my prez and VP. Demon raises his hand slightly as if inviting my views.

“If he’d have been any other man, I’d have taken him out, killed him and buried him in the desert. But, he’s a cop.” As I say it, I realise that the situation would never have occurred if he’d been anything else. “And him being a cop, you can be damn certain, if he even gets a bloody nose, fingers will point directly our way. And that, as Demon said, would leave you in a mess, Red.”

Red nods. “My thinking exactly. I do worry about why he was in Vegas, but maybe it’s his home base. He was here with his wife after all. Now his cover’s been blown…”

“I’ll circulate his photo to all clubs and associations I can think of,” Keys puts in, earning himself a nod. “Put it on the dark web.”

“He might never be able to work undercover again.” Red gives an evil smirk. “And there might be someone just grateful to know who and where he is.”

“He won’t be here long,” I suggest. “He was going to up and leave everything. Whether it’s cops or feds they’ll know it’s too risky for him to stay close now. They’ll set him up somewhere else, maybe with a new identity. We were just fuckin’ lucky his wife wanted that toy for the kid.”

“Yeah, what’s with that?” asks Titch. “Surely they could buy another?”

There have been no babies in the Las Vegas club for years. I, at least, have experience of Theo.

Demon for one understands as he enlightens the childless members, “My kid won’t go to bed without his blankie. Screams the fuckin’ place down without it. Yeah, kids can latch on to something. Skull’s wife probably thought the risk was worth taking.”

Thank fuck she did.

Crash is nodding. “But now, I think it’s safe to assume they’re in the wind. Key’s is doing the right thing, he might pop up somewhere.”

“Hopefully dead,” Rope offers.

I slowly nod my head. Yeah. I’d like that. While I want to be the one to see him take his last breath, knowing he’s six foot under would give me some satisfaction.

“He’s mighty young for an undercover cop,” Judge puts in. “He told us he was twenty-three when he started as a hangaround and twenty-five when he met Mel.”

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