Page 17 of Colt
The room spun. No affair. No other man. Just Lilac, pregnant with twins, eight weeks after our last reunion. Lilac, who’d listed me as the father because Iwasthe father. I was the only man she’d been with.
Those boys with green eyes and stubborn jaws—
“They’re mine.” The words came out strangled. “Those boys are mine.”
“Your brothers lied about everything.” Glitch’s voice was flat. “The affair that never happened. The money she never took. The divorce papers she never signed. And Doc French knew she was pregnant with your kids. I’d bet my cut your whole club knew the whole goddamn time.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Somewhere in those desperate, hungry hours of reunion, we’d made two sons who didn’t know their father existed.
And my brothers had known. They’d looked me in the eye and told me she’d betrayed me, that she’d run off with another man.
They’d known it was all a lie.
“But why?” Dutch asked, his voice hard. “Why would Death’s Head lie about this? Why would they forge divorce papers and tell Colt his wife cheated?”
“That’s what I’m still trying to figure out.” Glitch started to say more, but Holden’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it and frowned.
“Prospect at the gate,” Holden said. “Says there’s an old woman and two men demanding to see Colt. Woman’s name isBetty. She’s a retired nurse. One man’s Graham, the other gave his name as Bernard Mischewski. Retired lawyer.”
That name landed too. “There was a prospect at Death’s Head called Graham. He was just a kid, barely eighteen.”
Dutch looked at me. “You know him?”
“He left right around the time Lilac did.” I stood up. “When I got back from that run, everyone was talking about how Graham was about to get patched in—said he’d done something big for the club while I was gone. But then he just… walked away. Told everyone the life wasn’t for him.” I shook my head. “It never made sense. That kid wanted his patch more than anything. And now he shows up here with some woman and a lawyer—”
“He might have answers,” Glitch finished.
Dutch was already on his feet. “Let them in. Everyone stay. If they’ve got something to say about what happened to our brother’s wife, we’re all going to hear it.”
Five minutes later, the clubhouse doors opened and three people walked in.
The woman was older—late sixties, maybe seventies—with silver hair and the kind of steel in her spine that reminded me of my grandmother. She walked like someone who’d seen too much and was done being afraid of it.
Beside her was a man about the same age, tall and lean with wire-rimmed glasses and the bearing of someone used to courtrooms and cross-examinations. He carried a worn leather briefcase that looked like it had seen decades of use. Bernard Mischewski—the lawyer.
The third person, I recognized. Graham. He’d been barely eighteen when I’d known him, young and eager, desperate to patch in, willing to do anything for the club.
Now he was a man. Older, broader, and clearly pissed about something. “Colt.” Graham’s voice was rough. “I’ve been waiting seven years to have this conversation.”
“Then talk.” I planted myself in front of him, fists clenched. “Tell me where my wife has been. Tell me why she left. Tell me—”
“She didn’t leave.” Graham’s eyes met mine, haunted and tired. “She was nearly beaten to death at your clubhouse. While you were on a run, and yourbrotherscovered it up.”
The words didn’t make sense. I heard them, processed them, but they refused to form into anything coherent.
“The fuck?”
Graham took a breath, steadying himself. “The night before you got back from Corpus Christi, something happened at the clubhouse. The prez—he was drugged, we found out later. Someone slipped him something that made him… violent. Unpredictable. He went on a rampage.”
“I never heard about any—”
“Because they covered it up.” Graham’s voice cracked. “He hurt people, Colt. Badly. And Lilac was one of them. She’d come to the clubhouse to wait for you. She had news—about the pregnancy. She wanted to tell you as soon as you walked in the door. She wanted you to be the first to know but Doc had already announced it to the brothers.”
The words didn’t make sense. Again. I was starting to think my brain had just stopped working.
“The officers found the bodies in the morning. Most of them were dead.” Graham swallowed hard. “I was a prospect. They told me to dispose of the bodies. But when I checked Lilac, she was still breathing. Barely. I couldn’t—I couldn’t just leave her there. So I loaded her into my truck and I drove. I drove until I got to Betty’s place.”
