Chapter 91 Deadline reached
Ryder's POV
I actually started feeling sorry for Snake at this point.
"What else did Vincent do? Did he offer to help in any other way?"
"He said he would talk to her if I wanted him to. That he would explain that the club takes care of its own and that my kids would always be protected no matter what happened between me and her." Snake's expression darkened with something that looked like guilt. "But I told him not to. I told him this was something I needed to handle on my own without anyone else getting involved. I didn't want my marriage problems becoming club gossip."
"When was this conversation? How long before he died?"
"About three weeks." Snake met my eyes and held them. "Why are you asking me that? You think my marriage problems have something to do with Vincent getting killed?"
"I think everyone who had access to Vincent's private life in those last few weeks is a suspect until we can prove otherwise." I leaned against the counter and kept my expression neutral even though my mind was working overtime. "Which means I have to ask you the same question I'd ask anyone else on the list. Where were you the night Vincent died?"
"At home. With Lisa and the kids." Snake's voice was flat and steady. "We were trying to have a family dinner because Lisa had agreed to sit down and actually talk to me about what she wanted instead of just packing her bags and walking out. I cooked. The kids actually sat still long enough to eat. And then Vincent got shot in the clubhouse parking lot and my phone started blowing up and the whole night fell apart."
"Can Lisa verify that?"
"Yeah. Call her if you need to. She'll tell you the same thing I just did." His eyes went cold with an expression that looked less like anger and more like resignation. "Do whatever you need to do to clear my name, Ryder. I've got nothing to hide except a marriage that's dying and a custody battle I'm probably going to lose."
"Then help us find who actually did kill Vincent. Because right now we've got a list of suspects and you're on it, and I'd rather cross you off it with evidence than leave you on it out of politeness."
"Who else is on the list?"
I hesitated for just a moment before deciding that Snake deserved to know, that keeping him in the dark wasn't going to help anyone. "You, me, Jaxon, Diesel, and Martinez."
Snake let out a laugh that had absolutely no humor in it. "So basically everyone in club management. That's a hell of a lot of help."
"It narrows things down from the entire club to a handful of people who actually had the opportunity and access to do it. But I highly doubt the list is authentic because so far, it's been bullshit." I pushed off from the counter. "Someone we trust, someone we've bled for and fought beside, is a murderer who's been sitting in the middle of us this whole time and lying through his teeth."
"It's not me." Snake's voice was rough and thick with emotion. "I swear on my kids' lives, Ryder, it's not me. Vincent was one of the best men I ever knew and the closest thing I had to a father figure in this world."
The conviction in his voice made me want to believe him. But I'd learned the hard way over the past few weeks that wanting to believe someone and actually being able to trust them were two very different things.
"Keep your phone calls private if you need to. I'm not going to force you to tell the whole club about your marriage." I held his gaze. "But if I find out you're lying about anything, the lawyer, Lisa, where you were the night Vincent died, any of it, I will make sure you regret it. Are we clear?"
"Crystal." Snake picked up his coffee and held it between both hands like he needed something to do with them. "For what it's worth, I hope you find whoever did this. Vincent deserved better than getting shot in his own parking lot by someone he trusted."
“Yea. Sage really needs the closure.” I shook my head.
“Actually I do remember something. Before heading home that day, Jaxon and Vincent had a pretty heated argument.” He added.
My brows furrowed and I suddenly became alert. “What did they argue about?”
“I have no idea. I couldn't care less about whatever a father and son were arguing about, when my wife had finally agreed to try to work things out.”
He left the kitchen before I could say anything else, and I stood there alone for a long time after he was gone, turning everything he'd said over and over in my mind. The story about his wife and kids felt real in a way that was hard to fake, the kind of raw and painful honesty that came from someone who had finally run out of the energy to keep pretending everything was fine.
But Vincent had been killed by someone close to him. Someone he'd trusted enough to lower his guard around. Someone who had access to his habits and his fears and his vulnerabilities, and who had used all of that knowledge to get close enough to pull the trigger.
Snake fit that description as well as…Jaxon? That's impossible. He couldn't have killed his father.
My phone buzzed with a message from Sage and I pulled it out, grateful for the distraction even as a new kind of dread settled into my chest when I read what she'd written.
"Dante called. He said his deadline is by noon. He said if I don't give him an answer by then, he's going to other clubs with proof of Dad's federal cooperation."
I called her immediately, not bothering to text back first because this wasn't a conversation that could happen over text.
"What the hell happened? He gave you forty-eight hours and it's only been thirty-six. What changed?"
"I don't know. He just sent the message five minutes ago and then called to deliver it personally." Her voice was tight with the kind of stress that told me she'd been sitting on this for a little while before reaching out to me, turning it over in her head and trying to figure out what to do before she let anyone else see how worried she was. "He said circumstances have changed and he needs my answer sooner than planned."
"What circumstances? What did he say exactly?"
"He wouldn't give me details. Just that the clock is ticking faster now and I need to decide whether I'm going with him or letting Diego and the Blood Sisters have me." I could hear her swallow on the other end of the line. "He sounded different, Ryder. Like he already knows how this is going to end."
I grabbed my keys from the workbench and headed for the garage door. "I'm coming to get you right now. We need to get to Jaxon and figure out what the hell Dante is playing at before that deadline hits."
"Ryder, there's something else."
The tone in her voice made my chest go tight in the way it always did when I knew the next thing she was going to say was going to make everything worse. "What?"
“Hes on his way here. Now.”