Chapter 42 Forced confession
Ryder's POV
I pulled Martinez out of the truck and marched him toward the entrance. He tried to resist but I had him in a grip he couldn't break.
"What's going on?" Jaxon asked as we ran into him at the parking lot of the clubhouse.
"The doc has something to tell you," I said. "About Robert Cordova."
Martinez looked at Jaxon with desperation in his eyes. "Please. You don't know what you're asking. The people involved—"
"Save it for inside," I said, pushing him through the clubhouse door.
Every brother in the main room turned to watch as we brought Martinez to Jaxon's office. The fear on his face was clear. Whatever he was about to tell us, it was bad enough that he'd rather face my threats than speak it out loud.
But he was going to talk. One way or another, Dr. Martinez was going to confess.
Jaxon appeared in the office doorway, his face tight. "Get him inside. Now.”
We shoved Martinez into Jaxon's office and locked the door behind us.
Sage was already there, standing near the window. When she saw Martinez's bloody face, her expression hardened. No sympathy, no shock. Just cold determination to get answers.
"Sit down," Jaxon ordered, pointing to the chair across from his desk.
Martinez stayed on his feet. "You can't do this. Holding me against my will, threatening my family. That's kidnapping. That's—"
I hit him. Not hard enough to knock him out but hard enough to shut him up. He crashed into the chair and stayed there, his tied hands pressed to his bleeding mouth.
"I lied," he finally said after a long sigh. "I've been lying for five years."
"About what?" Jaxon demanded.
"About Robert Cordova." Martinez looked up, his busted lip still bleeding "About how he died. About what Vincent asked me to do."
The room went very quiet.
"Robert didn't die in a motorcycle accident," Martinez continued, his voice breaking. "He was murdered. Beaten to death in what looked like a professional hit. He had multiple blunt force trauma wounds, broken ribs and a collapsed lung. It was brutal."
Sage grabbed the edge of the desk to steady herself.
"Vincent came to me the night they brought Robert's body in," Martinez said. "He told me Robert's death needed to look accidental. That the truth would destroy the club, tear apart families and maybe even start a war."
"So you lied on the autopsy report," I said.
"Vincent paid me fifty thousand dollars to falsify the death certificate and have the body cremated quickly. No autopsy, no investigation, just an accident that got filed away and forgotten." Martinez paused. "I've been living with that secret ever since. Every time I see Robert's wife or his daughters, I think about how I helped cover up his murder."
"Do you know who killed Robert?" Sage asked.
Martinez shook his head. "Vincent never told me directly. He just said Robert found out something he shouldn't have and it got him killed. That the fewer people who knew the truth, the safer we'd all be."
"But you have a theory," I said.
"Not a theory. A fact." Martinez pulled out his phone with shaking hands and scrolled through old messages. "Vincent visited me a week before he died. Said he was trying to make things right, that he was going to tell Jaxon everything about Robert and the money and the deals he'd made."
"What deals?" Jaxon asked.
"He didn't specify. Just said he'd done things that might come back to the family if he didn't clean them up first." Martinez found what he was looking for and turned the phone to show us. "He sent me this text the day before he died."
I read the message aloud. "If something happens to me, tell Jaxon about the federal accounts. He needs to know where the money really came from."
"Federal accounts?" Sage repeated.
Martinez nodded. "The fifty thousand Vincent paid me for my silence? It didn't come from club funds. It came from federal accounts. It was government money, specifically from some kind of witness protection or confidential informant program."
The implication hit like a freight train.
"Vincent was working with the government," I said.
"And Robert Cordova found out," Martinez finished. "That's why he was killed. Not because he was a threat to the club, but because he discovered Vincent was cooperating with federal agents."
Jaxon had gone completely still. His face was white and his hands gripped the desk so hard his knuckles showed bone.
"Do you know who killed Robert?" Sage asked again. Her voice was steadier than it should have been.
Dr. Martinez looked at Jaxon. His expression was tortured, like he was weighing whether to speak or stay silent.
"Vincent never told me directly," he said slowly. "But the way he talked about it, the guilt he carried. The way he protected certain people while being ruthless with others." He swallowed hard. "I think Vincent knew exactly who killed Robert. And I think he protected them because he had to."
"Because they were doing his dirty work," I said.
"Or because they were doing the government's work and Vincent couldn't afford to expose them without exposing himself."
Sage's voice cut through the tension. "Are you saying my father was a federal informant? That he was betraying the club to the government?"
"I'm saying your father was caught between impossible choices," Martinez said. "And Robert Cordova died because of it. And now Vincent's dead too, and I don't think that's a coincidence."
The room went silent. The only sound was Martinez's ragged breathing and the distant rumble of motorcycles outside.