He congratulated himself when he didn’t see any motorcycles in his rearview mirror, but he didn’t ease off the gas, either.
Settling back for the drive, he looked down at the gas gauge and gave a smirk that no one was there to appreciate.
Home free, he thought jubilantly. No one could stop him.
Turning on the radio, he laughed hysterically at Skylar Grey’s song, “Coming home.”
“Yes, I am!” Reaper shouted out, feeling the wind rushing through the open windows as he drove. “I’m heading home … and you can’t stop me.”
Chapter Fifty
“Get out.”
Leaving the trunk open, Reaper walked away to stare down over the cliff on the highest mountain in Kentucky.
“Where are we?”
Reaper turned from staring into oblivion to Slate as he dragged himself from the trunk. “I see the brothers took their part while I was getting reacquainted with Butcher.” Slate’s face was so swollen that his features were indistinguishable.
Holding his ribs, Slate had to lean against the car to keep from falling down. “You got your payback. Better not do what you’re planning.”
“You think taking a few hits from The Last Riders and getting cracked with a rifle a couple of times is enough payback for the years of torture you put me through?”
“Maybe not, but it’s all you’re going to be able to get.” Slate raised swollen, slit eyes to him. “You kill me, you’ll destroy everything you and The Last Riders have worked for and put every one of them in jail.”
Reaper folded his arms over his chest. “How so?”
“Crash told me where all the bodies are buried behind the club.”
“Dead men don’t tell tales,” he mocked.
“They do when their federal informants. I’m in witness protection—”
“They’re doing a hell of a job protecting you.”
Slate tried to sneer at him, but the fattened lips just gave him a comical appearance. “I disappear, guess who they’re going to blame?”
“Quick guess. Me.” Reaper was enjoying Slate trying to talk his way out dying. It was a useless endeavor, but Slate could try all he wanted. Nothing would change the outcome.
“Not only you, but the whole fucking club.”
Reaper lifted one of his hands to stare down at his bloody nails detachedly. “After we discovered Crash’s duplicity, do you really believe we didn’t consider the possibility of him telling you? Look around these mountains surrounding the town. The choice is limitless where we could have rehidden the bodies.”
“Maybe so.” Hunching over to grab his ribs until he regained his breath, Slate gave another reason not to kill him. “But did you or any of The Last Riders consider that Crash taped Memphis being killed by them.”
“Did you hand it over to the FBI?”
“I did, but if you let me go, I can recant the testimony about where the tape came from, that Nickel faked the video. I’ll tell them I was doing it for the money, to get a new life … I can say anything you want me to say.”
Slate’s confidence was cracking the longer he talked, seeing he wasn’t making any headway.
“If the tape really exists, why did you have to pretend to stalk Ginny to draw The Last Riders out? All you had to do was tell Viper the tape existed, and he would have given you what you wanted.” Viper wouldn’t have, but it would have given him time to get his ducks in a row to protect The Last Riders.
“He wouldn’t have given me you.”
No, Viper wouldn’t have, Reaper silently agreed.
“Viper had you watched 24/7, even when you took off occasionally. I needed plans to take you. You don’t go down easy. I needed to bring you to me. Viper sent every fucking Last Rider to protect her, but you.”
“That’s why you staked out Rider’s place when Shade and Rider were the only ones to watch her.”
“I needed Viper to switch it up. It worked didn’t it?” Slate’s gloating didn’t have the full effect he wanted with his front tooth missing.
“That’s why you tried to kidnap her?”
“I would have had you back in Nashville, if the fucking bitch hadn’t taken off.”
“You wouldn’t have found me so easy to kidnap a second time. Why did you decide to use Ginny in the first place?”
“I saw her singing in Queen City. Took me a few hours to recognize her, but I remembered where I had seen her before. Then bingo,” Slate couldn’t help but gloat at his cunning. “Crash used to send pictures of people that regularly came to the club. I checked with my contacts….”
“You mean Vamp and the Count?”
“Took you long enough to figure that out didn’t it?” Slate gave a half smile with his swollen lip. “They told me how close Ginny was to the Last Rider’s, and they felt responsible for Ginny’s house burning down. I had the note put in Ginny’s apartment to see if the Last Rider’s would react. They came through like a champ.”