Chop laughed, but in a way that told me he didn’t find shit funny about what he was saying. He cracked his knuckles. “The only good thing about that night was the look on the ATF’s faces when they opened the doors and only found a bunch of bicycles we had fixed up to donate to the Y.”

I stood over him, searching his face for any traces that he could be lying. “That’s not true,” I said, although something deep in my gut told me it was.

Chop reached over to the shelf behind his desk and I cocked my gun. “Just getting a drink, son.” He grabbed a fresh bottle of Jack and poured himself a glass. He tipped it back and downed the entire glass in one swallow. “If you’re going to blow my fucking head off, I at least want a last drink.” He slid a cigarette from the open pack on his desk and lit one. “And a smoke.”

“You’ve got three fucking seconds before lights out. I’m done playing your games. We do this my way. Tell me where Thia is or I’m pulling the fucking trigger.” My jaw was clenched so tight it hurt. My anger solely focused on Chop.

Chop threw his hands in the air. “You know what? I wish I had her, but I don’t. I wish I could have finished what I started and show you what real hurt feels like. Betrayal. It broke my heart when I found out your mother was a rat, but not nearly as much as when I found out that you were just like her. Like mother like son. Dirty. Fucking. Rats,” he hissed.

I scrunched my face. “What the fuck are you talking about, old man?”

Chops lip raised in a snarl. “You’re more fucked up in the head than I am if you really thought that I wouldn’t find out what you and King and that Preppy kid were up to. Well, guess again, because I have eyes and ears everywhere. We started taking more heat again, losing runs, losing work. It was like the shit with your mother all over again. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

“I never betrayed the club. Not fucking once. Not fucking ever,” I seethed.

Chop rolled his eyes. “Bullshit. But you know? I didn’t believe it either at first. Don’t you see what I was doing? I was giving you another chance. I was giving you one more shot to prove to me that you weren’t the dirty fucking rat I thought you were, and just like your mother, you disappointed me. You chose them over us. You chose going off on your own over your club and turned your back on me.” He finished his glass again and slammed it down on the table, the bottom of the glass cracked, a crooked line snaked up the side. “If Gus hadn’t told me what he saw? What he’d heard? What you had confided in him? I would have never believed it. I’d still be searching for the rat to this day. But lookey here,” he said, staring up at me. “I don’t have to search anymore. ’Cause the rat is right in fucking front of me.”

“What the fuck did you say?” I asked, his words still ringing in my brain. It didn’t make sense, but it wasn’t until he mentioned Gus that I started to piece it together. “Who told you I was a rat?”

He raised his eyebrows. I stayed still as stone, fearful that if I moved it would be my trigger finger first. “Gus. Surprised, eh? Thought he was loyal to you because you didn’t pop him in the head when you had a chance? Guess again. That little fucker was more loyal to me than you would ever be, and you think that—”

“Chop!” I shouted, but he wasn’t listening.

“You are owed everything you selfish—”

“Chop!” I shouted again, getting his attention. He finally paused long enough for me to get a word in. “Gus. When the shit went down with Isaac here, when he killed Preppy, I knew someone on the inside had to have leaked that information.”

Chop shrugged like what I was telling him wasn’t new information. “It was me. I didn’t want the brothers to know outright that I was taking you out. Thought I’d kill three birds with one stone.” He smiled. “Literally.”

Hearing him admit to what I already knew didn’t make me any less pissed about it. “I already knew it was you because—” I started, with Chop finally cluing in.

“Gus,” he said, sitting straight up as the realization hit him that we’d both been crossed by the same brother.

A voice boomed from the doorway. “It’s so nice that you two are talking about me.” He looked at me, his semi-automatic at my head. “Put your fucking gun down.” I reluctantly tossed my gun to the floor, half hoping it would go off and kill the motherfucker, but no such luck.

“Glad to hear you two fucking idiots finally figured it out.” He looked right at me when he said, “I was kind of hoping you’d kill your old man before you put it all together. But, oh well. That can be fixed.”

“You little shit,” Chop said, standing up from his chair.

Gus gritted his teeth and switched his aim from me to Chop. “I really fucking hate it when you call me that!” Gus roared, tapping the barrel of his gun on top of his head before pointing it back toward us. “And I’ve been good. So, so good. But I’m done being good. I’m done being your bitch. I can’t wait to take you apart piece by piece, just like she said I could. I can do whatever I want, because you’re mine. You both are. You’re my gifts from her.” Gus said, with a huge manic smile on his face.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I spared your life and took you in, and this is how you fucking thank me?” I asked my one-time protégé. “I should have pulled the fucking trigger when I had the chance.”

Gus took another step into the room. “Yeah, but you didn’t.”

“Who the fuck are you talking about, boy?” Chop chimed in. “Who the fuck is she?” I already knew who he was talking about and I had a feeling Chop did too.

“He’s talking about me,” said a feminine voice. The clank of heels against the concrete echoed in the hall until she appeared in the doorway.

My mother.

“Sadie,” Chop said, dropping his already broken glass. It shattered on the floor, cutting through the momentary silence as Chop and I both glared at the woman in the doorway. “You evil fucking bitch.”

She rolled her eyes and waved Chop off dismissively. A curt smile on her once again red lips. “Here,” she said, tossing a pair of handcuffs on the floor and kicking them over to us. “Cuff yourselves together.”

“Fuck you,” I spat.

Her voice was sweet and high, like she was practically singing when she said, “Cuff yourselves together or I will make a call right now that ends with your darling Thia being dumped off the causeway within ten minutes.”

“If you so much as fucking—” I started, taking a step toward her. Gus held out his gun and Sadie held up a phone.

“Save it, Abel. Cuffs. Now. Or the girl dies.”

I picked the cuffs up off the floor and did as she asked, cuffing my hand to my old man’s whose gaze was still fixed on Sadie.

“Can I kill him now?” Gus asked, shifting from foot to foot. “Is it playtime yet?”

“No, sweetheart,” Sadie said, like he was a toddler that needed to be taught a lesson. She sauntered over to Gus and planted a kiss on his lips. He closed his eyes while she kept hers open, tugging the gun from his hands. “You’ve been a very, very good boy to me all these years. You took very good care of me while I was that pig’s captive, and I thank you for that.” She patted him on the top of his head and raised the gun. Gus opened his eyes just long enough for the shock to register. “But I’ll take it from here, baby.” She pulled the trigger, firing off multiple rounds, sending Gus’s brains splattering against Chop’s old trophy case in a mist of pink and red.