“Griff, you got a minute?”

I looked up to find J standing in the doorway and motioned for him to come in. “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to give you an update on Ricky.”

“You found much on him yet?”

“He likes Asian women and coke. Besides that, he’s kept his nose clean the last couple of days so we’ve learnt nothing.”

“Shit. This motherfucker is smart. Who would have figured?” I said, frustrated as hell that we were still no closer to getting confirmation he was behind the fire.

J grimaced. “We’ll keep tailing him, and Nash is working on some other angles. He’s gotta fuck up somewhere soon.”

“I’m not so sure he will, J. He’s been around for years, and you don’t build a business like that by making stupid mistakes.”

“We talking about Ricky?” Scott asked, joining us.

“Yeah, there’s still no leads on the fire,” I answered him.

He nodded his head slowly, his gaze fixed firmly on me, and my skin prickled – something was off with him. Keeping his eyes on me, he said, “J, can you give Griff and I a moment?”

Fuck.

I’d always trusted my instincts and right now, they were telling me something was very wrong.

“I’ll keep you updated,” J promised and left us alone.

Scott entered the office, closed the door behind him, and stared at me as if he was trying to figure something out. And in that instant, I knew that he knew.

Standing, I said, “You know.”

His nostrils flared and his shoulders tensed. He clenched his jaw, and nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

My gut clenched in a knot. I’d always wondered if this day would come. Had been unsure how I’d feel if it did, but I’d never figured I’d feel the way I currently was. Regret washed over me. Scott had become my family, and to see the look of disbelief, anger and pain on his face now…that shit cut deep. “How?”

“Jesus, Griff - how?” he thundered, his face a dark cloud of rage. “Ricky fucking told me. He showed up with a file on you. But I don’t want to talk about how; I want to talk about why. Why the fuck did you do this? I trusted you like a brother. Like fucking family! If I hadn’t seen that file, I wouldn’t believe it to be true.” He raked his fingers through his hair, and added, “You had me fooled, that’s for sure.”

I stood my ground. I had a lot to say, and needed to find a way for Scott to understand and believe that I spoke the truth. Because this would be the truth. Finally. “I’m gonna give you the truth, but it’s gonna take a bit to get there. Can you give me that at least?”

His hard look didn’t change, but he nodded. “Go on.”

“I was raised to be a cop. My dad was one, my uncle was one, and my grandfather was one. My cousin and I went through the academy together, but it never felt right to me. I never wanted what everyone else wanted for me. I finished my training but I never pursued a career after that.”

“So you just walked away?” he demanded. His face had contorted into ugliness at the mention of cops, and I didn’t blame him. The police weren’t high on Storm’s list of trusted people.

“Yeah. I fucked around for a while doing random handyman type jobs until private investigation work fell into my lap. A friend hired me to work with him while I did my study, and I never looked back.”

He crossed his arms and planted his feet wide. “Keep talking. You need to get to the point.”

“My parents and brother were murdered ten years ago. Tortured for hours and then had their throats slit. The day after Boxing Day, I came home to find them. I’ll never get the blood and horror out of my mind. I had no faith in the cops to find justice for their deaths. The idea of life behind bars for someone who killed my family didn’t sit well with me – I wanted blood for blood. And I believed I knew who the killer was.”

“Who?” Still that hard look on his face.

“Marcus.” I paused, taking in the flicker of surprise on his face. “My father had been investigating Storm and their involvement in drugs. I’m fairly certain he was close to arresting Marcus at the time of his murder. The investigation into Storm never really went anywhere after his death, which only convinced me further of Marcus’s involvement, but after eighteen months of my own investigations, I couldn’t pin him for the murders.”

“This isn’t adding up, Griff. You didn’t join Storm until three years ago, yet the murders were ten years ago.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I walked away from it all after eighteen months…left town and tried to move on from it because, fuck, it was changing me. I was doing shit I wasn’t proud of so I got out before I lost what little of my soul I had left. But revenge has a way of running your life, and I came back four years later determined to get justice. When I couldn’t do that outside of the club, I found a way in. I found a way to get close to the people I thought had killed my family.”

His wild eyes were glued to mine and his body was tied up with tension. “Fuck,” he swore. “So none of this means anything to you? What the fuck are you still here for? Marcus is dead so you’ve got no reason to still be here.”

Scott’s anger fueled my frustration. My chest tightened with the need to get everything out, and my head began to throb with a growing headache. “Storm means everything to me. Fuck!” I paced away from him towards the window. Balling my fists, I took some deep breaths, trying to get myself under control. Turning back to him, I said, “Marcus wasn’t responsible for my family’s deaths. I worked that out within a year of joining Storm. By then, I’d also worked out that Storm meant more to me than most of my own family had. There was no way I was walking away from that.”