Axel studies me for a moment, and then he murmurs, “We need to talk.”

He barks a few more orders, and then he takes my hand and leads me down the hall. We go to his office, and he shuts and locks the door behind us.

“What’s going on?” I ask, getting a little worried.

He walks over and drops down onto his chair, and I take the seat beside it. He turns to me, and I see his fingers are biting into his knees.

“Those girls were gang-raped by Beast’s club tonight.”

“What?” I cry, throwing my hand over my mouth.

“We took them, because we don’t want the cops getting involved. I’m not discussing club business with you, but you need to know we’ll be keeping them here until we can sort out something safe for them.”

“You’re helping them?”

He nods, lifting his eyes to meet mine. “Yeah, but listen...that’s not all I wanted to talk to you about. For years now, we’ve been jumping back and forth about why you even had to begin running in the first place. You want to know about the USB, your dad, and the rest of it, and it’s about time I gave you the fuckin’ truth.”

My hands begin to tremble. He’s going to tell me...oh, God.

“O-okay,” I say.

“You gave yourself a part of me tonight. It’s only fair I give it back.”

He jerks his drawer open, and pulls out a flask. He unscrews it and swallows a shot down, then offers it to me.

“Is it that bad?” I say, my voice wavering.

“Well, it ain’t good.”

I take the flask, and shoot it back. Axel doesn’t waste any time; he starts talking right away.

“Basically, to understand this story, you need to know your dad wasn’t a biker.”

I shake my head. “What? He created a club, and...”

“The club was fake, Meadow. Your dad was a cop, and he went undercover in a project that was meant to bring down numerous biker clubs in the area. He created his own club, and he got himself a name. It took years, but he did it. I found out what he did. I overheard him talking one day when I showed up at your house. I confronted him, and we got into it. Things went bad after that, and I constantly threatened to expose him. One day, he set me up. He knew my club was going to be involved in a big shipment coming into town—he had his sources everywhere. He gave Beast’s club an anonymous tip off, knowing they’d show up before us. He knew we were sworn enemies.”

“Why would he do that?” I gasp, unable to process this kind of information.

“He was angry at me, at himself, and he was tired of doing undercover work, and he wanted it over. He figured if two clubs showed up, a war would break out, and he could get what he needed to close us down. Chances were that we’d stuff up, and he could take us over that edge, bringing us down. He had enough evidence against us. He just needed us to fuck up.”

I try to mull this over, trying to process it in my own head. So, my dad set Axel up, and threatened his club. It’s slowly starting to make sense to me now. Slowly.

“So you killed my dad for revenge?” I ask, needing to know more.

His eyes harden, and I know the memory pains him. “It wasn’t just about revenge. It was about him trying to destroy the only family I had. He lied; he let me develop a bond with him, and he fucked me and my boys over. He was going to take us all down. When I got wind that he was headed in to deliver information that would take the clubs down, I knew I had to interfere. Turns out Beast heard about it, too. That’s the way it rolls when you’re dealing with the shit we deal with. Your business is everyone’s. Bikers had begun to hear about your dad, and word leaked about his undercover behavior. He was taking you that day...he was taking you to a different city so you would be safe. He was going to drop you off, then he was going to turn the information in, and go into witness protection.”

I feel my stomach lurch, and tears fill my eyes.

I have so many questions, like how does Axel know all this? He couldn’t possibly know so much just by word of mouth, but I can’t focus on that right now. I just can’t stop feeling the thudding pain in my heart about the news that’s just been delivered to me.

“I went after him,” Axel continues. “And I shot him. I didn’t know you were in the car. I thought I’d had it planned out. I thought he’d dropped you off already, and that you were safe. I saw the car, and I shot him. I thought I’d missed anything vital, and he managed to get into the alley. I didn’t know until a few hours after that you weren’t in a different city, but instead, running with the information that could destroy my entire club.”

“How did you know that I hadn’t been dropped off?” I croak.

He shrugs. “Your dad had a shirt pressed to his wound. He couldn’t have done that himself, because it wasn’t his shirt—it was yours. The information was missing. I made some calls, found out you hadn’t left the city, and I came after you.”

“So what you’re saying, basically, is that my father was a cop, going undercover as a biker, and he set you up to start a war. It went bad, you got hurt, you came back, and you killed him out of both revenge and to protect your club?”

He nods, letting his eyes scan my face for my reaction.

“And he was going to leave me behind?”

My voice cracks, and I turn my eyes down. My father was all I’d had. My mother I couldn’t remember, and there were no other family members in my life. He was all I’d had. He knew he was all I had, and yet he was going to drop me off to a strange city alone, and go into witness protection, never coming back for me. The reality of it makes my heart burn, and tears trickle down my cheeks.