Custom Love by Chantal Fernando
Chapter Twenty-Five
Atlas jumps in the car with me last minute before I leave the clubhouse.
“What are you doing here?”
“Temper said you’re probably going to do something stupid, and I’m supposed to stop you.”
“You can’t stop me, but you can join me. I’m going to search Chains’s apartment,” I say. “You in?”
He nods. “Prez told me to go wherever you do.”
“Why would Chains go against Temper and the MC?” I ask out loud when we arrive.
“That’s the question of the day,” Atlas mumbles, bending his head to look across at all the apartment buildings. Chains lives in a densely populated residential area. “He apparently lives in one of those.” He points to the older, brown brick building that looks like it has seen better days.
“Looks pretty shady.”
“Matches his character.”
My lip twitches.
“I didn’t see this coming,” Atlas admits. “I mean, he was always kind of weird and brooding, but fuck. I never once thought he wouldn’t give his all for the club. We’re the only family he has. I don’t get why he would fuck that up.”
“Who knows? I guess when drugs and greed are involved, people do stupid shit.”
We park behind the building and make our way through the gate, then up the stairs to Apartment 57. When we get there, I look at Atlas. “Don’t judge me, but cover me so no one can see what I’m about to do.”
He blocks me with his body while I start picking the lock with a hairpin I keep in my bag at all times. After a few minutes I manage to get it open and step inside, Atlas at my back.
Chains’s apartment is surprisingly tidy, pretty bare, but not exactly what I was thinking. I was expecting a typical bachelor pad, but it looks like Chains is a bit of a clean freak.
We separate and start looking through all of his shit without making any mess, because we don’t want him to know that anyone was here. I step into his bedroom, ignoring the huge king-size bed and going for the drawers. I find stacks of money, more than a mechanic would make, but I find nothing else incriminating.
I open his closet and a few items of clothing fall out. I pick them up one by one and try to place them back just how they were. A black studded belt hanging on a rack on the door catches my eye. Something about it looks familiar. Where have I seen this before? I rack my brain to think of why this seems important.
Dread fills my stomach, but I shake it off.
No way. It can’t be.
I hold the leather in my fingers and decide to take it with me just in case.
“Anything?” I call out to Atlas.
“Nope. Just some weed that I’m tempted to steal.”
“Yeah, maybe don’t?” I say.
I roll my eyes and get back to looking through all of the documents on top of his bedside table. There’s an old phone sitting in his top drawer, under a bunch of crap, but he’d definitely notice if that went missing. I turn it on, but it also has a password, so I’m not able to access it.
I pick up a handwritten letter from Taylor to Chains. I take that with me, and then we get the hell out of there. Atlas drops me off at the station.
Decker rushes over when he sees me, and I update him on what happened and ask to see the evidence from Ariel’s case again. He leads me back into the room, and hands me the box.
“What are you looking for?” he asks me.
“This,” I say, as I take out the stud that was found at the crime scene from the box.
I place it, with the little clear bag it’s in, on the belt I took from Chains.
And fuck.
There’s one stud missing from the belt.
And the missing stud has been in the evidence box this whole time.
Either Chains was there that night, or someone wearing this belt was. He knows what happened to Ariel.