Bound by Lies (God's Reapers MC Book 3) by Kara Parker

for you—a kid; he’s fresh out of the academy and eager to work. I imagine the two of you will manage to stay busy.”
     
    “Thank you, Captain,” Olivia said. She turned and headed for the door, and as she stepped out, she heard someone start clapping in the bullpen. Then, others picked it up, and before she knew it, the room was filled with men and women hooting and hollering and cheering for her. Olivia felt her face flush, and she gave them a slight wave and headed to her desk with everyone patting her on the back and telling her good job. She sat down and smiled. It felt good to be back.
     

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWELVE
     
    David looked around the God’s Reapers’ now desolate warehouse. It was a cavernous space, which echoed with every step he and Olivia took, as they slowly made their way through it. The floor and walls were all cinderblocks, and the space was cool and quiet. However, it had an abandoned feel to it. There were stains and skid marks from when the police had raided the garage. Trash cans had been knocked over and never righted, and bits of yellow police tape still hung limply on the banisters and by the doors
     
    “So this whole building is paid for?” Olivia asked, as she looked around.
     
    “Yup, a member built it cheap back in the fifties; all we owe are there taxes—and those are nothing at all.”
     
    There were toolboxes and hydraulic lifts and wrench sets on pegboards. It was all still here; it was just like he remembered. David turned all the lights on, and the huge garage was lit up. He could see the corner where they kept the TV and a pool table, and he could see the offices upstairs. One of them was his now. David felt like he had spent his entire life looking up at those offices. He could remember being a teen and staring up at the older members as they had some heated discussion. He could remember being amazed and mystified. He had desperately wanted to know what they had been talking about and what went on upstairs.
     
    He knew now, and he looked back on the kid wistfully. Sometimes , he thought , it would have been better to never know . Now, David was ‘upstairs’—but what he knew now was that there was a weight on his shoulders that didn’t used to be there. He had other people to look out for now, not just Olivia, but his brothers, those in and out of jail.
     
    “How does that saying go? The easy thing and the right thing are rarely the same thing?” he asked out loud.
     
    “Something like that,” Olivia said with a smile. “What are you going to do if they say no?” she asked. However, David could only shrug; he had never been good at predicting the future.
     
    The door to the outside creaked open, and David watched as the other free members of the Reapers walked into the garage. They were all still devastated by the loss; they looked around with their eyes down, shaking their heads as they reminisced about what it used to be. Olivia hung back, staying behind David, as the members and Mike formed a semi-circle around him.
     
    “Thanks for coming,” David said to the group. “I don’t know how to start this, so I’m just gonna start.” He cleared his throat and tried to steady his nerves. It felt strange to him, to take up a leadership position like this. He was so used to be the one who listened that he wasn’t sure how to be the one who gave the speech. “Our numbers are low, very low,” he said, looking at the men who surrounded them. “However, that’s not really true. There are still as many of us as there has always been. Our brothers in jail need our help. They need money, and we need to get it to them.”
     
    The men around David agreed, nodding their heads in unison. “But we can’t do it the way we always have,” David said. He looked from one member to the other, hoping to find a sympathetic face but seeing only anger and resentment. “We’re broke, and we’ve lost all our ties with the cartels. They don’t trust us