Page 16 of Archer (Dirty Misfits MC 3)
However, once I saw her strut right past Porter in all her bruised and battered glory, I stood to my feet in relative shock.
Not to mention, I was pissed.
Did she not get it? What the fuck was she doing? She had left the safety of my house, the safety of my rules, and the safety of the ocean to do what? Put herself at risk simply to prove a point?
“I hear you guys are talking about me,” she said as she walked over to the fridge. “Care to fill me in on the deets?”
I gripped my hands into fists. “What are you doing here, Josie?”
She ripped open the fridge. “Don’t mind me, just getting a beer.”
Astrid snickered. “You don’t drink beer.”
Josie glared at her from over her shoulder. “I do now.”
I marched over to the fridge and closed it. “No, you don’t. You need water, because water is what helps you heal. Along with some rest.”
She looked up at me as the door slammed closed. “And I’m supposed to rest in a strange house with no one in it? You really underestimate what makes people comfortable, Ashy.”
“Arch-er.”
She waved her hand in the air. “Whatever.”
I thought my head was going to pop off. “What are you even doing here, anyway? Even if you wanted to go out, why the hell would your first place be the clubhouse? You said it yourself, you didn’t like being here.”
She leaned against the counter. “That’s before I knew I was being talked about. So, which of you goons is going to let me in on the story?”
The guys all chuckled behind me, but I didn’t think things were funny. Anyone could have looked at her fucking face and knew that we were dealing with some pretty serious things. And while her sassiness would have been attractive at any other point in time in my life, that was beside the point.
She was injured, and she needed to be resting.
“We were talking about you going undercover at the club,” Porter said.
I whipped around on him. “”Are you fucking kidding me?”
Astrid blinked. “Wait, what?”
Then, Josie spoke. “Done.”
I whipped back around and gawked. “You don’t even know what you’re going undercover to do! And you can’t go undercover like you are, they won’t let you strip.”
Josie bucked up. “Are you saying I’m ugly?”
I scoffed. “I’m saying you’re covered head to toe with bruises. You don’t have the strength or the sanity right now to go undercover and spy on the guys that kicked the shit out of you.”
“Hey!” Astrid exclaimed.
Josie turned her glare onto me. “You don’t get to dictate who I am, what I can do, and what I’m capable of in this kind of condition. What’s the job?”
“It isn’t a job,” I groaned, “it’s an undercover operation to try and get information about the guys who did this to you from the inside. But if you go in there, you’re going to be a massive target. You’ll be at risk, and we haven’t even figured out how we’re going to keep eyes on you if that does happen. But it won’t happen. Not if I have anything to do with it.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, really? And why’s that?”
I gnashed my teeth together. “Because you look like you’re two steps away from being pushed into a commercial meat grinder.”
“Enough!” Brooks exclaimed.
The entire room fell silent as Josie walked away from me, flipping her hair as if she were some sort of diva. I had to draw in a deep breath in order to keep my anger and my worries at bay. I knew the guys would all be on her side out of pure necessity, and I needed to try and convince them that we couldn’t just send a woman in her condition back into the environment that hurt her in the first place.
“Well?” Josie asked as she got into the middle of the living room. “Is someone going to come sit with me and help me figure out how this is going to work?”
I shook my head slowly. “This is a big mistake, Josie.”
She snickered. “I’m a tough girl.”
I slowly turned around. “Tough enough to take another beating like the one you’ve already taken?”
I saw her wince and knew I had struck a cord. So, I kept going. “Because that’s what will happen if they find you out. And they won’t just beat you. There’s a chance they’ll kill you to send us a message. Going in there and doing what you’re about to do will put your life in danger. Can you really look Astrid in the face and say ‘yes’ to going undercover? Because if you can, then I’ll back off.”
I knew that I couldn’t really tell her what to do, but I didn’t want her getting hurt. I didn’t want her getting into the thick of all this and then suddenly realizing she made a mistake. This was something we had to do because it was the life we signed up for.
