Page 29 of Tanner (Dirty Misfits MC 5)
And by the time Cole pried me off him, he slumped to the floor.
Dead as a fucking doornail.
“No, no, no, no, no,” the man in the chair whimpered.
I walked over and gripped his hair, pulling his head back until he looked up into my face. “You see that? Did you see it?”
Tears streamed down his face. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
I held my finger up to his face. “You utter one word—one word about our families—and you’ll meet his same fate. Got it?”
He swallowed hard. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I g—got it.”
I shoved his head off to the side. “Great.”
I felt Cole staring at me as we made our way out of the cellar. I had no idea what in the hell we were going to do about that guy’s body, but his friend could stew with it until he decided to make better life decisions.
“Stop,” Cole commanded.
I halted my tracks before he wiped off my hands with a wipe he pulled out of his pocket. “Can’t go inside with your fists looking like a warzone.”
I stared straight ahead. “He had it coming.”
“Brooks is gonna be livid with you, my dude.”
I shrugged. “He had it coming, too.”
“Had what coming?” Brooks asked.
Cole paused, but I didn’t care. I took the wipe from his hand and continued wiping the blood off my skin as I turned around and faced our cowardly president. He didn’t have the kind of balls I figured he would have, and while he was a decent overseer of shit, he had no idea what the fuck he was doing.
And it showed.
“Don’t tell me you went into the cellar,” Brooks said as he walked up to both of us.
Cole stepped up to my side. “Dude, it was an accident. All we were trying to do is—”
I held up my hand, silencing him in his tracks. “Yes, we did. And we figured out that not only does Chops have some studio apartment near the docks, but he’s there right now finalizing plans for a shipment that comes in tonight.”
Brooks nodded slowly. “Uh huh. And if I go into the cellar, both of those guys are still going to be alive?”
I swallowed hard. “One of them mentioned Molly. They know how far along she is in her pregnancy.”
Brooks sighed. “Tan, what did you—”
I pointed my finger at his face, too. “And he mentioned Cheyenne. Said she’d rake in loads of money for them. That he’d buy a house with her work. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Let them spout that kind of shit? That’s my daughter!”
“And this is your future!” he bellowed.
I took a step toward him, closing the distance. “I will choose my daughter over some scum of the earth any day of the fucking week.”
Brooks tilted his head off to the side. “Was he hurting Cheyenne?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Did he have Cheyenne in his grasp somehow?”
I clenched my jaw. “You know damn good and well—”
Then, he shoved me. “You killed one of our two lucky leads because you don’t know what to do with your pent-up energy. Is that it!?”
I shoved him right back. “No, Brooks. I killed one of our two lucky leads because he had the audacity to put my daughter’s name in his mouth. And if you can’t understand that, that’s on you. Not me!”
Cole stepped in between us. “Enough! Both of you!”
But Brooks turned on him. “And where you were, huh!? Where were you when he was beating the ever-loving snot out of this guy!?”
“He mentioned Raven, you know,” I said flatly.
Brooks froze. “What did he say?”
I shrugged. “Does it matter?”
He shoved Cole out of the way and gripped my leather jacket in both of his hands. “You better tell me what the fuck that sorry excuse for a human being said about Raven.”
I smirked. “Not so easy when it’s someone you love being talked about, huh?”
He shoved me away. “What did he say!?”
“He said that Raven was looking mighty fine nowadays!”
Brooks’ nostrils flared. “They’re still tracking the girls.”
In a flash, Brooks was down in the cellar. In a flash, he had our other prisoner up against the wall with his feet dangling in midair.
And in a flash, the man spilled his secrets as if he were an overturned cup.
Fourteen
Summer
I heard the softest commotion outside while I lounged in the tub, attempting to shave my legs. It was hard to concentrate, though, especially with thoughts of Cheyenne’s safety running through my mind. It felt like days had passed, when really it was almost time to go get Cheyenne from her sleepover.
And it worried the hell out of me that we might be tracked.
I still wasn’t sure what I needed to do, though. While part of me wanted to stay with Tanner, the bulk of me wanted to go with my daughter. I mean, I knew we’d both be safe. Sloane was a stickler with me when it came to carrying some sort of concealed firearm around, just in case. And with the training she had to endure in order to work with the Santa Barbara police department, I knew she could take whatever was thrown her way.
