Page 11 of Dirty

Crip looked at Pee Bee and then at me. “I’m fining each of you $100 for this. You know the rules.”

There were ten of us, total. “I’ll pay the grand,” I said.

“Twelve hundred,” he growled. “There’s twelve of you.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

“And, you better get their heads together and make up some kind of story about where they’ve been, and how they got rescued. If you don’t, it’ll come back to haunt you. I guarantee you at least one of these girl’s parents talked to the cops. At some point, there’s going to be questions asked.”

In all the commotion, I hadn’t even thought of it. He was right, there would be questions asked, and they’d need to be prepared to answer them without exposing the MC. “I’ll come up with something.”

“Keep it simple,” he said. “It’ll be easier to remember.”

I nodded. “Will do.”

He glared at me for a moment, and then walked toward his bike. As he got on, I noticed he wasn’t wearing the MC’s kutte, only a plain leather vest. It was the first time I’d seen him without it.

I looked at Pee Bee and chuckled. “You notice that?”

Pee Bee nodded. “Told him to lose it. Don’t need anyone pointing fingers at the club.”

As Crip fired up his bike, Alexandra cleared her throat.

“He’s a dick,” she whispered.

I couldn’t argue with her. He was a dick. But he was a dick for a reason. “Yeah. He can be,” I said. “But he’s got his reasons.”

I turned around and faced the group. Eleven of my brothers stood beside their bikes, and seven girls who ranged in age from nine to twenty-one were at their sides. What had happened over the course of the night was staggering when I thought about it.

Pee Bee slid the door open, and after Crip rode through it, he pulled it closed.

I crossed my arms and glanced around the group. “He’s going to get a van, and then I’ll get you all taken home. Your parents can take you to the hospital, or wherever you need to go. Probably be about an hour before we head out. Bathroom’s back there, and there’s food in the fridge.”

I tried to imagine what the girls had been through, but for the life of me, couldn’t come up with anything that I felt could compare to what they’d experienced. As a few of the men led the girls toward the bathroom or the refrigerator, Alexandra looked at mem but didn’t speak. Her eyes couldn’t hide her desire to speak, though.

I raised my eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want to go home,” she said. “Not yet.”

“It’ll be an hour or so. You okay?”

She shrugged. “I’ll be okay, but I don’t want to go home.”

Other than having dirty hair, countless bruises, and scrubs that didn’t fit, she looked remarkably normal. It was hard for me to believe she’d been in the position she was in and somehow found a way to maintain anything close to sanity.

She must have been one tough little bitch.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

She shrugged. “With you?”

I shook my head. “After I take everyone home, I’m going for a long ride. Need to clear my head.”

“You need to clear your head?” She tossed her leg over my seat and grinned. “So do I. A lot more than you, I’m sure.”

After going through what she did, if she felt a ride would clear her head, who was I to argue?

“You sure you don’t need--”