Page 41 of Irrevocably

If this satisfies him, Lazarus doesn’t show it. He only glances at the man in the chair. “Shoot his cock off.”

“Wait!” Creep screams. “Wait, for fuck’s sake wait!”

“There something you want to tell us?” I ask, keeping my Glock aimed between his legs.

“I don’t know,” Creep says, his voice shaking. “I don’t know about any agreement. The prez doesn’t talk about it. He might talk with the officers, but I’m not an officer.”

“Has there ever been a raid on the port?” Lazarus asks.

Creep shakes his head. “No, cops don’t go near it.”

“What about the clubhouse?” I ask. “Has there ever been a raid there?”

“No,” Creep repeats. “Starling visits Sawyer every month, but I don’t know about what.”

Lazarus and I glance at each other. Interesting. “The chief goes to the clubhouse?” I clarify. He must, since I haven’t seen the president anywhere near Starling’s house or in his station.

“Yes.” Creep lets out a low moan.

I tried to get eyes in the MC clubhouse as well as the Starlings’ home, but the club security was too tight. I wasn’t surprised, though. The operation they’re running is lucrative and lots of families must be eyeing them, just as we are.

“Thea’s plant hasn’t seen him there?” I ask Lazarus.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “She would have told me if so.” He frowns. “What about the daughter?”

A streak of heat goes through me at the mention of Astrid, and I try to force it away. Memories of her tight pussy and her moans and the way she looked at me. The light touch of her fingertips on my back. She saw my scars the way I saw hers.

“She needed more time to talk to her father,” I say levelly. “I gave her another couple of days.”

Lazarus gives another noncommittal grunt. “Why?”

“Because it’s easier if she asks him rather than me holding her at gunpoint. I might have to kill her and then our leverage would be lost, and if I had to kill the chief, another cop would just take his place and we can’t afford that, either. We need Starling to stay at his post.”

Lazarus nods, his gaze narrowing as he nods at Creep. “What about her friend, the enforcer. He’s an officer. We could take him.”

Creep hears this and makes a strangled noise that sounds like a laugh. “You think you’ll get anything out of Wolf? You could shoot his balls off and he’d laugh in your face.”

Lazarus gives a long-suffering sigh. “I’m bored of this motherfucker. Get rid of him.”

I adjust my aim slightly and before Creep can make another sound, I shoot him in the head. He slumps to the side, a red rose blooming between his eyes.

“You think that prick was right?” Lazarus asks, nodding at the dead Hound. “If we can’t interrogate the girl’s friend, we could use her against him.”

There’s another shift inside me, the beast stirring, growling. It doesn’t like the thought of using Astrid in that way, but I can’t determine why. She failed to get information from her friend last night, and clearly the softly-softly approach didn’t work. So why shouldn’t we use her to get him to talk? He did tell her that he’d put his club first, but how long would he hold out if push came to shove? If we, say, held a gun to her head?

“Let’s wait until she’s talked to the chief,” I hear myself say, even though I didn’t mean to say it. “If that doesn’t work, then we move.”

Again, Lazarus stares at me, his gaze speculative. “Like her tits do you? Is that why you gave her more time.”

I don’t like where this conversation is headed and I don’t like the questioning note in his voice. I holster my Glock. “No,” I say expressionlessly. “I couldn’t give a fuck about her tits. This is about making things easier for us, nothing more.”

I know Lazarus is doubtful, but he doesn’t ask me any more questions.

Later that night, after we’ve gotten rid of the dead Hellhound, I can’t resist the automatic urge to sit in the living room and check the cameras. And I have been resisting. A part of me wants to watch her, wants to know what she’s doing and how she’s feeling after last night. Part of me wants to see the bite mark on her lip, and check if she has any bruises, any evidence of me on her body at all, because I want there to be.

I held out on a camera check all day, to prove to myself that it was just a fuck, nothing more, but now I’m opening up my laptop, telling myself that she might have talked to the chief, maybe she’s mentioned me to him, so I’d better keep tabs on her. Yet when I look at the feeds, a sensation I haven’t felt in years goes through me. Shock.

All my feeds are dead except the one in her bedroom. What the fuck?