I ground my teeth together and tried that counting to ten thing.
It didn’t work.
“No,” I stated, then turned away from him to see Sterling and Farrow staring at me with dual expressions of awe and irritation.
No one stood up to Guzman. He was completely incompetent, but he was a bully, and he had no problem with making a cop’s life absolutely miserable if he felt they needed to be ‘reminded who was in charge.’
Only, no one bullied me. I’d been effectively bullied by my father for too many years to count and when I took down the Nightstalkers MC, I finally had enough notoriety to get out of Entrance and away from his corruption. Now that I was free, there was no way I was taking orders I didn’t believe in.
Not anymore.
Not ever-a-fucking-gain.
And especially not when following orders meant I’d have to use Harleigh Rose as an inside asset in the most dangerous gang British Columbia had ever seen.
“I’m fine with that, Danner.” Another voice, deeper than any voice I’d ever heard otherwise, sounded over my shoulder and I turned to find Sgt. Renner, the head of Project Fenrir and my immediate superior, at my back. “But if she gives us any indication she still has serious ties to that MC, I want you on her, you hear?”
Immediately my bestial brain concocted an image of me on H.R. the way I’d wanted to be on her since she turned sixteen and went from gangly kid to fucking gorgeous woman; her endless legs wrapped near to twice around my hips, her streaky gold and blond hair laid out across my pillow and her long neck under my teeth as I bit into her, fucked into her, branded her as mine.
Only I hadn’t given in to the urges when I’d had the chance. In fact, I’d run away from them as fast as I fucking could because the thought of her was nearly too much, but the reality of her was impossible.
Guilt slithered through my veins like a toxin, infiltrating my system before I could rationalize the feeling. I’d been too chicken shit to get involved with her then, and she’d lashed out by turning to the worst possible option.
Cricket.
So indirectly or not, I was to blame for her abuse, for his death.
I rubbed a hand roughly over my face, trying to scrub away the weariness there. I’d become a cop because I was born the kind of man that couldn’t sit idly by while injustice was done. I’d known the first time I stood up to a bully, six years old and scrawnier than most of the girls in my grade, and then promptly been beaten on my ass by said bully and three of his friends, that I would keep standing up and fighting wrong for the rest of my life, even if it meant getting beaten down each time.
I’d known there would be setbacks, that a badge and a code of honour didn’t mean I’d be able to rectify every misdeed. What I never could have prepared for was the knowledge that my own father would force me to act out those misdeeds or at the very least, cover them up. That system was in place for a reason yet so many innocent people were condemned and so many guilty slipped through the cracks, their way greased by money slicked palms and handshake deals.
And now this.
Now, Harleigh Rose, a woman who radiated confidence and pure fucking joy, was sitting in an interrogation room coated in her abusive boyfriend’s blood, physically torn by his hands and degraded by his actions.
And fuck if I didn’t feel that worse than all the other transgressions rolled into one.
“I’ll watch her,” I muttered, to the man I actually admired enough to give a response to. “But she’s a victim here, Serge. I’m not feelin’ keen to take advantage.”
Serge’s big hand clapped over my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “Don’t like to see a woman, any woman, assaulted sexually or otherwise. But you’ve got to face reality here, Danner. The girl didn’t just make her own bed, she was born in it.”
I shrugged off his hand but gave him a terse nod. I wondered for the thousandth time if children were inherently accountable for their parents’ offences, if there was receipt of sinful debt written into our DNA, if we were karmically wired to live bad and do bad because it was in our blood. And not for the first time, I couldn’t answer definitively even though I’d spent my entire life trying to prove otherwise.
My distracted gaze focused on the room in front of me and I immediately frowned when I noticed who had replaced Sterling and Farrow in the interrogation.
“You murder anyone before, Miz Garro?”
The asshole interrogating me even looked like an asshole. Slicked back hair thick with styling cream, an even tan that spoke of artifice—either careful rotations sun tanning in his yard or even worse, at a salon. It was obvious he was no stranger to a salon either way because his nails were better manicured than my ratty-assed chipped black fingertips. I couldn’t stop staring at them as he moved his hands over a stack of papers meant to intimidate me. They were slim-fingered with perfect oval nails buffed to a high shine and palms so smooth I just bet he moisturized every night before bed.
“Not a stranger to being on the wrong side of the law, are you? Daughter of Zeus Garro. I just bet you were born with the thrill of rebellion on your tongue. Let’s see, we got some petty theft, physical assault charges, and destruction of public property,” the other officer, this one a smug looking, masculine brunette grinned thinly at me as she listed my crimes.
I shrugged one shoulder. “Honestly? I shoulda been given a medal for decapitating that statue of mayor Benjamin Lafayette. He was steaming piece of shit so really, I did a public service.”
The asshole awkwardly swallowed his startled chuckle, which made me like him more, but the lady cop sneered at me.
“Flagrantly disobeying the law isn’t a laughing matter, Miss Garro. And I find it interesting that you could retain your sense of humor after you claim that Taylor “Cricket” Marsden assaulted you and tried to rape you with his gun.”
I swallowed past the sudden swell of bile at the back of my tongue. I could still feel the press of metal against the inside of my thigh, how cold it was against the hot blood that seeped from my torn opening.
It would have hurt anyway, a comment like that, no matter that I’d grown up livin’ the kind of life that meant I’d been born with a thick skin that only grew more calloused with time. It hurt more that a woman was givin’ that shit to me. I may have been raised in a club of biker men, but it was their women who’d raised me and taught me that there was nothing so sacred as the bond between women.
“Not one for the sisterhood, are ya? Judging a woman on how she’s gotta move past something like that,” I said softly with a click of my tongue.
“Difficult not to judge a biker’s daughter with a rap sheet started when she was thirteen and now she sits there laughing about vandalism after she’s killed a man. For all we know, you like it rough and the one who got out of hand wasn’t him, but you with that knife and an opportunity to take a shot at a rival gang to your daddy’s.”
There was a loud bang from outside the door and asshole cop even shifted uncomfortably at her insult but I ignored it to casually lean forward over the metal table between me and Bitch Cop to say, “No one ever taught you a woman doesn’t have to act like a man to be powerful, did they? Us women, we got more power in our pinky finger than most men hope to wield in their entire lives. And a part of that power is supporting your sisters, believing them when they confess and supporting them when they fall. Shame,” I clucked again.