Berserkers MC was responsible for a third of the illegal guns in the city, for over twelve confirmed homicides and dozens of unsolved ones in the last year alone.
They were an evil I’d dug down into the dirt to dig up by the roots and weed out.
I closed my eyes, tipped my face up and tried not to cry.
“Harleigh Rose Garro.”
I opened my eyes and smiled slightly at Sergeant Renner.
He had his hand extended to me, a smile bigger than mine on his face.
I stared at his hand blankly then back at him.
The grin widened. “Like to thank you, Ms. Garro, for your invaluable help with the case. It’s the biggest seizure of illegal arms we’ve had to date, not to mention the fact that we have Berserkers MC tied up in that so tight, they’ll be going away for years.”
“It was Danner,” I told him truthfully, his name hot in my throat. “He did everything, really.”
“And he’ll be commended for that. For obvious reasons that I’m sure you understand, you will not. So, if you will, I’d like to shake your hand.”
A cop wanted to shake my hand.
I swallowed the strangeness, unsure if I was proud or horrified, and took his dry palm in my own.
“Thank you,” he repeated seriously, his dark eyes pinning me with the intent of his words so I couldn’t hide from it.
“Don’t sweat it,” I muttered.
And in the middle of a crime scene I wasn’t a felonious part of, I made a cop laugh.
I was home, ready for bed but snuggling in front of the TV with Hero watching Game of Thrones because it reminded me of Loulou, when there was a knock at my door.
Hero and I both perked up, looking at each other.
“Are you gonna get it, or me?” I asked him.
He woofed softly, and I laughed, giving him a gentle ear rub before I got up and walked to the peephole.
Farrah stood at my door, mascara darkened tears streaked down her face.
I chewed my lip.
She was a hideous person whose worst transgressions included plotting to see me raped by a biker.
She was also my mother.
And she’d done some terrible things, but I knew there was good in her because my father had loved her once, and on odd days at odd times in my childhood, she could be kind.
I dug my phone out of my pocket just in case and sent off a quick message to Renner.
Then I opened the door.
“What’re you doing here, Farrah?”
She sniffed loudly. “Are you really going to be so rude to your mother when I’m clearly distressed?”
I sighed heavily. “I’m only talking to you if you can explain why you were okay with letting Grease rape me.”
It was her time to sigh, as if I was a stupid kid again and she could never make me understand. She took my face in her hands even though I flinched, and her wet blue eyes the same as mine scoured over my face.
“You were such a beauty,” she whispered, suddenly morose. “I loved you so much. You were this precious little thing and I had no idea what to do with you, but I tried my best.”
“I never felt even a breath of that love,” I told her bluntly.
She bristled. “My mum died when I was four. Be grateful you even have a mother.”
“Be grateful I’m even talking to you now,” I snapped.
“Let’s start again,” she begged softly, grabbing at my hands to swing them softly between us. “I just want to be in your life. I have it right now. I can be better, and I don’t want to be alone.”
“You did that to yourself,” I told her, yanking my hands away. “You can’t just pick and choose when you want to have a family, Mum. You’ve had one all along and did nothing for them. Don’t expect me to want to be there for you now,” I said, starting to close the door as my phone rang.
“At least let me in so I can call a cab,” she asked prettily, crocodile tears in her eyes.
Renner calling.
I swiped open my phone and lifted it to my ear, tucking the device between that and my shoulder so I could tug her into the room as I answered the call.
“Hey.”
“Ms. Garro, I need to inform you that Reaper Holt was not picked up by the separate RCMP team that swept the Berserker compound tonight. There was no sign of him there or at any of the usual club haunts. We have reason to believe he has a mole in the department. I’m sending a squad car to you now. An officer will come to your door and the other will stay outside for your protection while we get this sorted.”
I listened mutely, careful to keep my face blank because my mother was pretending not to watch me as she fixed her makeup in the front entrance mirror even as she was.
Casually, I reached for my purse on the table beside the door, my other hand going to the lock to flip it.
A second later a gunshot fired and a bullet tore through the doorknob.
I leapt back, my hand blazing with pain, bleeding all over the ground from the bullet graze in the flesh of my thumb, as the door pushed open and Reaper appeared.
“Hey baby,” Farrah called out as if he’d knocked on the door and was visiting for tea. “The door was open. I think you caught Harleigh with that shot.”
Hero growled long and fierce from behind me.
Reaper lunged toward me, the butt of his gun to my temple. “Come the fuck on ’fore the pigs get here.”
Farrah checked her hair in the mirror quickly then slipped by us out the door. “Careful with Harleigh, baby.”
He grunted, but I knew he had no intention of being careful with me.
There was only murder in his eyes.
He knew.
He knew I was the rat. He probably even doubted that Wrath or Lion had been snitches now that he knew it was me.
And he was going to kill me for it.
My dumb, pathetic mother thought we were going to be a family again.
Maybe we would be, if he killed her too.
“Yeah, bitch,” he sneered against my ear, feeling the fear turn my body rigid as a corpse. “You’re gonna die tonight.”
There was another growl from the couch and then a smear of gold flying through the air as Hero leapt into action.
He lunged at Reaper’s groin, sharp teeth digging into his thigh in a way that had him bellowing and trying to shake him off.
I wrenched out of his hold and went for his eyes with my thumbs.
He swiped the gun madly in front of his face, trying to dislodge Hero and evade my sharp fingers. One of my nails connected with his tear duct and I pushed, feeling the wet squish as I cut through the corner of his eye.
“Fuck!” he screamed, lashing out so wildly that the back of his hand caught me in the side of the face and sent me flying.
I fell back to the ground with a sharp yell, cracking my head against the wood.
When I looked back up, Hero was wrenching his head away from Reaper’s blood-soaked thigh with a rough growl and a sharp jerk.
Reaper howled in pain and madly, sightlessly fired his gun.
I closed my eyes as the pain burned through me, bright as if I’d been run through with a broadsword.
There was a short whine then a dull thud as a body hit the ground.
“No,” I sobbed, crawling backward with my eyes shut, refusing to open them to acknowledge what had happened. “No, no, no.”
A hand tagged my ankle and roughly pulled me towards the door. My fingers raked so hard against the wooden floor, splinters erupted under my nails.