I didn’t.
I stayed where I was, my heart pounding a mile a minute, and waited for her to reply.
“Can you live without a dick?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know… why?”
“Because if that guy’s dick is still intact, you should rip it off with a pair of pliers,” she supplied. “After visiting with Cannel, and getting to know her, I know she is the one person in this world that would never hurt a fly. She’s beautiful and courageous, and so freakin’ understanding. She didn’t deserve that. And the guy that you have hostage? Well, I can’t seem to gather up the desire to care that he’s hurting. And has been for a while.”
I finally did what I’d wanted to do from the beginning, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her in tight.
“The club does some sketchy shit,” I admitted. “We find people that hurt others—and a lot of the time, they’re sex traffickers, or the middleman that thinks they’re just going to transport them from point A to point B. Anyway, we find them, then we persuade them in archaic ways that they don’t want to be doing that anymore. And if they are deemed as ‘unredeemable?’ Well, then we’ll do what the police can’t and won’t do.”
Meaning, we offed them, and enjoyed it.
We—my brothers and I—weren’t originally like this. We were straitlaced men who joined the military, worked when we got out and made a living like every other American.
Then Cannel went missing, and we spent a year looking for her.
In that year, we’d seen some horrible stuff.
Just the thought of what Cannel was going through was enough of a kick in the ass to shift our focus, as you would say.
We changed.
We adapted.
And we rid the world of people that didn’t need to be in it any longer.
“Understandably,” she whispered into my shirt.
“Do you honestly believe that I should be bringing kids into this world anyway?” I asked her. “Because, from where I’m standing, I’m seeing some bad shit. I wouldn’t want a kid to be brought into it when it’s going to hell. I mean, just the other night there were four little girls that went missing from a day care. Their teacher is the one suspected of doing the kidnapping.” I hesitated. “They were found two days later starved, beaten, and hurt.”
“What?” she asked. “I never heard about this.”
“Because when it comes to club business, you won’t ever,” I admitted. “You and me? We do this? You’re not ever involved. Not a single foot will be stepped into our business. Because the best way to protect our females is to keep them securely at home, where they’re safe, and the bad shit doesn’t touch them.”
I could tell she didn’t know what to say to that.
Which suited me just fine, because there wasn’t anything to say.
“Will you be able to talk about it?” she asked curiously.
I caught her helmeted head in my hands and tipped it back using both of my hands on either side of her visor.
When I had her gaze, I said, “Probably not.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re a pain in the ass, Crow.”
My eyes twinkled as I said, “But I’m your pain in the ass. So what now?”
She sighed, then leaned up and pursed her lips.
I dropped a kiss down onto them. One that was a little bit wet, and a whole lot slow.
When I pulled back it was to see her eyes hooded.
“Now, we go see what the hell my parents want,” she grumbled.
CHAPTER 23
What do you call it when two short people do 69? ea.
-Text from Iris to Shine
IRIS
“You want to come in?” I teased.
Callum snorted. “No, not really. But I’m going to anyway.”
Just before he could pull off his helmet, his phone rang in his pocket.
I had a joyous laugh as I watched him try to slip the phone out of skintight pockets.
Eventually, he stood up and pulled it out, only to hit ‘answer’ for him to realize he still had his helmet on and couldn’t hear.
Rolling my eyes, I hit speakerphone and said, “Your brother has issues.”
“I’m having them, too,” Haggard grumbled. “Got a flat. I don’t have a jack for some fuckin’ reason, so I’m gonna need a ride to my truck. Could you give me a lift, bro?”
I could tell immediately that Callum was torn.
He wanted to go, but he also didn’t want to leave me here to deal with my parents on my own.
“He’s coming,” I said to Haggard. “He hasn’t even taken his helmet off.”
Callum’s lips quirked. “I’m coming.”
After a quick peck on the cheek, and a promise to ‘hold on to my helmet,’ I headed to the side door of the main house where Teller used to live.
I’d gotten a message from the cops just yesterday saying that the scene had been released, and I was allowed to go inside now that I ‘owned’ it.
They’d then followed that up with an update on Teller’s case, saying there hadn’t been any new leads, and that even his cases at work had been studied, and they couldn’t find a reason as to why he’d been murdered.
My sister was still the prime suspect.
Really dreading having to talk to my parents, I started to trudge up the length of the walkway to the front porch when movement from my periphery caught my eye.
I frowned, turned, and was hit so hard in the face with what felt like a brick that I went down hard.
My elbow hit the concrete with an audible thunk, and I immediately lost sensation from my elbow down.
Before I could recover from both blows, more rained down, hitting me over and over.
I raised my arms up over my head, realizing almost too late that I had my helmet in my hand still.
It was only when I heard the sound of metal connecting with the plastic that I realized I still had it.
Swinging out blindly, I connected with something solid, hearing a feminine curse.
The body hit the ground beside me and blindly I swung out, again and again, hoping to make contact with something.
I did, three out of four times.
The only problem was, I had so much blood in my eyes I couldn’t see a single thing.
I could feel it running down my face and over my cheek, curling behind my ear and soaking into my hair.
Whoever had done the hitting had stopped moving, but I didn’t stop my hitting back to make sure.
Only when I heard something solid crunch did I back away and scuttle until I felt something solid at my back.
Then the familiar sound of a motorcycle filled the air, and I started to sob.
Only, that sobbing hitched when the person that I’d been hitting started to speak.
“You know how long I’ve been keeping up this lie?” Abby coughed wetly. “I’m not fucking schizophrenic, you moron. Schizophrenics have more symptoms than I do. But it’s super hard to act crazy, and I had no idea that it was. I’ve slipped up quite a bit over the years.”
I shook my head, realization on who I’d been hitting with the helmet still clutched in my hand dawning. “You’re on medication. It makes you better. Please, don’t do this.”