“A few bitch fights in high school, but that was mostly slapping and hair pulling. My dad taught me how to use the heel of my palm to jam into the nose of a would-be attacker, and obviously, I know how to knee a guy in the junk.”
I nodded and bit my lip while I considered my options. I had never tried to teach anyone anything before, and I knew I didn’t want to teach Lennon the way I had been taught. She probably wouldn’t survive it, and if she did, she definitely wouldn’t want to join my vigilante girl band afterward.
“Okay, let’s try something simple. Hit me.”
Lennon made a fist—properly, I might add. Her thumb was on the outside of her fist, tucked like it should be. She reared back and threw her fist at me, swinging widely. I easily dodged her attack and resisted the urge to strike back.
“Okay. So super job on making a fist, not so great job on…everything else.”
Lennon winced as I fixed her stance so she’d be more grounded and less likely to fall over with her swing.
“You don’t want to telegraph your movements. You have to keep your enemy as ignorant of your capabilities and intentions as you possibly can. Luckily for you, you’re a woman, so a lot of men will discount you and automatically assume you aren’t a threat until it’s too late and you’re strangling them with your thighs.” Cricket cheered from his seat by the weight bench, saying something about thick thighs ending lives. Lennon nodded and watched me as I modeled a jab for her.
“Your strength will come from your stance, and you want to throw your weight into your punch. Don’t try to punch their face. Try to punchthroughtheir face, for example. But I don’t like to punch faces much, to be honest. Too many bones to hurt your knuckles. I like to go for squishy areas that disable quickly with the least damage to me. Broken knuckles hurt like a bitch.”
Lennon and I worked on jabs, hooks, and cross punches. She needed a lot of work, but she was a quick study, and I could tell she was motivated to learn. It didn’t take long before we were both covered in sweat. A few more MC members came in to use the treadmill and weights, so we had a few looky-loos. Cricket and Bear were still sitting nearby, watching. Bard ran on a treadmill, and Tank, the huge guy Lennon had been talking to at the bar last night, was deadlifting weights. Lennon had hooked her phone up to Bluetooth speakers, and “Tantrum” by Ashnikko played, its heavy bass thrumming.
Taking a water break, Lennon and I sat on the mats near Bear and Cricket.
“Girl,” Cricket chirped, “where and when did you learn to fight?”
“Yeah,” Lennon added, “where’d you go to badass bitch school?”
I shrugged.“I didn’t go to any school. It was learn to fight or die. So I learned.” My nosy little conscience wouldn’t leave it at that, though.
“Yeah, but who taught you? Was it a daddy/daughter thing, or did you have a black ops neighbor who liked to recruit neighborhood kids to train for the military?” I couldn’t tell them I had been molded into a tool to be used by the Callahan family. There was a very good chance the familyname could get me into trouble. I'd be in big trouble if they’d heard of the boss, Seamus Callahan, or Uncle Roark. I needed to get Sheila and me out of here before they found me or before Los Cuervos figured out I was a wanted woman.
I liked Lennon and wanted my first-ever girlfriend. Cricket was my conscience, and Bones seemed like a nice guy if you looked past the time he tied me to a chair…I wanted friends, but I also didn’t want to end up back with the family. I had escaped once but wasn’t sure I could pull it off again.
Sighing, I said, “The family who raised me wasn’t a nice one. They are…bad people.” I bit my lip. “My…uncle had his men train me. No one cared how they did it so long as they got results. I did what I had to do to survive it.” I shrugged, casually expressing my inability to say more.
Cricket swallowed loudly. “What happened?”
“Well,” I explained, “a lifetime of torture tends to make a girl a little psychotic, so I didn’t mind getting creative and carving a bloody path outta that joint. You don’t want to hear about that sober, though, trust me. Operation: Get Wrecked, Dickbags requires a three-drink minimum.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Cricket asked, looking blindsided by the minuscule glimpse of my unorthodox existence. If he only knew, my sweet, innocent conscience. He hadn't the faintest idea how very dark my life was. Hopefully, he never would. I shrugged.
“Just a girl.”
Chapter 7
Priest
A few days after the girl showed up, a knock on my office door joined the pounding drumline in my head, making me curse under my breath. “What?”
Bones walked in, eyebrows raised as if to ask,who pissed in your Cheerios? I rolled my eyes and gestured to the laptop on my desk, pushing it in his direction. My cell phone was cradled between my cheek and shoulder as I searched the desk drawer for Tylenol. Running on caffeine, rage, and about two hours of sleep was taking its toll, but I had to figure out who the hell this girl was before it drove me mad. I waited on hold with my contact in the Reno Police Department. Los Cuervos made their home near the small town of Sagebrush, situated southeast of Reno and northeast of Carson City. We had an officer on the payroll in Reno, but our hookup with Carson City PD died last year, and we haven’t been able to find a replacement for him yet.
I heard the call click over from the hold I had been placed on.
“Mr. Abbott, are you still there?” I heard the click of a lighter before the soft inhale of Officer Perkins taking a drag on his cigarette. He wasn’t bad as far as cops went, but hewasdirty, so I guess maybe he wasn’t that great either.
“Yeah, Perkins, you got anything for me?”
“No one resembling the picture you sent me matches up with a missing persons report. Her DNA sample is being analyzed now, but it may take a while to come back. If we get a hit, I’ll let you know.”I grunted my acknowledgment and ended the call. Rolling my neck, I tried to release the tension there. I knew it would take time to get results back from her hair sample, but I had zero patience where she was concerned. This entire nightmare of a situation needed to be put to rest so we could try to move on. It’d been two years since Ellis had been taken from us, and now that Slyzec was dead, I just wanted to be able to try to find a modicum of peace even though I knew I didn’t deserve it.
Bones looked me over from his seat on the couch. “You look like shit, man.”
“When I need beauty tips and tricks, I’ll fucking ask for them, asshole. Why are you here?” I wasn’t usually such a dick, but Bones was like an honest-to-God brother to me, and I knew he would let it roll off his back.
