“Because we can’t be corrupted. We can bring justice to this town. Not like you. You and I can play the game of the legal system and police power, and I know you’ll win those fights. You have the badge on your side. But you and I both know, whether you’ll admit it here or not, that the real danger to justice isn’t us. Maybe we drink too much or speed too fast. Fine. But we’re not the ones who robbed a store, tried to gang-rape my ex, and actually gang-raped someone nearly a decade ago. You and your partner have shown an unwillingness to tackle those who did this for whatever reason.”
Bribery. Corruption.
“So we are taking it into our own hands. We are going to rid the town of the bad element. If you believe us to be the bad element, then do your job. But we are on our own mission, one that we believe the people of Santa Maria will thank us for. And if you think that I’m going to disrupt that mission out of a selfish desire to avoid jail time, then you don’t know me or the Black Reapers men at all.”
At first, Sheriff Davis had looked at me with amused disdain. But by the time I mentioned the sexual crimes, he was listening with attuned ears. He may not have ever given me the benefit of the doubt, but he could damn well acknowledge the truth himself.
Sheriff Davis and I stared each other down for what felt like a full minute. I would have loved to have known what was going on in the cop’s head—was it gears turning in recognition of the truth? Was he just doubling down on his corruption?
Finally, he sighed, rose, pulled the chair out of the cell, and locked the cell door. But he didn’t leave immediately.
“You had better be really careful who you talk to and who you come after,” he said, his voice as heavy as I’d ever heard it. “Because if you’re not careful, if you go after institutions that you shouldn’t be targeting or aren’t prepared to, you’ll get crushed.”
Without another word, Sheriff Davis turned around and left me in the jail cell. But in doing so, perhaps on purpose, he had left me with a sliver of hope.
He’d picked his words carefully. He hadn’t become sheriff because he was a bumbling idiot who said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But he’d gotten the message across with enough undertones that I felt I knew what he was saying.
If we weren’t prepared to take out the Bandits, we’d get wiped out of Santa Maria before Christmas. We could sit here and win the occasional fistfight, but especially now that we had killed three of them protecting Tara, things were about to get ugly.
It was a good thing we had Cole on our side. But I knew we could not underestimate the Bandits. We needed to get our shit together. I needed to reach out to Connor and Mason—the whole club, actually—to make a plan.
Good thing I wouldn’t have love to distract me.
Good thing I would make sure that Elizabeth never came back.
Her future was more dependent on me pushing her away than on her breaking away from her father.
