Agnes knew this prick, he got that. So Cass figured he must be staring at some undercover Fed. The dumbass should have known better than to come in for a confrontation. Had Gray sent the dude? Was this about Levi’s dead body? Or, hell, maybe they’d found Hugo. Sonofabitch.
The stranger swept his gaze over Cass, seemed to take in his measure, and then the guy’s jaw hardened even more before he gritted, “You’re in my way.”
“Am I?” Cass let his brows climb. “You here for a tat?” They were in a semi-busy area. An old strip mall with a few shops left in it. The tattoo parlor. A barber shop. A liquor store. So there were civilians around who might notice if Cass just beat the hell out of a stranger. And then those civilians might do something problematic like call the cops.
If this guy was a Fed, then Cass should probably not beat the hell out of him. Plus, he didn’t want Agnes mad.
Trust me. She’d trusted him in the tattoo parlor. Now he was supposed to show the same faith to her.
“Not here for a tat,” the man rumbled right back. “I’m here for her.”
Cass blinked. “I think you’re gonna want to repeat that line.” Hard. Intimidating.
The man stepped forward with zero fear. “I’m here,” he said, very clearly, “for her. I know Agnes is inside. There is no way she’d be far away from you. I tracked you two, I saw the bodies you left, and I am not fucking leaving here without her.”
Oh, but this prick was making things hard. “I’m trying not to beat the ever-loving-hell out of you,” Cass told him, meaning the words. He gripped the t-shirt Axel had given him in his right hand. The t-shirt and the gun. Axel had clearly expected for this scene to go sideways, and he’d wanted Cass to be prepared. “But you are making things difficult.”
“Agnes,” the man snapped.
“Who the fuck are you?” Cass snapped right back. “And why do you want to see my lady?”
“Because I’ve got unfinished business with her.” Angry.
And Cass realized that maybe he wasn’t looking at a Fed. Maybe he was looking at someone the Feds had targeted. Agnes had told him a bit about some of her cases, enough for him to know that dangerous people were pissed at her. If this prick had been tracking her…hell, their public scene in Atlanta would have attracted a lot of attention. Maybe an old enemy of hers had come out of the woodwork.
“Consider your business finished,” Cass informed him flatly. You will see her over my cold, dead body. “Get on your bike. Drive the hell out of here while you still can.” He was attempting to give the man helpful life advice. As in, advice to help the jerk keep living his life.
The man’s muddy brown gaze dipped to the bandage on Cass’s shoulder. “What the hell were you doing? Stopping for a fresh tat?”
Nah. He’d been bandaging a bullet wound and getting answers. It had taken Cass far too long to work his way in with the Twins. In fact, Levi had been his in. Cass had never liked the prick, but he’d seen the two-headed tat on the guy, and he’d known that he could use Levi. So he’d poached the man from a different MC. Brought him in the Strikers and then used Levi and his connections to work his way into the Twins for initiation.
The initiation? Fucking brutal.
But he wasn’t thinking about that shit now. He couldn’t.
He had to deal with the SOB in front of him who was not getting to Agnes. Javion had better do his job and keep the woman inside until the scene was clear. “I do like my ink,” Cass allowed in response to the stranger’s question about getting a fresh tat. But, no, he hadn’t come to the shop for ink. He’d come for answers.
He’d thought the tattoos might be the key. Yes, there were other artists that would ink the members of the Twins, but Raz was the best damn tattoo artist out there. A freaking Rembrandt, as Agnes had described, compared to the others. And if they were looking for the two sadistic pricks at the top of the food chain, then Cass had figured those guys would only get their snakes designed by the very best.
And now he had names.
My own damn uncle. A man who should have rotted to just bones in a ravine. Except Levi had tried to say the SOB was still out there, still alive.
And the second name belonged to Bayne Hendrix. A prick who kept popping up in the wrong places. Cass had never seen Bayne without his leather coat. Never had a chance to look at the man’s arms to see if he was tatted with a two-headed snake.
But I will be facing off with him very soon.
After he was finished with his current problem.
“So what did you get this time?” The stranger kept his helmet tucked under his arm. “Let me guess…” He nodded when Cass remained silent. “By any chance, would it have been a two-headed snake? A cobra?”
Then the arm that held the helmet shifted. He grabbed the helmet with his opposite hand, and when the sleeve of his coat rode up a bit, Cass caught sight of black ink. Scales.
Claws?
Not a snake, but something big with a whole lot of scales and razor-sharp claws. Had that been a freaking dragon?
And there had been some dragon tats pinned to the wall of Raz’s shop.
