I shrug a shoulder, but thinking about it makes me feel sick. I don’t want her to have to relive that moment over and over again when she not only repeats it to Piggy but also to lawyers and a jury.
“I’d like to use optionAif possible, catching him doing something illegal and locking his ass up for that. I don’t want Cidney to have to go through making a statement. I also know it would put a big fucking target on our backs. There would be no way to deny our involvement.”
“Agreed,” Bullet states. “We’re doing a protection run at the end of the week. You think he’ll be on that?”
“Lorenzo is scared shitless right now. He knows he has to give that fucker up to us to punish.”
“If we ask him to be on that run, it’s a direct link,” he points out the obvious.
Sinking my teeth into the inside of my cheek, I grab some of the skin and roll it a few times as I try to think about what the hell is going on here. I know the endgame. I just have to figure out how to make it happen.
And I’m going to. I’m going to figure it out. Even if it takes me days of brainstorming. Opening my mouth, I start to say that exact thing to Bullet when he clears his throat and stands from behind his desk.
He walks over to the window, and I watch as he looks out at the clubhouse grounds. He rocks back on his feet, gripping his hands behind his back. I start to speak, though I have no fucking clue what I’m going to say.
Thankfully, I don’t have to say anything because the office door opens, taking my attention from Bullet. Turning my head, I watch as Maverick walks into the room. He doesn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he dips his chin in a single nod.
“Let’s nail this fuck to the wall,” Maverick grinds out.
“How?” Bullet and I ask simultaneously.
“I was being a nosy fuck,” Maverick begins. “I wasn’t eavesdropping on purpose, but when I heard your voice… I couldn’t help it.”
My lips twitch. I’m not sure what to say about that, but Maverick is my brother, and I’m just as nosy as he is, so I’m not surprised he eavesdropped. I’m glad he has. It gives Bullet and me a second opinion on our half-baked plan.
“I like the concept. It’s a great fucking plan. Makes us come off clean… ish.”
“Ishis right,” Bullet grunts.
I start to open my mouth to ask Maverick what the fuck he’s thinking when he clears his throat and begins to speak.
“I may have done a little more research on Goffredo Hagerty, and I think I can get this handled without having the club involved and the Mob family suspicious.”
“How?” I demand.
His lips twitch into a smirk. “Well, we know that guy is a bastard. But what you guys probably don’t know is that he’s a bastard who loves paying for lap dances and extras at the most expensive and elite strip club in town. He basically has his own room. He’s there so often and always given the VIP treatment, even if they all hate him there.”
“Do they?” I ask. “Hate him, that is.”
“With a fucking passion,” Maverick grinds out.
“So what do we do? A setup?”
Maverick grins. “Already halfway there. We get Piggy to set up a sting with Raleigh PD, promise the club they won’t be in anytrouble as long as they play along. Easy fucking peasy, and it’s not on us.”
“You think Piggy could get that kind of pull in the city?” Bullet asks.
“I think he’s respected as fuck, and he tells them they’re trying to catch this guy, they’ll work with him,” Maverick says.
I have a feeling he’s right. Piggy might be part of our club. He may help us out a little bit, but he is a good cop and loves his job. Nobody would even think twice about helping him catch a fucking pervert, especially if he said that he assaulted Cidney, but they can’t prove it was him. It’s just a little white lie.
“This is perfect,” I say. “Leave it to my smart fucking brother,” I state.
He rolls his eyes to the ceiling, his lips twitching into a smirk. “I want that little fuck to pay for what he did, in every goddamn way possible. But like you, I don’t want the club to go to war. We have too much collateral here. Too much at stake. Our women, our children. They’d target us and bring us to our knees far too easily.”
He’s right, of course. Just the thought of anything else happening to Cidney makes me feel completely and totally out of control.
“I can agree with that. This makes our hands look clean. We’ll set up a date and time to get Goffredo from Lorenzo, but it’ll be fake as fuck. He’ll be in jail before that date arrives, and soon enough, prison,” Bullet says.
