“Enough,” Diesel growled, right in my ear. “Enough.”
Crow slid sideways, coughing wetly, red pooling beneath him.
My chest heaved. My hands ached, skin split and throbbing. But my voice was steady when I spoke. “He talks now,” I said. “Or this ends worse.”
Rocky let go of his grip on my arm.
I stood in silence for a few moments until the rage subsided, then I asked, “Was Trish part of this?”
He snorted and a trickle of blood ran down his face. “Fuck no. That junkie’s only good for a blowjob and maybe a good time. At least she was before the brat came along.”
My hand balled into a fist, and I hit him with an uppercut straight to his jaw.
“Sledge.” Diesel’s voice was a warning. I knew my Prez didn’t want me killing the asshole too soon. I stepped back. I needed to get a handle on my rage, but fuck knows I couldn’t stop seeing red whenever he spoke about my daughter.
“I bit my fucking tongue, asshole!” Crow spat out.
I shrugged. “Why’d you choose Chaos Raiders MC?”
He barked out a laugh. “They’re a new crew, hungry to make their mark and they needed cash flow and affordable product. It was as easy as taking candy from a kid who can’t tell anyone who took it from them,” he said with a smirk. Asshole was so proud of himself.
“This was all for custody?” Diesel pressed.
Crow glared back through swollen eyes and spat blood on the floor before speaking. “Yeah, I needed to get custody so that when we went on a littlefamily vacationand she had a terrible accident, everything would be tied up in a neat little bow. No chance of anyone ever linking me to the dead cop.”
There it was, the whole fucking plan. The whole goddamn story. He’d killed that dirty cop at Trish’s place and Zoya saw it.
“Why the fuck did you kill a dirty cop in front of a kid?” Rocky asked the question, his tone completely bewildered.
He shrugged. “Scanlan showed up at Trish’s place to ask for money,” he gasped as his breathing grew more labored. “I didn’t realize she saw a damn thing because she was usually locked in her room. Trish locked it from the outside so the brat wouldn’t interrupt us.”
It was worse than I thought. They kept her locked up and isolated. And then he’d traumatized her and took her voice.
The roar of motorcycles sounded in the distance. “We need to wrap this shit up,” Diesel instructed.
I pulled out my gun and aimed it at his head. “Good thing, the cops will never know you killed their boy.”
“Yeah, why—” he began but he never got to finish because I pressed the barrel of my Glock between his brows and pulled the trigger once. Crow slumped back, lifeless, but I wasn’t done. I put the gun to his chest and fired off two more bullets just to be sure. To end this shit with a period.
I stared at the lifeless body of the man who’d played such a big role in Zoya’s life in all the wrong ways as I wiped his blood and his brain matter from my face with my shirt. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.” I barely recognized the sound of my own voice,but my brothers heard it because we all moved to the door with purpose as the roar of engines grew closer.
We were already down the block and taking off as the Chaos Raiders rolled up. Behind them we caught sight of more Steel Demons hot on their asses, slowing when they spotted us.
“Let’s go,” Diesel shouted over the engines. “They’ll take care of those assholes.”
I nodded, satisfied as relief pulsed through my limbs and mixed with the vibrating machine beneath me. It was over. Crow, my daughter’s personal boogeyman, was dead.
Zoya was safe.
I pushed my bike as hard as I could, eager to get back to my girls.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Eliana
He was back. He was safe. He was in one piece.
Seeing Sledge stride through the clubhouse door, I finally let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. He looked like he’d been in a war, his shirt was covered in blood, but I didn’t see that. I just saw the look of relief on his face.
