He nodded in understanding, and I followed him to the basement. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to me. “I know there’s some bad blood between you and your niece, but she is your family. If you have any reservations about what happens with her, I need to know now.”
I didn’t need to give it any consideration, so I didn’t hesitate to answer. “You can’t choose the family you’re born into, or even the one that raises you, but once you’re grown, you can choose your family. The Blackwings are my family. So are Blakely and Kalen. Dani is not. Whatever happens with her is her own fault and won’t be a problem for me.”
“Okay, then. Let’s see what she has to say,” Copper said and entered the room.
Dani stopped pacing the room and turned to face us. “I can’t believe you lock—” she started, but Copper cut her off.
“Sit down and shut up,” he said sharply.
She glared at him for a moment before she reluctantly complied and took a seat in one of the metal chairs in the room.
“How this goes all depends on you,” Copper told her. “If you answer my questions, I won’t throw you to the wolves. But if you try to bullshit me, I’ll fuck your whole world up.”
Her eyes widened before she glanced at me, silently pleading for help.
“He ain’t gonna help you, so you can wipe that look off your face.”
She visibly swallowed and turned her attention back to Copper. “What do you want to know?”
“For starters, where is Ben?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in almost a year,” she said. Dani was a great liar, but her answer seemed to be truthful.
“So, you haven’t seen him since you got pregnant with the baby you left on his doorstep?” Copper asked bluntly.
She sucked in a breath. “No, I haven’t.”
Copper leaned back in his seat and studied Dani for a few moments before deciding to lay it all out for her. “No one has seen or heard from Ben since he put all of his belongings in storage and dropped the baby off with his sister. That was a few days after you dropped your son off with Ben even though you were supposedly missing at the time. Also, around the same time, Hook was released from prison. Yesterday, Hook showed up at Ben’s sister’s place looking for something he said Ben stole from him. Any idea what that could be?”
Dani glanced around nervously as the color drained from her face. “Like I said, I haven’t had any contact with Ben since last year. But, um, one time I overheard him talking about taking some guns and selling them.”
I watched her carefully. I couldn’t explain it, but I somehow knew she was telling the truth and lying at the same time.
“Hook knew about the guns. According to Ben’s sister, that’s not what he was looking for.”
Dani crossed her arms over her chest. “Sounds like you should be questioning Ben’s sister, not me.”
Copper ignored her comment and continued on. “When was the last time you had any contact with Hook?”
Dani shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. Sometime after he was arrested but before he went to prison.”
“Now, why would a man’s long-time girlfriend go into hiding right around the time he’s released from prison? That seems odd to me,” Copper mused.
Dani narrowed her eyes. “We broke up.”
“Then why were you hiding at your grandmother’s house?”
“Because I didn’t want to see him,” she said. She was doing her best to seem confident, but her fidgeting hands under the table said otherwise.
Copper started to ask another question but stopped when someone knocked on the door. I pushed the door open and grinned when Batta stepped into the room with his trusty bat in his hand. “I heard we had a little bird down here who might need some incentive to start singing,” he said and gave Dani a wicked smile. “Name’s Batta,” he told her and held up his bat. “Bet you can guess why.”
“I can’t believe you’re letting them do this to me,” she said and started to cry.
“You did this to yourself, Dani.” I had no sympathy for her. I’d known years ago that it would only be a matter of time before she got herself into a situation she couldn’t get herself out of. Even though we weren’t cutting her any slack, she had no idea how lucky she was to be dealing with the Blackwings instead of another club or gang. “And for the record, no one’s done anything to you.”
“Yet,” Batta said ominously.
She gasped and cried harder, though I suspected her tears weren’t genuine. I’d seen her cry her way out of numerous situations. Unfortunately for her, her current audience wasn’t interested in her performance.
