Family. That was the one thing I’d always been searching for and never found. And if this was going to be my life, and I hoped it would, I needed to get to know these women. Right? I took another sip and watched Raven. “Tell me about you,” I saideasily. “About how you ended up here. I don’t think I’ve met any sisters.”
Her brows crinkled and she pointed to woman with black hair. “Harper is Sniper’s sister but she’s Gio’s old lady. Faith and Chloe are sisters but they’re with T-Bone and Pike. I’m the only sister who’sonlya sister.” She laughed, took a long sip and then launched into the most fantastical tale I’d ever heard about how her brother met his woman. “He didn’t know there was a baby, thought she’d up and left him and his biker lifestyle.” She told me about Russians and a scheming surgeon, and shootouts. It was… a lot. “But they’re all here and happy as shit.”
“Wow. That story is terrifying but strangely hopeful.”
“I know, right?” She laughed and took another sip. “All I’m saying is that this could be you, if you really want it.”
I didn’t even have to think about whether I wanted it or not. I knew I did. I wanted a life with Drew, and I’d take it any way I could get it. And with that thought, my body began to relax. With each sip, my shoulders loosened. With every laugh, my pulse slowed. My smile came a little easier.
Chapter Twenty-five
Vandal
Halloran sat in a metal chair in the center of the room, his wrists fixed to the chair with plastic ties. Blood was already drying under his nose where Rocky had tested his reflexes earlier. His suit was wrinkled, tie long gone, and his badge was tossed onto a metal table like it meant nothing.
It meant less than nothing, at least to the people in this room.
He looked up when I stepped inside, as if he sensed the shift of energy in the room. His eyes were sharp and I knew he saw my serious expression, the anger that kept my body tightly coiled and ready to explode at a moment’s notice. But he didn’t show any signs of fear—not yet—just a smug fucking expression that begged me to put two right between his beady fucking eyes.
I smiled back because that confidence was empowering. He thought this still ended up with him walking out of here a free man who paid no consequences for his treachery. I walked slowly between my brothers, my steps slow and measured as I made my way to Halloran. I let the silence fester because I wanted him to feel how hopeless and desperate his situation really was.
“There you are,” he laughed, trying like hell to sound confident, to make his laugh sound genuine. “Ready for a big boy interrogation?”
I sent him a glower I didn’t feel because I wanted him confident. “The question is,are you?”
His smile wobbled but it didn’t drop, not completely. “You’re all talk. Do the smart thing now and let me go, and maybe Diego will let you live after he takes the girl.”
My hands fought the urge to curl into fists, and it took too much fucking energy to keep my hands flat at my sides and not punch him in the face.
Gio did it instead, one quick hook that snapped Halloran’s head to one side.
“You’re a long fucking way from home, cop,” I said, every syllable came out in a steely calm that unnerved him. “You’re out of your comfort zone and you don’t know shit about us.”
Halloran laughed, spitting blood on the floor between his legs. “I knowallabout you boys. Bikers with hearts of gold, keeping the town safe from the bad guys.” He rolled his eyes. “Really fucking cute.”
I laughed and shook my head. “If that’s all you heard, you’re in for a surprise.” I rolled my shoulders until the tension loosened. Cracked my knuckles once. Twice. My body was ready and so was my mind as I stepped closer and got in his face. “What can you tell me about Diego that I don’t already know?”
He flashed a bloody smile. “Not a goddamn thing.”
I planted my feet and drove my fist straight into his nose. The crack of bone was sharp and wet. So fucking satisfying.
He screamed as blood rushed freely now, chair rattling as his body jerked in search of pain relief. I didn’t stop. I hit him again. And again. Just enough to make the point clear.
This wasn’t theater. I wasn’t a good guy.
Halloran spat out a tooth and smiled, his gaze searched mine and I knew what he was doing. He was looking for my limits, for how far he could push me before I ended his life. “Okay,” he finally rasped. “You’ve got good hands. I’ll give you that.” He coughed. “Still ain’t telling you shit.”
“Good,” I said evenly, that one word reverberated throughout the room. I wasn’t like some of my brothers who I’d watched in this same room with a different asshole who wore the same stripes. I didn’t like to mind fuck these assholes before getting to the good stuff. Thegood stuffwas thegood stufffor a fucking reason. The good stuff was what I loved best in this situation.
I reached for the pruning shears on the table next to his chair, close enough it gave him false hope and let him see his future.
Halloran’s smile faltered.
I grabbed his wrist, steadying it with one hand before positioning his middle finger between the blades. “Can you tell me anything that gives us an edge on Diego?”
There it was.
Fear.
