I sighed. “I hate it when they forget my name. It always hurts so much.”
“You better start fucking talking or I’ll—”
I groaned. “Come on, asshole. It’s me. Bender. From the club you’re wrongly pursuing because of your client’s death.”
I heard him shuffling around before his voice appeared once more. “What you got?”
“First, I want your name.”
“What?”
I nodded. “You know mine, I want to know yours. And trust me, I’m going to know if you’re lying to me. So, give me your name or you get no proof. This exchange only happens if the trust goes both ways.”
“What makes you think I trust you?”
I shrugged. “You’re relying on us to figure out who the hell poisoned your client, so you better start trusting us.”
He fell silent before he cleared his throat. “Bernard.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
“What the fuck do you have?”
“Your mother must’ve hated you. Anyway, we’ve got footage of the guy in our club that killed your client. He’s a member of the Devil’s Rage MC, just like we suspected. I’m sending you the footage to your phone.”
I forwarded the fifteen-second snippet before I placed my cell back to my ear.
“From what we can tell, he’s five-foot-nine, broad in the shoulders but slim in the waist, all legs, and he’s got a Devil’s Rage initiation tattoo on his exposed wrist that faces the camera.”
His voice sounded far away, so I knew he was watching what I had sent him. “And you’re sure this is him?”
“I’d stake my fucking soul on it.”
His voice lowered itself a bit. “You know this isn’t completely over, right?”
I scoffed. “It’s not for us, either. Those assholes have plunged us into a practical war with our local police. We want them to suffer as much as you do.”
“I smell a team-up coming on.”
“Hey, I won’t suggest it, but I won’t turn the idea down, either.”
I heard him typing on his end of the line. “I’ll be in touch.”
I grinned. “Sounds good…Bernard.”
And after he hung up the phone, my mind wandered back to Aria.
I wanted to text her and ask if things were okay with her work. Hell, I wanted to call her and see if she wanted to meet up to put some more bullets in the side of that mountain. Fucking Christ, I’d put her into the side of that mountain if she’d let me. Just fuck her right into it until our bodies were covered in sand.
But given what our club had just been plunged into, was it smart to bring her into my life while this shit raged on?
Was I even strong enough to resist her pull despite the fact that I knew it was a shit idea?
FOURTEEN
ARIA
I woke up the next morning with a crick in my neck while hunched over on my sister’s couch. I leaned my neck to the other side before I stood to my feet, stretching my arms toward the sky. It felt like every single vertebrae in my back popped right into place.
