“In her birth records,” Dante continued as he pinched the bridge of his nose, “there’s something called a birth order. If there is more than one child born, the medical documents lay out what order the children born to that mother were born in.”
The room fell silent as Dante raised his gaze to all of us.
“The woman we have downstairs? Whose medical records we obtained thinking she was our gal? She was the second-born in the birth order.”
“So, what?” Locker asked. “That means we got some twin out there running around cappin’ us all in our asses?”
Dante pointed at him. “Bingo.”
“Jesus motherfucking Christ,” Rocker groaned.
Wolf smiled as he shifted his sucker into his other cheek. “It just keeps getting better and better.”
“God fucking damnit!”
The bellow that left Axton’s mouth had nothing on the way the entire room shook when he shot out of his chair. When he balled up his fists. When he slammed them down onto the table in front of us. Drinks shook. Wolf’s coffee tipped over. And as a water bottle rolled off the edge of the mahogany table, I could have sworn I saw Axton’s eyes glistening.
I couldn’t imagine how that man felt right now.
“Shit,” he hissed, pacing around the table. “This isn’t good. Not good, not good, not good.”
“Axton,” I said as I stood.
“We have to let her go. We don’t have any other choice,” he muttered.
I reached out and grabbed his arm. “Axe.”
Wolf cleared his throat. “She may understand if we simply tell her what’s going on.”
Axe stared me down with a death glare. “Let me go.”
I shook my head. “I’ve already built rapport with her downstairs. The food, remember? She let me feed her. She talked with me. We can build on that. We can still get ourselves out of this.”
He shoved my grasp away. “Have you been beating her face in for the past two days?”
“No.”
He got into my face. “Then, you shut the fuck up.”
Yeah, he wouldn’t let himself off the hook for a very, very long time for this.
It made me sick to my stomach to think about.
“He’s right,” Dante said as his voice catapulted itself over everyone’s heads at the table. “If Mav’s already got rapport with her, he’s our best shot at getting out of this without her immediately rushing off to the police.”
Axton shook his head. “I’m not concerned about the police.”
Rocker scoffed. “Well, ya should be.”
“Well, I’m not,” Axe gritted, “and neither should you guys. You know we’re always a shoo-in with the department around here. Have been for years. We explain what’s happened, we pay off the right people, we’re good.”
“Then, what the hell are you so wound up about?” Locker asked.
Axton turned toward him as his face fell to stone. “What’s the first rule of The Road Raiders?”
Locker’s gaze fell to his lap, and he folded his hands together. Axton grasped the arms of the man’s chair, turned him away from the table, and bent forward. Enough to stick his face in Locker’s and snarl.
“Say it,” Axton growled.
