“Sorry how this shit has gone down, brother. Itried to keep her safe.”
His jaw twitched as he stared at me. “Gonna tell me what went down now and why the fuck she called you and not me? And Gauge,” he said with awarning tone, “if Ifind out you’ve been screwing my sister, I’mgoing to break your arms and cut off your dick.”
“Can’treally blame the man though, right?” Casa said, and we all turned to look at him. His cocky grin and eyes full of fire…anyone would think he was joking and trying to lighten the mood, but we knew him well enough to know that he was serious. “Come on, Jolie is tight, brother. Gotta know that she’spacking the goods. Or are you blind?” He made an hourglass gesture with his hands in the air in front of him and sucked in his bottom lip.
Rider came over and patted Casa on the back. “I’dquiet that tongue of yours if Iwere you, brother, before Dom cuts it off and feeds it to Harlow.”
Iglanced at Dom, seeing the rage emanating from every pore, his muscles tense as he tried to hold back from killing Casa, but my guess was that we were ten seconds away from needing anew road captain.
“He ain’twrong,” Dom grunted at Casa, who only laughed. His gaze dropped to my waist. “You know you’re bleeding, right?”
Ilooked down, pressing ahand to my wound. When Ipulled my hand back, there was blood on my fingers—just not enough to worry me. “Least of my worries.” Ishrugged and continued. “Jolie was calling you all night, brother, but you were fucked up. And avoiding her like the fucking plague. And then you just took off.”
Alook of shame crossed his features but he covered it quickly.
“Eventually Ianswered your phone and, well, she sounded like she was in trouble so Igot Casa to track her phone…”
“So you weren’tlooking at horse porn?” Shooter sighed, sounding more than grateful.
“Oh no, that bit was true,” Casa said with acackle of glee. “Did you know the average size of ahorse’scock is—”
“No one cares!” Shooter and Isaid at the same time, and Casa held up his hands in defense.
“Jesus, brothers, it’sjust acock. Nothing to be ashamed of. Ain’tthat right, Dom?” Casa nudged Dom with his elbow, but he only scowled harder. “Yeah, he knows what I’mtalking about.”
“I’mgay, Casa, that doesn’tmean I’minto anything with adick,” Dom snapped. “Especially if it’safucking animal!”
Casa snickered. “Y’all are some tense motherfuckers.” Casa picked up his beer and drank it.
“Where did you even go?” Iasked Dom with ascowl. Dom had been doing that more and more often—going off on his own giving no one any guesses as to where he was.
“What the fuck does it matter now?” he replied. “Just stay the fuck out of my business.”
“Oooh, he’sbeing all mysterious and shit!” Casa snorted on alaugh.
All three of us glared at Casa and he held his hands up in defense again, but his smile never dropped.
“Anyway,” Icontinued, “when Igot to the club Ifound her with Jeff. Or should Isay Jeff was playing peekaboo with arug, and ahole in his fucking head.”
“Jeff?” Shooter asked, lighting acigarette and blowing out acloud of smoke.
“Sleazy fucker that runs Hazy Nights,” Casa informed him through amouth full of smoke. “Somehow that man gets some prime pieces of ass at that club of his. Only ever has the most beautiful and diverse women there.” He looked across at Dom and his smile widened.
“Don’tsay it or I’ll break your fucking jaw,” Dom gritted out.
Casa rolled his eyes. “Always so fuckin’ touchy, brother.”
Despite the pounding headache and my body feeling like it had been rammed by acar, even Ihad to laugh at that.
“Why the fuck would she kill Jeff?” Shooter asked, swigging from his bottle.
“Because it’sJolie and she has no fucks to give,” Dom replied. “Probably more than happy that she didn’teven have to clean up her own mess afterwards.”
Iglared at Dom, annoyed with how little he seemed to care about his little sister. “It seemed like he’dmade amove on her and she’dlashed out…with astiletto…to his skull. It was actually impressive, barring the fact that he wasn’tquite dead. Saw to that real quick for her, FYI, and then we were about to get rid of his body when the Vipers started kicking in the door. Gave her my bike keys and my cut and shoved her out of the window. Didn’tknow it was the Vipers at the time, so Ididn’twant the club being connected to the murder.”
Shooter patted me on the back and Inodded.
“Once Irealized it was the Vipers, Iknew we were fucked anyway. They knew Ihadn’tbeen alone, and they knew who Iwas.” My jaw tightened as Iground my teeth together. Christian’sface filled my mind; that smug prick'ssmile as he slammed the knife into my leg and called me by my real name, like he had any right to do so.
“This ain’tgood,” Rider muttered.
“No shit,” Casa agreed.
Ilooked over at Shooter. “Prez, there’ssomething else… He knew my name. My real fuckin’ name.”
Shooter’sbrow furrowed harder as he began to realize just how deep this shit was.
Just then the door of the clubhouse opened and Laney came in, her large purse swinging from her arm. She stopped in her tracks as she spotted me at the bar, and Ipicked up my glass and threw the contents to the back of my throat, and then her eyes slid over to Shooter, narrowing when she saw the lit cigarette in his hand.
