“You were speeding,” Allen says to her.
“Just give me the ticket and I’ll go.” Her voice is shaky. It’s subtle, but there’s fear there. Like she senses the same thing I do. Danger.
“Can’t do that,” Allen says. “When we pulled you over, you got belligerent. We tried to defuse the situation, but you refused to cooperate. You escalated. You got emotional. And then you got violent.”
“Sergeant,” I warn, my tone low and rough.
He’s the one who’s about to escalate. Grace is right to be nervous. She may not be Jimmy Donovan, but in his eyes, she’s just as good. Allen’s unit is here todisrupt.To push the Sinnersinto a corner. To piss them off. And using a woman whose brothers are on the top of his shit list is the perfect way to do that.
Brows knitted, she zeroes in on me. “What the hell is he talking ab?—”
Allen moves fast. He punches Grace in the stomach, and as she doubles over, he twists her wrists behind her back.
She coughs and wheezes as she struggles to refill her lungs with air.
“Jesus, Allen!” I shout, taking a step closer. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Before I can intervene, Grace somehow frees herself from his grip and clocks me. Right in the fucking face.
“Shit,” I curse, stumbling back.
Pain radiates across my nose and cheek from the impact, my eyes watering as a gush of liquid rushes from my nose. Blood. Fucking great.
By the time I’ve recovered, Allen’s got her cuffed and the back door of the cruiser open. He shoves her forward, smashing her face into the doorframe, then pulling her back and throwing her inside. The curses she’s aiming at him are cut off when he slams the door shut.
I round on him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. “What the fuck are you doing throwing her around like that? Donovan’s gonna kill you when he hears about this. And that’s only if his VP doesn’t gut you first.”
He smiles as he pries my fingers from his shirt. “Like we said, Decker. Whatever it takes.”
Without looking back, he strides around the car and jumps into the passenger seat, leaving me standing on the dark road with a bloody nose and Grace’s angry eyes burning a hole in my head.
4
Half a kilometre.The distance I made it past the South Bay town line before I was thrown in handcuffs.
For a cop in South Bay, pulling over a person like me is like an early Christmas present. One they get to unwrap with their fists.
Can’t count the number of times Jack, Axe, or Jimmy came home from a night in a cell with a fresh face of bruises. You have an association to the club, you get a beat down. At least that’s how it was when Chief Decker ran things.
And from my experience so far, South Bay hasn’t changed much in the last ten years. Another Donovan with a swollen eye socket, another Decker to blame.
I press my head back against the cold concrete cell wall and close my eyes, tugging at the handcuffs still binding my wrists behind my back. Every movement makes them tighter, the metal digging into my skin, scratching at my bones. Teeth gritted, I push through the pain, trying to keep the emotion off my face, my temper in check. There’s no room for that here. No place for panic or anger.
I have to keep my cool. Look unfazed.
That’s what Jimmy would tell me to do.Never let ’em see you sweat, kid. You let ’em rattle you, you let ’em win.Easy for him to say. He had decades of practice sitting in a cell. Unlike him, I haven’t made a career out of evading law enforcement. Not until recently, at least. I definitely didn’t expect to be welcomed back to town by a nice big dose of police brutality.
I’m fucking mad.
Keeping all my screams on the inside is proving difficult.
They have my bike. That’s the worst part. They find what I’ve got hidden in that thing, and a couple bruises will be the least of my worries.
At the sound of a loud metallic clank, I snap my eyes open and straighten my spine. The door to my cell swings wide, and a cop walks in. Not Decker or that other dick, but this guy doesn’t look any friendlier.
I affix my best glare. “Am I free to go?”
Maybe Decker and his buddy were bored. Maybe they just wanted to rough me up, scare me, and send me on my way. A message. The police are in charge. Even though we all know who really runs this town.
