Except the knife. Axe kept that. Hisinsurance policy.The shackles that keep me on his payroll. I argued it was circumstantial. Tried to deny the hold he had on me. But then he showed me the video. My hand with the knife, the body slumping, all that fucking blood.
He set me up. Found me drunk and broken, half a man, and offered me that thing I’d been looking for—justice.
I killed a man.
Not by accident. Not out of self-defence. And I liked it. It was… calming. Almost peaceful. At least after the screaming stopped.
Sighing, I will the anger twisting in my gut to abate. God, I want to fucking kill this guy. “Still haven’t told me what you want.”
“Updates, Decker. Information. I want a tab on this Allen fuck at all times. I wanna know what he’s doing, who he’s talking to, what kind of shit he’s digging up on my club. I want his moves before he makes them. Got it?”
I suck in a breath. “That won’t be easy. I can’t just?—”
“You sold your soul to me a long time ago. You don’t get to decide how I use it.”
“That’s not exactly how I remember it going down, but yeah, you’ve made that pretty fucking clear,” I grit. “What I meant is that he kicked me off your case. Guess he didn’t like how I handled the shit with Grace and that other cop.”
Axe lifts a brow. “What exactly did youhandle?”
When I explain, his mood darkens. Jaw tight. Fists clenched. Brows pulled down. Anger. More than that. Rage. Once again, I check my stance, determine where my feet are relative to the brick wall behind me, the dumpster to my right. Preacher treads closer, like he can sense the change, like he’s waiting to either hold me down or hold his prez back.
After a moment, Axe’s shoulders relax. “Don’t repeat that to Graves. Last time someone tried to pull that shit with someone he felt responsible for, we had to get rid of a body. I can’t have him killing a cop.”
“Handle your business how you wanna handle it,” I tell him. “Just warn your women.”
“That happens again, to anyone, I’ll hold you personally responsible. As for Allen, need you to get back on his good side.”
“Axe, I can’t?—”
“Just fucking do it, Decker. Figure it out.”
“Then give me something,” I snap. “Anything. A fucking morsel I can drop at Allen’s feet that makes me look like I’m actually trying to help him.”
Mouth set in a hard line, he glares at me. It’s a big deal to him, letting us have a win. They’re a necessary sacrifice sometimes. The Sinners got something big going on, he’ll let me nab a couple low-level dealers or break up a rowdy night at the clubhouse and toss a few of his guys in the drunk tank.
A distraction from the real shit Donovan’s cooking up. He needs eyes elsewhere. I need to keep the chief happy and make it look like I’m fucking doing something about the outlaws running around South Bay. Win-win. Well, not for the guys in cuffs. But they do as Donovan tells them. Your coach orders you to take a knee, you take a knee. No questions asked.
It’s why Allen’s got his dick hard over my arrest stats. I’ve puta lotof Sinners in handcuffs.
I sigh. “He knows there’s a badge working for you. I’d rather him not think it’s me.”
He holds that hard stare for another moment or two before he loosens up. “I’ll think on it. And like I said, updates.”
He leaves without another word, slamming his shoulder into mine as he goes.
I glance at Preacher, who’s lit up another cigarette. “You better take off those rings before you have a go at my face,” I tell him.
“You look extra angry tonight. Anything you wanna chat about?”
I snort. It’s easy to forget sometimes that we’re not on the same team. I spend so much time with these assholes that some days I forget who I am. I forget that I’m supposed to be the good guy. That I’ve ended up on the wrong side of all of this.
Sometimes I think Preacher forgets that too. That maybe if I didn’t wear the badge and he didn’t have that ink tattooed on his shoulder, we’d even be friends. That we’d be bitching about last night’s game over beers instead of bruises.
But we are who we are. If Axe gave the order, Preacher would put a bullet in my head. No questions asked. So there’s no fucking way I’d talk to him about my Donovan problem. Either of them. The one who’s got me by the balls, who threatens my fucking life every other day, and definitely not the one I was thinking about in the shower this morning, whose pretty, whipped-cream-covered lips I can’t stop picturing wrapping around my dick.
Grace may be everything I’m supposed to hate, but I can’t stop thinking about her. Her hands on my body when we were under that truck, exploring, moving lower and lower. If she’d kept going, I’m honestly not sure I would have stopped her. Would have been a dick move, I guess, considering how badly I’m about to make her squirm. She should have thought twice before trying to fuck with me.
“I’m not really in the mood for girl talk, Preach,” I say.
