The badge I wear isnotone I wear with honour.
“And stop looking at me like that,” she snaps.
“How am I looking at you?” I angle closer, dropping my voice. “Like I know how wet you get when I’ve got my hand around your throat?” I bridge the small gap between us with a step. “What you look like when you come? What your pussy tastes like, what it feels like wrapped around my dick?”
Her face stays passive, but her body tilts slightly towards me, her breath hitching. She’s so damn easy to read. Right in front of my eyes, her mind’s going to the same place mine’s been since that first night I touched her. Since the first night I saw her, really.
“Yes.”
“Well, I know all those things, so it’s a bit hardnotto look at you like that.”
She fists her hands at her sides. “Try harder.”
I smile. “You know, that was good what you did for Kat. Not letting Murphy get to her. You took one for the team. Almost like you actually give a shit.”
“Of course I give a shit. These people are my family, Linc.”
I arch a brow. “Then why all the secrets?”
She cuts me a glare. “You know why. Axe finds out what I’ve been up to, he could for real kill me. And just so we’re clear. None of the Sinner women will end up in a cell with any of you assholes. Not if I can help it.”
I hum. “And I’m sure they’ll appreciate that. That’s where you can focus, Grace. After what you did for Kat, you’ve surelyearned their trust. With any luck, that’ll give you access to information that might be useful to me.”
Her eyes narrow with distaste.
“Allen might be a piece of shit,” I say, “but he’s on to something. The Sinner women know way more than they should, so whatever they tell you, you tell me. Got it?”
She grits her teeth. “You thinkAllenis a piece of shit? Look in the fucking mirror, Linc.”
Sighing, I pull a cell phone from my pocket.Thisis the reason I came down here. I unlock it and open the messaging app. “Why don’t you get off your high horse. You’re no better than me. This look familiar?”
I flash her the screen, showing her the text dated almost two weeks ago.You want your shit? Then come get it, asshole.
“From where I’m standing, it kind of looks like you sent a drug-dealing biker to my fucking house.”
She swallows audibly, but she doesn’t respond.
Anger rises like bile in my esophagus. “What was the plan, exactly? Have him steal back the shit you stole so you could get square with them? Then what? He kills me?”
“Of course not. I thought?—”
“Thought what? That we’d just have a nice, calm conversation about the money and the kilo of fucking coke he’s after?”
“No. I just… I just thought you’d scare him off, all right? I figured he’d see the uniform and back off.” She tilts her head. “How… do you have his phone?”
“Oh, Keegan and I had averylong conversation.” I pocket the device. “Why don’t we talk about why he’sreallyafter you. What you did to his brother.”
Grace sucks in a sharp gulp of air and shrinks back. “I… what do you mean?”
Men like Keegan, like Axe and Jack, like any of the Sinners, they’re all the same. Loyal to the patch. They’d die before betraying it, before revealing anything that might put their club in jeopardy. I respect it. It’s a hell of a way to live. But with the right kind of pressure, they’ll crumble. Find the right button to push, and these assholes will fold, tell you anything you want to know.
For the Raiders’ enforcer, the man who broke into my house and put a knife to my throat, it took some time, but he folded eventually.
Applying pressure.I’m good at that. Knife to bone, fire to skin, fist to face. It took a bit of prying, but over the years I’ve found that it’s the idea of permanencethat really gets these guys. Pain is nothing. Pain is temporary. But permanent damage?
The manreallydidn’t like it when I cut off his finger.
The second and third were probably overkill, but I wanted to prove a point. Don’t fucking come for me. He got my message.
