“I’ll tell you anything!”The prospect looked from Griffin to Inferno and back, a desperate, growing fear in his eyes.“Anything else!I got more!I got… I got the truck plate!I got stuff on the club!I got --”
“You came overmy wall,” Griffin said again, “for a woman I swore would be safe here, formy woman.For twenty-five grand.”
Had Griffin slapped me, I doubt I’d have been more surprised.His woman?Maybe he was just trying to scare the prick.The prospect whimpered and tried to fight despite his hands being zip-tied behind his back.
Griffin sank the blade into the guy’s side before pulling the knife out and repeating the motion several times in quick succession.The squishing and gurgling sounds were loud as blood squelched with each plunge of the knife into the prospect’s body.I nearly gagged, but the fear and outrage I probably should have felt never came.The prospect’s body didn’t move again and a darkening stain spread on the gravel beneath his body.
I had my hand pressed over my mouth.The gauze on my palm scraped my lips.My pulse beat in my ears so loud I half expected Griffin and Inferno to hear it even though they were twenty yards out.I waited for Griffin to do something else to the body, like kick it or spit on him or any number of other disrespectful things, but he didn’t.He wiped the blade against the back of the prospect’s cut and slid it back into the sheath at his waist.He stood, rolled his shoulder, and looked at Inferno.
“Get a tarp,” Griffin said.His voice carried the same flat absence of inflection as before.“Tiny texted he’s got a couple prospects headed our way with a cage.”
“On it.Maybe the guys in the truck will have more info.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”Griffin stood over the body for a moment, head tilted.Then he turned in a slow half circle, scanning the fence, the buildings, the dark spaces between the floods.His gaze moved past my hiding spot and kept going and then came back.He looked right at where I stood but didn’t say anything.I hardly dared to breathe.
Then Griffin turned away and walked toward the fence to look through the chain-link at the access road beyond, and I let myself breathe again.I should have been horrified.I had watched a man die, and what sat in my chest was not horror.The man on the ground had been climbing a fence to collect twenty-five thousand dollars for delivering me to Iron.Then Griffin had ended him.
That was what unsettled me.The lack of theater.A man who took no pleasure in killing but did it anyway because the fucker had needed to die.And I’d thrown my lot in with him.
I pressed my back harder against the wall and tried to find the part of me that wanted to be sick and repulsed.It was in there somewhere.I had vomited in my own kitchen sink only hours ago over a man I shot to keep him from killing Griffin.The same part should have been working overtime now.Instead I held onto how I was desperately glad the prospect hadn’t made it back to whoever waited in that truck.
The shame of being relieved by the young man’s death would come later.Just now, though, I couldn’t give a good Goddamn.
I peeled myself away from the warehouse wall and slipped back along the path toward the inner ring of warehouses to the one with my room, keeping to the deepest part of the netting’s shadow, and I didn’t look back to see if Griffin had seen me and simply waited until I moved to follow me.
I made it back through the courtyard and into the building without anyone calling out behind me.Once inside, I stepped onto the lift and the doors slid shut on the empty cab and I let my weight fall against the back wall.I stayed there until the doors slid open.
The hall outside my door sat as quiet as I had left it.I keyed myself in, threw the deadbolt, and stood with my back sagged against the wood until I knew my knees wouldn’t give out.
The bandage on my palm had bled through at the center, a faint dark pink bloom against the white.Honestly, I just wanted to cover up my head and hide.Just for a little while.I also didn’t want an infection because my wound was dirty.Shit was getting real and had no idea which way to go or what to do.Or, more importantly, who to trust.
I undressed and washed myself with a wet cloth, not wanting to get in the shower in case someone came for me and I didn’t hear.
Once I’d cleaned the dried blood and rebandaged my hand, I climbed into bed, sliding under the covers and pulling them to my chin.I lay flat on my back, watching the ceiling.
I thought about the prospect.
I thought about my sister.
In my opinion, one deserved death.The other didn’t.And that was the crux of my moral dilemma.I didn’t care that a man not much younger than me had been killed because the men he ran with had a hand in my sister’s disappearance.I understand the probability of me seeing Tessa alive again wasn’t high.So, the leap to say this man was responsible in some way for my sister’s death wasn’t far.If that made me a bad person, I’d wear the label like a badge of honor.And I knew in my heart I’d be forever grateful to Griffin for what he did tonight.
As to the whole me being his woman thing… Yeah.Wasn’t naive enough to think that meant anything, either.
I turned my face to the wall.The pillowcase had a light floral scent, clean and cool against my cheek.I closed my eyes.When sleep came for me this second time, it came quickly.And I didn’t fight it.
Chapter Seven
Griffin
Lana Thompson, a family lawyer who worked closely with Hannah, Knuckles’ old lady, arrived at the compound just after seven in the morning carrying two hard cases and a leather satchel.I knew she worked as a family lawyer, but she’d also recently worked with Rip’s brother, Ethan, on a domestic violence case at Haven.Haven was literally what the place meant to so many women and children in abusive situations.Right now, Lana and Knight were the brains working through Veda’s ledgers and files and videos.I couldn’t deny having a lawyer basically on retainer made everything a lot different.
She moved through the main common room comfortably, like she felt right at home with the rough-looking bunch of ex-con bikers.She actually did.I knew her history with the club well enough to know she had walked into worse rooms with less preparation and walked out having extracted whatever she came for.She was small but athletic, her red hair up in an elegant twist, green eyes already reading the space as she came through the door.She looked at the table where Knight had spread Veda’s materials and continued to work.His office was in the process of an upgrade -- which was code for he’d gotten a new gaming system he wanted to install -- and didn’t have the spare room at the moment.
“Knight.”Lana put her briefcase on the table.One of the brothers had taken the cases from her the second she’d entered.He set them on the table beside her stuff.She looked around at the mess of papers and printouts Knight had “organized” on the table.Which was to say, everything lay scattered randomly.“You know, this would be much easier in your office.”
“Can’t,” Knight grumbled as he moved stuff into more piles to give Lana room.“Got a system upgrade going on.Place is kind of crowded.”
Lana didn’t bat an eyelash.“So, Brynn said she wanted something big and expensive and you were afraid of getting it for her because of the threat Lavender made to your balls the other day if you bought her one more ridiculously big and expensive computer doodad.”
