That’s when it hits me, in a slow, sickening sort of way.
“What if … the hit is going to happen inside the police station?” I ask, standing up and turning around. I put my arms back against the metal railing for support.
“It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely,” Crown says, but he doesn’t look convinced either way. He swipes a hand over his face. I know this was a lot to ask, for them to trust in this tip, to bring me down here in the first place when it could all be a trap.
“We’re clearly wasting our time up here,” Grainger growls, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Let’s at least try a few of the surrounding buildings; there isn’t much more we can do at this point.”
I stand up and follow the boys back down the staircase to the top floor. Nobody argues because we know Grainger’s right. That’s the best course of action.
We check the roof of the hotel across the street; there’s nothing. We try a nearby apartment building, same deal.
The third building we check is an office building that Sin breaks into without setting off the alarm; I’m impressed. But still, our search yields no fruit.
I maintain regular communication with Beast, but so far, everything is normal.
Well, as normal as an MC president meeting up with an FBI informant ever possibly could be.
Because nobody is what they seem in life. Fucking nobody. The whole world is twisted and weird and broken. That’s the only surety, understanding that what we see on the surface of others is usually a lie, a carefully presented package.
There’s always so much more underneath.
It isn’t until we’re heading back toward our bikes, and I’m frustrated as fuck with this whole situation, that I happen to glance across the street and see a woman approaching the doors of the police station.
She looks familiar to me, but I can’t figure out why that is.
Her hair is blonde, drawn up into a ponytail that isn’t dissimilar to mine. Based on her clothing, I’m guessing she’s older than me, maybe Nellie’s age. In reality, there’s no reason for me to be suspicious of her. None at all.
Except that I recognize the sweatshirt she’s wearing.
I recognize it because I remember very specifically that I teased Carol Briggs for wearing it to school once. There’s a huge cross on the back, and a slogan that reads: Render to no man evil for evil. Take thought for things honorable in the sight of all men. – Romans 12:17
Which, you know, I thought was all bullshit.
Also, in this case, it happens to be ironic as fuck.
Because Carol Briggs’ mother is not at this police station on this night by any sort of fateful accident.
Without hesitation, I take off across the street and hear the guys curse in chorus behind me. To their credit, I make it about … eh, five feet before Sin is snatching me by the back of the jacket and hauling me against him.
“Gidget, what the fuck?” he asks, releasing me almost immediately.
“That stupid tactical team isn’t coming tonight,” I say, realizing it before anyone else. I slap the back of one hand into the palm of the other. “That’s too obvious, right? And it’s too stupid.” I realize with a frantic sort of desperation what’s happening here.
Grey’s father doesn’t trust him. He must know that, right? Because he’s a smart boy.
But maybe he doesn’t fully understand what’s happening. I know that I didn’t, until just now. It just fucking hit me.
Alvise expected his son to leak this information.
He also expected the guys to do exactly what they said they were going to do: bring an army.
Cat, in his anger, has inadvertently saved Grey’s ass.
Shit.
“That woman, that’s Carol Briggs’ mom,” I blurt, grabbing onto the front of Sin’s cut. He’s looking at me like he believes in my urgency, but also like he has no goddamn clue who Carol Briggs is. Why would he? She’s nothing to him. Honestly, for as guilty as I feel about her death, I don’t give her much thought either.
But she most certainly was and is someone to her mother.
“The girl who died at church camp!” I snap, even though it’d probably be more accurate to say the girl that I got killed at church camp. “We need to fucking move.”
Crown and Grainger exchange a look, and then I think it hits them at the same time. That’s the bonus of working with people who are on the same wavelength as you, who understand you, and who are as smart as you are.
Sin blinks at me and then curses, looking at me like he isn’t sure what to do with me. Escort me away and let the other men handle it? Take me with him?
“We can’t fire on a grieving mother in a police station,” Crown suggests, and that’s the truth. It’s the perfect crime, if you think about it. If Ms. Briggs killed Cat here, and then Beast or whoever else in the club killed her, bonus points for the mafia. That person would be arrested and probably charged with something. Maybe they’d get off on self-defense, maybe not?
“Let me talk to her,” I say, feeling my palms get itchy. We need to move and we’re just standing. I turn and take off again, and the guys let me. But they are right on my ass, I’ll tell you that right now.
I pause suddenly on the sidewalk and make a split-second decision, stripping off Beast’s jacket and chucking it at Sin. I add both guns and the knife to the pile, too.
“The hell, Gidge?” he asks as I shake my head.
“Let me go first; they’re never going to let in three more Daybreakers.” I pound up the steps outside the station, fully aware that we’re running short on time here.
Just as I thought, several police officers appear from inside to cut the boys off. I’m already way ahead of them, looking young and cute and relatively innocent. In a world that treats me like shit for who and what I am, I am more than willing to take advantage of that where I can.
I shove through the doors even as I hear one of the officers refer to Crown by name.
“Calder. Didn’t think you had the balls to show up here,” he says, but I don’t hear the rest of the statement because I’m already inside the building.
There’s a single room with a reception area, and multiple hallways that lead off of it.
I slip right past the metal detector without setting it off and then pause.
I don’t see Ms. Briggs, and that scares the shit out of me.
“Can I help you?” a woman behind the desk asks, standing up and peering through the bulletproof glass to look at me.
“I’m looking for my dad …” I start, biting my lower lip and yanking my phone out. I’m about to text Beast to let him know I’m here when he appears in the hallway with Cat right behind him.
Oh, boy, if I could describe the look on that man’s face …
He might very well kill me if I weren’t about to save his fucking life.
The door to the women’s restroom opens on my right, and I turn, throwing myself into Ms. Briggs so hard that we both end up on the tile floor. Her head cracks hard against it, hard enough that the gun she’s holding slips out of her hand.
I don’t touch it because I sure as shit am not about to be seen inside a police station holding a weapon of any sort.
Instead, I release the woman as quickly as I grabbed her, kicking the gun beneath one of the stalls as Beast waits just inside the bathroom door. Honestly, he was probably only a millisecond behind me. I realize as I watch Ms. Briggs curl into a ball and start to sob that he might have been able to stop her all on his own.
I almost feel like an idiot for coming down here in the first place.
It takes me a second to realize what, exactly, it is that Ms. Briggs is moaning. It’s Carol. She’s saying Carol over and over and over again. Jesus Christ. Bile rises in my throat, and even though I know that it was the mafia that killed Carol, it was partially my fault, too.
If I hadn’t snuck out, this woman’s daughter might still be alive.
I squat down beside her a
nd try to keep my voice as even and as calm as I can.
“I need you to get up right now and walk yourself out of these doors,” I tell her, trying to keep my cool. Cat will kill this woman if he gets the chance. Her best hope is to leave quickly and get the fuck out of this town. “If you don’t,” I whisper, leaning in as close as I can, “you’re going to die.”
The woman doesn’t seem to care. She’s completely shattered. Looking at her now, I can see that this was an easy mark for Alvise to manipulate. He probably fed her some bullshit lie about the club, about Cat, about how it was us that killed her daughter when it was the other way around. Wouldn’t take much, I don’t think. A chance for revenge, maybe even for money. It would be pretty obvious at this point to Ms. Briggs that nobody is looking for Carol. Nobody cares.
“Wife, get up,” Beast warns, and I can tell from his tone of voice that he means now. But I don’t want Carol’s mom to die because she was manipulated. That’s not fucking fair. I know life isn’t fucking fair, but still … She deserves better than that.
“Please stand up,” I beg her, but she doesn’t move. She just lays there and cries, and I get so frustrated that I grab her by the hair and yank her into a sitting position. I’d rather be mean now and see her live than try to be nice and watch her die. “You need to run.”
“He killed my baby,” she sobs, and I slap her as hard as I can, the sound ringing in the close confines of the bathroom. The woman doesn’t stop crying but at the very least, she looks at me, her eyes big and blue and so reminiscent of her daughter’s that I’m suddenly inundated with all of these random ass memories of a girl I barely knew but went to school with for years.
If I’m not careful, it’s my empathy that’s going to get me killed.
“Whatever you think you know, it’s bullshit,” I grind out, grabbing her by the front of her shirt and yanking her close to me. “Get up and run. Not just out of this police station but far, far away.”
“Gidget.” It’s Beast again, and if he’s using my real name and not calling me wife then I’m in trouble and completely out of time. He grabs me by the arm and hauls me to my feet. His expression, when he shows it to me, is not quite as stoic as it normally is. He looks sad, but not for Ms. Briggs—for me.
Because he knows I’m about to learn a very important lesson.
You cannot save everyone, no matter how hard you try.
Beast releases me and then grabs the woman by the back of her sweatshirt, hauling her to her feet.
“Out,” he commands, and then he pushes out the bathroom door, and I follow. There are multiple police officers standing nearby, watching us. They had to know, right? At least some of them. In order for Ms. Briggs to get a gun without setting off the metal detectors, she had to get it from somewhere inside the building.
Someone left it in the bathroom for her, most likely.
Ms. Briggs looks pleadingly at the officers, but not a single one of them steps forward to help her. It’s too late, and they all know it.
Beast shoves her out the front doors of the building before releasing her.
Cat is waiting outside with Crown, Sin, and Grainger next to him, a small group of Daybreakers posed near the row of bikes.
Carol’s mom glances their way just once before taking off down the sidewalk at a quick clip. The way Cat watches her scares the shit out of me. When he stands up and moves after her, that scares the shit out of me even more.
“Follow me,” he says, nodding with his chin in the direction of the fleeing woman.
More than anything in the world, I don’t want to go with him. I don’t want to do this. It’s a nightmare in the making, and even though I know what’s coming, I’m afraid. Please no. Please, please, please. Fuck.
This is why I believe in the devil, but not in God.
Because of moments like this.
“Go,” Beast commands me, and because I know he’s on my side first and foremost, I follow Cat. I trust Beast more than anyone else. Even over the other guys.
We take off down the sidewalk and follow Ms. Briggs for about two blocks, keeping to the shadows so that when she looks over her shoulder, she breathes a sigh of relief. I do the ‘fox walk’ that Beast taught me, just like he does. Just like Cat.
And then we come around the corner of a narrow alley and my father takes the lead, gliding through the darkness like it was designed just for him, like he owns it.
“I’m so sorry, sugar,” Beast murmurs, his voice so low that I know I’m the only person that can hear it. “If you want to run, we can run. But we can’t stay here and not do this.”
I know that.
I know it, and I hate myself for it because I’m not asking to leave. And I saved Cat’s life, even though it might’ve been best if I didn’t.
I should’ve let him die, I think, just before we round another corner and come upon Ms. Briggs and a man that seems vaguely familiar, like someone I might’ve seen in passing before.
I know without knowing that this is Cat’s FBI informant.
Within the span of a single heartbeat, Cat is reaching inside his cut and pulling out his favorite gun—the one he put to my head, coincidentally—the Smith & Wesson Model 29.
“Leroy, wait,” the man starts, holding up both hands, palms out.
But it’s over in an instant.
Cat pulls the trigger, the silencer on the end of his weapon muffling the sound in such a way that the gunshot sounds less like a backfiring car and more like the ping of a movie gun. It echoes in the close confines of the alley anyway, and I feel the blood drain from my face as a hole appears in the forehead of the man with his hands raised in surrender.
Just like with Gaz.
The man drops to the ground as Carol’s mother opens her mouth to scream. No sound escapes. Instead, the second shot hits her in the head and she, too, crumples to the ground beside the first body. There’s blood everywhere, spattered across the ground, across the wall behind the two bodies, sprinkled across the side of a dumpster.
Why did I save him? I think, hating myself and yet knowing with every breath that I made the right decision. If anyone is going to kill Cat, it’s going to be me. Not the mafia. Not Ms. Briggs. Me.
Cat tucks his weapon away and turns around, assessing me with dark eyes. To my credit, I stay standing. I don’t sway. My knees don’t buckle. Even my breathing is regulated, slow, calm. On the inside, I’m raging. I’m screaming.
The world is so fucking unfair.
Carol Briggs didn’t deserve to die; her mother didn’t deserve to die.
That’s what happens in war, right? Those who have the least to gain, who are the least involved, those are the people that suffer the most.
Cat moves up to stand beside me, reaching out with his left hand to clamp my shoulder and give it a squeeze. It’s half praise and half warning.
“Good work, Gidge,” he says, and I don’t dare correct my name tonight. Cat gestures with his chin in the direction of the two bodies. “You want to play Daybreaker, huh?” He licks his lips and then he laughs. He laughs while a single mother lies dead on the ground not a dozen feet away from him. While a member of the FBI lies dead. We have his brother. That’s what Grey told me. So this man, while unlikely to be a true innocent considering he’s been working with Cat, he was nailed to the wall just like the rest of us. A butterfly pinned to a board and squirming. “Clean this shit up.”
My father takes off, leaving me to stand alone in the dark with my husband.
“Did I do the right thing?” I whisper as Beast moves closer to me, waiting for Cat to exit the alley before he wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him. He’s warm, strong, and solid as fuck. I curl my fingers in the leather of his cut and force myself to breathe in his scent. Just as I hoped, it brings me at least a smell sense of relief.
“No such thing as right and wrong, Gidge. You know that.”
And I do. I do know it.
I step away from Beast just as the other three men j
oin us, looking over at the bodies on the ground with detached expressions that I suppose are the result of doing this sort of thing year in and year out.
I turn and look with them, studying the results of my own handiwork.
“You’re smart, Gidge,” Crown admits, shaking his head. “So fucking smart.”
“I got an innocent woman killed,” I say, squeezing my hands into fists. “Not tonight. But the day I snuck out to go to that stupid goddamn church camp. I don’t feel smart; I feel like a dumbass.”
“Every action has consequences,” Grainger adds with a sigh, moving over to the bodies and rolling one over with his boot. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He swipes a hand over his face. “Get one of the guys down here with the truck.”
I spend the rest of the night learning how to clean up a crime scene.
“Fuck, my head is killing me,” I say, sitting at the breakfast table and liking the routine of it, of having coffee in here with my men in the morning. Well, okay, if you want to be technical about it, it’s late afternoon. We all stayed up past the sunrise to bury bodies.
I don’t think I’ll forget the way Carol Briggs’ mother looked, her eyes wide and glassy as we wrapped her up in a tarp and loaded her into the back of a pickup truck. And then, later, into a very deep hole.
“As I imagine it would be,” Sin tells me, pushing a cup of coffee my way. Before I can even say anything, he leans down and puts his palms flat on the table, peering at me with slightly narrowed eyes. “Before you ask: Grainger sweetened it, just the way you like.”
“I also want orange juice,” I say, yanking the mug toward me and lifting a brow in question. “It’s a pregnancy craving.”
“Oh, is it?” Sin asks, standing up and putting his hands on his hips. “You’re okay enough to canvass rooftops for snipers, but not hale enough to get your own OJ?”
“One of you pieces of shit impregnated me, and you can’t even pour me some fucking juice?” I ask aghast, and Sin rolls his pretty silver eyes to the ceiling, throwing a cocky look in my direction as he shakes his head.
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