Repeat Offender

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  She harrumphed behind me, causing me to smile.

  The door to Six’s place opened and closed behind us, and she whirled around to see that Bruno and Laric had made their way inside, along with Sin.

  They were all staring around Six’s place as if they hadn’t expected it to look the way it did.

  Honestly, for such an out there person as she was with her personal style, she wasn’t flashy or different when it came to the decorating of her home. It was all neutral browns and grays. The furniture was nice, but not too nice. There were no personal effects or knick knacks. It more reminded me of one of those homes that you buy that’s already furnished, but the person before them tried to keep it neutral as to not make the new occupant have to change much if they didn’t want to.

  “If I move in with you, you have to promise when I start bothering you, you’ll tell me. Because it’s inevitable that I will,” she said, turning back around and ignoring the boxes in the men’s hands. “I mean, my own father tried to kill himself because of me…”

  That’s when I all but snapped.

  “His stupidity is not your fault,” I growled, unable to control my temper when I saw her beating herself up over something that she had no control over.

  “Your father chose to try to kill himself. He had a choice. He could’ve come to you, but he didn’t. Which isn’t very surprising seeing as he treated you like shit. Any normal man would’ve gone to a bar, gotten drunk. Or hell, he could’ve gone to a titty bar if he really wanted some social interaction. Lynn owns a titty bar. He could’ve done it anonymously. He could’ve bonded with some random old man over titties. Everyone likes titties. Or, at least, every straight man likes titties. He had options, but he chose not to take them,” Bruno growled.

  Six looked at him with surprise in her eyes.

  “Your dad sounds like a douche, dear,” Laric added his two cents.

  “Agreed,” Sin grumbled as his eyes sliced around the room, gauging everything that was happening. “Sounds like his cry for help wasn’t for you, but for someone else.”

  Surprised, we all looked at him.

  “What do you mean?” Six asked quietly.

  “Sounds like he doesn’t really care about you. Sorry to say. I mean, you’re a nice girl from what I’ve experienced so far. But the thing is, I think that he realized that Lynn here could get him out of some trouble. And that’s exactly what he did, right?” Sin shrugged.

  Six’s mouth fell open and she looked at me.

  “And you did get him out of trouble,” she whispered.

  I had, honestly.

  “Do you think that he knew that you’d suspect him of attempted suicide, then planted all of that stuff for you to find?” Laric asked, mirroring the thoughts that were starting to take root in my mind. “I mean, hear me out. He knew that Six would tell you about his ‘depression.’ He also knew that you would go with her to go get his things. What better way to make you suspicious than telling you to go into his house and then leave things out for you to see.”

  “So, you think that he’s not trying to get out of this as much as knows he would’ve eventually been found out,” Six guessed. “You think he was making it to where you believed him for being forced into this.”

  “That would be my best guess.” Laric shrugged. “Without knowing more on the man himself. Just based on what I’ve heard?”

  “Do you think my stepfather being involved is true?” Bruno asked.

  “I think that we need to locate him and find out,” I said, sounding much calmer on the outside than I was on the inside. I dropped the boxes on Six’s bed. “After we move you to my place, we’ll make a pit stop and go talk to him.”

  “We’ll?” Six asked, sounding disgusted.

  “Well, me and a few of the new crew.” I grinned. “You’re gonna take my SUV back to the house and allow whoever is there to unload it.”

  And that was exactly what we did.

  After packing up everything that she wanted, which really wasn’t much at all, we sent her on her way with the cats and my SUV since more fit in it than hers.

  I gestured at Bruno. “Follow her back?”

  Bruno rolled his eyes. “Yes. I’ll meet you at the hospital when I’m done.”

  Then he took off, leaving Laric and Sin with me.

  CHAPTER 18

  I smile at people who don’t like me.

  -Lynn to Six

  LYNN

  “You want to come?” I asked the newest member of our group. Or our motorcycle club. Hell, that was still really weird to think about.

  Sin nodded.

  “I’ll take the house if she decides to move in with you permanently,” Sin said. “It’s a fair halfway point between here and Uncertain.”

  “What does that matter?” Laric asked, walking to the door.

  I pulled Six’s keys off of the counter and looked at them.

  They weighed like ten pounds and had so many key rings on them that I knew it couldn’t be good for her ignition.

  “It matters because I have a certain little Kitty Kitty that I want to stay close to,” Sin explained.

  “Seriously?” Laric laughed then. “What the hell? How’d you manage that?”

  I knew from Laric’s oftentimes decline into prison slang that a ‘kitty kitty’ was a female guard.

  I also knew that the reason that Sin went into jail in the first place happened to be because of a female recruit, that just so happened to decide that being a prison guard was the right thing for her.

  “I managed that because I saved her from being beaten to death by one of my fellow drill sergeants,” Sin said, eyes closing down. “That girl then went and popped a screw loose and decided that she wanted to be a prison guard. Guess which fuckin’ prisons she’s been hanging her hat at.”

  Laric just shook his head and headed to his bike.

  Sin did the same.

  Finally, I got into Six’s old piece of shit SUV and started it up.

  I looked down into the floorboard of her vehicle and saw her heels from a few weeks ago at the banquet that I’d nearly fucked her at.

  They were discarded, along with about five other pairs of shoes, probably never to be seen again.

  The drive to the facility where Ivan was rehabbing didn’t take long.

  When we arrived, the facility was all but empty thanks to it being lunchtime, and the only woman manning the desk was a flustered looking young woman that didn’t look like she was doing too good of a job.

  Knowing that we could slip by unnoticed, I gestured toward the long hallway where Ivan was set up.

  Footsteps quiet, we all came to a halt right outside the door when we heard talking.

  “No, I’m fine,” Ivan said. “Can walk just fine. I can move around normally. I should be out of here by Monday at the latest. Then I can help. Anything that you need.”

  Anger burned in my gut that I’d been played.

  What pissed me off even more was that the only reason I’d been played was because of Six.

  If it hadn’t been for her, and my thoughts about how this would hurt her, I might’ve seen past the obvious.

  Then again, I didn’t know that whomever he was talking to was ‘bad.’ But I had a gut feeling that usually never steered me wrong.

  “Yeah, you can come pick it up after lunch,” he said. “It has the keys to my office. The files. Anything that you need. You’ll have to go after nine tonight when Evans leaves. Evans will never let you in there to go through my things. There is one thing that they did right. They found a good man to replace me. One that won’t stand for anything bad going down in the office that he’s trying to clean up right now.”

  My jaw clenched hard.

  “Yeah, you, too, Dumas.”

  Then there was silence.

  My eyes met Laric’s—eyes so much like my own—and I could tell that he was just as pissed as I was.

  Yes, we’d definitely been played.

  Well, I had. They’d just done
what they were used to doing, which was go along with my word.

  “Why do I have a feeling you’re about to go in there and rip his balls off?” Sin asked curiously.

  Laric snorted. “Probably because that’s exactly what he’s about to start doing.”

  I pushed through the cracked door of Ivan’s hospital room and wasn’t surprised to see him jump at my ‘surprise’ entrance.

  “Oh, Lynnwood.” Ivan licked his lips nervously. “When did you get here?”

  “Lynn,” I corrected automatically. Being called ‘Lynnwood’ made me think of my informative years, and I fuckin’ hated those years.

  I didn’t need another reason to be pissed right now.

  I needed a calm, cool and collected head.

  “Um, hey, Lynn.” His eyes went around the room, taking in the other two people with me. Sin, who looked like he’d just rolled out of prison in too-tight clothes, newly shaved head, and brand-new ink on his arm that apparently, he’d gotten the day that he’d gotten out. Then there was Laric, who looked mean as hell even now, all these years after he’d gotten out. “How’s it going?”

  I came up to the edge of his bed and looked down at him.

  “Six made a comment the other day,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the end of the hospital bed. “She said that she didn’t know who Wyett owned the land with. Why doesn’t Six know that it’s you?”

  “Uhhh,” Ivan said. “I guess it just never came up?”

  Liar.

  “Why would Wyett not mention it then?” I asked. “Wyett is her best friend.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” he hedged.

  “You got two more weeks to go?” I asked, feigning innocence of what I’d just heard. “They said six to eight weeks non-weight bearing. Does that mean that you got two more weeks?”

  His eyes flicked from me to the boys at my back then back to me. “Umm, yeah. That’s what I heard anyway. Why?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “I asked your daughter to move in with me,” I said. “And in a couple of months, when she knows that I’ll still be here despite all the mess you put her through that causes her to have anxiety when people show her the least bit of care, I’ll ask her to marry me.”

  Ivan’s mouth fell open. “You can’t marry her!”

  My brows rose. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re you. You’ll, uh, never be safe,” Ivan tried.

  Laric snorted from behind me. “If there was one person in this entire world that will always be safe, it’s her. Ivan, Lynn just got six men, all murderers or near murderers and other hardcore convictions, out of prison. Released on good behavior or pardoned. Do you honestly think someone that wasn’t Lynn could do that? The man has more skill in his pinky toe than most men have in their entire bodies. And, just sayin’, but people are scared of him. People that don’t even belong to our business know who Lynnwood Thatcher Windsor is. And if they don’t know him, they’ve heard of Joker, or Bonus. If one name doesn’t scare them, one of the others will. And what do you think the scary ones think knowing that he’s actually all three?”

  Ivan’s eyes went wide.

  “Who were you talking to on the phone right before we walked in here?” I asked.

  I’d heard all that I needed to hear.

  But I wanted to allow him to dig his hole just a little bit deeper.

  “Um, no one,” he lied.

  “Have you heard from Bruno’s stepfather?” I asked. “We can’t seem to find him.”

  That’s when Ivan slumped.

  I knew he knew we knew.

  “Sin here didn’t hear your story,” I said as I took a seat. “How about you tell me that now, so he can hear. Did you know Sin was one of those guys I got released? But don’t worry, he only got sent there because he caught a man trying to harm a woman. You should be safe. You know. Because you’re just trying to protect Six, right?”

  Ivan’s face went white.

  “I swear, they told me what to do, and I did it. I had no choice.” His chin wobbled. “I had no choice.”

  I leaned down onto his bad leg, causing him to wince.

  “I think it’s time for a little transparency, Ivan,” I said softly.

  Ivan’s face went even whiter at my comment.

  I kept leaning, knowing that it had to be hurting now.

  How lucky was it that he’d just had knee surgery before he’d broken his leg, and that they’d left the cast off except for some flimsy piece of shit brace that he just so happened to have off?

  It enabled me to…

  Crack.

  Ivan screamed, but Laric, showing that he knew what was about to happen, covered his face with a pillow.

  I let go of his leg.

  “Damn, didn’t think it’d be that easy to break,” I admitted. “Now… tell me everything.”

  • • •

  “He fuckin’ snowed us,” Laric said as he shoved an unconscious Ivan into the back seat of Six’s car.

  Honestly, now I was glad to have her car because it meant that mine wouldn’t get dirty. Which had me fuckin’ laughing under my breath because I somehow knew that Six wouldn’t feel the same. Not at all.

  But, maybe she’d be okay with it if I just bought her a new one. After a while. Possibly in ten years.

  Ivan wasn’t bleeding, per se, but there was no telling whether he would be doing by the time I was done driving him to the land where I shared all my best skills with the visitors.

  After tumbling the unconscious asshole into the back, I tipped my head at the orderly that I’d been paying to keep an eye on Ivan and hadn’t done an all-too-good job of it.

  But, again, he was a low-level employee of mine. Or, an unofficial one, anyway. I didn’t really expect all that much, which was why I wasn’t too mad at the fact that he hadn’t overheard the phone calls.

  “Ready?” Laric asked, looking around him at the practically empty parking lot.

  “Ready,” I confirmed. “What’s wrong?”

  He gestured toward the parking lot. “Why the hell is everyone gone?”

  “Everyone always leaves during lunchtime,” Sin said as he snacked on a beef jerky stick that he’d gotten from the gas station beside the rehab facility. “That’s what the manager at the gas station said. He was quite helpful, actually. I know who is and isn’t fucking each other, too. Because he can see the parking lot. I gave him a hundred dollars to not see anything.”

  I snorted. “Thanks.”

  “Welcome,” Sin said as he got onto his bike. “I’m ready when y’all are.”

  I got into Six’s SUV and started it up, wincing at the sound of her motor.

  Laric laughed at the look on my face as he got on his bike and started his up, too.

  My heart seized in my chest for a moment as I watched him pull out into traffic seconds later, reckless and uncaring.

  Sin gestured for me to go first and placed one booted foot onto the ground to wait for me to pull out.

  I did seconds later, followed shortly by Sin.

  I’d just caught up to Laric at the red light when he gestured for me to roll down the window.

  I did, on both sides, and looked at Laric.

  “We need to find out why Wyett was told not to share that information with Six.”

  Laric raised his voice over the din of his engine. “Good catch. I heard that the other day and wondered the same thing. Why wouldn’t Wyett share that?”

  I nodded once. “Already planned on that. I’m going to text Six at the next long light and ask her to…”

  A car horn blew, bringing my attention away from Laric and toward what was going on in front of me.

  I blinked and watched in horror as a car ran the stoplight on the other side and headed right for us.

  Knowing that there was only one thing I could do and realizing rather quickly that this was going to fuckin’ hurt, I drove forward and met the car head on, hoping that the force of the crash wouldn’t pus
h me into the bikes.

  We hit with a deathly sounding crash.

  The airbags in the wheel deployed. Glass crunched. The world around me exploded.

  But I never lost consciousness.

  However, my chest did hurt like a motherfucker.

  At hearing a hissing, popping, ticking sound, I finally blinked open my eyes and wished that I hadn’t.

  Everything hurt worse, it seemed, when I could see.

  I looked sideways over to the seat next to me and was surprised to see Ivan Broussard sticking halfway through my front windshield, legs first.

  He was staring at me with horror.

  The crash had obviously woken him up from his stupor.

  Likely the pain.

  He opened his mouth, then closed it.

  Opened it again.

  Then blood started to run out of his mouth.

  “Holy fuckin’ shit.” I heard Sin growl from beside me.

  I looked past the still floundering Ivan to see Sin and Laric standing beside the passenger side door.

  Both were sporting bruises. Both were staring in surprise. Both had blood running down their faces. What they did not have were any bad outward signs of trauma.

  Thank fucking God.

  I kicked open the door, using my shoulder to put some muscle into it, and immediately wished I hadn’t. Mostly because I looked over sideways and saw a piece of the mangled car now bloody from my shoulder bump.

  “Shit,” I said as I looked down at my now-bleeding arm. “That hurt.”

  I’d gotten the door open, though.

  “Wait.”

  The croaked word had me turning to stare at Ivan.

  “…Dumas.” He was speaking. “At.” He coughed and blood splattered all over the tennis shoes on Six’s floorboard. “My. House.” He coughed again. “Cabin.”

  “He’s not at your house, motherfucker,” Laric said. “He’s currently bleeding to death on the asphalt behind me. Seems like someone didn’t want you going with us to share secrets. You’re dead, and now he is, too. Or close.”

  CHAPTER 19

  On a scale of one to ten, how much do you dream about chocolate?

  -Text from Six to Lynn