by Jamie Magee
“And he’s an easy target for you, someone to pin this on instead of your undercover.”
O’Brian lifted his brow. “He wasn’t mine.”
“Again—same difference. Let the kid go.”
“It’s not going to happen. He was there.”
“And where is this coming from?”
“My evidence.”
“Prints. Last I knew you couldn’t date those. He was staying at my house, must have picked it up.”
O’Brian leaned forward, suspicion in his eyes. “That brings up another point, where is his mother? She was always an introvert, but when we went to his house it was shut down tight. Inside we found broken vases, definite signs of a struggle.”
A knowing glint rested in Reveca’s eyes. She almost told him, almost laid it out and said that she was in the pages, that witches have to do shit like that to protect their own. And Evanthe was far more peaceful than she was, but she wanted to taunt this man for a hot second, and she couldn’t do that if she started with something he would doubt and not let himself completely believe.
“You got me.”
He narrowed his stare. “This kid had a fight with his mother, God knows how that ended up, then he killed Newberry and hid out at your Boneyard.”
“You and your fantasies, so fucking predicable.”
Reveca couldn’t be more serious about her statement if she wanted to be. It was a product of living so long, knowing the human condition. Reveca may not always know the exact words someone would say, or exactly what move they would make when pushed, but she was always close enough. This conversation right here was proof positive. How they believed so easily that Bastion was guilty, how easy it was for them to construct a story, breathe a lie into life and believe it with undaunted conviction.
He laughed again, then his beady stare grew inquisitive. “You think you confessing to this, this odd crime, one that could be argued was not even a real murder will get the heat off you for the others? You think we will not come after you for the open murder cases you are connected to, come after your Club for their involvement in running drugs?”
Reveca leaned forward. “I’m not telling you shit until that kid is released, until I know he’s home, safe and sound.”
“Home…your Boneyard you mean. That pit of sin you live in.”
Reveca grinned when she saw the lust in his eyes. She saw him trying to hide behind his badge and unquestionably some faith he publicly committed to.
“Did it give you a hard on to say that?” Reveca asked with a lifted brow. “What are you doing? Sitting over there thinking about how your miserable life fucking sucks, how you’re old, rotten, and done, and all you have to show for it is an ulcer, surely a heart problem, a balding head and a dick you can’t get up. And even if you could no woman with any sense would let you fuck her.” She lifted her chin. “You’re thinking you should have been outside of the law instead of in it, that you’d be bad ass on a bike. You’d know just how to outsmart the lawmen, and when you were done with the day’s work you’d get nice and high and a few club whores would suck you off as you listened to loud rock and roll.” Reveca lifted her brow. “How fucking close am I to nailing your twisted dreams down?”
He was so mad he was sweating, and his glare was just like daggers. “You’re a fucking cunt.”
“One that has you by the balls.” He just didn’t know it yet.
“You don’t have shit.”
“You don’t either. You’re right. Cartier, in his sleep, could argue that Newberry died of natural causes, argue that a gun fired into a dead body is not murder.”
“It’s no less a crime.”
“What kind? Not one that’s going to fucking get you anywhere with the shit storm you have stirred up. You know how it all fits, you sure fucking do because you were right there in the middle of it.”
“Of what? What are you trying to say? I killed the fucker? How many people are planning on taking the fall for this man’s death?”
“You know what I mean,” Reveca said, lifting her chin, landing a knowing glare on O’Brian, one that clearly said she knew what side of the law he was on. One that said what Mathis thought about him, that he was some old man mad his case was busted was wrong, so wrong.
O’Brian wasn’t pissed that Gaither was a dead end, that four leaders died. He was pissed he’d have to answer for that in more than one way. He was pissed the Sons had chewed up his bullshit strikes against them and spit it back at him, fucking his entire retirement plan, right alongside Blackwater’s.
O’Brian straightened his back, and then glared for a long hard moment at Reveca. “How’d you get Holden to confess to this murder?”
“I’m not telling you shit until the kid is home.”
“Why? Does he have a blow job waiting on him?”
“Several, I’m sure. Being locked up is hot, gets girls like me all wet. No doubt someone wants to comfort him.”
“You’re sick.”
“No, you are because the idea of that kid getting some has you thinking about the last time you had it—when was that? A couple decades ago? I bet your dick is half shriveled off about now.”
“You want to see it?” he growled.
“You whip that bad boy out and it will be the last time your ass sees it.”
“Are you threatening an officer?”
“One that said he’d put his dick in my face. Yes, fuck yes I am. You sick fuck.”
O’Brian slammed his hands down on the table. “How did you get Holden to confess to this? Why did you send the kid to kill someone who was dead?”
Reveca glared at him and slightly shook her head.
“Was it an initiation? He had to shed some blood but you wanted to keep him innocent a bit longer?”
“You fucking walked in here saying he had motive to kill Newberry, now you are saying that he shot a dead body. Do you even listen to the shit that is coming out of your mouth?”
“You walked in here confessing to a murder. If you went that far then you are surely trying to cover up something else.”
“What I know is not leaving my lips until the kid is home.”
O’Brian pulled out his other files, ones that showed GranDee’s home, what was left of Bo’s body on the front porch. Then he laid out the same dead girls that he had shown her before. Before it was over he had the bodies of all the men the Sons had shot at Gaither before her.
“All of this connects. Somehow, someway it connects to you.”
“Right.”
Shock covered O’Brian’s face. “What did you say?”
“I was agreeing with you. That odd? I guess it is since you haven’t heard a woman say yes to you in such a long time.”
He balled his fist then pointed his finger down at Newberry’s image. “How the fuck did this start? Why did you send the kid to do this? And how did it lead to the others?”
“The kid didn’t do shit.”
“His prints were at Gaither, too. He was there with the Devil’s Den and picked up at your Boneyard, a warring gang.”
“Now you want to pin the murders of thugs on him? Where do you dream this shit up?”
“I’m stating facts. There were murders there, kidnappings.”
“Right, and where were Bastion’s prints found again?”
O’Brian smirked. “You admit he was there.”
“No, I’m playing into your fantasy, making sure you realize that none of this will hold up in any court. The kid did nothing wrong.”
“Well we don’t know that. He resisted arrest and now your lawyer has him nice and quiet.”
“Resisted? You think your lawmen were nice and easy on the kid as they walked up to him minding his own business on private property? Or do you think they used excessive force and the kid defended himself?”
“You think that’s going to stick?”
“There was a good fifty people in that lot. I wonder what they saw.”
“Fifty people that tried to cause a riot.
There are three times as many that we have already locked up for the same. The officers said the kid resisted. A veteran detective backed them up.”
“I bet he did. That veteran detective of yours has been around the Boneyard a lot.”
O’Brian grinned wickedly. “Clearly sucking at his job. The only fucking finger he lifted in this deal was stating he spotted the kid there.”
“I’m not going to argue that he’s a piss poor lawman—that’s a given fact. But what your detective didn’t tell you is that there is surveillance on every inch of my property. Surveillance that Cartier will pull and show a judge how you pulled in that kid.”
O’Brian lifted a brow then leaned back.
“What? Is your head spinning? Are you wondering if during the raid that you may have said or done something that you’d rather not be repeated, seen by the lawmen that actually fucking do their job around here?”
“You think you’re going to blackmail me?”
“Not today,” Reveca said with an easy smile, one that would frighten any sane man.
“Not today. Today is the only day, sweetheart. You’re not going to see the sun again for a long time. You’re in my world now, and I’m going to grind into you until you confess to every dirty deed you and your Club have done.”
“I’m not saying shit until the kid is free. And keep it up with the innuendos, asshole, and I’ll end up with a sexual harassment lawsuit that will end you.”
“Not a chance. And each time you say that it gives me reason to hold him longer. Makes me think that you fear if we do hold him, if we press—that the kid will fold and cry like a baby, bury all of you with his confession.”
“Fold my ass, and if you push him, resisting arrest is going to be least of your issues.”
“Another threat.”
Reveca just stared with a smirk on her face. It was a fucking promise and surely this dick would figure that out on his own one day.
“Why did you send the kid to kill Newberry?”
“I didn’t, I did it. Do you want to record that? Because we’ve said that more than once before.”
“I’m not putting a camera on you until you start telling the truth.”
“You mean you’re not putting a camera on me until you’re sure that I won’t say anything that you’d rather I not.”
“You have nothing on me.”
“Does that help you sleep at night?”
There it was a glint of fear in his eyes, but he pressed on. “I’m well aware of your games, the way you get under a man’s skin. Blackwater briefed us all on the matter.”
“All of you? Maybe he just told you when the two of you were lining your cases up? Trying to figure out how to get the bad guys to kill each other instead of you.”
“That is always the goal, Miss Beauregard,” he said smugly.
Reveca laughed.
“You find that funny?”
“That you admitted to that? I find it fucking hilarious.” She jutted her chin up. “O’Brian, I don’t give a fuck that you are on the Devil’s Den payroll, not today. So you can set your worries aside and free the kid.”
His eyes narrowed on hers. There was shock there, more than fear.
“You’re trying to remember aren’t you? If you and Blackwater said something you shouldn’t have at the Boneyard. You’re almost sure you didn’t. You’re careful—way more careful than Blackwater. You don’t usually go as deep as him into the criminal element, but still, you’re not sure. At the same time you don’t trust Blackwater. Not sure if he could have double crossed you and the Devil’s Den. For all you know my bank account is bigger.”
Reveca leaned forward. “It is odd, isn’t it, that over the last few weeks Blackwater has been more cautious about the Sons. Seemed too sure that they had plenty of alibis. Hell, he rained all over your fucking parade when he said he was with me the night before you hauled me in, didn’t he? You were downright confused. Why would you be that confused? Maybe because you both knew there would be a witness that would come forward perhaps? Maybe you didn’t jump the gun like everyone thinks. Maybe that was the plan all along, only Blackwater cut you off.”
Reveca breathed in the satisfaction as she saw the stunned look on his face. “You been getting along with Blackwater? Or has he been aloof? Are you arguing about how you’re going to put all of this to bed and still stay alive so you can die some old sweaty man in a one room apartment one day as the Price is Right plays in the fucking background?’”
“You’re not twisting me in this,” he said again.
“Oh, I fucking am. I have had it up to here with you fucking lawmen twisting shit, bending theories and stories just right to fit your bullshit. I can do the same, only I can afford an army of lawyers. I can dig up every sin this department has ever committed. A total shit storm.”
She let silence reign for a moment. Then looked right at him. “You get the fuck out of my face, and you get that kid out of here, on his way home, so I can tell you all about how I plotted to kill some fucker that was already dead and shot his body for the fuck of it. Otherwise, I’m going to start reaching deep, digging, dragging your shit to the surface. You think my bikers caused a riot? What’s going to happen when all those people you framed over your career, the ones you put in the ground, what’s going to happen when their families get even the slightest hint that something corrupt went down? What’s going to happen when their gangs figure out their boys never turned on them, that you and company orchestrated it all?”
She furrowed her brow. “I’ll tell you. You won’t make it out of this station, and you won’t make it to trial or jail either. You will be laid down without a second thought, in broad fucking daylight.”
He just kept glaring, trying to understand what she knew and what she was bluffing about, trying to find a way to cover his own ass.
Reveca glanced to his watch. “I’m giving you thirty minutes. I don’t care how it’s done, I want him home.”
“You think it’s going to go down like that?”
“Him leaving, yes. I would bet that Cartier has already pushed through most of the shit you laid down. You help him along, get the kid the fuck out of here.”
He stood. “I’ll be expecting that novel when I return.”
“It’s going to be a fucking blast. Run along now, before I decide the kid can stay and just fucking take you down for spite.”
The second he left, Reveca let out a deep breath then looked down at her hands. The glow about her was fading. She knew King was long gone, far away. What energy he did give her, the grief and aggression was causing it to drain faster than she needed it to.
The clock was ticking and her willpower was fading.
Chapter Two
Exactly thirty minutes later Bastion walked by the door to the room they were holding Reveca in. He gave one nod, telling her a million things. First and foremost his beast was in control, and second he was free, and lastly he had her back—knew his role.
That wasn’t enough for her. She closed her eyes and listened. She waited for him to walk outside, waited to hear the sound of cheers from the mass of bikers that were still outside. She tracked his energy until she was sure that he had made it to the safe haven of the Boneyard.
The hours after dragged by. No one came in, hardly anyone walked by. She knew why, knew that somewhere some crooked lawmen were trying to get their story straight as the others, the ones that did their job, were trying to manage the mass of arrests they had made, process the bikers they had taken into custody for acting out, stirring up a riot. It was a wonder the police station was still standing at all.
Each moment that went by weighed on Reveca. She hated wars like this where it was all about the hurry up and then wait, how by the time you eased into a calm a shit storm stirred all over again. They were the most exhausting of all wars, and right now it was all she could do to reserve her energy.
It had to have been well into the night, surely close to dawn, before Blackwater walked into t
he room with her.
She glared as he sat down and thought of a million ways to kill him. Knowing none of them would completely satisfy her.
Behind him, in the window of the door, Reveca saw something that wiped the glare off her face.
Amber.
She was walking with O’Brian in the direction that they had held Bastion. She looked in the room Reveca was in and when she did Reveca could see the fear in the girl’s eyes, the downright terror. It was easy to see she had been crying, too. She looked like hell to be honest.
“She look familiar to you?” Blackwater asked as he sat down in front of Reveca.
Reveca snapped her glare back to him. “You’re a dead man.”
“I get that a lot,” he said in an exhausted tone as he reached up and rubbed his eyes then looked at her. “What the hell were you thinking? They would have hauled the kid in, at best he would have had to face charges on mutilating a dead body, surely would have gotten counseling, probation maybe, and we could have avoided this all.”
Sure, Blackwater, Reveca thought. That’s exactly how it would have gone down. “You think I’m going to let an innocent kid face any charges at all?”
Blackwater adjusted his shoulders as if he could feel the weight of hell on them, the dirt of his grave being shoveled in nice and slow, making him suffer before he made his way to the depths of the abyss. “His prints were on the weapon, he was already on probation,” he said, in a matter of fact tone.
“And where was that gun found?” Reveca asked sharply.
Blackwater let his stare linger, hate filling his eyes. “You started shit, Miss Beauregard. You have O’Brian drooling at the mouth. He’s certain that you’re going to kill him, and he needs to shut you down.”
Reveca winked and gave a sly smirk. “Smarter man than you.”
“You listen,” he said, leaning forward, “I would have told you they were coming for the kid if there was time. There wasn’t. The prints were ran, they found a match and I barely made it to the Boneyard before the marked cars.”