“What’s needed of me?” I asked.
“Your brother was able to get into a gang and was sent down along with a few of the other brothers in conjunction for a crime they all committed. One orchestrated by your brother on purpose to get him sent down. There are a few choice people we need him to try to get in close with that belong to the club that are currently incarcerated. He was armed with all the necessary information to try to sway the informants to our side, but he was stabbed with a shiv in his hand on his fourth day in there; due to complications from infection, the fingers were removed about two weeks after he got stabbed. He’s still fighting a serious infection, and we’re needing this information as fast as possible.”
I looked at my brother as he finished up the last bit of cereal.
“It doesn’t look like he’s doing too bad,” I supplied.
Kelly, a man I thought I could trust, grimaced and stood up, walking towards me.
I’d met Kelly while in the military, and we’d crossed paths quite a few times since then seeing as we both covered the same area, albeit for different law enforcement agencies.
Last year he’d approached me about using my druggie brother—who already had the street cred needed—to approach a gang that they were trying to infiltrate.
Me, not caring about my brother or anything he did, gave him my permission, but made sure that he knew I wasn’t involved in any capacity.
“Can we talk?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at Connor, who was oblivious to Kelly’s question and what it implied.
“Yeah,” I grunted, walking out into the living room once again, then further until I reached the back door.
My sister and Apple were luckily gone, but that didn’t mean I wanted them to overhear what we were about to discuss if they showed up while we were speaking. In case things got heated and loud, I wanted to make sure she was protected from what she might hear.
‘Cause that would suck balls.
Once outside, I turned to him, crossing my arms over my chest.
Kelly sighed and then ran his hands through his hair.
“I should’ve listened to you,” he admitted, walking back and forth across the length of the back porch.
I snorted.
“You think?” I said. “And what exactly happened to make you come to this shocking realization??”
He sighed and pulled on his hair, yanking it roughly up until it stood on end.
“Well, it started about three weeks into the job. He stayed clean until then,” he added, wincing slightly. I didn’t doubt it, either. My brother was able to stop using for short stretches, but, then something would knock him off the rails again and he’d go right back to using as if he’d never stopped. “But once I finally realized that he couldn’t hack it, it was already too late. He’d given them his name and everything. Something we told him not to do.”
My brother was a dumbass.
He was stupid. He didn’t listen to anything because he thought he knew better than anyone.
But, he was my brother. My goddamned twin brother.
The thing about my brother and me was that we really didn’t look all that much alike.
He was always rough and unkempt.
Which was why I did all I could do to make myself look like a presentable human being and nothing at all like him.
That way everyone would be able to tell us apart in a police lineup if it ever came to that.
“What’d he tell them about me?” I asked softly, knowing where he was going with this.
“That he could get them anything they wanted on you, pretty much,” Kelly disclosed. “I was able to listen to everything,” he said. “I had it translated onto paper so you know exactly what was said.”
I sighed. “Fucking wonderful.”
My brother’s handler, Kelly, grimaced.
“Everything was going according to plan. He got in with the gang, no problem. What we didn’t know was that they were in the midst of a turf war of sorts with another gang. That gang had members inside, and they saw your brother as some sort of a threat. They moved on him, and he was fucked up pretty bad.”
“I’ve kept him in ‘isolation’ and have managed to get the other gang members moved to a different prison…but now I need you to take over. I can’t trust him anymore, and this job…it’s sensitive. They won’t know it’s you if you pose as your brother,” he cleared his throat. “Y’all look alike…or could if you let your hair and beard grow.”
I shrugged, playing along with him so I could figure out just what my brother was into and why it was a big deal in the first place.
“What makes you think I want in on this operation at all, never mind impersonating this dumbass? Especially considering the fact that his stupidity is probably why he was shivved his first week in there,” I said, knowing for a fact that I was right. Most likely he’d pissed off the other gang in some way, and they’d decided to teach him a lesson. “Which is another thing, I’m not chopping off three fingers so I can impersonate him. He’s a lost cause. Let it go and find another way in.”
Mother fucker deserved it.
So I wasn’t the most politically correct of people. I didn’t like my brother, so sue me.
I also wasn’t known for being the nicest of arresting officers.
I did what I had to do to get the fuckers—like my brother— off the street so someone else didn’t end up suffering the way I did.
So that someone else didn’t lose their wife to a piece of shit like I had.
It also meant that I would know a lot of people in that prison…mostly because I’d put them there.
Sure, I’d go in as Connor, but there’d be people in there who might think I’d actually care if something happened to Connor—which I can assure you I don’t—and they’d take their grievances out on Connor—me—because he was there and convenient.
“You wouldn’t have to do anything to your hand. No one knows he was hurt as badly as he actually was. They just think he’s in isolation as punishment for instigating a fight.” I rolled my eyes, and Kelly gritted his teeth. “Okay,” Kelly sighed, his eyes going far away. “I know you need more convincing…”
I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. Not in the least.
“What are you trying to get information about?” I pushed. “Who?”
He swallowed visibly.
“We don’t know who the man is that keeps making the decisions,” he admitted. “We know he’s in the Coller Gang. We also know he’s probably the vice president or the president himself.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
The name ‘Coller’ hit me right in the gut, just like he knew it would.
If there was one fucking name in the history of the world that could get me to react, Coller was it.
“The fucking Coller Gang?” I bellowed. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
My fate was now sealed. I had to do it.
My brother laughed from the doorway, and I didn’t feel an ounce of remorse when he groaned in pain immediately after as I hit him with a punch to the chin.
“You’re such a fucking asshole,” I said to him. “Why’d you get caught up in this anyway? Did you forget your brother was a cop? Did you forget what they did?”
My brother was the mother of all fuck ups.
He was the loser stoner in high school, while I was the straight A, varsity football player who made honor roll and volunteered in his free time.
When my brother started to get into trouble, everyone started to point fingers at me.
Why?
Because my brother is an asshole, as I’d already said.
He thought it would be funny to use my name when he got in trouble, and before I knew what was going on, there were warrants out for my arrest. Parking fines. Debts.
So, good Ridley had to be replaced, and in its place was fucked up Ridley.
I’d had to work my
ass off to get everything straightened out, and by the end of it I’d made good friends with a few of the cops who had arrested my brother.
They knew instantly that I wasn’t my brother, being able to see it once I’d introduced myself.
And with those friendships came trust, and they led to me becoming a sheriff’s deputy within a year of my college graduation.
“If I do this…I’m not staying in prison for years on end. Pending approval from my boss, I’m giving you a three-month limit, then I’m out of there whether the case is resolved or not. I’ve made too many enemies, and if I give them any longer, they’re going to find a way to get me killed in there. They’re going to figure out I’m not my brother, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to die in there.”
Kelly started moving, pacing back and forth until I was dizzy with his movement, before he nodded.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I understand, and approval has already been given.”
“I have a few conditions,” I continued. “I’m keeping my phone. I won’t share a cell. I have access to a gun. I get food that I like, and if I say I want out, you get me the fuck out. No exceptions.”
Because, if the Coller Gang was involved, I was already involved.
We had history that went back a good, long while.
Six years, to be specific.
I’d shot the son of the Coller Gang’s president three days after he’d shot and killed my wife in a home invasion, and he hadn’t forgiven me for it.
Hell, I hadn’t forgiven his son yet, either, so maybe we were even.
“Anything else?” Agent Kelly drawled.
“If you can’t promise me all the things that I’ve asked for, then I’m out,” I said. “I told you last year when you started this venture with him that I wouldn’t get involved. And if it involved someone other than the Coller Gang, I wouldn’t be; do you understand?”
He sighed. “Anything more?”
I shook my head. “You need to assign someone to keep an eye on my sister and her daughter. And you don’t let that fuck up anywhere near them,” I pointed to my brother.
He really did look bad.
His right hand was mangled so badly that it would be a miracle if it ever worked correctly again.
His hair was cut close to his scalp, parts of it bloody and scraped. His face was raw, and I didn’t even want to begin to survey his bottom half. All injuries he’d sustained, according to Kelly, after he’d entered prison.
He was absolutely filthy, too, and that was only the body parts that I could see.
There was likely a lot more than I could take in, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.
At his nod, I curled my hands into fists then said, “Good. Now get the fuck out.”
***
“It’s gotta be done, man,” the president of the MC, Peek, said in his Irish brogue. “And you’re the only one who can pull it off.”
I rolled my eyes.
It wasn’t that the others wouldn’t survive, because they could. Easily.
The real problem was that they were all married or had kids. I was the only one that didn’t have anything to come home to.
“I know it’s gotta be done,” I growled. “That’s why I’m doing it. I don’t have to fuckin’ like it, though.”
Peek snorted and shook his head, then went back to the tattoo he was doing on my hand.
“I can’t believe I’m finally getting to mar this beautiful skin,” Peek said cheekily.
I flipped him off and then moved my eyes back to the wall where they’d been holding steady vigil since the tattoo had been started.
“Wish it wasn’t something my stupid brother had, though,” I muttered darkly.
“From what I understand, your brother doesn’t have it anymore, right?” Alison, Peek’s old lady, asked.
My eyes moved from the wall where I’d been studying years and years of pictures, to the older woman with flowing blonde hair.
Alison, although in her mid-fifties, was a looker.
She had mom hips and big breasts, but she made it work.
“That’s true,” I said reluctantly. “Well, partially. He’s missing three fingers, and his hand is pretty scarred from the amputations.”
Alison moved up until she could see what Peek was doing on my hand, then smiled.
“That’s cute,” she said.
It wasn’t really cute. In fact, it was downright disturbing, and I’d never been able to figure out exactly why he’d gotten a picture of a skull on his hand.
He’d done it, however, and now I was stuck getting it permanently tattooed on my body.
Fucking fabulous.
“Alright,” another brother, Griffin, said as he came into the room. “I got you a new phone that doesn’t link back to you. Brand new number that’ll always show up as ‘private’ anytime you want to make a call. Have you been memorizing the numbers?”
I gave Griffin a look that said millions.
Griffin snorted and handed me the phone, and I took it with my free hand.
“Thanks,” I muttered, looking at the phone. “This one’s nicer than mine. Do you think it holds a good charge?”
“It’s solar powered. So as long as they put you in a room with a window, it should charge without a plug,” Griffin explained, gesturing for me to turn the phone over.
I did and saw the small panels on the backside, knowing they were the world’s smallest solar panels without even verifying it.
“Fuckin’ A that’s cool,” I muttered to no one in particular.
“Yep,” Griffin confirmed. “It’s a brand new product, too. One that hasn’t even been released yet.”
“Then how did you get it?” Alison asked, blissfully unaware of the shit Griffin was willing to do to for the ones he love.
Griffin looked at her for a short moment, his eyes going far away just for the slightest of seconds, and I knew the thought he’d just had was a terrible one.
A few years ago, Griffin’s son had died by way of a drive-by shooting, and he’d struggled to move past it since it’d happened.
His old lady, though, was largely responsible for getting him to where he was today.
“Alison, darlin’,” Peek said. “Why don’t you go get Ridley a water, he looks a little rough.”
I shot Peek a look.
If I looked ‘rough’ it was because I was fucking scared of needles.
And I still had two more tattoos to go in the next four days before I went to prison.
A place where I never in my life thought I would ever have to be.
Alison turned to study me, and mother hen came out to play.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she said, leaving the room without another word.
I turned to Peek and raised my brows at him.
“You’re such a shithead,” I said. “You know she’d do anything for me.”
“Exactly the way a good woman should be,” he said without an apology. “But don’t feel special. She’d do it for all of us.”
I smiled.
“Yeah, she would,” I agreed. “She likes me best, though.”
“She does not,” Casten countered as he came into the room next, a stack of papers tucked under his arm. “I’m her favorite.”
“That would be me, dumbass,” Mig said, following directly behind Casten.
I snorted.
“Y’all fight like brothers now,” Peek said, the Irish lilt to his voice getting a little more pronounced as his concentration became more focused on what he was doing to my hand. “And you’re annoying the ever loving fuck out of me.”
Except ‘fuck’ came out more like ‘fook,’ causing Mig to make fun of him, which made Peek stop what he was doing and glare at Mig.
Mig shrugged unrepentantly.
“What?” he asked once the silence went on for a long while. “I can’t help that no one understood what you said.”
“Shut up,” Peek ord
ered, then got back to torturing me.
“Here are copies of your last will and testament,” Casten said, skirting around the chair Mig had sat in, handing them to me.
I put the phone down on my lap and picked up the papers, the words on the top hitting me hard.
The last I’d done my last will and testament was when Aerie, my wife, had been alive.
We’d done it before our trip to Cancun, and had never thought about it again.
Now I was doing another one up, just in case.
Everything that I had to my name was being left to Emily and my sister.
A text message popped up on the phone in my lap, and I brought it up to my face to read the message almost on instinct.
I wasn’t one of the best of texters in the world.
In fact, I kind of sucked at it.
My fingers were too big, and more times than not I mangled the word, even with Autocorrect on.
It was a simple, three-word text message, but it made something weird happen to my heart.
Unknown (7:33 PM): Love/miss you.
I didn’t reply, but my heart started to pound so hard in my chest that I was worried someone might be able to see.
Aerie used to say those exact words to me.
I quickly deleted the message and silently prayed that I’d never get another.
I couldn’t go through that again.
Losing Aerie broke me. The thought of losing her all over again sent chills down my spine.
Too many people needed me, and I didn’t need any of the stuff that probably went with that text message.
Deleting it was the best choice.
Maybe it was just a wrong number, anyway.
Tuesday December 8th
Unknown (12:02 AM): I really fucking miss you.
Wednesday December 9th
Unknown (12:32 AM): I can’t sleep. I keep looking at your picture and forget to breathe.
Unknown (1:02 AM): I found a letter you wrote me in 5th grade when cleaning out your locker at work today. I can’t believe you kept that. You’re so silly.
Unknown (9:20 AM): You left me alone, and I don’t know if I can survive Christmas without you.
Unknown (12:00 PM): Do you want to build a snowman?
Unknown (6:09 PM): A few of your co-workers dropped off a medal of yours that you received while in the line of duty. Something heroic they said you did. They said they never got a chance to tell you that you’d be receiving it, so I put it on your grave on the way home.
Dirty Mother (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 5) Page 4