Jessup shook his head. “I’ve been told he’s not taking visitors.”
I got angry.
My brother used to call it my ‘tea kettle’ maneuver.
It took a lot of heat and anger to get me going, but once I was there, I was there.
Which explained why I did what I did next.
I threw my bottle of water at him, hitting Jessup in the chest.
I couldn’t explain why.
I really couldn’t.
It’d just sort of…happened.
One second I was talking to him, and the next I was hitting him with the full bottle.
Jessup stared at me incredulously, then looked down at where the water bottle had hit the floor.
A guard who I’d never seen before grabbed me by the arm then, and I dropped like a stone, instincts kicking in that I’d practiced over and over again with Corey throughout the years.
My brother was a huge advocate for women protecting themselves.
He felt that a woman, whether she be big or little, young or old, should always be able to protect themselves if the need ever arose.
Apparently, I wasn’t aware of just how bad this world was, because my brother had drilled the reactions into me relentlessly.
And we’d practiced.
A lot.
Anytime he felt like I needed a refresher, he’d scare the shit out of me, surprising me, and trying his hardest to make me feel scared and trapped.
Then I would have to get out of the hold.
And he’d never go easy on me.
He’d always said that women didn’t get to get off easily just because they were women.
They had to work for it just as hard as every man did in the world.
Meaning when the guard caught me by the arms, I reacted.
“Get off me!” I screamed, dropping down onto my knees, and then my belly, stiffening up so either the men would have to carry me out of here bodily, or they’d have to hurt me.
“Ma’am,” said the officer…or was he a guard? I didn’t fucking know. What I did know was that he was ugly, and I didn’t like his face.
He wasn’t the same one from last week who’d told me I couldn’t see Ridley aka ‘Connor’ as I was told to call him from now on in public until he said otherwise.
And I wasn’t too happy with that guard.
He was mean to me when he didn’t have to be.
“Ma’am,” he said. “I’m going to carry you out of here if you don’t watch it.”
“Fuck off,” I said. “If you want me out of here, you’re going to have to work for it.”
He moved to put his hands on me, but an abrupt, very pissed off voice said, “Don’t. Touch. Her.”
Relief poured through me as I heard Ridley’s menacing voice.
Instantly the arms were gone that were holding me down, and I got up onto my hands and knees.
Then further up to my feet as I hurried toward Ridley.
Hell, and he had another scar.
“What happened?” I asked, rushing forward.
He stopped me before I could get too close to him, lifted his arms up high over my head, but only long enough to thread the loop of his arms over my head and pull me into his embrace.
One second I was a few feet away, and the next I was blissfully warm and happy.
I’d never felt anything like it before, that feeling of having him so close.
Every boyfriend I’d previously had didn’t feel like Ridley, either.
There was just something about being in the man’s arms that had me feeling a high I hadn’t ever felt before.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “You need to leave. Now.”
I pulled back so I could look at his face, knowing confusion was written all over my own.
“What?” I asked. “I need to talk to you. And I’ve been texting you for days now. I don’t know what to do.”
He growled in frustration.
“Fuck,” he said, pulling me away from him and giving me a slight push; his eyes were focused over my shoulder at something I couldn’t see. “Go home. No arguing. Go.”
All I had to do was take one look at his eyes, and I knew I needed to go.
I didn’t know why, but I knew that he wouldn’t be telling me to leave if it were safe for me to be there.
So I left, though every step away from him had my body screaming at me not to go.
I did, though.
I walked out the door and didn’t look back.
I held my head high, purposefully keeping my eyes in front of me, aimed at the door.
When I finally pushed through the door and it closed behind me, my adrenaline started to wane, and I was left with the shakes.
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” I said over and over again. “Oh, God.”
I drove home, went straight to my brother’s gun safe, and opened it.
Then I pulled out my brother’s favorite gun, loaded it, and studied it.
Could I do it?
I knew I could.
I slid the bolt down, enabling the bullet to be loaded into the chamber, and slammed it shut.
The satisfying click-snap had my heart rate accelerating.
I had to. There were no other options.
Chapter 8
There was no elf on the shelf when I was a kid. There was a belt on the shelf. When I have kids, there’ll be a belt. Why? Because I don’t want to raise an asshole.
-Text from Ridley to Freya
Ridley
“Home?” Kelly yelled. “You can’t go home!”
I nodded.
I damn well could go home.
“I can and will.” I shoved my bag full, gathering what meager belongings I had and shouldering the bag. “You have all you’re going to get out of Tasty. Now all you need to do is keep whatever railroad he’s able to ferret information in and out of this prison shut down until the fucking try out Coller’s having next week.”
Kelly’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.
“You ready?” I asked Wolf.
Wolf nodded.
“You bring your truck or am I gonna have to ride bitch all the way home?” I asked.
‘Cause that would be a long two-hour drive.
“I brought my truck,” he grinned. “Had to drop the boy off with Hannah.”
A slow smile started to spill over my face as we both walked out of the prison.
A huge feeling of relief poured over me as I slipped out the back door through the guard’s entrance with Wolf at my back.
Hannah was a nurse who Wolf really clicked with when he’d been hurt a few years ago. She’d been in his life in some way since.
“You’re fucking her, aren’t you?” I asked Wolf once we reached his truck.
His face shut down.
“You fucking your girl? The dead cop’s sister?” Wolf countered.
I glared at him.
“Fuck off.”
“You can fuck off, too.”
“Drop me off at Freya’s,” I ordered.
Wolf nodded and we started for Kilgore, which was a good two-hour drive from where we were currently located.
“Did you ever get a hold of her?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
I shook my head. “No.”
And I was nervous.
I’d seen the fear in her eyes, but I’d had to tell her to go.
The moment I’d walked into the room, only thinking to get to Freya as fast as I could, I’d clocked Tasty.
I could see the wheels turning in Tasty’s eyes. Could see the calculation as he looked from me to Freya, then back to me.
And I knew, if he could, he’d get whatever information he could out to that fucker, Coller.
The less information he had to give, however, the better.
I was just lucky that Freya had thrown a fit to see me, because it’d kept Tasty and the other prisoners out of the room
a lot longer than they would’ve normally been. Meaning that Tasty only got a short look at her.
Last week when she’d visited, he’d only gotten a small glimpse of her before I’d taken her into the family room.
With any luck, this would all turn out okay, and not nearly as bad as I was thinking it’d get.
But when I got to Freya’s two hours later, Freya was gone.
And her house was empty.
It looked like she hadn’t been home for days.
Her newspapers piled up in the yard. Her mail was overflowing from the mailbox.
Her lights weren’t on.
There was definitely something wrong.
“Where is she?” Wolf asked, sounding curious, but not worried like I was.
“I don’t know. I told her to come here,” I explained, getting out and slamming the truck door closed.
I heard the slam of Wolf’s door, indicating he’d followed me, as I walked to the front door.
I cupped my hands over my eyes and pressed them against the glass that lined either side of the front door.
I took in everything at a glance, noting that it was a pigsty inside, too.
Now that definitely wasn’t Freya.
Her house had been immaculate when I’d seen it the night I’d followed her home from the hospital.
Now it’d looked like she’d gone through it with a whirlwind, grabbing what she needed and leaving the mess for later.
Hell, even her refrigerator was open.
“Fuck me,” I tried the door handle.
It didn’t open.
I bent down and threw the welcome mat out of the way, a tiny bit disappointed when I didn’t find a key.
“You keep checking here, and I’ll go check the back,” I directed.
Wolf grunted in agreement, but I didn’t wait to see it as I was already around the corner of her house.
My luck held true, and I found a key under the back mat, used it, and gained entry into her house in less than a minute.
Heading straight for the front door, I opened it and started to look around.
Something was off.
“Wow,” Wolf said. “Place is a mess. What’d she do? Pack and leave everything worthwhile behind?”
I looked over at him to see his hand holding up a computer and her phone charger.
My eyes followed the cord to the ground, and I saw the tennis ball.
“The dog’s gone,” I said. “She took a few things at least.”
Wolf grunted and started to scan the room, stopping at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.
“Lots of mail here, too,” he said.
I was already half way down the hallway, though, heading for her room.
It was in disarray much the same as the other half of the house.
Clothes everywhere. Shoes strewn about. Another phone cord connected next to the bed.
Papers littered the floor, causing me to bend down and pick them up.
Competition. First place- $50,000. Second place- $25,000. Third place- $10,000.
My eyes scanned the paper closer, and I realized that it was addressed to Corey Capone, Freya’s brother.
My heart hurt.
Picking up the papers and stacking them nicely, I put them on the night table before I turned around and kept looking.
I followed the destruction into the closet, and that’s when I saw that the gun safe was open, and nothing was left inside.
It was a small safe, only housing three long rifles and two handguns, but it was enough.
For it to be empty meant they were stolen…or Freya had needed them.
My heartbeat started to thump harder and faster as the possibilities poured through me.
Pulling my phone out, I called Peek.
“I need help.”
***
“How’d you find her so fast?” I asked my president.
“Silas,” he said.
One word was all that needed to be spoken.
Silas was a legend, even if he was over two hours away.
He was the president of a neighboring motorcycle club; one of the closest, distance wise.
Of course we knew who he was.
But his reputation didn’t really come from the fact that he was president of The Dixie Wardens MC.
No, it came from him being a fucking badass.
Whispers were heard far and wide about him being some sort of spook.
I guessed he was with the CIA or the FBI.
Others thought he was just a badass not affiliated with any governmental agency.
No matter what the case, I was glad to have him at my side, helping me out.
“Where is she?” I asked, thinking to ask questions later, choosing to use now to get to Freya before anything happened to her.
“She’s in South Texas, Houston…at a shooting competition.”
The flyer that’d been addressed to Corey instantly came to the forefront of my mind, and I hurried back inside Freya’s house and straight to her bedroom.
Picking up the flyer, I took it with me back outside and handed it to Peek.
“This one?” I asked.
He scanned the paper, then nodded. “Yes.”
We were on the road thirty minutes later, and nothing could’ve prepared me for what I saw when I got there.
Chapter 9
Every pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
-T-shirt
Freya
I was going to vomit all over my brother’s gun.
Seriously.
I’d be lucky as hell if I made it through this without puking.
I couldn’t do this.
I couldn’t. Not now. I couldn’t be sitting here, where my brother usually sat, and do this.
I didn’t deserve to be here.
But they’d let me in on a technicality.
All that was listed on the roster was the first initial and the last name.
Meaning I could pass for C. Capone, even though it was technically meant to be my brother.
“Colette Freya Capone, age twenty-eight, is last year’s winner’s sister. Officer Corey Capone died earlier this year in a car accident. He’s won the competition nine years running. It would be wonderful if his sister could take up the mantle here at Texas’s largest shooting competition.”
I ignored the announcer, sure he wouldn’t be talking behind my back if he knew I could hear him.
Most people wore ear protection when they did this.
I forgot mine.
I’d been offered some, but had only shook my head in the negative.
The things covering my ears were actually Bluetooth headphones that were made to look like ear protection. They’d been a gag gift from Corey last Christmas.
Little did he know I’d be wearing them and doing something incredibly stupid all at once.
My eye steadied on the scope.
I breathed out. In. Out.
My finger caressed the trigger.
I’d done this hundreds of times.
Just not in a competition with the most elite long distance shooters in all of the world.
I’d probably shoot this and make a fool of myself.
Although I’d done it many times before and had been taught just as thoroughly as my brother had, I didn’t have the sheer number of hours behind the lens of the scope that my brother had.
These men that were in the lineup with me practiced this for hours a day.
I hadn’t picked up this gun in well over four months.
Not since my brother had taken me out to our property just off of Caddo Lake about a month before he’d died.
I prayed what I was doing was correct.
I didn’t hear any horrified whispers, so obviously all the calculations I’d run through in my head were correct.
My breathing slowed as I focused on the red in t
he target.
With one last breath, air left my lungs and I took the shot.
It was loud, and I instantly regretted my decision to act like my earphones were what they were supposed to be.
Ears ringing, I studied my target, completely and utterly surprised to find the bullet had gone right through the center of the bullseye.
Perfect shot at 903 yards.
Holy fucking shit.
It took me a few minutes to realize that the roar I was hearing was the crowd.
I blushed like a fucking fifteen-year-old being asked to prom and jacked the casing from the gun and stood up, finally looking behind me at the men at my back.
It was different from this side of the competition.
Normally, I was the one in the seats at the back of the large seating area.
Now I was getting pictures taken of me.
Great, now I was blind and deaf.
I felt a hand on my arm, causing me to turn.
I smiled.
“Hey!” I said excitedly, throwing my arms around my brother’s friend whom I hadn’t seen in ages.
They’d met long ago in the army, and had stayed in touch. Or tried to, at least. Though my brother was in Uncertain, and James was in Kilgore, a mere forty-five minutes apart, they didn’t get to see each other anywhere near as much as they would’ve liked.
“I’m good,” James laughed. “You know you beat me, right?”
My mouth dropped open.
“You’re shitting me,” I gasped. “How?”
He pointed at the target that one of the runners had gone to fetch. “That’s how.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “You’re the bomb. You should’ve won,” I said. “But your eye’s swollen shut.”
He touched the skin underneath lightly.
“I got punched in the face last night by a meth head,” he explained.
“So I won on a technicality?” I asked.
He smiled.
“We’ll never know. I should’ve known not to come. She made me, though,” James said, pointing.
I followed his finger, then waved at his wife.
She waved back, giving me a thumb’s up.
“Hoes before bros,” I teased when James sighed in exasperation.
He snorted.
“She’s not a hoe,” he countered.
I shrugged, turning my face to look at the crowd once again.
Dirty Mother (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 5) Page 9