“Who’s got her info?” Boz asked.
“Got you, boo,” Elvira said.
When Dutch returned his attention to Georgie, she was giving him a happy See? look.
He kissed her quick, looked at his dad and brother, jerked his chin up at them, then pulled his girl out to his truck.
* * * *
The scene they rolled into at the flophouse address Kraken gave Georgie was not what they expected.
Mostly because they walked in not to see Banga and Kraken guarding a probably pissed-as-shit Carlyle.
But instead, they walked in to three guns aimed at them.
Dutch was first in, even if he had to shove Georgie physically behind him to go first, which meant Georgie was right behind him.
“Christ,” he bit out.
“Heard of knocking?” Luke Stark, Lee Nightingale’s right-hand man, bit back before he holstered his weapon.
Vance and Roam were both holstering theirs as well.
“Ohmigod, what in heaven’s name?” Georgie cried, coming around him.
It was a good question, since not only was Carlyle trussed up on the floor…
So were two men Dutch suspected were Banga and Kraken.
“I don’t know who to let loose first,” she snapped.
“That would be me,” the man Dutch knew by hearing his voice over speakerphone was Kraken said.
“It would be me,” by process of elimination, he knew it was Banga who said that.
“This fuckin’ shit is fuckin’ kidnapping,” Carlyle said.
“Do not cut Carlyle free,” Dutch warned, handing Georgie his knife so she could saw through the zip ties.
Georgiana took the knife, gave him a nod and headed toward Banga and Kraken.
“Shizlayaya, we did not sign up for this shizla,” Banga told her. “You didn’t tell us the Nightingale mofos were on the case. Shufa!”
“They didn’t believe we had this brother for you,” Kraken shared. “And I can tell you truth, I coulda lived my whole motherfuckin’ life without the experience of Luke Goddamned-Fuckin’ Stark subduing me. Have you been tased?” he asked Georgie.
“No,” she answered.
“I highly recommend avoiding it,” Kraken shared.
“I’m so sorry,” Georgie told them, going for Kraken first.
“You owe us big, Shizlayaya, for this shizla,” Banga shared.
On that, Dutch entered the conversation.
“She had nothing to do with your takedown, so get that out of your head.”
“We’re not gonna ask her to open up a crackhouse with us, cracker, shizzleazza owt,” Kraken replied.
“Okay…” Jag said slowly. “The fuck these guys talkin’ ’bout?”
“They have their own language,” Georgie shared.
Finishing up with Kraken, who was pulling his big, lanky, Black frame topped with its massive Afro with a pick comb stuck in it up from the floor, she was turning to Banga.
“No shit, darlin’? I got that part,” Jag returned.
“Shizla means ‘shit.’ Shizzleazza means ‘chill,’” she educated. “Shufa is the F-word.”
“Your name from them has the word shit in it?” Dutch growled.
“Also ‘yaya,’ honky,” Banga snapped. Now also free, he was hauling his short, stocky Black body topped with a high, electric-blue mohawk Afro from the floor. “Which means hot mama. Put together it means a hot mama who’s the shit.”
“Well, that makes perfect sense,” Luke Stark drawled.
“I order brownies,” Kraken declared Georgie’s way.
“The big cookies with the cinnamon,” Banga put in.
“Snickerdoodles,” Georgie corrected.
“Shizlayaya, I do not say words as stupid as the word ‘snickerdoodles,’” Banga retorted.
To that, Hound snorted.
Banga and Kraken’s eyes narrowed on Hound.
Dutch stepped in.
“Okay, men, thank you for what you did and we’re sorry shit got confused but you’re off the case.”
Dutch tensed when Kraken got close to Georgie and stabbed a finger in her face. “Brownies.”
He then stared when she threw her arms around his neck, gave him a hug and promised, “Give me a couple days. I have a new boyfriend and he’s keeping me busy.” She let go and finished, “But I’ll text you after I make them.”
“Gotcha, sister, stay shizzleazza,” Kraken replied.
Then, fuck him, they did a complicated handshake with a dizzying variety of moves that spanned them from waists to over Georgie’s head before they finished it.
Dutch glanced at Jag and Hound to see both of them staring at his woman with huge motherfucking grins on their faces.
Christ.
Banga moved in next, got his hug, handshake and promise of cookies.
Then Kraken bellied up to Dutch before they took off, noting, “I would share, you fuck her over, I’ll fuck you up, but then I’d have Chaos all over my ass, and I ain’t sheerashaka dumb. So hear me, shanakaka, you fuck her over, know you’re just the stupidest shanakaka out there. Ya dig?”
Dutch kinda did, he kinda did not.
However, since he had absolutely no intention of fucking Georgie over, he jerked up his chin.
Banga just stared him down and spat, “Sharashena,” before he left.
The door closed.
All eyes turned to Georgiana.
“‘Shanakaka’ means ‘asshole.’ The rest of it, I have no clue. And I bribe them for their help with baked goods because I have a talent in that area. It used to work with Jackson too, but that bridge has been irretrievably burned,” she explained.
Dutch already was not real thrilled with this Jackson sitch he knew about, but also didn’t.
That made him less so.
Though, he was intrigued about her talent with baked goods.
“I’d find this farce amusing, if I wasn’t still tied up on the goddamned floor,” Carlyle stated.
Dutch moved to him where he was still sitting on his ass on the floor and crouched.
“I gotta share you’re gonna stay that way until we get you safe, unless you promise you’re gonna be cool.”
“Fuck you, let me go,” Carlyle returned.
“I know what you’re doing, Carlyle, and it doesn’t seem like it now, but everyone in this room is here to help,” Dutch told him.
“You don’t know dick and I don’t need your help,” Carlyle retorted.
“He saw you, didn’t he? The guy who shot your dad.”
Carlyle’s eyes told the truth even as the kid himself shut up.
Georgiana crouched beside him.
“Hi, Carlyle, I’m Georgie.”
“Don’t give a shit who you are,” Carlyle replied.
“I can imagine,” she murmured. “But you know, uh, so we can get this situation taken care of as fast as possible, we have pictures we want you to look at so you can let us know if one of them is the guy you saw that night.”
That caught his attention. “What pictures?”
“From Jessica, your neighbor’s Facebook.”
“Bitch, you think I didn’t look there first?” he sniped.
Okay, the line was far for Dutch that Carlyle couldn’t cross.
But he’d just leaped over it.
“You don’t know me,” Dutch said low. “And I get you don’t wanna know me. But know this, you do not call my woman a bitch. Are you feelin’ me right now?”
Carlyle’s eyes shot to Dutch, and he didn’t even look at the men who had gathered at Dutch’s back at hearing his tone.
The kid he really was, the kid his father raised, came out and he looked wrecked for a beat before he hid it.
But Dutch zeroed in.
“That’s your father’s son, do not lose what you’ve got left of him by losing hold on that.”
“You don’t know dick about my father,” Carlyle spat.
“You’re very wrong. A few seconds ago, I was looking him right in
the eye.”
Carlyle’s entire big body shuddered before he closed his eyes tight and turned his head away.
Dutch knew that feeling.
He’d felt it just that morning.
And his father had been dead for twenty-three years.
“Now, we’re pickin’ up Gary Bronson, and we’re gonna be talkin’ to him,” Dutch shared, and Carlyle looked back, too young, or too broken, to be able to hide his shock. “And we’ve got men on Jessica, and we’re gonna be watchin’ every move she makes. And we know where the warehouse is, and we’re gonna be on that too. You got more for us, we’ll be all over that. In the meantime, we got a safe place for you to stay with a roof, a bed, food to eat and good people who’ll look out for you. And if you’ll let me, I’ll go to your ma and share you’re good, you’re safe, and I can bring her and your sister to you so we can prove that to her. But she’ll be safe the way I do it. And then you leave this to me, to my brothers, to the men who’ve waded into this, because we got you.”
“I got there before he was down.”
It came out beyond his control.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
“Cut him free,” Georgie whispered urgently.
Carlyle’s eyes were locked to Dutch.
“I saw him take it in the neck.”
Roam was behind his back, working fast.
“Give it to me, man,” Dutch urged.
“I saw it. I saw him take it in the neck.”
Dutch shuffled closer, muttering, not to Carlyle, “Get her back.”
Georgie disappeared.
“He went down. He’s a big guy like me.”
“Give it to me.”
“Made a big noise when he hit. Bitch screamed. Loud. So loud. All of that. Seemed louder than the gunshot.”
“I can see that,” Dutch told him when he stopped talking.
“‘Not the kid,’ she said, then shoved the guy out the door,” Carlyle continued.
At least she did that.
“Dad was down, but his arms were moving, he was looking at me, motioning me to get out of there. I didn’t do what he told me to do. I went to him.”
After that, Carlyle jerked suddenly, slammed his large fists into the floor beside him, then curled instantly into a ball, his hands one over the other on the back of his head.
“He went down. Never got up. Never got up. Never gonna get up,” he said to his thighs.
“Do I need to call Jules?” Vance asked quietly.
“No,” Dutch answered.
He didn’t touch him. Dutch didn’t move.
Carlyle started rocking.
It didn’t last long.
Carlyle’s hands slid away. They fell to the floor like they weren’t flesh he could control, but useless appendages made of nothing.
He lifted his head and eyes filled with everything Dutch had felt all his life, all at once, caught on Dutch’s.
Dutch heard Jagger suck in breath and knew Jagger recognized it, just like Dutch.
“I gotta find him, for my dad.”
“We’ll find him for you, man,” Dutch promised.
“It’s gotta be me,” Carlyle said.
“You gotta stay safe, because there is one thing I know in this world above all other, your mom’s gonna need you. Do you understand me?”
Carlyle swallowed hard.
“Do you understand me, Carlyle?” Dutch pushed.
Carlyle just stared at him, gone. Gone to the pain. Gone to the memories.
Gone to the loss.
“Do you understand me?” Dutch demanded.
He sounded like a little kid when he answered, “Yeah.”
“Will you come with us?” Dutch asked.
Carlyle nodded.
Dutch didn’t waste a second.
He straightened from his crouch and held out his hand.
Carlyle studied it.
And then…
He took it.
Chapter Nine
Meanwhile
Meanwhile…
As Dutch was talking to Carlyle Stephens in Tack and Tyra’s living room with a bevy of Chaos brothers and Nightingale men around him …
Georgiana stood out in the chill air on the deck of Kane and Tyra Allen’s house.
She was not the least surprised when Keely Ironside joined her.
She didn’t look at Dutch’s mom when she asked, “He okay?”
“Kid’s been through the wringer but think he’s tough.”
She gave Keely her attention at that.
“I wasn’t talking about Carlyle.”
Keely’s eyes fell on her.
“Do you know what’s going on with my son?” she asked.
“Yes,” Georgiana answered.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she asked.
“No,” Georgie answered.
“Can I trust you have him?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Georgie answered.
Keely Black Ironside stared at Georgiana Suzanne Traylor.
Then she said, “He’s always been very serious.”
“Please don’t share with me things Dutch would want to tell me himself.”
“What I’m saying is, I wanted him to be free longer so maybe he’d have a little fun.”
Georgie cocked her head.
“What makes you think I’m not fun?”
Keely stared at her again.
“I’m loads of fun,” Georgie assured her.
“I hope so,” Keely whispered.
“Thank you for him,” Georgie said to her.
Keely’s head jerked.
“He’s pretty freaking amazing,” Georgiana told her something she knew.
The way Keely was looking at her now was entirely different.
“Yes, he is.”
“We should go inside. He’s got things on his mind and he doesn’t need to worry about his new babe talking to his beloved mother.”
“Right,” Keely murmured.
They turned as one, and neither of them missed that Dutch’s eyes were aimed through the window.
At Georgiana.
“I haven’t seen that look in twenty-three years,” Keely whispered.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Georgie asked.
Keely slid her arm through Georgie’s and moved her toward the door, saying…
“Gorgeous.”
Chapter Ten
This
Dutch
They went through his side door, Georgie carrying her backpack and laptop bag, Dutch juggling a pizza and a six pack.
She dumped her stuff first, on the counter by the washer and dryer, took off her coat, hung it on a hook, then nabbed the stuff from Dutch.
He locked the door, shrugged off his cut and hung it on a hook.
By the time he’d turned, she was in the living room, cooing to Murtagh.
Dutch followed her.
She was heading to the kitchen.
He moved around turning on lamps.
When he got to the kitchen, she had two beers popped and her head bent to her phone.
She sensed him there, though, because she said, “I’m so wiped, I just want to eat the pizza over the box, down a beer and pass out.”
Not even close to the plans he had for them that night.
He didn’t get into that, or share another good part of living in the biker world: the fact it was almost a moral imperative not to put your pizza on a plate, but instead, eat it over the box at the same time sucking back a beer.
He also didn’t remind her of what he’d already told her. That he’d called, and the restaurant was booked for the next night, but they had a reservation for Sunday, so they had something to look forward to.
On the way from the pizza joint, she’d been giving her phone a lot of attention and not sharing why.
So he got into that.
“Something up?” he asked, leaning a hip against the counter and flipping the pizza box open.
Her gaze came to him
.
“Well, my mom has been texting all day, which is no surprise, considering Carolyn has probably been buzzing in her ear.”
“Yeah?” he said. “And?” he asked because he knew that wasn’t it.
“Now my dad has called twice, and that’s unusual, because he kinda figured things out a while ago, at least with the designer stuff Carolyn’s always sporting, and since she often went to him for a handout, he cut her off. This caused a big blowup, as I’m sure you can imagine. She hasn’t spoken to him in a couple of years.”
“So you need to call your dad,” he surmised.
“Yes.”
He nodded. “I need to call Rush to get briefed on Gary Bronson. You make your call, I’ll make mine. And we’ll eat over the box. Nab some paper towels, babe.”
“You need cloth napkins,” she said, even as she moved to the paper towel holder.
“What?” he asked.
She tore some off. “Cloth napkins.”
“Bikers don’t do cloth napkins,” he teased, though he did it telling her the God’s honest truth.
She smiled at him as she came over and handed him his paper towel. “Do bikers like riding roads on this planet we call earth?”
“So your bid to save the planet is to use cloth napkins and not paper towels?”
She shrugged. “Every little bit helps.”
He shook his head, and since she’d stopped close, he dipped down to give her a lip touch, then he pulled out his phone.
“Call,” he ordered. “Soon’s we’re done with this shit, it can be just us for maybe ten minutes.”
She lifted a hand, pressed it into his chest, then made her call.
He made his.
Rush answered straight away.
“The guy giving anything up?” Dutch asked before taking a huge bite of a slice while Georgie murmured and munched close to him.
“Jessica Browbridge launders counterfeit cash the black market operation produces. She does it through that restaurant she manages,” Rush told him.
Well then.
He gave something up.
“Though, that shit has stopped since other shit got hot for her after her neighbor was shot dead in her bedroom,” Rush went on.
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