“Except they didn’t factor in that Duchess never put Raymond’s name on the birth certificate, and I get Gunner.” Queenie buried her face in her hands. “Oh, my God,” she groaned. “So she wasn’t killed for the shoes on her feet. She was killed because they wanted Gunner.”
“So, instead of petitioning the courts for blood tests or whatever to prove that Raymond is Gunner’s father, they figure what’s the harm in one more death as long as it means Gunner will finally be with them.” Quinn sighed. “The problem was Queenie didn’t die.”
“And Raymond told you all of this?” I asked.
Dyno shook his head. “It all came from Brick, who has some pretty good methods of persuasion. We tried to talk to Raymond, but he was in the infirmary listed under critical condition.” Dyno leaned forward with a twisted smile on his lips. “They don’t think he’s going to make it. Had a horrible accident in the shower.”
“Jaw is so busted, they had to wire it shut.” Quinn shrugged. “Hopefully, he’ll pull through.”
And that was why you didn’t fuck with the Kings of Vengeance. Once Brick got out of prison, I would have to personally thank him for helping to take out the garbage.
“Gunner. How do we get Gunner back now?” Queenie asked. “As much as I can appreciate that scum Raymond getting the shit beat out of him, that didn’t put Gunner back in my arms.”
“This is where we need to put it into a vote.” Quinn hitched his thumb at Dyno. “We can’t seem to agree so the rest of you are going to decide. Do we go to the cops or serve justice Kings of Vengeance style?”
*
Queenie
My stomach rolled, and I buried my face in my hands.
Gunner was okay, though. He was with some sick and twisted people, but he was still alive. They wouldn’t have gone to all of the trouble to kill Duchess and me just to hurt Gunner. That was the only thought that was keeping me from jumping up and knocking on every door in Whitmore until I found him.
Sledge rubbed my back while I tried not to puke.
“I’m gonna need to hear the pros and cons of both on this,” Point replied. “While the idea of going in guns blazing is more than appealing, you gotta factor in the thought that people could get hurt who don’t deserve it.”
“Like Gunner,” Sledge mumbled.
“But if we get the cops involved, they’re gonna wanna know where we got our information from, and then, Brick could get in trouble for the mishap with Raymond.” Dyno moved his hands up and down. “But that’s not guaranteed to happen either. I, for one, feel that the Clarks got a lot more shit on them than Brick does.”
“Brick is three months away from being a free man,” Quinn pointed out.
“How does Brick feel about the options?” Rhino asked.
Quinn’s eyes connected with mine. “He said we needed to do whichever one will get Gunner home quicker. He doesn’t care if he has to spend a few more years there if it means Gunner is safe.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Do all of you guys need to be so chivalrous?” Jesus. A guy who didn’t know me or even half of the guys in this room was willing to sacrifice himself for Gunner. I raised my hand. “I know you badasses don’t normally run to the police, but I think we need them.” I didn’t know if I was actually included in the vote, but I didn’t care. Gunner was mine and I would do anything to get him back.
“Women and children, doll. You don’t fuck with either of them. You do, and the Kings are coming for you.” Dyno raised his hand. “I vote we get the cops in here and get this shit done.”
Rhino and Point both raised their hands right away.
Zephyr looked around the table. “We run into the fact that the police might not believe us.”
“We go to Detective Kaye. That was Brick’s one condition.” Quinn raised his left hand. “This is Brick’s vote.”
“Fucking hell,” Zephyr muttered. He raised his hand. “I’m not into kids myself, but that doesn’t mean I want them to die. Get the cops in here and let’s get him.”
Sledge raised his hand. “Let’s do it.”
Dyno turned to Quinn. “The last vote is yours, prez.”
Quinn slowly raised his other hand. “Let’s bring Gunner home.”
*
Chapter Twelve
War or laundry…
Sledge
“Why does it feel like we should be preparing for war?” Queenie flopped back on my bed and covered her face with her hands.
I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it on the floor. “You’re not doing anything to prepare for war, sugar. You’re staying here until we get word from Detective Kaye.”
Once we had voted to bring in Kaye and the police, Quinn made the call to let her know what we had found out. Now, we were sitting around like bumps on a log waiting to hear what was going to happen next. We knew with the cops coming in, we weren’t going to be the ones storming in to save Gunner, but we all agreed it was for the best. If we would have taken this on our own, we might have started an all-out war.
On top of dealing with getting Gunner back, I knew Quinn was stressed out over the fact we owed the Royal Bastards a pretty chunk of money. The only way we were going to be able to pay it back was by getting Skinz off the ground. Right now, we didn’t even know how or where we were going to do that, but we knew we needed to get moving on it quick.
It was just one thing after another. We needed a good long stretch of no extra nonsense happening with the club.
We needed to get Gunner back and then, we all hoped it was going to be smooth sailing with nights filled of making money off horny men and women.
I pulled open my drawer and frowned. “Fuck.”
“The fact that you think I’m just going to sit here with my thumb up my butt is comical.” She sat up. “And why did you say fuck?”
I glanced over my shoulder at her. Her eyes traveled over my bare back and I could tell she liked what she saw.
“I’m a guy who hates doing fucking laundry. I’m out of clean clothes.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, you look okay with your shirt off.” Her cheeks blushed a light pink and she bit her bottom lip. “Just saying.”
“You hitting on me, sugar?” I had felt the connection with Queenie when I first met her. Now that we had spent basically every minute together the past week, I knew something was there. I just didn’t want to move on it with things being so in the air with Gunner. Now that we knew what had happened and where he was, it was only a matter of time until he was back home with Queenie.
“Just pointing out a fact.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to stare at that fact until I either do some laundry or steal a shirt from one of the guys.”
Queenie jumped off the bed and started pulling open drawers. “How in the heck do you not have one clean shirt,” she mumbled.
I leaned against the side of the dresser and folded my arms over my chest. “I’m thinking me being shirtless is making you a little flustered, sugar.”
She huffed but didn’t say anything.
“Well, well, what do we have here?”
My eyes darted to the open bedroom door and Queenie twisted around.
Kimber leaned against the doorframe with a smug smile on her face. “First, good news about Gunner, and then, I find Queenie with her hand in the cookie jar.”
“What?” Queenie squawked. “My hand is nowhere near the cookie jar.”
“No,” Kimber laughed. “But your head is a lot closer than it normally is.”
Queenie turned toward me and she was eye level with my crotch. “He’s got pants on for Pete’s sake!”
Kimber shrugged. “Just a button and zipper away from having a little snack.”
“Something is really wrong with you, you know that?” Queenie laughed. She stood and brushed her hands on her pants. “He doesn’t have any clean clothes. So I decided to take a look because he’s a man and we all know they can’t see something right in front of their noses.”
I blinked twice. “I don’t even know what just happened.”
“What happened is you and I are going to be the talk of the clubhouse in about two minutes.” Queenie shook her head and laughed.
I watched her smile actually reach her eyes. I hadn’t seen that since before all the bullshit. “Haven’t seen you do that too often.”
“Do what?” she asked.
“Smile like you mean it.”
She shrugged and jerked open the top drawer. “I guess I didn’t have much to smile about lately.” She pulled out a balled up piece of cloth and shook it out. “If it’s got tits or tires, it’s gonna give ya problems,” she read.
Jesus. I forgot I even had that shirt.
She tossed it at my face and laughed. “Found you a shirt.” She grabbed my dirty shirt off the floor and dropped it in the overflowing laundry basket. “Guess you better get a load of laundry going, that is, unless you have more shirts with words of wisdom like that.”
I pulled the shirt over my head.
‘Wait.” She stood over the basket. “You do know how to do laundry, right?”
“Uh, well. You see.”
Queenie pressed her hand to forehead. “Oh, my Lord. You don’t, do you?”
“I tend to, maybe, you know, sneak my clothes into Dyno and Fancy’s.” I did know how to do laundry, I just fucking hated it.
“You’re ridiculous, Sledge.” Queenie reached to pick up the full basket but I jumped to grab it from the floor before she could.
“What the heck do you think you are doing, sugar? I’ll carry this.” She was healing but that didn’t mean she was healed enough to get back to lifting heavy shit.
She waved her hand in front of her. “Then lead the way to the washing machine. We can’t have you walking around shirtless. I’ll never get anything done then,” she smirked.
“Are you serious?” She didn’t need to do my laundry. I hated it, but I still did it. Some of the time. Fancy hadn’t quite caught on to what I was doing, so she had been doing a lot of it.
“You’re making me sit here with nothing to do while we wait to hear something from Kaye, so we might as well do some laundry, right?”
“Is this your motherly instincts coming out?”
She flipped me off and then pointed to the door. “Lead the way before I dump that basket over your head.”
I paused a second and knew I just saw a glimpse of the Queenie who wasn’t bogged down with worry and fear. It was pretty fucking amazing. “Whatever you want, sugar.”
*
Chapter Thirteen
This is the laundry room!
Queenie
“You have two loads of laundry every two weeks and you can’t seem to do them?” I was perched on top of the folding table waiting for the final load of clothes to dry.
I made Sledge fold all of his clothes while I nursed my second wine cooler and just enjoyed the view of him doing a little housework. The laundry area was in a room tucked off from the living room. Kimber and Fancy had obviously set everything up because it was a dream. The washer and dryer were each large capacity. There was a ridiculous amount of soap, bleach, and pretreat, and along the wall opposite the washer and dryer was a long table that was perfect for sorting and folding.
“There are so many other things I could be doing right now,” Sledge grumbled. He folded the last piece of laundry from the first load and dropped it back into the basket.
“Things you would be doing in dirty clothes or shirtless,” I pointed out. “Wait,” I drawled, “don’t you have dirty clothes at my place?”
Sledge shrugged sheepishly. “Uh, well, I’m pretty sure you washed all of that yesterday.”
“You jerk.” A laugh bubbled from my lips. “I stuck that in the dryer yesterday and just dumped it on my bed this morning. I did your laundry and didn’t even know it.”
Sledge leaned against the table and winked. “Thanks, sugar.”
“You’re a piece of work, Mr…” I tipped my head to the side. “You know, I think it’s only fair since I did your laundry that you tell me your real name.”
“It’s Sledge. Been that for a long time.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, because I’m sure your bank statements say Sledge on them.”
“Sledge, sugar. That’s it.”
I scooted closer and laid my hand on his arm. I batted my eyelashes and tried to give him my best seductive glance.
“You got something in your eye?” Sledge reached out and brushed the pad of his finger over my eye. “Better?”
“Ugh,” I groaned. It had been a long while since I’d try to put the moves on someone. Hell, I don’t think I ever really put the moves on anyone. I wasn’t a virgin by any means of the word, but I sure didn’t have the experience with flirting and whatnot. The handful of guys I had been with always just seemed to happen and then they were gone after a while. Maybe I had natural charisma that brought guys in but it was broken now since I hadn’t used it in years. “I was trying to woo you with my, well, womanly things.” I wanted to know his real name, dammit.
“That was wooing me? I thought you had a piece of lint in your eye or something.”
It was hopeless. I was hopeless. I dropped my hand and moved to jump off the counter. Sledge slipped in front of me and fitted his body between my legs.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Uh, well,” I stuttered. “My woo is broke so I thought I’d just…” I didn’t know where I was going. Running away because I was straight up awkward and just embarrassed myself? “Going away.”
Sledge reached up and cupped my cheek. “You’re woo ain’t broke, sugar.”
“You just told me it looked like I had a piece of lint in my eye, Sledge. Pretty sure that could be the definition of broken woo.” God, I was lame.
“I said that because I’m not sure if now is the right time for this.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “Us.”
“Us?” I gulped. With everything going on with being shot and then Gunner being kidnapped, I did have a lot going on, but I wasn’t blind to the pull I had to Sledge. Did I think it was the right time either? I didn’t know. All I knew was I felt something and I hoped it didn’t go away.
“Wanted to kiss you the first time you came around the clubhouse, but I knew you had a lot on your plate. Thought I’d bide my time, see what happened.” His thumb brushed over my lips and his eyes liquified with need.
“And then I almost died.” See, broken woo. He says something all suave and sexy and my words just fall like tiny bombs out of my mouth.
A smile spread across his lips. “Yeah, then you almost died. Kickstarted me a bit and made me realize I didn’t have all the time in the world.”
“Then why haven’t you kissed me?” Boom, boom. Bombs away.
“You still got a lot of shit going on, sugar. I don’t want to add on to it.”
My eyes dropped to his lips. “I think you just called yourself shit.” I closed my eyes and wished I would instantly go mute. It would help me ten-fold in this conversation
“Uh, well, I think I did.”
“You can clearly see I have as many issues as a magazine right now, Sledge, but I’m hoping and praying that most of those will be done and over in the next few days.”
Honestly, Gunner coming home would fix everything. Sure, I’d still be pissed as hell at Duchess, but at the end of the day, she was my sister and I still loved her.
“Yeah, I hope so, but I think you got some more shit you need to work on.”
I leaned back and glowered at him. “You might want to elaborate on that.”
Two things I needed to work on. Tops.
“You need to work on taking time for yourself. Knowing that you don’t have to always be there, trying to save the day. You told me your story, sugar, and you
were there every time your sister needed you even though toward the end you knew she might let you down.”
“Because she was my sister, Sledge. I always forgave her at the end of the day.” I was the only person she had. I couldn’t have given up on her.
He brushed my hair back from my face. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have been there for her; I’m saying you gave her everything and didn’t leave anything for yourself. You worked yourself silly and were always wondering when she was going to come around again. How did you always have money for her? You saved and made yourself live on nothing so when she came around you could be there for her.”
“She…she would have done the same if…” I couldn’t even get the words out because I didn’t know if they were true. Would have Duchess helped me if the shoe would have been on the other foot? If I were the one dealing with addiction, would she have given me her last dime in hopes it would save me finally? “I’ve just always been a saver. It wasn’t hard to do.”
Saving my money wasn’t hard. It was knowing what I was saving my money for that hurt.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad or make you think you made the wrong decisions. Most people would have done the same thing. I would give my last dollar for any of my brothers in these walls. But I also know I can’t bankrupt myself trying to save someone else. I always need to leave a little bit left in the tank for myself.”
“I hear what you’re saying, Sledge, but I don’t know why you’re saying it right now.”
He moved closer and slid his hand through my hair to cup the back of my head. He tipped my head back and my eyes connected with his. “I’m saying it because I want your kiss. I want your touch. I want to be here.”
“Okay,” I whispered. That was all great. I could get behind all of that.
“But I’m not going to take all of that and leave you with nothing.” He brushed his lips to mine. “I’m gonna take that all of that, and more, but I’m gonna give it back. I’m gonna make sure your tank is never empty. I’m gonna be the one to help you with Gunner. Run you a bath and lock the door to keep the world at bay for a little bit.”
Midnight Wreckage (Kings of Vengeance MC Book 4) Page 8