Dark Guardian (Black Hoods MC #3) - Avelyn Paige Page 0,28
the question, but I don’t miss the flash of panic in her own eyes that mirrors my own as she glances behind me.
“I’m not going to ask you again. Where are the kids?”
“They’re in my uncle’s room down the hall,” she sneers, pointing to a hallway near the bar. She starts for the direction she’s indicated, and I’m hot on her heels. She disappears inside before I can catch up, and I hear her yelling for both of them by name, switching between the two conjoined rooms.
“Natalie! Kevin! You need to come out now!”
No one answers back. Once I’m inside, she’s on her hands and knees, peering under the large king-size bed that takes up most of the room. Pushing up off the floor, her body goes stiff when we both notice the open window.
“The window,” she cries, rushing toward it. Leaning out of the opening, she jerks back inside a few seconds later.
“This is all your fault!” she screams at me. “They were happy until you came here, and now they’re gone. You did this. You did this!”
“Issue an APB for them. They couldn’t have gotten far,” I order the officer before rushing out of the room.
My stomach drops to the floor. I’ve lost them. I let my argument with Aaron get in the way of my job and I lost them. She’s right. This is all my fault.
Judge
“Fucking dick,” I snarl as Grace’s little cop lover slams the bars closed between us.
“Cool it, Grant, or the charges will just keep piling up.”
“Fuck you.”
He smirks and walks away, his cowboy boots echoing off the ceramic tile floor.
Son of a bitch.
I move toward the bed, and that’s when I notice a man lying on the top bunk. We make eye contact for a brief second, but neither one of us says a word. Laying down on the bottom cot, I stare at the bunk above me.
Why the fuck had they come in with guns drawn like that? That’s not typical police procedure. And why did that asshole seem to be so close to Grace? Why the fuck do I even care?
“What I wouldn’t give for a beer, right?” the guy above me states.
The last thing I want to do is get into a round of small talk with some asshole in lockup, so I don’t respond.
“These fuckers would get a lot more cooperation from me if they offered that on their menu.”
Draping my arm across my eyes, I try to calm myself down.
“Oh, I get it. We’re playing the ‘I’m a tough guy, and I’m going to ignore this asshole’ game. Okay. Got it.”
“Jesus, man. Can you not take a fucking hint?”
Chuckling, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and jumps down.
“Look, I’ve been in here three times in the last two weeks. I’m bored out of my fucking mind, and I would rather think about anything else besides what I have going on in my life right now. So yeah, I can take a hint. But I don’t fucking want to.”
There’s nothing menacing in the way he’s holding himself, but lying down while he looms over me makes me uncomfortable. Yet one thing he said has kind of got me wondering.
Sitting up on the edge of the bed, I scowl over at him. He’s tall. Almost as tall as Karma, who measures well over six and a half feet. His eyes are dark and bloodshot, and his hair is a straggly mess.
“What the fuck could you have done to get your ass in this cell three times in two weeks?” This is just a holding cell. It’s not like this is county lockup. Whatever he’s done isn’t big enough to warrant a stint in there, but has surely pissed someone off enough to have him rotting away in here for a few days.
“Contempt of court, and harassing a couple of public officials will do that to ya.” He reaches out his hand, the word SOUL tattooed across his knuckles. “Ty. Ty Jackson.”
I grip his hand in mine. “Judge.”
Ty nods and glances at the patch on my cut as I stand. “Prez of the MC, huh? Pretty sweet gig.”
I snort as I wander over to the door. I can see the officers talking on the other side of a glass wall, but there’s no sign of Officer Dickhead, or of my lawyer.
“Yeah. If you call babysitting a bunch of toddlers with tattoos and biceps a sweet gig, then I guess it is.”
We spend the next twenty minutes