“Let’s see who you are,” he says to the corpse. Pulling off the mask would do no good—there’s not enough of his face to identify him—so instead, he pulls up the man’s sleeves to his shoulders, looking over his tattoos while Striker and Rat go through his pockets.
“He doesn’t have any ID on him, and there’s no wallet or anything.” Striker looks at Spider. Rat shakes his head to confirm this. “Not that we could trust it if he did.”
I freeze in the middle of pulling on a shoe, forcing my eyes not to veer to the wallet still lying on the floor under the island, where Spider and the others don’t see it.
Whatever we shared in the week after Cap was shot, it’s gone now. Spider doesn’t care about me. After everything that’s happened, there’s no way he’ll trust me to work again. The guy’s wallet might be the only way I’ll get my hands on any money I can use to get away. I need to get hold of that thing before we leave here. Somehow.
“And I don’t recognize any of these tats.” Spider turns over his other arm to examine the snake there. “He’s not a Bastard.”
I drop my other shoe at this. If the guy wasn’t one of the Satan’s Bastards, then he didn’t kidnap me in order to bring me to them. This wasn’t retribution. So who was he, and why did he grab me? There is no way he was from the Colony.
“Who is this guy?” Spider demands, regarding me through narrowed eyes. “Why did he snatch you?”
I pull on my other shoe. “I have no idea, okay?”
“Liar,” Spider grunts.
Anger boils up. I open my mouth to retort, but instead press my lips together, dropping my shoulders. There’s no point in arguing with him when he gets like this.
“Rat, get pictures of his ink,” Spider says, standing up. “Run them. Those are gang tats. I want to know which crew he was running with.”
“You got it.” Rat takes out his phone and starts snapping photos.
“Take his phone too.” Spider picks it up from the island where the guy left it and slips it into a pocket on Rat’s cut, since his hands are busy. “See what you can get off of it.”
Striker straightens from looking over some of the guys… tats… and leans into Spider, whispering in his ear. His eyes flick to me.
“That’s what I thought,” Spider says, and I don’t like the coldness in his tone.
Again, I glance at the wallet. Spider comes over to me. I leave my shoe untied, and as he grabs my wrist, I follow him toward the doorway to the other room, making sure to pass by the end of the island.
In front of the island, I drop onto my side. Spider releases me. While he walks toward me, I sweep my hand under the island and grab the wallet. Then I get to my feet, sweeping my hand over my backside as if brushing it off, carefully slipping the wallet, not into my pocket, but into the back of my pants and underwear.
“Sorry.” I give him an apologetic smile. “Tripped on my shoelace. Let me—”
Spider bends at my feet before I can do it. He looks up at me, tying the lace tight. As he stands, he makes sure to press into me. The playful twitch of his mouth makes me feel as unbalanced as his doing up my shoe. The gesture doesn’t fit with his behavior up to now, or with that look.
“Why did you do that?” I ask breathlessly.
He slips his arms around me, and my heart gallops, waiting for his hand to descend to my butt cheek. He probably saw me take the wallet. If he knows I took it, he’ll probably realize why, and if that happens, he’ll do what the masked man promised to do if I made trouble.
He’ll kill me.
Spider squeezes my waist. His other hand pats my backside, but it’s the left cheek. The wallet is on the other side.
His voice is a low rumble in my ear. “I told you, I always take care of what’s mine.”
His hand slides away. My heart slows a little.
He grabs my wrist and pulls me from the room while Rat finishes taking pictures and Striker waits with him.
Spider says nothing on the long, hot walk up to a series of high rocks behind which he and the others hid their bikes. Striker and Rat fall a bit