“But I saw. Hank left his desk and it wasn’t right. I’m not sure it was even legal. But I looked at the file, I read and I saw. And I know she fought it. I know she was raped. I know she endured that and being beaten to shit before, during or after being brutally raped. Before he either accidentally or very on purpose snapped her neck. And then, done. No more chances to get her out of that mess. No more shots at getting her clean. No more opportunities to do something more with her life. Get her back on the path to her dreams. Find a good guy who loved her, yeah even one who was older.” I shrugged. “Who gives a fuck? He could still give her babies. Let her share more of what made Diane awesome with the world for generations to come.”
“That’s gotta suck,” he murmured.
“You have no idea just how much it sucks, my man,” I bit out.
He pushed up from his knees to sit straight in his chair and asked, “Do you know Natalie Harbinger?”
I shook my head, confused at this change in topic. “No.”
“She’s dead,” he shared.
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“Benito Valenzuela killed her.”
Here we go.
The recitation.
I rested my back against the chair, settling in for him to tell me what I already knew.
Benito Valenzuela was a monster.
“She was Tabby, my sister’s best friend,” he said. “Best friend for as long as I can remember.”
Oh shit.
“Which meant she was in my life too, for a long time,” he told me. “They drifted. You know all about that. That kind of thing happens when one of you gets addicted to blow. So addicted, she’s up to her neck in debt to her dealers and has to turn to porn.”
The girl Chaos rescued.
Now dead.
Too bad Chaos didn’t know Diane.
Then again, it seemed the results would have been the same.
I said nothing.
Rush Allen carried on.
“Tore Tabby apart. Blames herself. She let them drift. She wasn’t the only one but she’s the only one left alive to feel guilt and make up ways she could have made a difference. Could have changed history. She’s certain that if she continued to try to intervene, she could have saved Natalie.”
He stared into my eyes.
“She couldn’t,” he finished, his point not even vaguely disguised.
“Your friend is not my friend,” I returned.
“Do you now Camilla Turnbull?” he asked.
I felt my shoulders tighten up.
“Do you?” he pushed.
“No,” I forced out.
Turnbull.
Something to do with Harrietta?
“She’s Harrietta’s daughter,” he informed me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Sent in to play Valenzuela for Lannigan,” he continued. “Got played and ended up with her throat slit, laid out on a picnic table at our Compound on Chaos with a note stapled to her forehead.”
Yikes.
“Mr. Allen—”
He leaned toward me and dropped his voice in a way even his men, all standing close-ish, could probably not hear.
“You can try to distance yourself from me, sweetheart, by using that bullshit. But we both know what’s happening here. I’m Rush. You call me Mr. Allen again, I’m clearing the room and we’re gonna have a different kind of lesson.”
And again, he did not try to disguise his point.
And his point did not set my clit to tightening.
It set my nipples to tightening and my clit to tingling.
He leaned back and I told my nipples (and other) to behave.
“You know Scruff’s Roadhouse?” he asked.
Goddamn it.
“No,” I snapped.
“Natalie’s body was put in a body bag and dumped behind it. Woman who owned it is called Reb. Anyone call you Reb?” he asked.
“If they’re not my brother, his man or his woman, not if they want to keep their teeth.”
Suddenly, he grinned.
It transformed his face from angled and hewn and gorgeous, to playful and almost boyish.
And gorgeous.
His grin disappeared.
“Well, Reb was a tough nut. And she wasn’t a big fan of having a body dumped behind her bar. She’d never been a big fan of Chew’s. You know Chew?”
It seemed I didn’t know anything.
And he knew it.
Which blew.
But whatever. I couldn’t hide something he already knew so I didn’t try.
“Chew?” I asked.
“Chew. Biker name for Arthur Lannigan because the man has a thing for tarantulas.”
Tarantulas?
Oh God.
“Now Reb, she never liked Chew. There were tarantulas in that body bag with Natalie. Reb got it in her head that Chew tossed that body behind her bar, rather than Valenzuela doing it that way to frame Chew, and Reb ran her mouth to the police. Coupla months