ago, takin’ out her trash, on her back walk in her own backyard, she lost that mouth when she took a bullet to the face. Now that,” he leaned into me again, “that was all Chew.”
I stared at him, feeling my heart accelerating.
I knew nothing about any of this.
“Women are dying, Rebel,” he stated. “Now I’ll be even clearer about what I’m tryin’ to get you to understand. There’s another club messed up in this shit, and a woman was informing to us on what was happening with them. She was ours. She had our protection. And we fell down on that job and she was left on a cement floor, beat to shit by an entire club of bikers, having to be hospitalized, broken bones, left with scars. Another woman, another one of our own, was kidnapped. She wasn’t hurt but she witnessed Valenzuela order the murder of two of his own men, she also witnessed their deaths. She’s okay now, but only after a lot of lookin’ after and some serious counseling. Do you see a pattern here?”
Oh, I saw a pattern.
I didn’t confirm that.
I continued staring at him.
“That’s all pussy, baby,” he said quietly. “Not one dick in that mix. Now you can take all of that as a warning to our Club, which is how we’ve taken it, and I can promise you, we’ve also taken steps to look after our women. You can also take it as what it definitely is. There are those who are expendable. And pardon me bein’ coarse about this, I’m doin’ it to make a point, but the expendables got snatch.”
“Are we done?” I asked.
It was his turn to stare at me.
Then he glowered at me.
Finally, he sat back and sighed.
“We’re done,” I announced and stood up.
I’d taken one step to the side of his chair when he spoke.
“You can’t bring her back.”
I looked down at him.
He was gazing up at me.
“Honey, you can’t bring her back,” he whispered.
I stood still, looking deep in his crystal-blue eyes.
They were concerned too.
It was sweet.
I didn’t have time for sweet.
Or hot.
Or my nipples tightening, my clit tingling or men who could soothe hurts by cooing in beautiful voices and looking at me with sweet in their eyes.
“My goal is not to bring her back,” I educated him.
“It says a lot about you. You got grit. That’s commendable. And it’ll be commendable, until you end up dead,” he went on.
Now that pissed me off.
“Don’t patronize me.”
It took some effort, but I stood still as he straightened from his chair, getting on his motorcycle-booted feet, now very much in my space.
He tipped his chin down to keep a lock on my eyes.
“That’s not patronizing.” His voice was deteriorating, sharing he was losing patience. “That’s askin’ you to be smart, which infers I think you’re bein’ dumb. And Rebel, I’ll not infer dick with that. I’ll say it straight. You’re not bein’ dumb. You’re bein’ really, fuckin’ stupid. So like I said, that’s not patronizing.”
All right.
Great.
So he was sensitive, insightful, honest and hella smart.
But even if he thought I was stupid, I knew better.
“Are you and your brothers doing something about this?”
“Yeah, Rebel, and that’s a promise.”
I nodded tersely, once.
“And you’re all . . . what? Former law enforcement? Veterans? Trained commandos?” I asked.
His mouth grew tight.
“That’s what I thought,” I snapped, rolled slightly up on my toes and bit, “Patronizing.”
“You know about those women bein’ dead?” he asked.
“You know I didn’t.”
“So you don’t know what you’re dealin’ with. We do. We got history. We got time on the streets. Not havin’ either of those, you can’t know what they mean, but trust me, they mean a lot more than some videographer getting her panties in a bunch and goin’ undercover in the dealings of one of the most disturbed criminals Denver has ever seen.”
I ignored the “panties in a bunch” comment, as well as the “videographer” comment since I was a goddamned filmmaker, both so I could prevent my head from exploding, and instead suggested, “Then help me out, take my back, and we’ll work together to get this done.”
More growling. “That is not gonna happen.”
“Why? Because I have snatch?”
“Well . . . yeah.”
“Sexist,” I spat.
“Realist,” he shot back.
I looked around, feigning like I’d forgotten the train of conversation. “Didn’t I say we were done?”
“Rebel—” he rumbled.
I looked back at Rush Allen.
“Toodles,” I said chirpily.
And with that, not looking at a single member of his silent posse, I bounced out of Jason’s Lodge, booked as