Chapter 25
Alice
As often happens when I’m just riding to clear my hear, I completely lost track of time. Shouldn’t have happened, not while I’m on a surveillance mission and we had been expecting a breakthrough tonight.
But there was so much to think about.
Nico and how his closeness makes me feel completely comfortable in my own skin for the first time in almost forever.
What I actually want to do about Gael. And it might not actually be sending him to jail.
And what happens once this mission is over and we go back home, each to our own separate lives.
Zane’s bike was parked in front of my motel room when I returned. And Nico’s car wasn’t parked where it was when I left, it’s a few spaces down.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I enter the motel room. “Why are you here?”
The questions don’t necessarily go together. One was for Nico, the other for Zane. But I’m afraid I might’ve missed something important, already beating myself up for just riding off in the middle of things, and that’s why they came out that way.
They’re sitting at the little table by the window, each with a plastic glass of bourbon in front of them, the computer with the surveillance feed closed in the center of the table.
They exchange a glance, probably wondering who should answer me first.
“Just someone say something,” I snap, tossing my helmet on the bed and unzipping my jacket.
“I came to see if you needed my help,” Zane says, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry for the way I acted when you asked for my help. It’s been weighing heavy on me.”
“Not so heavy, if it took you over a week to come here,” I say and toss my jacket on the bed beside my helmet. And since there’s nowhere to else to sit, I plop down on the edge of the bed. Not that I want to sit. I want answers, but neither of them is in any hurry to speak.
“I was away, taking care of something,” Zane says. Somehow, his voice is much less monotone—dead, even—than it usually is. But figuring out what caused that change will have to wait.
“Nico came with me,” I say. “We have it covered.”
Zane gives Nico a sharp glance. “And what’s the story between you two? Everything all right?”
Zane might be a lot of things, but he’s also very protective of his friends. Me included. He knows more of my story with Gael than most, which is why it hurt me so bad when he yelled at me instead of coming here with me.
Nico is looking at me, waiting for me to answer the question, fearful anticipation of what I’m about to say in his eyes.
“Everything is fine,” I assure Zane and relief floods Nico’s eyes. Lovely to see. Makes some of the tightness in my chest soften.
“Everything isn’t exactly fine,” Nico says, looking past me now at the far wall of the room. “The priest tried to take his new victim, little Kate Cole, down to the basement after the reading club meeting. It looked like he’d done it before. She didn’t want to go. And I’m afraid I…”
His voice trails off and he doesn’t resume the story.
“You’re afraid you what?” I ask.
Nico clears his throat, but doesn’t meet my eyes. “I drove there to stop whatever was about to happen.”
“And did you? Is Gael alive?”
Both Nico and Zane look at me with practically identical looks of confusion on their faces. They’re probably wondering the same thing, namely, why I even care whether Gael is alive.
“The mom, Nancy, came to pick up her daughter just as I got there, so there was no need for me to intervene.”
Nico clears his throat again and this time looks at me point blank. “But I would have intervened. And I’d probably have killed him. I can’t just sit at the computer watching a little girl get molested, Bianca. I can’t.”
I asked him not to call me by my real name, and him doing right now feels like a bolt of lightning hitting my chest.
“We now have confirmation that he’s still at it,” Nico continues. “We have the power to stop him. If the courts and the church get involved, who knows what will happen. He could walk. Be assigned to another church somewhere else to continue doing what he’s been doing.”
“He’s speaking sense, Bianca,” Zane adds. “You know he is.”
Great, now they’re both using my real name. And Zane is completely disregarding the fact that I’m his Sarge. I take a few deep breaths to try and calm down before replying. It’s not working.
“So, you both think we should just kill him?”
“Why not?” Zane asks.
“Like I said, I can’t watch him fondle a little girl. I can’t,” Nico adds.
“He’ll do worse than just fondle her,” I say automatically, in a voice that’s as monotone and dead as Zane’s used to always be.
“Exactly,” Nico says, while Zane looks at me expectantly.
But how can I just throw away all my convictions, my morality and do this thing? What does that make me? A vigilante, that’s what. And I’d be doing it for my own gain. To settle my own score. That’s not how we do things.
“Rogue told me to let you know that you should do what you gotta do,” Zane says. “He was very clear on that when he told me where you were.”
Our president Rogue told me much the same thing before I left. He basically said that the MC is behind me taking justice into my own hands on this mission and killing the priest if that’s what I need to do. Not in so many words, but close enough.
Nico gets up and comes over, sitting down beside me and wrapping his arm around my shoulders. I lean against him automatically, some more of the tightness in my chest dissipating.
“I’ll support you whatever you decide,” he says. “But—”
“But what? I better decide to kill him?”
The tightness is back in my chest and I straighten up, but don’t shrug his arm off my shoulders. I like it there. It gives me the strength I need and can’t supply for myself.
Nico shrugs, but says, “Whatever you decide.”
“I need to sleep on it,” I say. “Alone. You two can continue drinking in Nico’s room.”
I doubt I’ll actually sleep. But being alone will give me the chance to review the footage Nico saw. And make my decision on my own.
They leave, but even once I’m alone, I just sit there, so many conflicting thoughts running through my mind I can’t seem to begin to try and unravel them.
But I must. Little Kate’s life depends on it. And very likely my own future too.