9. Clean up
CLEAN UP
CUTTER
Not showering this morning wasn’t an option.
The blood caked in my hair and stale sweat made my skin itch, but washing off Kitty’s scent for the last time made every vein scream with an emotion I didn’t want to acknowledge.
Leaving her room was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
It felt like someone took an axe and split me wide open.
“Let’s go.” Callan stands, slipping on his cut. Kitty’s gone when we step into the hall, and a pang of guilt settles in my chest. It was harsh, but I need her to hate me. Really hate me.
I smack a fist on Pres’s door as we pass, signaling we’re ready to meet in his office. Callan detours to the kitchen, grunting, “Let’s grab coffee first.”
Diamond’s cooking breakfast when we enter, the smell of bacon making my stomach growl.
Kitty sits on the counter next to her, swinging her legs as she chews on toast. When her eyes find mine, her face drops.
Dumping the bread, she kicks off the counter and grumbles, “I’ll catch you later, Di.
I’ve lost my appetite.” She shoulders me on the way out of the kitchen, and I resist grabbing her.
I want to fuck all that attitude out of her, kiss her until she’s dizzy.
It takes all my willpower not to watch her depart down the corridor.
“She’s pissed because you forgot to tell her it was okay to leave her room.” Callan chuckles, swiping up a rasher of bacon and sipping his coffee.
“She must not have heard me knock.” I shrug my shoulder as he passes me. “Did you not pour me a coffee?”
“Do I look like a waitress?”
“You could pull off one of those little aprons they wear.” I chuckle, weaving through the hall behind him.
“Not with these legs.”
Entering the office, the light banter evaporates, gravity dragging us back toward solid ground. We got rid of the body and dumped the phone, but this isn’t over yet.
Callan places his mug down and drags a chair out, dropping his ass into the soft leather as Pres walks in. Usually, we’d have this type of meeting in the church room surrounded by our brothers, but keeping them in the dark is the right thing to do. They don’t need to know unless shit hits the fan.
Closing the door, Pres takes his seat behind the desk, resting his arms on the solid surface. He seeks out a small ball, rolling it under his palm. “Did you bring me one of those?” He motions to Callan’s coffee.
I smirk over at Callan, and he narrows his eyes. “Should I have taken fucking orders and gotten everyone coffee?”
Making a tutting sound, Pres reaches over the desk and takes the mug, slurping back the hot liquid.
“Please, help yourself,” Callan grumbles.
“I will. Now, let’s get down to it.”
“How’s Claire?” I ask before he can start.
“Still breathing, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he says, his voice gruff. “I haven’t decided what to do about her, and it can wait for now.”
Callan’s brow tightens. “Club sluts and Daddy’s ol’ lady were here last night, but other than that, it was just brothers who would rather cut their own balls off than open their mouths about who parties here.
” He leans forward. “No brother will know who he is anyway. The kid could have been anyone. I’ve wiped the cameras, and those bitches were intoxicated and paying attention to the brothers, not his skinny ass. ”
Tossing the ball back and forth between his hands, Pres continues. “We need to make sure the Carnells won’t have a reason to ask if the kid came here in the first place.”
“So, we backtrack Kit’s steps.” Callan nods, his mouth tight, brow pinched.
“The Tim driving her yesterday said she left a card game with Nicolas.” Pres pushes a notepad toward us and jerks his chin. Callan and I tip our gazes to read the list of Kitty’s movements written down with timestamps.
“A bit excessive.” Callan frowns.
Kitty had gone out of her way to avoid me yesterday. If I hadn’t been such a dick to her, maybe we wouldn’t be balls deep in this shit.
“I only asked him to drive her. He took it upon himself to document her fucking whereabouts. It’s a good thing too because here we fucking are,” Pres growls, his finger stabbing the notepad.
Rubbing his temple, Callan relents. “Fine.”
“She uses a different name for card games outside these walls,” I say, cutting through the tension. “If people know who she is they get wary, so she rarely plays in the same crowd for long periods of time and changes the name frequently.”
Two sets of hard dark eyes land on me. “You sure it’s not you documenting her whereabouts?” Callan snorts.
“Fuck off. She was talking about it in the bar the other day.” Lies. It was in my bed about three months ago after she came home with a bunch of men’s watches she’d won.
“Let’s also not forget Nicolas gave his bodyguards the slip. If he’d had a tracker on his phone, they would’ve used it. Michael won’t know Nicolas was at a card game.” I shrug, moving us on from me being Kit’s stalker.
“They’ll have his phone records traced to see what cell towers it pinged. We know the phone was dead when he got here—we don’t know when it fucking died.” Pres makes a good point.
“This might all be irrelevant. The last location is in Redwing territory. That’s all Michael will need. He won’t look beyond that,” Callan interjects.
“Still, this is Michael’s only brother and Michael Senior’s youngest son.
We have to make sure there’s no crumb left to point to them here.
It won’t matter which one of us killed him, it’s my club and my daughter who brought him here.
” Pres gets to his feet and begins to pace. “If anything happens to Kitty?—”
“It won’t,” Callan and I bark.
“You’re damn right it won’t.” He punches the air with a pointed finger. “Let’s not have to kill their entire bloodline over this. Our payoffs won’t protect us if we do. Preston is running for senator for fuck’s sake.”
“What do you need us to do?” Callan stands, his jaw set firm.
“Tim took them to a tattoo parlor. Said Kitty knows the owner.” He rounds his desk, pulls open a drawer, and slaps a piece of paper on the wood surface with an address scribbled on it.
“There are only two of them who work there. If they know who Kitty is, it’s a problem. They need to be dealt with.”
“And Tim?”
“Take him with you. Make him participate to test his backbone and loyalty.”
“What happens if he doesn’t cut it?”
“It goes against who I am as a brother and especially the club president, but he came here a month ago and has no affiliation with any of the brothers. If we have to, we take him to ground.”
“I don’t like it,” Callan bites out.
“You don’t have to.”
“Is it necessary? He doesn’t know who the kid was, right?”
“He’s the only other person outside the tattoo artist who places Kitty with him. He fucking drove them here.”
“I’ll do it, if it comes to it. Let’s wait and see,” I placate.
Knuckles rapping against the door draws our attention.
“Dad, why is my car gone?” My lips tug up at Kitty’s angry tone.
Pres nods to the door, blowing out an exasperated breath and rubbing a hand across his forehead.
Swinging it open, Kitty’s eyes squint into slits. She pushes past me then straightens her small frame. “My car’s gone.”
“Why the fuck are you looking for it?” Callan scolds. “Going somewhere?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I a captive?”
“You’re grounded,” Callan corrects her.
“Are you really that deluded? I’m an adult, Callan.” She fumes, steam pouring from her ears.
“Nope, you’re a brat who fucked up. Now, you’re in time out.”
“Dad?” She throws her arms out toward her brother, mouth parted, eyes wide.
“Don’t fucking start squabbling. You’re both too fucking old and I’m too fucking tired for it.” It’s quite the show to watch. No matter how big and bad Pres and Callan are, they’re still just ordinary father and brother when it comes to Kitty.
“Your car is gone. You’ll have a new one by the end of the week—and no, you’re not grounded or a captive, but I’m asking you stay at the compound for a few days.”
“Is this because of the cops last night? No one seems to know anything about it and Callan won’t tell me anything.” She all but stomps her foot.
“Because you don’t need to know,” Callan points out.
“Fine. Whatever. Please let me know when I can get the hell out of here.” She shoots her brother a one-finger salute then turns, almost walking into me.
“And don’t send him to do it for you.” She tilts her head, offering me a forced smile.
“I hate you all.” This time, I allow myself the pleasure of watching her dainty figure storm out of the room, her fire scorching me and my fucked-up compulsion aching to follow.
“She has no fucking clue the damage she’s caused or the mounting body count,” Callan grates out, his nostrils flaring.
“And we’ll keep it that way. It’s your job to protect her so go do it.”
My fingers flit over my laptop, bringing up the website for the ink shop. Ink & Metal. It’s basic. It just has pictures of designs they’ve tattooed, their hours, and social media links.
“They’re closed today,” I inform Callan. He stares out the SUV window at the shitty two-story apartment complex where the Tim lives.
“I told him we were coming. He should have been outside waiting for us.” He’s irritated—and not because Tim is keeping us waiting. It’s about the job we have to do. Killing innocent people isn’t our m.o.—especially women.
“Do you think we’re being too rash with this woman?” I ask.
Shifting in the seat, Callan rolls his neck, his eyes darting to my screen. “I get my old man’s caution. The Carnells can have the police ping the cell towers to track Nicolas’s locations. There’s a tower sixty yards from the shop. And this woman knows who Kitty is. And that she left with Nicolas.”
A heaviness settles over us. I don’t say anything else because I don’t need to. If this woman can cast attention toward Kit, even by accident, then she needs to go.
Callan dials Tim’s number. The ringing vibrates through the car’s speakers with no answer. Clicking the link, I bring up the woman’s social media page and flick through the recent posts, noting the guy who works with her is her boyfriend.
“Where is this motherfucker?” Callan growls, ending the call.
Popping the door open, he jumps out, his heavy boots crunching across the gravel at his feet.
Closing the laptop, I join him, the need for caution rippling up my spine.
My eyes dart to every flurry of movement, ears pricking, listening for anything out of order.
Checking his phone, Callan jerks his head toward a yellow stained door and shows me the phone with the address typed out on it: three.
Resting my hand on the pistol strapped at my lower back, I stand against the wall beside the door, Callan mirroring me on the other side. Tapping my fingers against the door, I call out, “Yo, Tim, you in there?”
A whining comes from inside. “He’s dead,” a woman’s voice calls out.
Callan’s eyes cut to mine before he rears back and boots the door open, shards of wood splintering as it smashes off a wall. A dash of dark hair runs into a room to the right, her screech loud and piercing.
Gun aimed, I enter first, taking two steps before I turn right, hovering near the doorframe to a bedroom.
“I didn’t mean to stab him.” Tears streak down her face.
Long dark hair falls to her waist over a gray nightshirt that was once probably white.
The room is chaotic. Garbage is everywhere.
A mattress lay on the floor covered with a ripped duvet and stained sheet.
“He do that?” I ask, gesturing toward her face with my chin.
“It was just a stupid argument.” She holds stained hands out in front of herself, blood coating every inch like silk gloves.
“Cutter!” Callan calls out from farther inside. My head whips in the direction of his voice, and I back away from the room, rushing to find Callan in the kitchen standing over Tim.
“Dead?”
“I’d say so.” He steps aside, giving me a direct view of the body sprawled out on the dirty linoleum floor, a kitchen knife sticking out of his chest, buried to the hilt.
“She got him good,” I hiss.
“I wouldn’t want to piss her off.” He shakes his head.
“What do you want to do?”
Scrubbing a hand across his jaw, he says, “Nothing to do. It’s domestic.”
Motioning to the leather cut clutched in Tim’s fist, I ask, “Should we take that?”
Callan drops to his haunches and lifts Tim’s arm, prying the leather from his hand. “Not proud to think it, but this could be a good thing for us—for Kit,” he says, reading my mind. “Where’s the girl?”
“In the bedroom.”
You can walk through this entire apartment in about six strides, yet the one second it takes me to leave the kitchen, the little killer is able to dart from the bedroom out the front door, evading me.
Giving chase, I make it to the road before Callan shouts, “Let her fucking go. She’s not our problem.” He’s by my side in the next breath, watching the girl sprint away from the crime scene, her feet bare, hair flying behind her. “She’s fast.”
“You think she loved him?” I find myself asking.
Grunting, he says, “Don’t they usually kill their lover then themselves if that’s the case? It doesn’t look like she wants to die.”
Callan pulls open the back door of the SUV and tosses the prospect’s cut onto the seat. We both climb in, the girl now a dot in the rearview mirror.
I open the laptop. The tattooer’s face butting up against her boyfriend fills the screen. “It can be domestic.”
“What?” Callan asks, kicking the engine over.
Turning the laptop to show him the image, I repeat, “We stage it so it looks like a murder suicide. We’ll go after dark, wait until they’re sleeping, and get it done.”
Silence fills the car, then a simple, “Okay.”