Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My brothers had lightened up a bit on their overprotectiveness, but they had specific rules in place to enable them to continue being laid back regarding my safety. It didn’t matter that they had taught me several ways to kill a man. When I was out on business, I was required to check in when I arrive and leave a location, and every hour in between. They also have a tracking device on my bike and GPS on my phone. I knew it was overkill, but I had nothing to hide and it made them feel better.
The phone rang twice before he picked up.
“Yeah?” he answered gruffly.
“I got the mark.”
“Do you need a cleanup?” Erik asked. “Are there any bystander casualties?”
“Yeah, send them as soon as you can and wipe the footage.”
“You can’t do that,” Jackass told me. “The police need to process the scene.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Give me your gun.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I responded to him.
“Hellcat, you know what you need to do,” Erik told me.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then do it. We can’t have this coming back to you.”
I sighed. “I know it can’t come back to me. I’ll do it.”
“We’ll be there soon,” he told me.
I pressed end on the phone and turned back to the mark.
“I’ve seen that look before. Are you actually gonna kill me now that you spent so much time trying to save me?”
“You think I’m gonna kill you?”
“Aren’t you?”
“You seriously believe that I would go through all of that, ruining my favourite shirt and almost getting my head blown off to just put a bullet in your brain?” I scoffed. “If that was my plan, I would have done it right away, instead of saving your ungrateful ass.”
“It’s not that I’m ungrateful. How am I supposed to explain all this?”
“That’s easy. You won’t be.”
“This needs to be reported. Someone just took out a hit on a police officer.”
I laughed. “I know they did. How do you think we knew where you’d be?”
“They came to you?” he asked.
“Yeah, but it looks like they shopped around.”
This guy must have really pissed someone off. The level of carnage these guys were willing to rain down for one person was outrageous. Instead of sending us after him, using one hitter, they spread the wealth. That made this situation all the more precarious. I might have taken out all of the men here tonight, but that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be another hitter coming after him down the road. We needed to stop this before it went further.
“You’re gonna have to stay with me for a while.”
“That would be a hard no from me.”
“Officer Erikson, I don’t think you realize the gravity of this situation.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I felt some of those bullets when they whizzed by my head.”
“Why not take the lesser of two evils and come with me right now?”
“I’m not gonna tuck tail and run.”
“That’s not what you’re doing. You’re staying alive to fight another day.”
“And you’re gonna be the one to protect me.”
“I think I’ve already proven that I can.”
“Yeah, I guess you can,” he chuckled. “I have no idea where you learned to shoot like that.”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” I answered with a wink.
“The scary part of that statement is that I’m inclined to believe you.”
The sound of motorcycles in the distance told me that my family was coming. When working these jobs, we liked to keep it quiet who was involved. The less people knew, the better.
“Get on,” I told him
The look on his face would have been more comical if we hadn’t just been through a shootout.
“I don’t think so,” he replied.
“You’re not gonna want to meet my brothers,” I warned him.
“Brothers?”
“Yeah, brothers.”
He glanced at my bike again, contemplating whether he wanted to take the plunge or not.
“You’re gonna have me ride bitch?”
He wasn’t impressed with the idea of riding on the back of my Harley. I didn’t blame him. Not too many men wanted to ride bitch to a man, they definitely didn’t want to ride bitch to a woman.
“Yep. Don’t let it make you feel to emasculated.”
We rode away from the scene toward a place I doubted anyone would look for us.
I decided to get us a room at a hotel that was a little nicer than the usual places I had to lay my head at night. It wasn’t the case of not being able to afford fancy hotels, it was the case of not wanting to draw undue attention to our organization or our finances. After I paid for the room, I grabbed the first aid kit and a bottle of Jack out of a compartment on my bike and followed him into the room.
I thought about the last time I had stayed in a room such as this.
It was almost midnight when I had arrived at the motel. The dilapidated roach infested no-tell motel wouldn’t be where I'd be lying my head tonight. Erik had connections and I would be couch surfing with them. But first I needed to rid the world of another perverted child abuser and return a scared little boy back to his mother. I only hoped I wasn't too late. The mother didn't call us until he had already been gone for three days because she trusted her boyfriend.
They were supposed to go camping, but when her son called her in tears and told her where he was, she lost it.
Normally we didn't venture out of province for work, but for cases like these, I made an exception. If we were on a run and got approached by someone needing our special brand of justice, we would make an exception, but generally we stayed on our own turf.
“Sit down and take off your shirt,” I told him once the door was shut behind me.
Without argument, he sat on the couch. I opened the kit and got to work. Examining the wound, it was a through and through. Either he let me sew it up for him, or we would be in the hospital with a bunch of questions we didn’t want to answer.
“This is gonna need stitches,” I told him.
“Do it,” he told me.
I grabbed the bottle of Jack in my gloved hands and used my teeth to open the cap on the bottle. I set it to the side and grabbed a needle and threaded it with absorbable thread for the sutures. Taking a lighter, I burned the end of the threaded needle. Next, I poured some of the alcohol on the wound.
In between winces and stitches, he drank more. Once I was finished, I bandaged him up and then stood.
“What about you?” he said, then nodded at my arm.
“I’m not worried about me,” I told him. “I’ll patch myself up.”
“You don’t always have to act so tough.”
“You think this is an act?”
“Isn’t it?”
“This is me. Take it or leave it.”
“Fair enough,” he grumbled.
He tracked my movements as I walked over to the bathroom door and pushed it open. I turned to face him, pulled my shirt over my head, and tossed it on the bathroom floor. The whole time he watched me like I was the first woman he had ever been alone with; equal curiosity and fear. To throw fuel on the fire, I removed my jeans and added them to the pile next to the tub.
“I don't know about you, but I could use a shower. I stink,” I told him with my hands on my hips, wearing nothing but my red lacey bra and thong.
I swear I didn't pick them out. There was no way of knowing he would be the one to see them. At the very least, there wasn't a covert reason for my attire.
Not this time.
“I highly doubt that,” he muttered as I walked back into the bathroom.
I left the bathroom door open, just in case I needed to get out there quick. He probably didn't think I could hear what he was saying, but he wasn't being quiet enough to hide it. I turned on the shower and hopped in. I could hear him moving around the room and then he flopped down on the couch.
“A hotel room,” he suddenly said.
“I need to lie low for a couple of days.”
He must be using the time to talk to someone. I hoped he could trust whoever was on the other end of the phone.
“I’ve seen better days,” he answered them.
“It’s a long story,” he sighed.
“I can’t yet.”
“I’m still compromised.”
“I can't really talk about it right now.”
I lathered my hair with the extra bottle of shampoo I swiped earlier from the housekeeping cart.
“All I'm willing to say right now is that I'm okay.”
A pause. I secretly wondered if it was a girlfriend on the other line. He wasn't wearing a wedding band and Liam didn't turn up a significant other.
“It was a bloodbath. I was lucky to make it out of there alive.”
Another pause.
“I'm not coming in because I don’t think it’s safe right now. I want to wait a couple of days until this all blows over and give our guys a chance to look into everything.”
If I had to guess, there was a leak.
A huge one.
Big as Niagara Falls big.
If I had anything to say about it, he would be in a safe house indefinitely. Something told me he wouldn’t do that, though. It either had something to do with his undercover work or he and his partner pissed off the wrong dude. Either way, Braxton would be the only one with a target on his back.
Why?
Because his partner was on the no touch list.
Something about not murdering two of the police chief’s children. Several years ago, Chief King's eldest son Rowan was found dead in a crack house. The cause of death was an accidental overdose, but I thought it was bullshit. My brother Brandt went to school with him and partied with him sometimes, so he followed the story.
Word on the street, and from what Liam could dig up, was it wasn't an accident. At the time of Rowan’s death, Richard King was in the middle of setting up a new task force. Rumour was, the interested parties thought if they killed his eldest son that it would send him spiralling into a pit of despair like it did when his wife died.
It didn't work.
If anything, it made him harder.
Harder on drugs, on organized crime, and two out of the remaining six became cops just like him and his father before him. Nobody knew for sure and it could be complete speculation, but it made sense. Ash King, along with his brother, were as straight laced as they came. It would be extremely suspicious if two of his children were to die.
“Seriously, Ash! No, I'm not fucking coming back in. I don't give a fuck if they think I'm in on it. They were gunning for me! They knew where I would be because they called in a police distress call. When I got to the alley, they opened fire on me.”
I took my time, hoping to hear more so I could gauge my reaction.
“No, I had help. Do you honestly think I could have made it out alone?”
“Of course you didn't. I'm not that big of a badass.”
“No, I won't tell you where I am. Of course I know they were major players. I didn't make it away completely unscathed,” he told the caller. “Nah, just a flesh wound.”
If a through and through hole was a flesh wound, I wondered what he considered an actual injury.
“Seriously, just give me a couple of days.”
I twisted the knobs and shut off the water. If I stayed any longer, it would have been obvious I was eavesdropping. Either that or he would have assumed I was rubbing one out.
Why would I do that when there was a healthy young specimen in the other room that I had been wanting to take for another ride since he put me in handcuffs?
“I gotta go. The shower's stopped running.”
“Yes, it's a woman...no, I'm not telling you.”
“Well fuck you too, goodbye.”
I walked out of the bathroom and approached him. He was seated in the middle of the horribly upholstered couch. One of those ugly hotel scratchy on the skin pieces of shit couches. He had already removed his shirt, but his jeans were still on. Legs spread, he cradled his head in his hands, and his elbows were on his knees. The way his body moved, it looked like he was doing breathing exercises to calm down.
I recognized the movement from my own exercises to deal with my rage outs or random panic attacks.
He didn't look at me until I was standing right in front of him. My bare feet were his first sign I was there. As soon as his eyes met mine, I dropped the towel. The lust in his eyes was instantaneous. Things were going to get hot and heavy, with us riding on the adrenalin.
Maybe he needed this more than me?