Thirty-Two
FANG
“Where’s your ward?” Chaos asks as I approach.
“Jezabel moved the TV out of her room to the parlor. They’re picking a movie to watch together.”
He frowns, taking a step back from his bike before clarity softens his expression. “I meant the other one.”
“Oh.” Of course he did. “Not sure.”
His hard stare conveys all he needs to without words: it’s my job to know where she is, why don’t I, and how am I going to fix that? I note the pannier bag bolted to his rear guard. “You going somewhere?” He doesn’t generally have storage on the bike unless he plans an overnighter.
“Just being prepared.” Chaos rounds to the other side of the machine and sighs. “Jenna has the phone. I need you to find out how she got on and flick me an update.”
“Sure.”
He squats down, one hand on the bar to pull the bike upright, and checks the oil.
“I’ve got a lot going on between her, the other girls, Marty, Vanessa’s old man, and fucking Selena.
Jinx is handling Marty for now, and Darko’s keeping an eye on Selena, but I need you in control of Jenna and getting her old man here.
” He leans the bike back on the stand, seemingly satisfied.
“The best way to get shit done is to share the load. With Crow facing an extended stay indoors, the pressure is on the rest of us.”
“We never discussed him at church,” I point out. “What are we going to do if he gets sentenced?”
“Cross that bridge when we come to it, but I have a few ideas.” Chaos lifts his dual-tone gaze to mine. “It never rains, but it pours, right?”
I nod. We had a rough first year after we took over from our fathers, smoothing relations with the residents of Temperance and cleaning up the messes our predecessors had made.
But it was good for a while there. Everyone kept to their own, and inter-club disputes were few and far between, usually over minor infractions and miscommunications.
But now… It’s like the fucking Universe realized it’d lost track of us and feels the need to even the scales. We’re threatened from every side; between the Devil’s Breed, Marty breathing down our backs, and the fucking Wings of Faith sniffing around these parts.
It all points to one hell of a fucking ticking time bomb. And one hell of a mess to clean up afterward.
Chaos’s gaze drifts past my shoulder, and I turn to see what has his interest. A dark vehicle tears up the road, the reflective markers visible the closer it gets to our property before the SUV disappears behind our half-built fence.
“Thought you said Jinx was taking care of him.”
“He is.” Chaos starts toward where the sheriff now uses our driveway for a fucking drag strip.
I follow behind, curious what brings the man here today.
Marty pulls the cruiser to a stop in the yard and swiftly exits. “Boys.”
Fucker. “Old man,” Chaos drawls.
The two stare at each other a beat before Marty resumes his role as Temperance’s guiding light of protection—the joke that his role is. “Did some checks with the name you gave me,” he tells Chaos. “And I think we have a match. A match, and a problem.”
The Kid. He must be talking about Anna.
“Why’s that?” Chaos widens his stance and folds his arms, watching Marty with keen interest.
“Her full name is Anna Louise Conroy. Her sister, that she referred to, is Mary-Beth Conroy.”
If Chaos makes the same connection I do, he doesn’t show it.
His poker face is on point while Jenna’s current location suddenly becomes a hell of a lot more important.
Mary-Beth. It’s not a super common name.
The likelihood she’s one and the same looks more and more likely the longer I entertain the thought. Did she fucking know this?
“House burned down, as she said,” Marty continues, “two and a half years ago. Mother perished in the blaze. Parents had no insurance, so they’ve been sleeping rough ever since.”
“With their father?” Chaos clarifies.
Marty shakes his head. “That’s the problem I referred to. The father is Jameson Conroy. You may know him better as Red Jimmy.” Marty smirks, waiting for the reaction.
Chaos doesn’t play, stating plainly, “Blood Eagles Road Captain.”
“Correct.”
I catch the infinitesimal tightening of the skin around Chaos’s eyes. He shows no other sign of emotion. “What are you going to do with her? The Kid?”
Marty draws a deep breath. “We can’t return her home, knowing her father’s connection to a one percent club. It would be careless on our behalf to place her into a criminal environment. She’ll be processed through the system. Placed with a temporary carer until a more permanent solution is found.”
“Who?” I ask.
Marty flicks his focus to me. “We don’t know yet. There are only so many places available for her age group and more candidates than beds.”
“Got to love the system,” Chaos quips, turning for the clubhouse. “She stays here until something’s found,” he hollers as he walks away. “Leave her where she feels safe, Marty.”
The sheriff frowns, clearly pissed at Chaos’s dismissal of him. He redirects the rest of his reason to drive out here toward me. “I need to talk to the women about Mary-Beth’s death.”
“Why? What relevance does it have to them?” I bluff.
He calls my shit. “Come on, Fang. You might like to play stupid, but you and I both know you aren’t.
” Marty hooks his thumbs in his utility belt and straightens his spine.
“The women already said the blood belonged to a female named Mary-Beth. What is the likelihood of it being a different woman with the same name when Anna’s there? ”
“They already told you what they know. The connection to The Kid doesn’t change that.”
“It might.”
I narrow my gaze. “And how are you getting on finding the other woman—the one they say went missing after she chased The Kid out of the room? Eleanor.”
He hardens his jaw. “Just get the group together, Fang. I’ll be back tomorrow to pick them up for one-on-one interviews at three-thirty.”
I take a step forward, pushing up on my toes inside my boots to better align our heights.
“If you want to talk to them one-on-one, you can fucking subpoena them. But until they’re actually proven guilty of anything, you can leave them the fuck alone.
They’ve been harassed enough, Marty. Let them rebuild their lives in peace. ”
“Is that a threat?” He scoffs, smarmy mouth turning up on one side.
“It’s a goddamn promise,” I state, heading after Chaos. “You come back here tomorrow, Marty, you won’t get past the gate.”
“Don’t make me get a warrant,” he yells after me.
I raise both hands in the air and give him my middle digits. The women don’t need to be interrogated; the sheriff’s department needs to do its job.
I bet they don’t even have a body yet. And until they do, they’ve got nothing other than a smear of blood to go on. No evidence. No probable cause. Nothing to link it to Jenna. Other than a kid who might know more than she lets on.
“Has he left?” Chaos calls out from his office when I step into the foyer.
I pause, catch the crunch of tires on the yard, and call back.
“Going now.” I veer right and poke my head in the door to find him hunched over his laptop, a page printing behind him.
“Does anyone know what you’re up to?” We had this fucking discussion with him a few months back, about keeping secrets from us.
Back then it was our new neighbor. Now, I’m not so sure it’s that harmless.
“Vanessa does.”
Goes without saying, but, “Any of us? In case you need backup?”
“The less anyone else is involved, the better.” He snatches the page off the printer and swiftly folds it to fit in his breast pocket. “I’ll be a day at most. Crow’s lawyer is coming by day after tomorrow, so I need to be back in time to meet with her.”
“Any indication?” We’ve all been hanging out to hear the fate of our brother in arms. Minnesota doesn’t have the death penalty, but that doesn’t mean the judge can’t take away his best days with a lengthy sentence.
Chaos shakes his head. “That’s what she’s coming by for.”
Boots strike the hardwood behind me, preceding Loki’s presence at my side.
I sidestep to widen the gap between us.
“You heading out?” he asks Chaos.
“For a day. What do you need?”
“Jez has asked if she can do some online shopping for the women on the club card.”
Chaos sighs.
“If they’re going to be here for a while, a couple of changes of clothes will go a long way to making them feel more themselves again.”
Fucking golden-haired angel asshole.
“Only two of them need to be here,” Chaos states, gesturing across the foyer with one arm. “The other two overstay their welcome if they’re getting that settled in.”
“You said they could be here as long as they needed to the other day,” Loki points out. “Why the change of tune?”
“Because I said that before I understood the gravity of what these fucking women are getting us into.” Chaos paces across the office, patting his vest while he appears to check he has all he needs. “I need to get on the road. I’m trusting you fuckers to keep things in stasis until I get back.”
“So is that a yes or a no for the clothes?” Loki presses.
“It’s a do whatever you fucking want,” Chaos snaps. “But if they start taking the Mickey, it gets shut off. Tell Jez to keep it to necessities only.”
“Vanessa going with you?” I ask.
“No.” He almost sounds frustrated at the thought. “Trusting you bastards to watch her, too.”
“Like you aren’t doing that already.” Loki rolls his eyes and exits the room, calling as he goes, “Thanks, Boss.”
Chaos sighs. We all know he has fucking cameras all over his woman’s house, and Darko has patched him into the town’s surveillance system for when she’s at work. But he hates being called out on his freakish obsession with her.
“You know we don’t care, right?” I tilt my head. “As long as she’s okay with it, it isn’t any of our business.”
“Haven’t you got a truant princess to track down?” His glare is cutting.
I raise my hands and turn for the door.
“Fang,” he exhales.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t tell her Marty knows about Mary-Beth. It’ll give Jenna reason to spook and run, as well as get her wondering if she’s safer back with her old man. We need her here as a drawcard.”
“For who?” Surely not the Blood Eagles.
“Her father. I need that asshole to fill in the blanks so we don’t make complete asses of ourselves when we strike the Breed.”
“And The Kid? What are we going to do about that drawcard?”
“Nothing the law’s gonna like.” He heads for the door, pausing when he’s shoulder-to-shoulder with me. “I don’t care what you got going on with Jenna—I need you to lock in. She’s a liability, but also an enormous asset. Don’t fuck it up.”
Too bad if I already have.