Chapter 28 #2
I snatched the weapon from her hand and inspected the blade to make sure she’d cleaned it before sheathing it. There was a little residue near the pommel. I pulled out my bandana to clean it off.
Meanwhile , Jackson set Zoe to the side, drew his gun, and confronted the tow truck driver. “ Before I kill you, do you have anything to say in your defense?” He was maybe a dozen words away from pulling the trigger.
I tipped my head to have Coop and Baldy stand clear of the splatter zone.
“ I’d gotten a call.” His defense was weak even to his ears.
“ From who?” Jackson may have sounded calm, but he was far from it.
The driver licked his lips, preparing to fabricate a lie. His eyes shifted to my left where Rose stood.
She leaned in and whispered to me, “ From Carl .”
While that wasn’t news to the driver, he had the good sense to look down and piss his pants.
“ Gross ,” Zoe observed.
Jackson addressed his daughter, “ Baby girl, if I had a dollar for every time some fucking moron pissed his pants in front of me? Well , your college tuition would be paid for already. Twice .” He motioned for the knife in my hand. I passed it off, handle-first to Jackson .
Upon receiving it and inspecting the blade, Jackson shot Rose a look, then pointed it at the guy’s throat. “ You did that?”
“ It was an accident. I was just holding it, and he hit a pot hole.”
Like a snake, Jackson spun on the driver. “ You had my daughter’s car hooked up and you hit a fucking pot hole!”
As if that were the crime here. I snickered.
The man held both hands in the air. With the bloody towel pulled away, I caught sight of a two-inch wound that oozed blood. That sluggish flow meant nothing too major was nicked, but it had been deep enough to warrant at least a pint or maybe more. Fin was right, Rose’s blade was bloodthirsty.
I almost had a mind to warn Jackson to be careful with it. Then again, a good blooding needed more than a pint to satiate a truly dangerous blade.
“ Please don’t kill me. I’ve got a family…a daughter, l-like yours.”
Wrong thing to say . Ain’t no one had a daughter like Jackson’s .
My boss held the knife out, point-first, directly in front of that fucker’s chest. “ Where does this daughter live?”
His chin wobbled as he spoke. “ I -in p-p- Pittsburgh w-with her mother.”
Jackson nodded as if pleased by that answer.
“ Skinner ?” I sent a command with that one word toward the camera on the front door. Skinner had to be either in the war room, or remotely monitoring this shit. My phone buzzed a second or two later with an address. I showed it to Jackson who rattled it off to the driver.
He collapsed to the floor, begging us to not kill his daughter. He went as far as to touch Jackson’s boots.
That wouldn’t fly. I’d been on Jackson’s protection detail long enough that I didn’t think before I kicked him in the ribs and followed up with a stomp to the head.
Blood flowed from the split in his scalp where I’d scraped my tread down hard.
He curled up into a moaning ball of piss and blood. Between sobs, he pleaded for his life.
I almost took my gun out to end this bullshit. But that was too easy for him.
Instead , I checked Rose’s hands once more. Then her arms.
There were fresh bruises on them. “ Who did this?”
Her eyes dipped to the piece of shit on the floor.
“ Did he touch Zoe ?” I whispered that, because Jackson didn’t need to hear this yet. It would drive this fiasco from fatherly anger right into first degree felony if she told me what I didn’t want to hear.
“ Just once. That’s when I drew the blade.”
Zoe had moved closer to Rose during this whole conversation.
“ If I could’ve gotten my gun out of the car, I’d’ve shot him.”
“ In the school parking lot?” I had to drill home the risks and consequences of her hot-headedness. “ And then what would your father say?”
“ What would he say about what?” Jackson had given orders for the man to be tied up so the club could take pot shots at him until we decided what to do with him and the truck in our lot.
“ All the cameras, witnesses, and evidence that connects that asshole to Zoe .” I was thinking fast. Knowing Jackson had to figure this out for himself, but needed to use his devious, psycho-killer noggin on this one.
If we killed him, that would take us down faster than KC could.
Jackson’s jaw was tight. He let out a careful sigh. “ This happened right as school got out?” He asked Rose , not Zoe .
Rose nodded. “ Dozens of witnesses.”
“ And they just walked by, ignoring the shit out of things, didn’t they?”
Another nod, this time accompanied by a tight frown.
He stared at the knife he’d finally put back into the scabbard.
Turned it twice. Then handed it back to her.
“ Keep this on you at all times. I want you at Fin’s at least once a month for lessons on how to use it, how to kill a man with it, and most importantly, how to make sure this never leaves your hand. Got it?”
Rose swallowed and nodded. Her mouth opened but after shooting me a look, it closed.
“ You got something to say?” I asked.
“ I do.”
She kept her eyes on me, rather than asking permission from Jackson . I’d drilled the rules into her head, and my smart little witch remembered them well. “ Remember , respect first,” I warned.
Rose nodded.
Her back straightened and her chin lifted straight forward.
No digging in, no lies. “ I arrived at the school just before the bell. As I pulled in, I saw the tow truck, Zoe’s car, and I know that man.
He’s one of Carl’s …minions for lack of a better word.
He stole my car a month ago when I had a problem with vandalism.
I haven’t gotten it back because he claims there’s been other problems with it.
” Her face showed her disgust and anger during that pause. But she continued.
“ I confronted him. Not only about Zoe’s car, but mine.”
This time her head tilted a little and her eyes drifted from Jackson’s . Then she dug in. I bit my lip to not give her away.
“ We were still talking when the students started leaving. Zoe came up and was obviously angry. I tried to get her to ride with me in the SUV , but she didn’t want to leave her car.”
“ My gun was in it.” Zoe interrupted. Then tacked on, “ Duh .”
“ We’ll talk about that later,” her father warned.
“ Then he grabbed Rose , and I kicked his knee.” Zoe obviously wasn’t afraid of her father at all.
“ And I pulled the knife to force him to drive the car here.”
Zoe talked over Rose . “ He wanted five hundred dollars to unhook it. That’s robbery.”
“ I rode with him, and Zoe drove Bear’s SUV .”
“ No dents,” Zoe fired at me with a glance at my curled fists.
That wasn’t what I was angry about. To Rose I muttered, “ You got in the cab with him?”
She stared at me with intense focus. “ Would you rather it was Zoe ?”
Fuck no. But that wasn’t the point. “ You should have let him take the fucking car.” My teeth wouldn’t unclench.
“ Like hell. Then Dad would’ve killed him.”
Whether Zoe was right or not, it didn’t excuse the danger Rose had been in. Knife at his throat or not. She was damn lucky the driver was a fucking idiot who didn’t know how to handle danger.
Which reminded me keenly how Rose handled danger. She’d lived with Carl and survived. Whatever haunted her past hadn’t killed her. She faced down a man twice, maybe even three times her size and didn’t even think about backing down. “ You and I need to talk.”
My phone buzzed at my hip, giving her a reprieve. I answered it with a gruff, “ It’s your fucking quarter, talk.”
Skinner’s voice was loud and clear. “ Just heard from KC’s lawyer. The charges aren’t going to stick. And … you really need to know who they thought he killed.”
His voice was a little too gleeful for my patience.
“ I ain’t got time for games, asshole.”
Skinner laughed. “ I suppose you don’t, but you might wanna let Jackson know KC’s going to be released. Ain’t no way he killed Fish .”
Like a record scratch, my mind went blank. “ Fish ? He’s dead?” Jackson caught the name. I reiterated the word “dead” on my lips so he wouldn’t have to wait.
His glance immediately shot to the woman at my side.