Chapter 5
Shotgun
“You see the news this morning?” Menace asked. “Remington was all over it.”
“Yeah, I saw it. This whole thing is a fucking mess.”
“They said she was last seen having dinner with that cop.” He thought for a moment, then continued, “His name was—”
“Thomas Long,” I interrupted, finishing his thought. “Yeah, I saw that too.”
“The guy’s supposed to be in internal affairs.” Menace shrugged. “The way things turned out, you gotta wonder if the guy’s a dirty cop or something. Might’ve had a deal gone bad.”
“Making guesses isn’t going to do us any good, brother. We need someone to give us some fucking answers.”
“Well, I think I’ve got something that will help us out with that.
” I’d gone by Menace’s room to do my daily check in, and as usual, the place was a fucking wreck.
The bed was unmade, clothes were on the floor and dirty glasses on the bedside table, but his desk and everything around it were perfectly organized.
There wasn’t so much as a spot of dust anywhere.
I wasn’t surprised. Menace took his work seriously, and I had to admit, the things he could do with a computer fucking amazed me.
I wasn’t alarmed when he said, “I know they weren’t the only ones responsible for all this shit, but with a little fine-tuning, I was finally able to get a decent view of the two guys who tossed Remington into our dumpster. ”
“And?” He turned the laptop screen to face me, revealing a young male who looked to be in his early twenties with a tattoo scrolled across his upper throat and shoulders.
“This is Drake Abernathy. He has a rap sheet a mile long. Seems this guy’s into all kinds of stupid shit from dope to sexual assault. ”
“Looks like your typical hood rat.”
“Yeah, but his buddy seems to have kept out of trouble.” He flipped the screen to show an image of another man.
He was much older, slender with a broad nose and graying hair.
Menace cleared his throat, then added,” His name’s Alfonzo McKinney, but there’s not much more on him.
He’s got no living family or relatives, but get this.
He and Drake are members of the East-End Punishers.
I think they’re the ones behind all this. ”
“That dope-running bunch from the projects?”
“Yep, that’d be them.”
“Damn. You might be right about this Long guy being a dirty cop.”
“It’d make sense. The question is...who else was involved, and did Remington know about it?”
For reasons I couldn’t explain, I got pissed at the idea of her seeing some cop.
Something told me it wouldn’t have mattered who she was with; I still wouldn’t have liked it.
Hell, I was getting more fucked up by the minute.
Trying to redirect my focus, I looked up at Menace and said, “We don’t even know if she’s involved with Long.
The news just said they were last seen together, but that doesn’t mean she was actually dating the guy or even knew him. ”
“Yeah, you got a point there.” He turned the screen back around, then started typing away on his keyboard. “Now that we actually know her name, I can do some digging and see what I can find on her. Maybe then, we can figure out what we’re dealing with here.”
“Get to it, brother.”
In a matter of minutes, he had Remington’s Facebook and Instagram pages pulled up, and when an image of her came up on the screen, it almost took my breath away.
Fuck. Just like the night when I’d seen her at Stilettos, she was absolutely stunning—the kind of beauty you’d expect to see in some ritzy magazine.
Her long dark hair and olive skin brought out her deep, sultry eyes, making me wonder what kind of secrets she kept hidden beneath them.
As I looked at Remington’s hour-glass figure, rage started to creep over me once again. Not only because someone beat the hell out of her and left her for dead, but the fact that the mere sight of her had the blood rushing to my cock.
Sensing my interest in her, Menace glanced over to me with a smirk. “She’s a real looker, isn’t she?”
“Whatever.”
“Oh, come on, brother.” A big, mischievous smirk crossed my brother’s unshaven face, making the bristles of his day-old beard protrude from his chin. The asshole was mocking me when he said, “You gotta admit that she’s hot.”
“Focus, Menace.”
“Damn, this chick has gotten all up in your head, hasn’t she?”
“Menace,” I warned.
“Okay, okay. Back at it.”
Menace turned his attention to the task at hand, and it wasn’t long before he was able to connect the information from her Facebook page to confirm the identity of her parents, her friends, and where she worked.
With that knowledge, he was able to locate her address, driver’s license, and medical history, and that was just the beginning.
It wasn’t long before he had everything there was to know about her—including the fact that she’d only been living in Nashville for a couple of months.
He was still focused on the screen when he asked, “You seeing something I don’t?
’Cause I’m not finding anything that could possibly connect her to the cop or the Punishers. ”
“Nah, man. I don’t see anything either.”
He turned to face me as he suggested, “Maybe it’s as simple as she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Could be, but I’ve got a feeling there’s more to it than that.”
“I hate to say it, but I do too.” Concern marked his face as he glanced back at the screen and shook his head. “I’m afraid we’ve got big trouble coming our way with all of this.”
“I don’t disagree.” I thought for a moment, then suggested, “Why don’t you dig into this Thomas Long guy? Maybe we can find a connection there.”
He nodded, then got busy typing away on his laptop.
He pulled up everything there was on the guy, and from what we could tell, he’d been investigating several guys within the metro unit.
Other than that, there wasn’t much on the guy.
Menace shook his head as he said, “I don’t know, Shotgun.
Everything from his track record with the force to his bank accounts makes it look like this guy is legit. ”
“What about the restaurant they mentioned on the news? You think they’ve got any security cameras?”
“No idea, but I can look.” As he turned back to his laptop, he asked, “It was the Parlor, right?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
I waited for several minutes, hoping he’d be able to come up with something. Eventually, he looked over to me and said, “Sorry, man. Looks like someone fucked with it. No feed whatsoever from the night of the attack.”
“Fuck.”
“I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time to track down Drake and Alfonzo.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll go talk to Prez as soon as I find their location. If I can run them down, I’ll get with Viper and check with him about bringing them in.”
“Sounds good.” I stood up and started towards the door. “While you’re doing that, I’m gonna go back and talk to Remington. See if she’s remembered anything.”
“That would be good, but yeah. Try and go easy on her.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo, brother.”
“I’m well aware, but this isn’t the kind of thing you usually deal with.
This isn’t some asshole who tried to fuck with the club.
You can’t torture her or threaten her like you do them.
You push this girl too hard and she’s liable to freak out, and we’ll never get anything out of her.
” Before I had a chance to respond, he continued, “I know this is your job and all, but considering everything that’s happened to her, I’d start with the basic stuff like who her friends are and work.
And who knows? Maybe it’ll trigger something. ”
“I got this, brother. Don’t worry.”
He gave me a nod, then turned his focus back to his computer.
Giving him some room to work, I left his room and started down the hall.
I thought about what he’d said about handling Remington, and even though I wasn’t eager to admit it, I knew he was right.
I was a man who tortured and used mind manipulation to get the information I needed, but that wouldn’t work in this situation.
She’d already been beaten to hell, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause her even more trauma.
I needed to do my best to keep a level head, remember what she’d been through, and at the same time, get her to tell me what I needed to know.
Sadly, I had no idea how the fuck I was supposed to do that.
There was so much about dealing with her that had already been difficult, and something told me that this would be the hardest thing yet.
I was about to reach the infirmary when Rafe called out to me, “Yo, Shotgun. You got a minute?”
“Yeah, brother.” I stopped and turned to face him. “What’s going on?”
“I need your advice on something.” He paused for a moment, like he was second-guessing coming to me, then sighed. “I would’ve gone to Hawk, but I’m not sure he’d be much help because of Delilah and all.”
“Got no idea what you’re talking about, brother.”
“It’s about Krissy. You know, Delilah’s friend from the other night.”
“Yeah? What about her?”
“You know the other night when she came to the clubhouse?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I guess you could say we hooked up, and we had a damn good time.”
Rafe was a good guy, often soft-hearted and an overthinker.
Something I was not. I also wasn’t one to have more than a quick fix with a woman.
As far as I was concerned, relationships were a no-go.
I had no idea why he’d come to me for advice, especially over a female, but he had all the same.
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, so I asked, “So, what’s the problem? ”
“I thought we were both on the same page but”—his brows furrowed into a grimace—“I think she’s interested in more than I bargained for. I don’t want to hurt her feelings or whatever, but damn, she’s been calling and texting like we got something going on.”