Chapter 15
Smokehouse
I walked casually toward the house, as though fury wasn’t a constant companion. This asshole was scaring the mother of my baby and her family. It stopped now.
“Smoke.”
Glancing over at Hush, I raised a brow. “You don’t have to be here, Old Man.”
Hush scowled at me. “Like I’m goin’ to let you go into this alone.”
“Hey!” Ricochet sputtered.
“The fuck?” Hell echoed. “We’re here, too.”
Hush gave us all a pointed look. “The three of you are cut from the same fuckin’ cloth. He throws a punch and you’re right there in the fight with him. Not a lick of sense amongst any of you.”
Hell’s mouth dropped open. “Okay that’s a little-” He broke off when the door opened.
“Get off my property.”
All four of us sized up the man standing in the doorway. I knew the moment my brothers realized exactly what I had: This was a cowardly piece of shit who only terrorized women. Because if he tried his bullshit with men, we’d just beat his ass.
“We should still try to do this without landin’ in jail,” Hush muttered as we moved forward.
“I’ll try the nice way first,” I assured him.
His snort of disbelief was drowned out by Eli beginning to babble.
“I’ll call the cops.”
“You go ahead and do that,” Ricochet taunted.
“We’re just here to talk,” I added, trying to stomp down the anger that was pulsing through my body. My blood was on fire and it was taking all of my self-control not to pummel the weasel in front of us.
We didn’t give him much of a choice. The four of us crowded forward until we’d forced our way through the door. Hell shut it with a heavy thud.
“I was told you paid Keely a visit this morning.”
My tone had Eli watching me warily. “I was just trying to find out where my wife is.”
“Ex-wife,” Hush supplied.
“We’re not divorced,” Eli snapped, rage flooding his face.
“Yet,” I replied. “And only because you won’t sign the papers.”
“Imagine how pathetic you must be, to be chasing after and harassing a woman who wants nothing to do with you,” Ricochet mused.
“Not only that,” Hellfire tacked on, “but one who’s moved on and found herself a worthy man.”
Hush chuckled, but the sound was dark and dangerous. “And imagine what a piece of shit you must be to cheat on the woman you claimed to love. Who you vowed to spend the rest of your life with.”
“Who you controlled and manipulated. Isolated and emotionally abused,” I added.
The men behind me stiffened at my words. This was what made them my family. These men would never allow some lowly scumbag to treat one of our own badly. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t technically been ours at the time of Eli’s abuse, she was now.
“You did what now?” Hush asked, his voice going even darker.
That was when I knew he was on board for anything I wanted to do to this motherfucker.
It took a lot for Hush to get riled up, but mistreating women would send him into a tailspin of violence.
It almost made me feel bad for the man standing before us.
None of us put up with men who treated women badly.
Especially not sweet women like my wildcat.
Something about her put me into protective mode in an instant, and it seemed to be the same for the others.
“I’ll tell you what, Eli. Go grab those papers. Sign them. And we’ll leave here,” I told him. My hands flexed into fists and his eyes dropped down to them before darting back to my face. The color was leaching out of his skin as he realized this was a bad situation for him.
“Of course, we’ll only leave with the understandin’ that you don’t go near Dani or Keely again,” Hush added.
Eli’s eyes were wide, and he kept swallowing hard, as though he was having difficulty. “I…don’t have them.”
“Lucky for you, then, that I have an extra set right here,” I said, pulling the documents out from a pocket on the inside of my cut. I’d run upstairs earlier to grab them in case he tried to pull this shit. “Grab a pen.”
“I’m not signing those. Danica belongs to me and-”
“I tried,” I said, looking over at Hush.
He only sighed as I charged forward. The papers dropped to the ground as I snagged Eli by the back of his collared shirt when he tried to bolt toward the stairs.
I wasn’t leaving this house until Eli understood that Dani was no longer his.
And that if he contacted her again, I’d stomp his head in with my work boot.
The sound of my fist connecting with his face gave me a thrill. It’d been too long since I’d been in a good fight. Not that this one was good, by any means. Eli let out a squeal as I hammered my fist into his side. He sounded like a pig being hogtied.
A look up at the others showed the disgust I was feeling for this weakling reflected on their faces.
“What’s the matter, Eli?” I huffed as I punched him again. “Can only attack women?”
He was trying to squirm out of my grasp, but wasn’t having any luck.
Until now he’d held his arms in front of himself to ward off my blows, not that it’d worked, but he finally grew enough balls that he threw a wild punch at me.
I blocked it easily with my forearm and returned the favor.
He wasn’t able to block and he slumped down onto the ground, eyes closed.
“That was…”
“Pathetic,” Ricochet said, finishing Hell’s sentence for him.
“Let’s get out of here,” Hush suggested. “We’ll have to hope this shook him up enough to get him to sign.”
We turned to leave, and I dropped the documents onto his table before walking out the door. We’d almost made it to our bikes when Eli launched himself at my back with a loud cry. He’d waited to shout until he was already leaping, and I hadn’t heard him before that.
He landed on my back and agony shot through my right side. My mind couldn’t wrap itself around why pain was gripping me in a tight fist.
“Fuck!” Hell shouted and suddenly my three brothers were charging toward us.
Eli managed to scramble off my back before I had the presence of mind to drop a shoulder and have him on the ground in front of me where I could continue to pummel him.
Clearly he needed more of a warning than I’d given, though if his face was any judge, I’d done a decent job.
I turned, staring at him as he gave me a malicious grin.
He was already sporting a black eye, and he was moving like I’d broken at least one rib, holding his side.
“I called the cops. You assholes are going to jail.”
Another sharp pain sliced through me as I started to walk forward. Huffing out a strained breath, I looked down and my brows shot up. A large butcher knife was protruding from my side. “The fucker stabbed me?” I asked in shocked disbelief.
Sirens broke through whatever the others had been about to say. The sheriff’s department was only a few minutes down the road, which was unlucky for us. Three SUV’s rolled up to the scene and six Sheriff deputies got out.
“God damn it,” I muttered. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go.
“Hands up!” One of the deputies called.
Eli complied instantly, hands raising in the air. “I was the one who called you guys. These men attacked me.”
I focused on the cops in front of me, ignoring the shit bucket standing behind me. He’d already lodged his only weapon into my side. We, on the other hand, were armed to the fucking teeth, like we usually were.
“Don’t,” Hush muttered. “We don’t have the luxury of this goin’ sideways. Don’t do anythin’ stupid. Just do what they say.”
Sighing, I slowly raised my arms, wincing as the knife jostled inside of me.
I hadn’t pulled it out yet. With my luck, I’d pull it out and Tucson's finest would think I was threatening them. I didn’t feel like having any more holes put into me today.
I was already pissed that Eli had stabbed a hole in my cut.
My side twinged and for once I thought this would be a good time to have brought Crash Cart with us. The older man acted as our unofficial doctor most of the time. He was a field medic for years and had a knack for sewing shit up.
We stood quietly as the cops moved forward as one unit.
We complied with all commands and my brothers ended up face down in the dirt while they disarmed and handcuffed us.
They let me remain on my knees, only because of the knife wound.
I glowered at Eli as glee lit up his face while he explained to one of the officers what had happened.
Everything passed in a blur as my brothers were stuffed in the back of cop cars and I was taken to the hospital.
The meds they gave me while they stitched me up mellowed me out a few degrees, so I just watched as a pretty young doctor sewed up the hole in my side.
I thought about asking if she could sew up my cut, but thought better of it.
I wasn’t about to let it out of my hands long enough for anyone to mend it.
“How long does he need to be here?” The leader of the trio of deputies assigned to watch me asked.
“As long as he doesn’t make any big movements that will tear his stitches he can go home as soon as we fill the antibiotics I’m prescribing.
” The doctor smiled up at me. Her brown eyes sparkled with interest, but all I could think about was a pair of worried blues.
In the past I would have gotten the doctor’s number, but I just sat quietly while she handed over the meds, explained how to take them, then signed off on my discharge paperwork.
The deputies put me in handcuffs, then in the back of one of the SUVs. My eyes narrowed as we drove. “Where are we going?”
“Had to bring you into the city to the hospital, so we just brought your buddies to the jail nearby,” one of the deputies up front answered.
“You’re Sheriffs out in Picture Rocks,” I told them, as if they didn’t know.
“TPD is happy enough to help out and book you here,” the driver stated. “Now shut up.”
Fuck me. This wasn’t good. It wasn’t like DA Fremont couldn’t get to us out in the smaller town, but it would have been less likely we’d have crossed his radar out there.
I was pretty sure this wasn’t typical. Cops didn’t like to share their arrests.
Something was going on and it didn’t bode well for us.
We ended up in four cells two and two across from one another. We waited until cops passed by before we discussed our predicament.
“We’re fucked,” Hush said, point blank.
“Something’s up,” Hell said by way of agreement, echoing my earlier thoughts.
They settled as a cop walked past.
“Hey!” I called out. Bored eyes met mine. “When do I get my phone call?”
The cop’s lips turned up in a smirk and he kept going without saying anything. Slamming my fist against the bars in front of me, I let out a curse as pain cut through the haze the meds had me in.
We stood there for at least an hour before we all retreated to sit down on our respective beds. Who knew how long it was going to take before Lockout figured out what happened to us?
I didn’t regret going to Eli’s place, but I was now wishing I’d just finished the job. He wouldn’t have been able to call anyone if I’d knocked him out. Shit, killing him might have even been a better option.
There was no way to tell how long we’d been sitting there, lost in our own thoughts, before a commotion started up out front.
The back area where the cells were located was only disconnected from the front of the police station by one door.
It wasn’t thick enough to keep Seek’s furious voice from penetrating.
Grinning over at Hush, I told him, “Calvary’s here.”
“How does she always know when you’re in trouble, Hush?” Hellfire asked in an awed tone.
Hush chuckled. “She’s got a sixth sense, I swear. Our kids aren’t gettin’ away with nothin’ with a mama like her.”
“I wouldn’t mess with her,” Ricochet replied. “Want to bet on how long it takes her to get back here with us?”
“You think they’ll-” Hell shut his mouth as soon as the door opened.
We all sighed with relief as Static and Lockout walked toward us. Lock looked pissed and really, I couldn’t blame him.
“Smokehouse, I fucking told you not to-” He broke off as the door opened again, and now we were all on high alert.
I tensed so much my side screamed with pain as my stitches were tugged on. Walking toward us with a big grin on his face was DA Fremont.
“Nice to see you gentleman again,” he said, looking straight at Ricochet.
The last time we’d seen him Ricochet, Hellfire, and I had been in his office, delivering Trent to him.
Ricochet had made the suggestion that he throw the book at his previous assistant and take a hard stance with the public against crime.
He’d also mentioned that Trent had knowledge that didn’t benefit him if he betrayed the weasel.
Fremont had taken care of that inconvenience easily enough.
Trent had ended up dead not long after being incarcerated.
“What brings you here, Fremont?” Static asked. His tone was neutral.
“I could ask you the same, Counselor. Last time I checked, you weren’t a criminal defense attorney.”
“You’re right. But I’m representing them until their primary attorney gets here.”
“And who is that?” Fremont asked, a twinkle in his eye.
We’d suspected that he’d been keeping an eye on us. Waiting for us to screw up. Guilt washed over me as I realized what I’d done. I was going to be the one responsible for the fight that was coming.
Silence descended as Static tried to figure out what name to tell Fremont. We didn’t have another attorney. So far he’d handled everything for us.
“C.L. Bradford,” a sweet voice rang out through the hall. “She’s on vacation in Florida and is making her way back.” Dani was like a breath of fresh air in this place, but with her bright blue eyes flashing fire, she also looked like a fallen angel descending down to cause chaos.