10. Hawk
10
HAWK
N othing ever changed at the Providence Police Department. Not the scuffed-up concrete floors. Not the bustle of cops moving around the space, acting like they were the kings of the world. Not the smell of unwashed bodies and shit because the holding cells never got cleaned properly.
I shuddered at the sight of the metal toilet in the corner of the processing room Chaos and I had been locked in.
“That’s so fucking unsanitary,” I complained, screwing up my face. “I can’t even think about how many fucking germs are crawling all over this place.” I itched to wash my hands, but they were cuffed behind my back so the best I could do was wipe them on the back of my jeans.
Chaos rolled his eyes from where he leaned against the wall on the other side of the cell. “Wouldn’t have picked you to be OCD about germs. Shame you don’t have your purse here. I bet you have sanitizer in it. ”
Behind my back, my fingers flipped him off, even though he couldn’t see it. “My OCD about germs is the only reason you’re even fucking alive to give me shit right now. Remember how you didn’t get an infection and die after we picked your broken ass up off the side of the road and nursed you back to health? Remember how I washed my hands so you didn’t get sepsis? Oh! Oh!” I glared at him. “Remember how you shot me, but I cleaned the fucking wound and stitched it up, so I didn’t die either? That was fucking fun.”
Chaos raised an eyebrow. “Do you want a medal?”
I glared at him. “Actually, maybe I fucking do. Or even better, how about you just shut up about me complaining about the germs crawling all over this place?” I shuddered and squinted at the toilet again. “Fuck, it’s like I can see them.”
The urge to gag rose in my chest.
“Just stop thinking about it,” Chaos advised.
God, I fucking hated him. “Don’t talk to me.”
Chaos huffed out a breath. “Fine by me.”
We stood in silence for all of thirty seconds before I couldn’t stand it. I’d never liked long silences. They left me too much room for my head to fill in the blanks. “You think they arrested the others too?”
Chaos shrugged. “Probably. It’s not like any of us are particularly well-liked by cops round here. Any excuse for them to—”
A guard opened the door to our cell, cutting off whatever Chaos was going to say. “The two of you are up. Get going.”
Chaos pushed off the wall, but I beat him to the cell door. I couldn’t stand being anywhere near that filthy fucking toilet for another second. “Did someone come to bail me out?”
The guard glanced up from a file folder. “Not yet.”
Damn. We had only been here twenty minutes so that was probably too much to hope for. “Where are we going then?”
“The boss wants you both searched and your belongings removed.”
Yeah, how about no. “What the fuck for?”
The cop shrugged and looked over at me. “You had a gun on you. Boss wants to see what else you might be hiding.”
“We were patted down when we came in,” Chaos argued. “Why are they doing it again?”
“Strip search,” the cop said. “You’re both known gang members. It’s standard procedure to check for concealed drugs.”
“Concealed drugs?” I asked. “Concealed where?”
The cop just stared at me.
I stopped walking. “No. No fucking way are you checking my ass for drugs.”
The cop shoved me in the back. “I don’t remember asking for your permission. Just shut up and move. You think I want to check your ass any more than you want me to? Trust me, I don’t. But like I said, it’s standard procedure.”
“Since fucking when?” Chaos snapped. “I’m not exactly a stranger to getting arrested, I think we both know that. I’ve never been strip searched before.”
The cop tapped his pass to a security panel, and it opened the door in front of us. He waited while Chaos and I passed by. “Take it up with the chief when you’re released if you want to make a complaint.”
Relief sank in. “Let me talk to old Barry.” I turned around and walked backward so I could smile at the cop. “We’re old friends.”
Which was true. We’d been bribing the old ass to look the other way for years. War dropped him the occasional freebie at his sex club, Psychos, and everyone was happy. Barry got his rocks off, and we did our thing without the cops giving us too much hassle.
The officer shook his head. “Barry’s gone. Got caught taking bribes. We got a new chief last month. He’s from one of the gang taskforces in the city, so guys like you two are a personal pet peeve of his and he’s changed the way we do everything around here.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Guess you haven’t had a chance to try to bribe him yet, huh?”
Well, shit. A new chief? That was an oversight War probably should have been on top of.
But War’s woman was due to have another baby any day now, and he hadn’t exactly been around much. Fuck. I was VP. I should have been the one to pick up the slack.
“Be a good little officer and tell the chief the VP of the Slayers would like a word. I’m sure he’ll be happy to oblige.”
The officer put a hand on my chest to keep me moving backward. “Sure, sure, Hawk,” he said in the most condescending of tones. “I’ll get right on that. Right after I finish all the paperwork you created for me tonight, take my dinner break, wash my hair, fill my car up with gas…” He raised an eyebrow. “Get in the fucking room already, would you? No amount of your bu llshit is getting you an audience with the chief tonight. You want to talk to him? Wait ’til you aren’t in fucking handcuffs and he might actually take you seriously.”
Chaos sniggered.
I shot him a death stare. “Why are you laughing? You enjoy strip searches?”
Chaos shrugged. “No. But I enjoy watching you embarrass yourself.”
I twisted so I didn’t have to see his fucking face.
In the next room we were met by another officer who grabbed my arm none too softly and shoved me to a table. The first officer did the same with Chaos, patting him down for the second time that night while explaining how the strip search would work. At the third table, a guy was already half naked, a cop checking his shirt pockets while the guy covered his bare chest with his arms like he had tits he didn’t want us to see.
His gaze landed on Chaos. “This is all your fault! I should have known better than to hire some street thug who claimed he wanted to turn over a new leaf.”
The cop pushed Chaos up against the table so he could undo his cuffs, and he let out a grunt of irritation. He swiveled his head to face the weedy, older man squawking at him.
“I was defending Carli. What did you want me to do, Simon? You should have banned those hockey dickheads years ago. They’re always trouble, and you never do anything about them.”
“Trouble!” Simon squeaked, glaring at Chaos. “They’re paying customers. You can’t just turn away paying customers. You’d know that if you had any business sense. But we both know you don’t. That’s why you’re in the back, and I’m out front.”
“Take your pants off, please, sir. Your underwear too,” Simon’s cop interrupted.
Simon’s face crumpled, like he wanted to cry at the officer’s command.
I didn’t bother hiding my laugh.
“What are you laughing at?” Simon snapped at me. “You’re about to get the same treatment!” Then he turned to the cop. “This is all a misunderstanding. I wasn’t even in the room when the fight broke out. My only crime was giving that man a chance. He was a street thug, born loser before I took him in. Completely useless in the kitchen until I taught him everything I know. But look where supporting the community got me? I’m being punished for being a good person!”
Chaos stared at his boss, his voice dry with sarcastic humor. “Thanks for all your support, Simon. I’m so glad you taught me all the ins and outs of bad coffee and flipping a few fucking burger patties. It was real damn hard to learn that, so you really should pat yourself on the back.”
“You ungrateful—”
“Quit your fucking whining and drop your pants and underwear,” the cop said again.
Simon’s mouth drew into a thin line as he took off his clothes. “You’re fired, Hayden. So fucking fired! I don’t care how damn attractive you are, having a bit of eye candy around isn’t worth all of this.” He lowered his pants to his ankles, his underwear following. He glared at Chaos, anger heaving his chest.
Like he didn’t give a flying fuck, Chaos did the same. He pulled off his grease- and blood-spattered T-shirt, quickly following up by removing the dirty black jeans and a pair of tight black boxer briefs.
Chaos’s dick was fucking huge. It hung halfway down his thigh, dark hair thatched beneath the thick base.
I burst out laughing at the comparison to Simon’s shriveled pecker. It was the nicest way I could describe it. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”
I meant for Simon, but Chaos clearly didn’t take it that way. I saw the flash of something in his eye before he turned around, letting the officer run his gloved hands all over his body.
The cop traced every line and ridge. His fingers trailed over Chaos’s biceps and down his back rippling with strong muscle. He had a lot of tattoos, probably at least as many as I had. But beneath them, scars. So many of them. I searched out each and every one. I knew where they all were because it had been me who’d stitched the asshole back together after he’d been left for dead on the side of the road all those years ago. I knew every inch of his body because I’d been the one who’d washed the gravel out of every cut. I’d been the one who’d taken the bullet out of his upper chest and sewn it back together. And then with the limited knowledge I had, somehow kept him from getting an infection. He had an ugly keloid scar, but fuck, I’d done all right considering I had nothing more than a high school education.
We hadn’t exactly been planning on keeping the prick alive. My instructions had been to fix him up so we could get the info we needed from him. Not to become a plastic surgeon .
But that gunshot wound was one that would have killed him if it had been an inch lower.
This prick fucking owed me everything. Even if I hadn’t exactly had his best interests at heart.
The cop groped between Chaos’s legs before running a hand along the seam of his ass.
Chaos’s eye caught mine.
I looked away before he could say a fucking word.
From the other side of the room, Simon was finally silent, his beady-eyed gaze on Chaos like he’d been waiting years to see him with his gear off and now he was going to take his fill.
“Get your clothes off, Hawk,” my officer said. “Stop stalling. I don’t have all day. This is happening whether you like it or not.”
The back of my neck heated. “With Simon the pervert in here? I don’t fucking think so. Don’t need to be a visual for his spank bank the way Chaos is right now.”
Simon let out a babbling protest about how he was a married man and blah, blah, blah.
I didn’t care. Whatever took the attention away from the fact I’d been checking out my handiwork on Chaos’s scar.
I took off the club jacket and jeans I’d put on that morning. Lost the white wifebeater singlet.
I rarely wore underwear, so that wasn’t a problem.
I stared at the wall, but all I could think about was that some prick was getting all up and personal with my ass crack.
Breathe. Just fucking breathe.
I couldn’t.
Agitated and searching for distraction, I made the mistake of glancing over at Chaos again and found him watching me.
I raised an eyebrow as gloved fingers began tracing the same path I’d just watched them make over Chaos’s body. “Just making sure your dick is bigger?” I managed to get out while every muscle in my body tensed at the cop’s touch.
“I don’t need to see your dick to know it is.”
“You fucking wish.” I was no slouch in the dick department and I knew it. I had no problem showing off what that fucker up in the clouds had blessed me with.
As long as it wasn’t some asshole cop touching me when I did it.
The corner of Chaos’s mouth lifted when he was guided to a shower room where Simon was yelping like a little girl that the water he was being hosed down with was too cold.
I gritted my teeth for the rest of my search and died a bit inside as I was hosed off with some sort of lice wash-down which smelled like chemicals and seemed like fucking bullshit. “Is anyone actually going to charge us with something?” I asked over the din of the spray hitting the metal wall behind me and the gurgling of the drains beneath our feet. I fought the chattering of my teeth. “Or is this all just to remind us that we’re Saint View pieces of shit who don’t deserve rights?”
I argued with my cop, while Chaos’s gave him a fresh prison jumpsuit to put on and told him his clothes were being sent away for testing. Chaos just shook his head and started putting on the clothes like the good boy he was.
For fuck’s sake. Have some balls .
“That how you became the leader of the Sinners?” I asked him, voice dripping with derision. “By saying yes sir, no sir, how about I bend over for you, sir? You fuck your way to the top of that gang?”
“You talk a lot,” Chaos muttered from where he was toweling off. “You ever try just shutting up for once?”
“I could, but I don’t want to. It’s called having a personality.” I looked over at him as he sat on the bench to pull on a pair of gray woolen socks that seemed scratchy enough to use as an exfoliator. “You should try it sometime.”
He glanced up at me. “Would I have to talk as much shit as you do? If so, no thanks.”
“Your words cut so deep, Chaos,” I said sarcastically. “How will I ever recover?”
He rolled his eyes, and I was semi satisfied I’d gotten to have the last word. It was a cheap thrill, but then so were half the women I slept with, so whatever.
“Whitling!” a cop called from out the front. “There’s a lawyer out here to see you. Says he’s your brother.”
I raised my head in interest. Liam, despite being Chaos’ brother, was also a friend of War’s. He’d gotten more than one of us out of the slammer over the years.
The guard held the door open, and Chaos stood to walk toward him.
I stepped in front before he could leave the room and grabbed his arm. “Tell Liam he needs to get me out too.”
Chaos stared down at my hand on his arm and then back up at me.
I quickly released the hold I had on him, the back of my neck burning for no good reason.
Chaos just leaned in so far his warm breath brushed over the bare skin of my neck. “I could, but I don’t want to,” he said, parroting my words back at me. He grinned. “Enjoy spending the night in jail with Simon. He seems pretty obsessed with my dick too, so maybe the two of you will have something to talk about.”