15. Quake
QUAKE
“Ishould probably get back to Melissa.”
Whitney might not regret the kiss, but she’s suddenly shy, and I can tell something is going on in that head of hers. Figuring out whether it’s the moment we shared, Tom, Melissa, or something else entirely will have to wait, though, because I shouldn’t have been gone this long.
“Yeah,” I say, thrusting a hand through my hair. “I need to get back to the others, but I should be back in a few hours. Maybe we can watch a movie or something?”
“Sounds like fun.”
I press my palm against the biometric lock, and the door slides open. Once I know she’s settled, I leave, and the walk across the clubhouse, through the common room to the large space where church is held is really fucking long.
I tell myself not to think about the kiss. Unfortunately, my traitorous brain refuses to cooperate. So does my cock, if I’m being honest.
Forcing my thoughts to what Romeo uncovered, I manage to cool the lust coursing through my veins by the time I step into the room.
Romeo is waiting for me, as are Lyric and Zombie. One look at my face and Lyric immediately rises from his chair.
"You tell her?"
“Not everything but enough.”
"And?"
I think about her reaction, the shock, the betrayal, the hurt. And that leads to thinking about the kiss which isn’t something they need to know.
"She's taking it hard."
"Can't fucking blame her," Zombie mutters.
"Nope."
I drop into a chair and slide Romeo's tablet across the table. The photo of the volunteer is still pulled up, and I study it.
“Figure anything else out?” I ask.
Lyric shakes his head. “Not much. Tom Wilkins, volunteer at Sacred Haven for six years, as far as we can tell.”
“Too damn long,” I snarl.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Zombie says. “Piece of shit also volunteers at an elementary school and park, doing lawn care. His employment of record is as a groundskeeper at the college where Jackie attends, which further supports the ties between him and Keith, which isn’t his real name, by the way.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I shout.
“Keith is his middle name. I have no idea how that slipped by us when we invited him to prospect. The only explanation I can come up with is that there are bigger players here. People who can change legal documents, falsify records, that kinda shit.”
“I’m gonna kill him,” I promise.
“Yeah, you are. But we need to confirm all of this first,” Lyric says. “Which is why I called him.”
My head snaps up. “What?”
“He’s on his way in. Told him we had a job for him to do. He was all too eager to jump on it.”
“We’ve only got bits and pieces, Quake,” Zombie adds. “We need information. Can you keep your shit together long enough to get it?”
“With Keith, yeah,” I assure them. “If it were Tom coming in, that might be a different story. He hurt Melissa.”
“We don’t know that for sure, not yet,” Lyric reminds me.
I glare at him. “The fuck we don’t. He’s the only person it could be.”
“Which we need to confirm.”
Heaving a sigh, I push away from the table. “Fine. I’ll get what we need.”
I stride to the door, but before I can yank it open, Lyric’s words stop me.
“You should call Carrie.”
I whirl around. “Why?”
“Quake, she’s Melissa’s caseworker.”
“And I don’t know that we can trust her,” I snap.
“I get that,” he placates. “But the last thing we need is for her to be working against us which is exactly what will happen if we don’t keep her in the loop.
I’m not saying you have to share everything.
What if you just tell her that you and Whitney have managed to get Melissa to open up a little and that it’s a volunteer at Sacred Haven?
No names, no ties to the club, just the bare minimum. ”
“Fine.”
I head outside to call Carrie and wait for Keith. The caseworker doesn’t answer, which doesn’t surprise me, so I send her a text.
Me: Melissa still not talking much but she’s let enough slip that we think it’s a volunteer at SH. No name yet
I shove my phone into my cut, not bothering to watch for a reply. She’s kept us waiting long enough, now it’s her turn.
Keith pulls into the lot twenty minutes later, parks his Harley, and stalks toward the entrance. He doesn’t even notice me.
“Prospect!” I call, and he halts with the door halfway open. “Wait up.”
“Hey, Quake,” he greets. “What’s up? Lyric said there’s a job for me to do.”
“Yep,” I quip. “You’re with me.”
I lead him through the common room. Lyric, Romeo, and Zombie are there, and I know they’re watching. We walk down one of the corridors, and Keith is right there with me, step for step.
“So, how have you been?” he asks, attempting to strike up a conversation. I don’t take the bait. Not yet. “That good, huh?”
We reach the end of the corridor, and I hang a left. “Shit’s been hitting the fan,” I finally say, giving him just a little bit.
“No way, bro. Wha—”
With lightning-quick moves, I have him pinned against the wall, my hand around his throat. “I’m not your fucking bro,” I sneer. “You’re a prospect. The whole bro thing doesn’t apply.”
He wheezes when I let him go. “Right, got it. Sorry.”
“You will be,” I mutter under my breath.
A minute later, we reach our destination.
“Ah, a cleanup job,” he says.
“Why else would we be at the chambers?” I counter, brow arched.
The lock disengages when I press my palm on the scanner, and I step aside, motioning him to enter before me.
The lights automatically flicker to life once there’s movement in the space, and I know the second Keith realizes his predicament because his spine stiffens, and he reaches for the knife he likes to carry.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I warn, closing the distance between us and yanking the knife from his pocket and shoving him across the room.
Keith stumbles, catching himself on the opposite wall. The door latches behind me just as he turns around, fear in his eyes.
“What’s going on, Quake?” he asks.
“Jackie.”
His jaw clenches. “That bitch. What’d she do?”
“That bitch didn’t do shit,” I say with a hollow laugh. “You, on the other hand, have gotten your hands all kinds of dirty.” I pull my gun from my waistband and close the distance between us, placing the barrel under his chin. “Tell me, bro, how’d you get her to trust you?”
All traces of fear disappear, and in its place is the cocky smirk of a man-child who thinks he’s smarter than he is. “You want a piece of the action? Is that what this is?”
Pointing the gun at his knee, I pull the trigger. He screams, dropping to the floor.
“What the fuck?”
“Answer the goddamn question!”
He shrugs nonchalantly, and that pisses me off so I shoot a bullet into his shoulder. His screams fuel my rage.
“It w-wasn’t hard,” he finally says, trying to breathe through the pain. “Girls like that always have a thing for bad boys. She was just waiting to let her freak flag fly once she was out from under the thumb of her parents.”
That doesn’t jive with what we found out about her. She’s smart, incredibly so. And all evidence points to a loving family, a girl who had the world in front of her and was doing everything she could to claim her little piece.
“So, you fuck her,” I snap, even though that goes against everything I believe in. She’s only sixteen, after all. But even I can admit that that’s preferable to what’s really going on. “You don’t traffic her.”
“Traffic?” he counters. “Is that what you think I was doing?”
For a brief second, doubt creeps in. Then I remember that Keith is in a vulnerable position and will say anything if he thinks it’ll save his ass.
“What would you call it?” I ask.
“I’d call it my civic duty,” he replies. “You see, girls like Jackie need to be taught their place, and that’s not in a classroom or in a position of power. It’s flat on her fucking back, earning me money and satisfying the people I answer to.”
Ah, there it is.
“And who do you answer to? Tom?”
He laughs. “Tom? Seriously?”
“You two went to high school together,” I remind him. “He volunteers at Sacred Haven where one of their residents was hurt. The two of you are two peas in a sick twisted pod.”
“Tom is sick,” he snaps. “He’s the one who likes the little girls, and he doesn’t share. Besides, from what he told me, the girl you’re referring to is just fine. She got away.”
I put a bullet in his other kneecap.
“He ripped her shirt, scared her shitless, and who knows how many others are out there that he’s done the same thing or worse,” I rage.
“And he’s been told not to touch the product,” Keith cries, his body trembling from pain and the loss of blood. “I’m not his babysitter. It’s not my fault he takes things too far.”
“Who is his babysitter?” I demand.
“We both know you’re gonna kill me no matter what so why should I tell you?”
“Because I can make your death a little quicker if you do.”
“Bullshit,” he says. “I’m not giving you names.”
I crouch in front of him and stab my gun into his crotch. “Sure about that?”
He grins, and it’s the grin of pure evil. “Do your worst.”
I pull the trigger, taking out his dick. Next, I shoot him in the stomach, then the same shoulder as before. When he’s slumped over in a pool of his own blood, I point the gun between his eyes and put a hole in his head.
Rising to my full height, I take a deep breath, inhaling the coppery scent. I’m covered in blood spatter and in desperate need of a shower, but first, I need to fill in my brothers.
“So you got jack shit,” Lyric barks five minutes later after sending Scrubs to do clean up of the chambers and I fill him in.
“He confirmed that it was Tom who hurt Melissa,” I remind him.
“But we don’t know who’s running the show,” Zombie snaps. “We needed that info.”
“He wasn’t going to talk.”
“How the fuck can you be so sure?” Pres demands.
“Because I shot enough holes in him that if he was gonna break, he would’ve.”
Lyric glares at me, and I worry that he’s going to sanction a punishment for going off book, and while he doesn’t outright issue a punishment, what he orders is far worse.
“Fine. But now you need to push Melissa harder,” he says. “I know she’s scared, and it’s going to be hard on her, but we need to know who the fuck we’re dealing with.”