Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 72401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
I looked down at the cuts and bite marks. “It’s not too bad. She was just scared.”
He grumbled something under his breath, and although I didn’t hear it very clearly, I was fairly positive it had something to do with “gator bait.”
“Silas called. He asked me to tell you that he wants you to stop by later on your way home from here,” Tunnel said as he came to a stop at the swing connected to the porch’s ceiling and sat down.
“Okay,” Cleo agreed. “Thanks.”
“Why didn’t he just call you?” I wondered as he started placing Batman Band-Aids over my various cuts.
“My phone’s not behaving. It’s been out of whack for going on a week now and doesn’t even work most of the time. That’s why I haven’t called you. The charger I have for work doesn’t work right, either,” he said as he placed the last Band-Aid on.
So that was why he hadn’t been calling me. Huh. I guess that was a good enough excuse. “I’d been wondering where you were.”
“Just work. Or what used to be work. Don’t know what they’re going to do in two days when my shift’s back up again. Mac is still out. He has pneumonia now, and all the other shifts have been putting in just as much work as I have,” Cleo said as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close to his side.
I leaned into him, laying my head on his shoulder. “What are you going to do with all your free time?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Guess we’ll see. I’m sure Silas has something for me to do; if anything else, I can always pull a couple of shifts at Halligans and Handcuffs.”
“You’d probably make shit money there. You’re not nice enough to work the bar or any of the tables. The only thing you could do is cook, and we already know you don’t do that,” Loki returned.
I looked at Loki and winked at him. “Cleo’s a nice man. You just have to appeal to his sense of interest.”
Trance, who’d been quiet up until now, snorted. “I’m not sure that’s the way most people work. I, of course, am a people person. Day in and day out I make an effort to at least appear like I care. That’s the problem with Cleo-Patrick. If he’s not interested, he’s not going to try. Cleo-Patrick doesn’t care enough about other people to waste his effort.”
I turned to Cleo. “Why do they call you Cleo-Patrick?”
He rolled his eyes down to mine. “That’s just a nickname I got when I first entered the club. They said I resembled an Egyptian pharaoh or some shit, and started calling me Cleo-Patrick as opposed to Cleopatra. Name stuck, but I wasn’t answering to Cleo-Patrick, so they shortened it to Cleo. Cleo I can handle.”
I giggled. “That’s cute.”
He squeezed my waist. “I’m not cute.”
“Of course you’re not,” I lied.
***
Cleo
“Silas didn’t sound like he was going to let you quit work, though, from what he told me.” Tunnel said. “What he made it sound like was that he had plans in motion, and that you were supposed to go to your assigned shift like normal.”
“I’m not going back to that fucked up place,” Cleo said darkly.
“No, listen. If you do go back, you pretend everything is normal.” Tunnel said waving his hand in the air. “Just think about you being on the inside; you’ll be right there, privy to all that goes on. Alonzo will slip, I’m sure of it. You’ll be there to catch it. There won’t be a better opportunity to get some ears in there, either.”
Loki concurred, “Yeah, that’d work really well. I have some new toys we can throw in his office. Just got them from Jack and Max.”
Jack and Max were two of the founding members of Free.
Free was a custom bike repair/motorcycle design shop in Kilgore, Texas.
Sam was the owner of the shop and the president of that chapter of the Dixie Wardens..
He was the brother of Sebastian and son of Silas from our motorcycle club.
Apparently, the two brothers hadn’t even known about each other until just a few years ago.
I’d been in the Air Force at the time, so I wasn’t as in the know to some shit, such as how they were all lovey dovey all of a sudden, as the others were.
However, I did know that Jack and Max’s shit was quality, and that whatever they’d have, would work perfectly.
“Well, I guess we’ll be going then. I’ll run by there on the way home, and then go from there. You ready?” I asked Rue.
She looked at me and nodded. “Yep, just let me go say bye to Audrey.”
I nodded and Rue got up to leave.
We all watched her go before we moved on to another hard topic.
The rape of a member’s sister.
“You okay?” I asked once the door closed.
Tunnel, the one I’d been speaking to, looked up, and I could see the barely contained fury that lit his eyes. “No.”
I understood that. Or at least tried to.
Nothing beyond a few broken hearts had happened to any of my sisters.
I don’t even know what I’d do if I found out that one of them had been violated in such a way as Tunnel’s had been.
“The DNA, what little of it there was, was sent through the police database early this morning. There weren’t any matches,” Loki informed us.
I had a feeling that Tunnel already knew that; which happened to only add to his bad mood.
And who could blame him?
“I know, just fuck. She had no physical description of the man. She was in the dark, and didn’t see a goddamned thing. That fucking hospital is about to hear it, too. I’m so fucking mad that they make their ‘valued’ employees walk that far away in the goddamned dark,” he growled, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Then she told me what she did today, and, just fuck!”
His yell reverberated through the night.
I silently agreed.
The night I found Rue in the parking lot, I could’ve just as easily been someone else.