When I come out, the others have already entered the office. I knock my knuckles on the doorframe and go inside.
“Close the door, Ruby,” Jameson instructs. They’re all sat around Animal’s desk, Animal squeezing a ball in his hands, leaning back in his chair.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Interrogation.” Lily sends a glare across the table.
“If it was an interrogation, you’d be tied to the chair,” Animal warns her. A chill washes over my skin, the temperature in the room dropping a few degrees.
“We just want to know what you can tell us about this Fisher,” my brother informs me, nodding his head with reassurance.
Taking one of the empty seats, I hold my hands out and shrug. “I don’t know much but of course I’ll cooperate. I want that asshole dead.”
“That’s the plan.” Animal places the ball down and scoots his chair forward. “Start with how you know him.”
I regurgitate what I already told Jameson about Mother’s debt and the job. “I didn’t know he was a brother until it was too late.”
“Do you know where it was they took you, where they tortured Carnage? Could you point it out if we brought up a map?” He taps a few buttons on his computer and spins the screen around.
“Sure.” I study the map, thinking about the route we took to get there. Placing my finger on the map, I say, “Here. It’s a meat factory of some sort. It had large industrial freezers.”
“How many men were there?”
I think about the bar. There were at least seven people in on his capture without counting Fisher and his lacky. And when we got to the factory, there were more.
“I saw at least twelve brothers, maybe more. It was a big place, and I didn’t see it all.”
“Did Fisher mention his motive to you?” Jameson asks.
“No. I assumed he was working for the other men who showed up—the ones who did the torturing.” I shudder thinking about what they were doing to Ezekiel while I was just waiting around outside.
“Anything else you can tell us?” Animal asks, his face pinched in concentration.
“Fisher will want me dead for betraying him.”
“That will never happen,” Jameson growls.
“You could use me to bait him.”
“No,” Jameson snaps.
A soft hand comes down on my shoulder. “Fuck that shit, Ruby. Let them find him another way.”
“We will find him another way,” Animal assures.
“Can we go now?” Lily directs her question to Jameson, who blows out an exasperated breath.
“I’d like you to stick around until Ink’s finished going over Hellmade surveillance in case he needs you to look at anything.”
“I already told you what I know—which is nothing. Jameson only let me out of his sight to pee. He was a stage five clinger.”
“You’ll stick around until you’re told you can leave, then you’ll be going back to the house with Ruby and Melanie,” Jameson informs her.
Her mouth goes to open, but I grab her knee and shake my head for her to just shut up. She’s going to end up locked up like my mother the way her mouth keeps running. She has no respect—and that shit isn’t tolerated here.
“What’s going to happen with my mother?” I ask, my thoughts toward her feeling jumbled and frayed.
“I brought her medicine that will take the edge off and slowly ween her from her addiction.”
“She won’t want to get clean.” I find my shoulders curling in. I’m not enough for her to want to be clean, and that makes me feel like less.
“Her other option is a bullet,” Jameson growls, turning my stomach.
Melanie slaps his leg and communicates something with him via a scowl on her face.
“It’s your call where she’s concerned,” he reluctantly tells me, looking back to Melanie for praise.
“Thank you,” I say to him while directing my gaze to her.
Chapter Twenty
carnage
Being on the road all the time means I don’t have a room of my own here. I share a room with all the nomads as we come and go. I keep a locker here, though, with clothes and a few weapons insides, thank fuck. I want to burn the grandpa clothes and never grow old enough to need anything like it.
Filling the sink in the bathroom attached to this room, I take care not to dampen the bandages the doc put on and give myself a wash. I need to eat and sleep, get as much strength up as possible so I can slaughter Fisher with my bare hands. Drying off, I pull on a clean pair of jeans, leaving the top buttons undone so the waistband doesn’t rub. It’s irritating having wounds in such an inconvenient place. I slip on a clean t-shirt and slide my feet into a pair of leather boots, feeling more like myself again. As I head into the kitchen to find some food, I bump into Koyn pacing the corridor while talking on the phone to someone I’m assuming is his ol’ lady. “I want to feel you too, you dirty little girl. Mmm, put them in your mouth.” Noticing he’s not alone, he smirks at me. “Now, you don’t touch that pussy anymore until I tell you you can. I’ll call you later.”