“That can’t possibly be me,” I said with a smile so wide it made the bruises on my face hurt.
“No, no, of course not. But since you’re here…” he said, opening the passenger side door for me.
I climbed in.
And as Dezi slammed the door, I couldn’t help but replay Tolls’s words in my head.
You can lean on other people, you know.
And, for maybe the first time in my life, I was starting to believe that was possible.
Because of an arms-dealing biker with Bad News written all over him.
CHAPTER TEN
Dezi
I don’t know what made me so skeptical about this shit, but I was sure, down to my fucking bones sure, that something was hinky about Theo’s car situation.
I mean, fine. If it was just a normal accident like she’d gotten distracted or someone pulled out in front of her, making her overcorrect and hit a tree, then, yeah, that would make sense to me.
But not brand-new brakes making the pedal go to the floor.
That shit just didn’t feel right to me.
“I’m too fucking wasted for this,” Seth said, looking up at the barbed wire security fence at the impound lot.
“Not wasted enough if you’re being a little bitch about a fence,” I shot back.
“What if there’s some nasty-ass dog in there?” Seth asked.
“That’s why we brought Voss,” I said, shrugging. “He can distract the dog. I can go find the car. And you can check it and confirm my suspicions.”
If Voss had any issues with the plan, he kept them to himself.
“Come on. It’s just a little barbed wire,” I said, tossing my cut up over it as I climbed the fence.
“Says the guy who was walking around with a broken wrist last year, claiming it was ‘just a little sore’ even though you couldn’t even fucking move it,” Seth grumbled.
But he followed me up.
Voss was last, but scaled the fence like he’d done it a million times. And since Valen claimed that Voss had been a “junkyard dog” in his past life, I figured maybe he had.
“You know we could have just… come when they were open tomorrow,” Seth reasoned as we started to walk down the rows of crushed cars.
“I want to know now,” I insisted.
Why?
Yeah, I had no clue.
It wasn’t like me.
But I could barely wait to drive back and pick up the guys to get to the lot to confirm my suspicions.
I didn’t have a single doubt that I was right.
But Seth had the know-how about that kind of shit, with his old man being so into cars.
To be fair, he’d been hitting the shots hard with the girls, and he was absolutely too wasted for petty crime, but that wasn’t going to stop me.
“You said it was puke yellow?” Seth asked, sure he’d misheard me the first time.
“Yep. The most hideous color you can think of.”
“Over there,” Voss called. In his version of a whisper.
But because his voice was deep as shit, it wasn’t exactly quiet, and Seth and I both tensed as we heard a deep, angry bark approaching.
Just one.
I guess we could call that a small miracle. One angry junkyard dog was definitely better than a pack of them.
“You’re not going to fucking shoot it,” I said when Seth instinctively went for his gun.
“No, but maybe shoot near it and scare it.”
But there was no need.
One minute, the massive Rottie was barreling toward us, teeth bared, bark ferocious.
The next, Voss was taking a step toward it, seeming to keep hard eye contact.
And I shit you not… the dog whimpered and went back a step.
“Sit,” Voss demanded.
Then it did.
“What the fuck kind of magic shit was that?” Seth asked as Voss reached out to pat the dog’s head.
“You guys go find the car,” Voss said, reaching down to grab the dog’s collar, just holding him there even though the damn thing seemed calm as could be.
We didn’t stop to question him.
We just rushed ahead and away from the dog. And a couple of minutes later, we came across her car.
“Shit, man. She got off kind of lucky. The airbags on this thing suck ass.”
It was an ancient car, so that didn’t surprise me. But I don’t think I was fully prepared for the way my stomach tightened seeing the front crushed in. And Theo’s blood on the driver’s side window.
“Give me the light,” Seth demanded as he found an old mostly-dry piece of cardboard and slid it under the car. “You owe me for this,” he added as he got on his back and started to shimmy under the car.
It was a tight-ass fit, but he made it.
“I mean… yeah,” he concluded a few moments later as he slid back out. “I’m no expert at this shit, but I’d say they look cut to me.”
“Fucking knew it,” I said, exhaling hard.
“Now the question is… who the hell would want to cut her lines?”