That rubbed me the wrong way.
I pursed my lips. “Well, considering the man in question picked up a bleeding and injured woman who he didn’t know from Eve and took her to the hospital, I’d say he was a good citizen,” I snapped, not really believing the words entirely, but I was angry. Plus I was feeling strangely protective of the man I’d been so sure was a villain until seconds ago.
“You caught up with them?” Troy demanded, changing his angle and line of questioning. “The Sons?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. His granite expression and the question in general were ridiculous.
He did not appreciate me laughing if his scowl was anything to go by.
“You’re supposed to ‘know me,’ remember?” I said once I’d gotten a hold of myself. “Well, knowing me, you’ve got the answer to your question whether or not I’m ‘caught up’ with the resident motorcycle club.” I stood, my chair screeching slightly. And the world might’ve tilted too, but I managed to recover before I could do anything embarrassing like faint.
“But I will be getting ‘caught up’ with them, as you say. As in going over there and educating them on how towing a car that doesn’t belong to them is so not freaking cool,” I hissed.
Troy’s face had lost its marble by the time I finished speaking. He was grinning.
“This isn’t funny,” I snapped, hating that I couldn’t command sass.
“I disagree. Never seen you pissed before,” he replied, voice warm again. “It’s cute. And funny.”
I let the words deflect off me. I couldn’t handle being called cute right then. “It’s not meant to be funny,” I sighed, my anger leaking out of me like I’d been a half-inflated balloon. “Now, are you going to kindly give me a ride over to the garage where my car is being held hostage?” The realization that I didn’t have a vehicle and the Sons compound was all the way across town made me swallow my pride instead of storming out of there like I’d planned. Plus, I didn’t do things like snap at police officers and storm off.
Troy’s grin disappeared. “You’re not going over there,” he said, voice firm. “I’ll handle it.”
I folded my arms, narrowing my eyes at him. “Oh, you’re mistaken. I’m going. This is my responsibility. And you’re not ‘handling it.’” I air-quoted his masculine words. “I’m quite capable of doing so. I was merely asking for a ride because my entire body feels like it was hit by a truck, not my Hyundai. But I’ll walk if you won’t give me a ride. And you’re not stopping me. Unless you try to lock me up, and you’ve already promised you wouldn’t do so.” I gave him a hard look. “You don’t seem to be a man who breaks promises, are you, Troy?”
He stared at me for a long moment, likely measuring his chances of being able to talk me out of it. He had probably thought me quiet and meek; that’s how most people saw me because I didn’t give them a chance to see anything else. I was quiet by choice, and definitely not meek.
Hence him sighing, snatching his keys off the table and muttering, “Let’s go.”
I followed him with a triumphant grin, trying to focus on the pain that came with walking instead of the butterflies crawling up my throat at the prospect of what I was about to do.
Gage
“Fifty bucks says there’s a body in the trunk,” Lucky said from where he’d leaned against the door of the garage after Gage unloaded the Hyundai and started assessing the damage.
He might not have done mechanic work on principle, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at it.
He was the best.
Gage made it a point to become the best at everything he did.
Mechanics.
Riding his bike.
Making bombs.
Killing people.
Becoming addicted to heroin.
Ruining his life.
He could’ve made a good living fixing cars. If he wanted to make a living. But he wasn’t living. His demons wouldn’t let him. They needed blood. Death. Pain.
“No, I think it’s some industrial-grade plutonium,” Brock said from across the car, assessing the trunk with a little apprehension. The fucker was never apprehensive, almost as ruthless as Gage when it came to killing. But even his brothers knew Gage didn’t have control over himself completely. So even the most fearless of his brothers treated him like expired dynamite.
Which wasn’t too far from the truth. Except expired dynamite was safer to handle.
“I’ll raise that to a hundred,” Brock said to Lucky, folding his arms and grinning.
“Done,” Lucky replied. “I think it’s to do with his woman,” he guessed correctly.
There was a loaded pause. Gage focused on the car.
“Woman?” Brock repeated, shocked. “No way. There’s more chance of the plutonium.”
“Nope,” Lucky replied. “It’s to do with a woman. I’m almost sure of it. Or there’s also a good chance of dead bodies in the trunk because, well, it’s Gage.”