“Shut up,” I hissed down his ear, pulling him away. “Do you want to get locked up permanently?”
“No one gets locked up for having a stupid mouth, Rachel,” Dante scoffed. “You, of all people, should know that.”
“Bite me,” I said for the second time today. “Instead of insulting me, how about thanking me for bailing you out?”
“Thank you, Rachel, for using my own money to bail me out of jail. Something James would have done with or without you tagging along.”
“My time is the most valuable thing, you know.”
“Likewise. And you’re currently wasting it. Now, can we get the fuck out of here?”
Chapter 54
Dante
Within half an hour, cars arrived to take us to The Greasy Spoon. We couldn’t return to the clubhouse yet. It was still littered with bodies and the last thing we needed was to run into any rogue police. Our guys were working hard in the background to scrub this from the database, but nothing would erase the memories of those cops.
They already had it in for us. This was just going to make things a million times worse.
“I heard Bradley came to see you,” I said to Rachel, in order to break the awkward silence. I could tell she was still pissed at me for our earlier argument before shit had literally hit the fan.
“Did you?” She murmured, pursing her lips. “Well, if you’ve already been informed, there’s no point in me repeating it. No doubt you’ve already been given an intricate play-by-play.”
“Really?” I sighed, shooting a quick glance at her before focusing on the road again. “Are we back to the attitude?”
“What attitude would that be? We’re back to how things always are, Dante. Do you think I’ve forgotten the way you treated me? Or is this another thing that I’m expected to brush under the carpet and never mention again?”
“I’m not going to argue with you—”
“Shocker. We only ever argue on your terms. I forget I’m meant to be the dutiful old lady, never speaking out of turn.”
“As much as I’d love to indulge your little brat kink and put you in your place…” she scoffed, interrupting me. “Putting you in your placeagain, I actually need to hear from you what happened with Bradley,” I finished, ignoring her scoffs and eye rolls.
“Nothing happened. It was the same old, same old.”
“What do you mean?” I shot her another glance. “How many times has he approached you?”
She smirked. “Seems you don’t know everything after all. How does it feel, knowing you have cameras on me, your cronies watching me, and a tracking device on my phone, and yet I’m still able to keep secrets? I’d be feeling pretty embarrassed if I were you.”
“I’m feeling pretty fucking irritated,” I said through clenched teeth, my hands tightening on the steering wheel. What was it about this woman that drove me so fucking mad? Anyone else I was able to ignore without losing my temper, but something about her had me going from zero to a hundred real damn quick.
“So, what’s new there? You’re always irritated. And irritating.”
“It’s been a long fucking day. Can we put a pin in this argument and resume it later? I’d just like to know the details.”
“Fine,” she said with a sigh, surprising me with how easily she gave in. Which didn’t actually make me feel any better. In fact, it caused a knot to form in my stomach, because whenever Rachel was being easy, it usually meant I wouldn’t like what she had to say. This was just like her revelations during the drinking game all over again. She had given up that information far too easily, and I hadn’t liked that either.
“He basically said that he knew I had murdered Alex, and that there were wounds on his body that indicated self-defence. There was some of my DNA under his fingernails, and the wounds he had indicated he had been attacked by someone of my height.”
“What else?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice calm. This could be really fucking dangerous if Bradley chose to pursue this.
“He said he knew Macbeth was dead, and that Ben had been murdered too. He also mentioned Callum and how he was missing. Oh, and do you want to know what the cherry on the cake is? He said that one wrong move from me, and he would have my dad thrown back in jail for perverting the course of justice and throw me in jail for being a mass murderer. So, that was a fun conversation.”
“Right,” I said slowly, thinking over my words very carefully before I voiced them. “This isn’t the end of the world.”
“Nope,” she said, popping the P. “Just the end of my freedom.”
“The information he has on Alex isn’t ideal. I’ll admit that. But we can spin it to make it look like Bradley has a grudge against us – which he does. We’ve enough on him to press for harassment charges should he try to take his information any further. The police don’t like dealing with the Devil’s at the best of times, so now that you’re a part of us, I can’t see them wanting to investigate. It just makes things more difficult for them.”
