That could mean all kinds of things, but the way he keeps eye contact with me tells me it’s probably best if I don’t know. Not the specifics anyway. I’m okay with just knowing it’s settled. I don’t care if he’s dead or alive, just that I don’t have to see him again and I won’t be held responsible for it.
I’m not aviolent person. Not really. I’m good at fighting I, like the output of energy and the adrenaline rush. I don’t carry many grudges and rarely wish ill on someone, unless they deserve it. Never killed a person, but I think I could do it with little remorse, depending on the circumstances. Some people deserve short lives, others long. I don’t decide who gets which. But if Ireallyhad to make the choice? I think I could.
Got a feeling Domino and his boys have had to make the choice before. They don’t seem like the psycho types who enjoy it enough to boast about taking a life or keep trophies. At least none of them are mounted on any walls or displayed in the open. If they did or I got any sense that they did, maybe I’d feel differently sitting with them. But I don’t. If they killed someone, I feel like it would be for a reason. One I might even agree with. And if I can’t judge myself for those thoughts, I can’t judge others.
“How did you find them? I mean, how did you know to look for them in particular? Did you get some kind of notice, or were you just checking on everything?” I ask.
“It’s the pictures,” Mickey says as he leans forward. His seat is far enough back from the table that he has the space to rest his arms on his knees without being cramped.
I don’t get it, so I look at Domino, expecting him to dumb it down enough for me to follow.
He releases a heavy sigh as he stretches out his legs and scratches the back of his neck before moving it to the side to crack it, then letting his arms fall to his sides.
“We took pics of everything before the cop showed last night and sent them to our tech guy back in Kansas. We alsohad him hack the PD to get the fingerprints and any other physical evidence they found on them.”
“You got a print?” I’m not surprised by the hacking or them taking the photos. Might not know much about the club, but I can make an educated guess. No one affiliated with the Hounds seems the type to just ignore someone being stalked. If they did, we wouldn’t be here now.
He shakes his head. “No. They were clean. The guy doing this was smart enough to not leave a single piece of evidence on them.”
“Again,” I say, looking around the group and then back at Domino, “how did you know to look into the driver and the fighter?” I’m not really a patient person. You’d think I was, because I never attack first, and I take extra steps to prep my metals and put time between securing parts together to avoid mistakes. But outside of those two aspects, I’m not really good at waiting. Christmas is the worst. I open every gift right away, no matter if I’m told to wait.
“The pictures were scanned, and a date was stamped on each one. It was small, but it was there, like from an old-school camera or something. Not something every camera has these days. Every date for the last three months was there, except that night. Not a single photo from that night was included in the pack. I told my boys to look into it when we found it out,” Domino says with a shrug.
“When did you find that out?”
“Last night. After we left,” Rooster supplies. “Once you kicked us out, we got the call from Kansas about there being no prints. Domino was up half the night looking over the photos till he found that date missing at four this morning.”
This time, when I look at the man beside him, I tilt my head. Rooster just told me more than he probably should have, and I don’t ignore the narrowed look he gave his boss a second ago. Domino isn’t looking at me but rather glaring at the man who just spoke.
His friend is making sure I get that Domino is into me. I got it before all of this. Not just because of his massive dick inside me, stretching me so much thatI can still feel its phantom touch, but because of how he treats me. I’m not a prize to be won like how so many act after I win a fight. I’m also not a pushover. He takes my words, listens, and responds. We might not agree on everything, but he treats me as an equal. Something I don’t see a lot of in my friends’ current and former relationships.
“Thank you.” It takes a minute, but he finally turns and looks at me. I try to show him how grateful I am in my expression. That I get what isn’t being said. Even after I said good night and kicked everyone out at just past midnight, he stayed up and hunted, only going to bed after he found something.
I slowly slide my fingers toward him, over his hand that’s now resting on his perfect thigh, and squeeze. He grips my hand tightly, not letting go. Not that I want him to. At least not yet.
I might not need a man, but in this moment?
I want one.
One in particular.
Chapter 17—Domino
“Come in,” I call out to the person knocking on my office door.
Mickey opens it, walks through, shuts it again, and then sits down. He gets comfortable. Too comfortable in my opinion, kicking his feet up even. But the guy doesn’t put them on my desk, just the other chair’s armrest.
Unlike back home, my office is pretty big. Not bedroom-size, but big enough for a few chairs, even a couch on the back wall. Haven’t put one in yet, though. I’m debating if I want to have that many of these fuckers in here, and a couch is basically an open invitation for anyone to stop in and relax. My presidency might just be a temporary thing, but I’m still figuring out how I want to run shit while I have it.
“Where’s the missus?” Mickey grins a mile wide as I glance up from doing some calculations.
Sure, the computer would be faster, but sometimes I just need to do it manually. Not only to keep my hands and brain busy, but it’s always been easier for me to find issues while going line by line by hand than looking at a computer screen and trying to figure it out. Besides, we keep the books in literal book format. If we put our account information and all the deposits and transfers online, it could be hacked. A book is easy to burn if needed; a computer file is harder to permanently delete if someone is halfway decently looking for it.
I don’t rise to the bait that I know Mickey is throwing at me. If I say Viv ain’t my missus, he’ll spew some shit about why we’re putting so much club backing into finding a stalker if she isn’t. Not that we don’t do this shit for random people when we see issues like the ones she’s having, but he’ll still make it a thing. I know it. Hell, I would do the same thing if the roles were reversed.
“At the gym.”
He tilts his head and squints. “Was just there. She wasn’t.”
