“That’s enough!” I roar, startling everyone, and the room goes silent. My gaze is on Arson, and his smirk immediately drops, and a mask of indifference covers it. He doesn’t seem to realize I’m watching him, his gaze on his men as he stands as well, like he’s about to rebuke them, but I don’t give him a chance. “All of you sit your asses down, now,” I order furiously, slamming the door behind me.
“Bullet,” Arson starts, but the look on my face stops him and he goes silent, though I don’t miss the anger flash in his eyes. He’ll take it as a slight but I don’t give a flying fuck.
“The lot of you can shut the hell up,” I tell them all, not bothering to sit in my seat. I have a point to make, and I’m doing it standing. While I know my own brothers aren’t going to be the one to start this shit show, no favoritism can be seen at this critical moment. “Instead of celebrating that our brother is home,alive, you’re in here arguing and fighting. I don’t give a fuck what was said. Or done. All of you will have your turn to speak once we get into this, but my only concern right now is keeping Hulk and Cobra alive, and the rest of us alive by making a plan to take down Vlad and his men. Including Nikolai.”
“Funny way of showing it,” I hear someone mutter, drawing my attention. My gaze whips to the voice, and I see Crook’s hard gaze looking back at me.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Something to share?” I ask icily.
Crook glances at Arson, but Arson doesn’t even glance at him, he just watches me. “You bring us in here, and we have one of our men beaten to a pulp helping one of yours. Now, instead of calling us in and forming a plan together, you and your men charge in and just call us in for back-up. So much for being an alliance.”
There’s a loud chorus of agreements from almost all of the Misfits but a couple.
Silver continues, an angry scowl on his face. “We didn’t even get the choice of avenging our own brother who?—”
“Who’s going to fucking live,” Viper interjects tersely, his blue eyes icy cold as he glares at both Silver and Crook. “Cobra is alive, awake, and will heal with time. Hulk was the one who was tortured for days, who barely made it out on his own two feet. You want to get your licks in at Nikolai and Vlad, you’ll have yourchance, but you don’t get to sit here and make out that your man is worse off.”
“As for the rest of it, we let you know as soon as we realized we had the location,” I continue, looking straight at Arson. “You were all off on the other side of the city. Did you expect us to sit around and hope that you’d get there in time? We both know that if it was Cobra or any of your other brothers in your own MC, you’d have gone and called us to meet you there. That’s how shit works. So you don’t get to act pissed off that we did the exact same thing you would have fucking done.”
“How do we know we can trust that bitch anyway?” Silver demands, leaning forward. “She and those kids show up, and now we suddenly have a location? She’s probably a plant for Vlad so that he and his soldiers can come in and just wipe us out. Same for those two brats. They’re probably not even her siblings and some stupid runts that Vlad is using to control her.”
“I say we need to find out what she knows,” Crook agrees. Then he gives a cruel smile. “And I know just the way to find out. Give me an hour, and she’ll be begging to squeal.”
There’s a round of laughter from some of the others like they know exactly what Crook is implying. The tension and fury in the room rises, and I barely control myself from pulling my gun and shooting the fucker. And any of the others that laughed like this is something normal that they do.
Arson immediately realizes the looks they’re getting, and the fury, because he quickly shuts Crook and the others up with a wave of his hand. “That was in poor taste,” Arson says simply. “And he doesn’t mean it the way you’re taking it. Crook is our man if we want to get information out of people, men or women. He has a great way of getting people to talk. Just like some of your own men probably are.”
None of us are buying that bullshit. There has never been a moment clearer than this one of just how different our clubs are.It’s also the moment where I want to end our alliance once and for all and send them on their way, but until we have the identity of our rat, we have to be cautious.
“Our men would never make a statement like that, or attempt to joke about it,” I tell Arson simply, my tone so frigid and sharp that Arson stiffens, and an uneasiness briefly fills his eyes. I lean forward. “Those statements will never be made again while you are here,” I add, encompassing the others. “Or we’ll be finished in every way possible. As for Avery and her siblings, they stay here. If she is working for Vlad, and we have every belief that sheisn’t, then this is the place that we want her to keep an eye on her and see what happens.”
“So, you’re willing to put the safety of all of us on a belief?” Silver demands incredulously, eyes sharp as he stares at me.
“Bullet, will you let me answer that?” Cryos asks. I nod, my eyes on Silver. Silver lowers his gaze after a moment, but I don’t miss the twisted sneer on his face that he doesn’t quite manage to hide in time before I turn away to look at the screen behind me.
After a few clicks and some things moving across the large screen, Cryos pulls up Avery’s information and picture, along with the kids. “Avery Clarke is thirty-two years old, unmarried, no kids, and a registered nurse with very favorable reviews and notes in her file at the hospital. She’s one of their favorites, and before the kids lived with her, she was the one who worked the most overtime as well. She’s being considered for promotion to charge nurse in the next year if things continue to go well. She started caring for her siblings in the last year, after their father died and their mother lost custody of them due to her drug use. Both kids have a trust fund that they can access when they’re adults, while she has nothing but her savings that she’s been slowly building.
“Her mother, Cynthia Bridges, has been an addict for most of her life from medical records and arrests in her past. She got clean when she had the two youngest kids, but it looks like she fell off the wagon. I have found a couple of police reports showing recent arrests for possession as well as prostitution, but none of them have gotten any convictions yet. But I also found this.” He pulls up some security camera footage and starts playing it as he continues, “All of these videos are from the last few months showing Cynthia meeting up with a local dealer, and one of the ones that we know for sure is connected to Vlad and his operation. Then there’s this.” He shows a video from the hallways of Avery’s apartment complex. We all watch as Vlad and his men break into Avery’s apartment, and Avery stops just inside the door a moment later, her expression one of shock, then just as quickly fear. “The kids said that Vlad was using them to get Avery to cooperate, and from the looks of this, it seems credible. I have other videos of them grabbing her out of the apartment and taking her out to a waiting car. Now that we know Vlad’s location, I’ve been able to track them there each time.”
“Then how did you not find this before?” Arson asks tightly. “Surely if you can find this and see her being put into the car then you would have been able to follow it?”
“We had no idea about her until recently, so I don’t know about you, but I don’t just sit around and creepily look at people’s apartment cameras,” Cryos replies as if he’s talking to a toddler. I bite back a chuckle, especially when Arson’s face turns an angry shade of red.
“Still doesn’t explain why she didn’t pay off Vlad,” Angel remarks thoughtfully. I’m on the fence about him, but I see more curiosity on his face than antagonism.
“The kids can’t access the trusts until they’re eighteen, and only then for school and living expenses, and it’s managed by atrustee that isn’t their mother or sister. There is no way for them to get the money, which would leave only Avery.”
“And she doesn’t have the money, you said?” Angel asks.
Cryos nods. He pulls up a document and zooms in on one line. “This is the only savings account she has that isn’t for retirement and easily accessible. She has well over a hundred grand, but it’s not enough for Vlad.”
“And Vlad doesn’t want her money,” Sniper adds grimly. “If he wanted that, he wouldn’t go to all this trouble to bring her to him all the time. He’d just demand the money she had and probably hold the kids ransom if he knows about their trust funds until they’re old enough and then force them to pay him. He wants her skills. Being a nurse, she can keep his men out of a hospital where things have to be reported or questioned.”
There’s a ripple of quiet agreement around the room, other than a few of the Misfits.
“That still doesn’t mean that she can be trusted,” Arson interjects firmly. “If Vlad has something over her, then she’s going to do anything to save her own skin, and that includes fucking us over. Bringing her here is asking Vlad and his men to strike at us to get her back. Her and those kids.”
“So, what, you want us to give her back to him?” Shadow demands tightly.
