“Okay. You can’t be upset at me for wanting to look out for ya.” I raise my brows and stare right at her. Iris and Faith are really like sisters to me at this point. I fear for the man who ever hurts them because I’ll lose my fucking shit on them. Hell, I might even beat them until I have no choice but to put them in the ground.
“I’m not. Just don’t do that smothering thing. It only annoys me. I need to get upstairs and start getting ready for my shift. I’ll see you guys later.” Iris walks out from behind the bar and leaves the room without so much as another word.
“You ticked her off.” I snicker at Faith.
She shrugs her shoulders. “We wouldn’t be friends if I didn’t do it every once in a while. I don’t want her to get hurt either, and Drifter seems like a shiny new toy. I think that’s why she’s so attracted to him in the first place.”
“It makes sense. Keep an eye on her, and if you notice anything particular happening, then you tell me about it, and I’ll handle the situation.”
“Okay, sir!” Faith jokes around with me like she’s in the military, taking orders from a commander or something like it. I simply roll my eyes at her and scoot off the barstool.
“I need to get going too. I want to get this shit ready for Valencia.” Faith and I say our goodbyes, and the next thing I know, I’m pulling out of the garage with my bike, and she’s shutting the door behind me.
I take the twenty-minute ride out to St. John’s University and go into their admissions building, which isn’t too bad at all. A lot of people stare at me in my cut and clutch their books a bit tighter to their chest. I’m not trying to hurt them in the least bit, but when people see men like me, they tend to automatically think the worst.
I end up speaking to a lovely woman at the front desk who gives me all of the information I need. She gives me a folder, as well as a few pamphlets. I spend about thirty minutes there and then head back out to my bike. As I’m walking, I look up other local, reputable colleges within an hour’s distance of Queens and find Rutgers is one with a lot of options for academics.
Rutgers is about fifty minutes from St. Johns, so after I secure the folder and pamphlets in my saddle bag, I get back on the road and head there. It takes almost an hour to get there with traffic, but that’s my own damn fault for not taking a couple of shortcuts. By the time I got to Rutgers, I was a little confused about the area. It’s not in the ghetto, but it isn’t in the best place either. Their campus is massive, and it takes me a little bit of time to figure out where the admissions building is, but once I do, I go on inside to get the information I need.
I’m walking out the admissions office doors when a flash of white walks by me. They’re not directly by me, but the white fabric moving in the wind causes me to do a double take. I fish my phone out of my pocket and call Boss right away as my eyes are glued on a cult member. “Boss, I need someone to bring a grocery-getter out here to Rutgers. There’s a cultist, and my eyes are on the son of a bitch as we speak.”
“Okay. Which campus are you at?”
“New Brunswick.”
“Maddox and Omen are closer to you than anyone else. I’ll tell them to get there, stat, but I need you to send your location to them when you have him cornered.”
“You got it. I’ll try to get him away from the public’s eye. You want me to handle this on my own, or?”
“No. I want him alive, for now. I’ll want you guys to bring him to the abandoned warehouse near the water. We’ll question him and get as much information as we can from him there. You got it?”
“Yep. I’ll reach out as soon as Omen and Maddox are here,” I say, ending the phone call.
Hopefully, Maddox and Omen don’t take too long. I’ve been itching to get my hands on a cultist since the last time we saw them. I don’t know what it’s going to take to eradicate these sons of bitches from the world, but I’ll be ready on the front lines when we do.
I walk across the courtyard area, keeping on the cement until I’m a few feet behind him. He ends up making a left between two buildings, and I look up and down at the buildings. There aren’t windows on this side, but there’s some sort of brick bridge that goes between them. Okay, so there’s an element of seclusion here.
I walk up behind the motherfucker and slide the folder with the pamphlets behind my belt. “What the fuck are you doin’ in this neck of the woods?” I seethe, clear as day, as I wrap my forearm around his neck and yank him back.
I slam the pathetic son of a bitch against the bricks, and he whimpers, rolling onto his side. “You will be damned for this!”
“I’ve been damned for a lot worse, buddy.” I laugh at him as I pull out my phone and share my location with Omen and Maddox. All I need to do in the meantime is keep this bastard here and keep him quiet.
“You and your group of evil parasites no nothing about our cause or how we’re trying to protect women from sin! You wish to abolish us, but we’re going to abolish you.” I rear my foot back and slam it into the middle of his gut, causing him to cough violently for the next couple of minutes.
“You might want to think again before you start speaking.”
After a while, Omen and Maddox end up arriving, and Omen has a syringe ready to inject into this bastard. He sticks the needle in his neck and injects the serum. The cultist fights, but after a few seconds, he gives in to whatever it is Omen had in that syringe. Maddox grabs the other side of the cultist, using his arm to put around his shoulder, and I get on the opposite side. We walked him to the SUV Omen drove here and got him put into the back seat. Once we have him inside, we all get in, and Omen doesn’t waste any time getting the hell out of there.
“I’ll have to come back for my bike,” I say.
“Boss is getting someone to handle that right now. Fuck, man. You just happened to be at a university and stumbled into this fucker?” Omen asks, looking at me in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah, I was doing some research for Valencia, getting her some packets for admission programs and whatever. I was literally walking out of the admissions office and saw this son of a bitch.”
Omen shakes his head in disbelief as he continues driving. The rest of the ride is quiet, and our passenger is out for the count. We arrive at the warehouse Boss wants to meet us at in no time, and the three of us work on getting this dickwad in there before she arrives.
We don’t do anything too fancy, throwing him on the ground once we’re inside, and the rumbling of bikes can be heard in the distance. It sounds like two engines shut off before the door to the warehouse comes open and in walks Boss and her ol’ man, Cowboy.
