“I’m not your wife,” Dawn bit out. “We’re divorced.”
“And look what happened when you pulled that shit.” Mad Dog gave a bitter laugh. “Not that a civilian piece of paper means dick all. And that cut you’re wearing is a joke. You’re still my old lady until I’m dead or I let you go.”
“Your call, brother,” Gunner said.
Cade pointed his gun at Mad Dog’s head. “I wanna shoot the fucker dead.”
Dawn looked at Cade aghast. “We have to let him go. There’s not enough time to clean up and hide his body. I can’t go to jail, Cade. I can’t leave the girls with Shelly-Ann and no one to watch out for them.”
“Can you walk, fuck face?” Cade shoved Mad Dog’s head back with the gun barrel, his finger itching to pull the trigger.
“Just get me to my damn bike,” Mad Dog spat out. “I’ll call someone to pick me up.” He turned to Dawn. “Bitch. Gimme my phone. And go get the money.”
Cade jabbed his knee into the wound on Mad Dog’s leg and Mad Dog screamed.
“You disrespect her again and I’m gonna say fuck the MC, fuck the cops, and fuck you breathing another fucking breath.”
“I need the money, dammit,” Mad Dog leaned on Gunner to pull himself up. “I know she has it.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Cade smashed the butt of his gun into Mad Dog’s head. Maybe if he hit the bastard enough times, he would do Cade the favor of dying.
“Take him out the back door in case someone sees him.” Dawn handed Mad Dog the phone and Gunner half dragged him through the kitchen.
Cade looked back over his shoulder at Dawn. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” But she didn’t sound good, and she didn’t look good either. He’d never seen her so pale.
“Put your gun away,” Cade said softly. “Don’t let them know you have it. Call me if they take you to the station or arrest you. Club’s got a lawyer, Richard—”
“I can’t afford…”
“I’ll take care of it.” He had a healthy bank balance from the work he did for the club, and without a family and no desire to spend it on flashy cars, or fancy digs, he was more than able to pay Richard’s fees.
“We gotta go,” Gunner shouted over the wail of sirens.
“I’ll ride around the block and come back when the cops leave,” Cade called out to Dawn. “Then I’ll take you to the clubhouse. You can’t stay here with a broken-in door.”
Gunner grunted his disapproval. “I thought we were gonna … you know … we had plans.”
“Plans change.” Cade took one last look at Dawn, and then he turned and dragged Mad Dog away.
*
“Fucking hell.” Jagger scrubbed a hand over his face and glared at Dawn, Gunner, and Cade, seated in front of his enormous oak desk like recalcitrant children. Zane, Sparky, and Dax leaned against the walls behind them along with Shaggy and T-Rex for an impromptu and unofficial board meeting.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Dawn forced herself to meet his gaze. With her head still spinning from how quickly the Sinners had arranged for her door to be fixed, and the bullet holes repaired after she’d put the police off the scent last night, a confrontation with Jagger was about the last thing she was up for this afternoon.
“I was thinking Jimmy … er … Mad Dog had broken into my apartment and intended to assault me and then bring me back to his clubhouse.” She raised a hand to block out the light streaming through the wall of windows beside him so she could more clearly see his face. Such a beautiful office for someone with such a menacing scowl. Dark wood shelves lined the wall behind him, and a matching credenza sat to his left beneath a polished mirror. Clearly the Sinners hadn’t done much to renovate this room; its historic patina was marred only by the prints of motorcycles hung on the worn, papered walls.
“Not you.” Jagger waved at her dismissively. “The two idiots beside you. What part of ‘don’t engage the Brethren’ did you two not understand?”
“He engaged us first,” Gunner said. “And he was holding Cade’s old lady hostage. We had a duty to rescue her.”
“Don’t spin me that bullshit.” Jagger thumped his fist on the desk. “You shot him. If he hadn’t been wearing a vest, he would have died.”
“Actually, I shot him,” Cade interjected. “Gun was very expertly shooting around him to provide cover for Dawn to get out.”
Gunner sniffed. “You know Cade couldn’t hit a target right in front of his face. I shot him.”
“I stabbed him,” Dawn said, feeling left out. “In the leg. That’s why he was down.”
“Well, according to Wolf, he told the Brethren executive board that Cade and Gunner attacked him when he visited his wife to talk about their kids.” Jagger pushed his chair away from the table. “So now we got a problem. Wolf says I broke my word, and now he can’t negotiate with us without looking weak, like he’s not supporting his brother.”