Page 49 of Wife Number One

“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll go.”

There were demon figures on the gates of the clubhouse, but what did it matter if I passed through them again? I was already in Hell.

15

HAWK

Spending all night in a holding cell at Providence Police Department was somewhere akin to sleeping on the floor of the clubhouse bathroom after an all-night party. The bench seat beneath me was hard and my shoulder numb from lying on it for hours. The toilet reeked of piss and vomit, though that was almost preferable to the chemical smell that clung to my skin and hair after that delousing wash-down we’d been so delightfully subjected to.

None of the other assholes in this cell seemed to have gotten the same treatment. I hadn’t bothered making conversation with the three other guys in the small room, but their street clothes and the stench of BO gave away that Chaos and I had been singled out for special treatment thanks to our gang affiliation.

Poor shriveled-dick Simon seemed to have been caught up as collateral damage. Though he’d been sprung almost as quickly as Chaos had.

Fucking asshole.

Must be nice to have a rich brother.

The locking mechanism on the door made a grinding sound, and a bored cop leaned on the doorway. “Hawk Robinson?”

I looked up from my rock-hard bench. “Yeah?”

He frowned. “Hawk is honestly your legal name?”

“That’s what it says on the fucking paperwork, doesn’t it?”

The cop chuckled in the face of my irritation. “Your parents really just set you up for this life, didn’t they? Giving you a name like that. Your ride is here. You’re out.”

My parents naming me Hawk was hardly the bad decision that had led me down this path. I’d grown up in the club. Never knew nothing different. If they’d wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor, the first thing they probably should have done was make sure I actually went to fucking school.

If they had, it would have saved me the hassle of doing my GED now, at the ripe fucking age of thirty-five.

Speaking of… I jerked my chin at the cop. “Hey, what’s the date?”

He raised an eyebrow as he waited for me to leave the cell. “Why? You want to note it down in your journal or something? Dear Diary,” he mocked. “Today I met my life’s potential and found myself in jail. Won’t be long until I’m here permanently. Love…” He sniggered. “Hawk.”

He said my name like it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Which was fucking hilarious coming from a man whose nametag read Officer Nigel Buttsworth.

Normally I would have made some sort of smart-ass comment about that, but fuck, I really wanted to know the date. “Please,” I forced out through gritted teeth, hating the way that word sounded on my lips. I didn’t beg people for fucking anything. My old man would be rolling over in his goddamn grave if he’d heard me mumble those words.

But fuck that old bastard. I needed to know.

The officer checked his smartwatch. “It’s the eighteenth.”

Fuck.

“That mean something to you?” the cop asked as he guided me back to the processing room and passed me a clear bag with my name on it. Inside were the clothes I’d been wearing when I’d been picked up, but I had no doubt they would have been swabbed to within an inch of their life, photographed, and tested for who fucking knows what in the time we’d been apart.

Whatever. They weren’t going to find anything. The new chief could go fuck himself.

I snatched the bag of clothes out of the cop’s hand and ripped it open. “Just got something I need to do today. None of your business, Officer Buttshole.”

The man’s face purpled. “It’s Officer Buttsworth.”

I squinted at him, pulling my clothes on quickly. “Is that really any better?”

The cop flipped me the bird before turning around. “See you soon, Hawk. You might be writing down today’s date in your diary, but I’m just waiting on the one where I get to lock you up for good.” He banged a fist against a window that led out into the station. “He’s good to go.”

Fuck him. He sounded just like my old man.

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