Page 52 of Biker's Property

“Okay,” he whispers, leaning down for a kiss. “I’ll give you one right on your ass.”

He isn’t listening,and to cement that, he finally turns his attention towards the documents on the table. Apparently our discussion is over.

“What did you find?” he asks, immediately ruining my organization, but beelining instinctively towards the most important stack. The pictures.

“He was selling people.Theywere selling people. I think one of the men involved might be part of the Midnight SS, but they didn’t wear their real names on their cut.”

“You didn’t know about this?”

“I was his prisoner, not his co-conspirator.”

I don’t mean to sound snappy with him. Just when I expect Ryder to respond negatively, he puts his arm around me, drawing me close to him. I can’t tell if it’s protective or possessive. I just know this stuff scares the crap out of me, and I don’t know how deep it gets or how I got in this deep myself.

“I’m just asking questions,” he says. “I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone unless you had to.”

He can’t know that.But maybe he senses something in me the way I sense something unidentifiable in him that makes me want him when I shouldn’t.

“I never saw anything like this. He went to work like a normal man.”

“If he could hurt you, he wasn’t normal,” Ryder says defensively and my indecisive emotions flip back to wanting him. To telling myself that he was my real escape plan – or at least God’s escape plan for me.

“Thank you,” I say to Ryder. Then I go through the bank statements and what I interpreted from the information in front of me.

“Children cost less than adults. They sell some women as virgins. They have a number code for that. Number code for kids too. The identification papers match the sales receipts but the pictures don’t make any sense to me. They’re labeled, but the names on the back don’t match any of the documents.”

“Let me see,” Ryder says.

His expression sharpensas he focuses on the first picture. The teenager in it could be white, Hispanic, or Indian. I can’t tell. Her hair is in a bun and she has a black eye. There’s nothing else I can tell about her, except that her eyebrows were very on trend for 2017.

I can’t even give her a name in my head since I don’t even know her heritage. Being mixed race doesn’t give me racial identification superpowers unfortunately. All it does is open my mind to more potential backstories for these victims – if they even are victims.

He flips the picture over to see what’s written on the back of the image… and his face changes as he clearly recognizes the name.

Chapter Twenty-Four

RUGER

I’d rather go back in there and crack the fuck out of Darlene’s jaw than answer Cash Hollingsworth’s question about what the hell she knows about the murders out in the desert. She watched it happen. Southpaw sent Ryder out to investigate the murders to find outwhythey were killed. They stumbled upon something they shouldn’t have — the Neo-nazi plans. Southpaw had sent them out on a secret mission that should not have been dangerous – surveying land – not war, not theft, not some type of felony.

What they found was far bigger than any Shaw could have expected. Wyatt… I wonder what my uncle would have thought of this situation and the man in charge.

Part of me doesn’t want to tell him, because I know when shit gets to talking with these boys, they end up taking the rational way out. I don’t plan on handling any of this shit in a rational manner. Not Darlene. Not those weird cult fucks out in the middle of the desert.

I don’t fuck with Nazis. My grandfather died fighting the Nazis and our family’s blood runs deep in the military. I stand for what’s American, and there’s nothing American or proud about dragging six white brothers out to the desert and ending their lives. Nothing noble or patriotic about that.

Cash keeps a steady gaze on me, his presence reminds me of Uncle Lyle and the way he used to tell me to calm my anger.

You get into a situation where you’re hotter than a two-dollar pistol, you have to cool it, or you’re gonna make mistakes.

It’s hard to keep it cool with the news about Darlene. I loved that woman. I gave her my virginity, promised to love her until the end of time. The tattoo on her stomach I did myself, hands shaking as I did it. I don’t know if she covered it up before or after she fucked another man.

He must have felt so damn good holding onto another man’s property. Defiling me just as much as he defiled her. That bitch just had to get pregnant.

“Stay calm,” Cash repeats. “Just talk it out, Ruger. I’ll leave you to your business if you promise not to take it too far.”

I try not to make my eyes look so dead. Uncle Lyle taught me how to do that. Said it would make folks less afraid of me and the strange way I have of thinking.

“I promise.”

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