Page 42 of Hell Bent

“Lottie, are you staying or coming with Sway?” Blackjack asked her best friend as he tossed cash on the table to settle her tab.

“No, I’m good. This is my boyfriend, Dawson Franks.”

“We know Mister Franks.” Blackjack stuck his hand out to see what Franks would do. When he shook it, Blackjack didn’t miss the tick in his jaw. “Is this one of your boys?”

“Yeah. This is Clay.”

Blackjack put his hand out for Clay and waited for the man to take it. When he did, Blackjack pulled the guy out of his seat and held him tight to him. “Stay away from my brother’s ol’ lady or you and I . . . will be seeing each other again.”

“Hey, man, she was flirting with me. I’m just here for the beer.”

Blackjack let Clay go, keeping his eyes on the guy. Blackjack was sure he’d gotten his point across. “You guys have a nice evening.”

Normally, he wouldn’t turn his back on an enemy, but Blackjack knew his brothers had his back. When he handed Sway her belongings, he looked at Razor. “I tried to get Lottie to leave with us. She said she’s good.”

Everyone watched Razor head for the door, shoving chairs and patrons out of his way. Sway stumbled along as Teller and Blackjack moved her toward the door. She managed to look at Lottie before disappearing outside.

“You have two choices. Door one, I call Vicious to come get you. Door two, we take you home and call Vicious afterward.”

“Door two.”

One of the guys chuckled. “Didn’t think you’d be a coward, Sway. Especially being Vicious’s ol’ lady.”

She didn’t know which one had said it, but they needed to get over it. “I hate repeating myself. So, for the last time, he walked out on me,” she snapped.

“Leave it alone,” Teller said to the brothers as they loaded up in the cages.

Sway sat in the back of Teller’s car, wondering how long it would take him to call Vicious. And what would Vicious do with the information? After a solid week of not hearing a damn peep from him, Sway wished she didn’t care. The truth was, she was hurt. Deeply.

Chapter Twenty-Five

She was tired of everyone telling her what she could and couldn’t do. Sway had stayed clear of the Royal Bastards and Lottie over the past week, only seeing them if they came by the garage. Now, once again, she was diving into her brother’s death. Dawson’s friend had given her new information that led to the Bloody Scorpions.

Vicious had already told her on multiple occasions to stay away from them, but he wasn’t around anymore. No, Mister Billy Badass had gotten his big boy pants in a fucking knot and stormed out. She would bet Razor and Teller had told him about her and Lottie being at Boggs. The fact he hadn’t come storming back, telling her she shouldn’t be hanging down there, spoke volumes to Sway.

Looking at the scattered papers, she shook her head. She knew it was time to let things go, to stop trying to figure it out. Letting out a sigh, she was tired of being angry, tired of being hurt. All she’d managed by not letting the cops handle it was running off a man she liked a hell of a lot and isolating her best friend. “It’s time to let go.”

Grabbing a large brown mailer envelope from a drawer, Sway began stuffing papers into it.

Vicious had been pacing outside Sway’s apartment, trying to find the words to say how sorry he was for walking out weeks earlier. The problem he was having was that Razor had come clean about seeing her and Lottie down at Boggs. He owed Teller for getting her out of there and away from Dawson Franks and his boy, Clay. Still, he was pissed that she was down at Boggs, and from what he had heard, Sway had been flirting with Dawson’s buddy. She was his fucking woman, and she needed to be reminded of that fact.

Climbing the stairs, he walked into the apartment without knocking. When he shut the door, he saw her standing at the kitchen table, looking through dozens of papers. When she glanced up, he thought she looked like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

Walking over to her, he watched how quickly she scooped up the papers. As she turned to put them away, a few pages slipped from her hands. They both watched as they floated to the ground. Bending over, Vicious picked them up. Reading the words on the pages, he got pissed.

“What’s this bullshit, Sway?”

There, in the dim light of the kitchen, she stared into his green eyes. They were cold and dangerous as he glared at her. “It’s nothing.” Before she could tell him she was letting it go, Vicious gave her that look. The same one he had given her a week earlier. His fists balled up at his sides. It wasn’t like she would apologize. No, she wouldn’t. He held her there, in his stare, before he spoke low and intense, the sound of his voice making Sway nervous.

“Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“You know what it is. It’s research into Tesh’s death.” Sway glared at Vicious. “What are you doing here? And don’t you know how to knock?”

He didn’t think he needed to knock. She was his woman. Ignoring the question, he fired off at her. “I told you to stay away from anyone and anything having to do with his death.”

Throwing the envelope and the pages on the table, she watched them sail across the surface. “If you must know, I’ve gotten information that the Bloody Scorpions were involved. And before you yell at me again, I haven’t gone anywhere near those assholes. Is that why you stormed out of here?”

Vicious slammed his hand down on the table, stopping the papers from hitting the floor. “Partly. If you don’t talk to me, I can’t protect you.”

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