Page 12 of Cocked Hammer

9

Sledgehammer

“Where are we going?” Lina asked when her gorgeous ass dropped into the passenger seat of my car, and she kissed my cheek lightly.

“It’s a surprise,” I answered quickly, putting the car into drive and pulling out of the parking lot. Truthfully, I had no fucking clue where we were going; I was making it up as I went. It had been a long time since I actually made it past the fucking stage of a relationship, not that what I had done for a long time had ever reached the stage of what one would consider a relationship. There was a blur of sweet asses in my most recent past but no ol’ lady, and I used to believe I didn’t want one, but I didn’t hate the idea with Lina.

She squirmed around in the seat, saying very little. Finally, her fingers undid the seat belt, and she lifted her hips up from the seat and pulled something from beneath her. “What is it with you and mice?” she questioned me, tossing the plastic mouse I had bought for Xander from one hand into the other, her light blue eyes narrowing in my direction.

A sly smile touched my lips while I decided what to say to her. “You like kids?”

“Huh?” Her eyebrow was pinned high onto her forehead.

“Do you like kids?”

“Never really been around them.” She dropped the plastic mouse into the cupholder between us, and she looked out the window.

“Really?”

“I mean other than when I was a child. Even then, I don’t think I had a chance to be a normal one.”

My first instinct was to pry more into her past; that was what the club needed. I had to tread lightly, though. I couldn’t let her know that her pet shop was under the club’s eye. To our knowledge, she was completely clueless about the heroin being smuggled into her place of business, which she shared with her family. Either that or she had one hell of a fucking poker face. I doubted the latter the more time I spent with her; she was the straightforward type. When we first met, she wasn’t as outspoken as she had been since the night at the clubhouse, but sometimes fucking forces the truth out of people. Other times, it did exactly the opposite.

Out of the many times I had been at the pet shop, Lina always worked the front, and Alek unloaded the truck. He and I were more than aware of the reason, but she thought his offer to always do the grunt work was a nice gesture.

“Let’s change that,” I spoke after a moment of silence passed between the two of us, knowing precisely where we needed to go. We went through two more traffic lights, and I drove us out of Cleveland.

“My childhood?” A dry laugh popped out of her mouth.

“No. You’ll see,” I assured her with a smile. “When we get there, give him the mouse.”

“Give who the mouse?”

“Trust me.” My voice dropped an octave or two unintentionally. I hated being questioned in general, so it was nothing personal to her; it was just who I was.

“I do,” she admitted, and I didn’t have a response at first.

“You do?”

She nodded slightly. “I don’t know why I do. I just do. It’s hard to explain. I know a bad person when I see one, and you aren’t one, Sledgehammer.”

I suddenly felt like a colossal shit for being the equivalent of a double agent in her life, not that it hadn’t already been on my mind every time we were together. She blindly placed her trust within me, having absolutely no reason to do so. I racked my brain for something to say to her because the same couldn’t be said in return. I wanted to say I trusted her, which was something I was not able to deny. When it came to personal shit that had nothing to do with the club, I could tell her she had my trust without thinking twice about it because when it came down to it, I did, in fact, trust her, I guessed. The thing was, she shouldn’t trust me.

“I told you, I’m not a good person, Lina.”

“And I told you, I am not one either, so maybe we’re both right…or wrong. It doesn’t really matter, does it? If we’re good to each other, then what we do to other people is irrelevant, in my opinion.” The truth of her words stunned me, and my grip on the steering wheel tightened. My knuckles were white, and my hands ached as I searched within myself for an answer to give her.

“You’re right. Fuck everyone else,” I replied, rolling my shoulders that had become tense.

“Precisely. Fuck the world and everyone else in it!” she exclaimed with a nod, her middle fingers soaring upward when she spoke. I would be lying to myself if I denied how happy that simple motion made me.

Xander greeted us in his normal fashion as I opened the door and closed it behind me. As soon as Lina’s door opened, his feet stopped, and his head turned to the side. I’d never brought anyone here with me other than a brother.

“Ma’am.” He nodded his head in her direction and squared his shoulders as he often did when he wanted to appear older than he was. He rushed to her door and waved his hand in front of him. “My lady.” The little shit’s eyes slowly roamed from her sandals to her face, and he winked at me. If he wasn’t a half-pint person, I would have kicked his ass out of sheer principle. Despite his height and who he was, I gritted my teeth anyway and had to remind myself he was a kid.

“I have something for you.” Lina smiled and winked over the car toward me, her balled fist behind her back, no doubt holding the toy I had bought for Xander.

“Ya-You do?”

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