Page 127 of Outlaws of Tulsa

“Just couldn’t keep your hands off her, could you?”

I snap my head at him, narrowing my eyes. “What?”

“You have claw marks on you, big brother. I’m not stupid. But you, on the other hand, are. Even after I warned you about how Stormy will use you with her pussy, you went and hit it anyway.”

Anger boils my blood. “Fuck you, man. I didn’t sleep with Stormy. Give me some fucking credit.”

His eyes widen in surprise at my outburst. I’m normally the calm brother. Koyn is the one who flies off the handle and rages. The scarred X on his face seems out of place as he gapes at me in shock. Right now, he’s not a biker badass MC prez. He’s my younger brother who’s seeing a side of me I don’t let out often.

“Okay,” he drawls out slowly, his features relaxing back into a cool expression. “Then she’s been giving you some shit I take it?”

I sip my hot coffee, hoping like hell it will chase away this hangover. “Something like that.”

“You get anything else out of her?”

“Not since I called you last night. It’s all she knows, man.”

He nods and then tastes his coffee. His nose scrunches before he walks over to the sugar canister and dumps more in. “It was good intel. I did some digging last night.”

“Oh?”

“I took care of your problem with your superior. Any time they look us up or try to save a file on us or the Royal Bastards, it’ll open up an encrypted file on my server. Everything about it will look legit and as though it’s in the FBI database, but I’ll watch it like a hawk. When I’m not watching it, Halo or Bermuda will have eyes on it. Tell him you looked into it and it’s just a bullshit lead.”

“Good,” I grunt out. “And I will. Last thing I need is Dan opening up an investigation and linking it to me. My ass is too pretty for prison.”

His lips curl into a grin. “Your ass isn’t pretty, dickhead. It’s old. You’d be lucky if you had a couple of boys in there looking for a daddy.”

I flip him off and drink more coffee. “You’re the only fucker who gets off on that daddy kink.”

His gaze darkens and a sinister smile creeps over his face. “Hmph.”

“So what did you find?”

“A lot on Vidal,” he says, setting his mug down. “Has an agency devoted to traveling all over to small cities like Tulsa looking for fresh talent. He’s hard to pin down because he moves around a lot. I cross-referenced some of his meetups, though, and many of the women have vanished.”

“Like Erin.”

He nods. “He’s up to something. It stinks of human trafficking.”

A dark cloud seems to hang over us. With what Stormy said to me last night, it makes me think of the way those bastards hurt his wife and daughter. Then, how Genworth and Putnam hurt Hadley. The fact Stormy compared me to those fuckers has me sick to my stomach. She truly does think I’m a monster.

“What are we going to do about it?” I ask. “Hunt them down and slit their throats?”

Koyn chuckles. “You sure you’re not ready to patch in yet? You know your ass wouldn’t be a fuckin’ prospect like your dumbass son. You’d be my right-hand man.”

“Filter has that job,” I state, my tone bitter for more reasons than I can count.

Koyn, always the perceptive motherfucker, narrows his eyes. It reminds me of back in the day when Dad knew I was lying to him. All it took was that penetrating stare to have me barking out the truth.

“You may not be fucking Stormy, but you sure as fuck want to. You’re jealous of Filter, for fuck’s sake.” He scowls at me, disappointment dripping from him. “This was a mistake. I’ll deal with it.”

He abandons his mug, stalking out of the kitchen. Panic consumes me. My brother is ruthless. He’ll put a bullet through her head without thinking twice. I know he made a promise to Hadley, but Koyn’s been known to break a promise. Slamming my mug down, I chase after him, ignoring the throbbing in my head. I fly into her bedroom, sick to my stomach to see him looming over her.

“Don’t,” I growl, my tone laced with warning.

Koyn glances over his shoulder at me. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

With cautious steps, I approach the bed. Stormy looks pitiful as fuck. Most of her injuries she caused herself, but Koyn doesn’t know that. Her hair is frizzy and tangled. The normally smooth, made up skin on her face is red and splotchy, swollen from all the crying she did last night. The shock collar around her neck is pretty barbaric looking at it through an outsider’s eyes. Her hand is purple and her arm is twisted at an uncomfortable angle being handcuffed to the bed. The bandage on her other hand has fallen off, exposing the blood-crusted stitches along her cut. My T-shirt swallows her, but it’s ridden up, showing off her bruised ass.

---