Page 24 of Choices

“Still breathing, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he says, his voice gruff. “I haven’t decided what to do about her, and it can wait for now.”

Callan’s brow tightens. “Club sluts and Daddy’s ol’ lady were here last night, but other than that, it was just brothers who would rather cut their own balls off than open their mouths about who parties here.” He leans forward. “No brother will know who he is anyway. The kid could have been anyone. I’ve wiped the cameras, and those bitches were intoxicated and paying attention to the brothers, not his skinny ass.”

Tossing the ball back and forth between his hands, Pres continues. “We need to make sure the Carnells won’t have a reason to ask if the kid came here in the first place.”

“So, we backtrack Kit’s steps.” Callan nods, his mouth tight, brow pinched.

“The Tim driving her yesterday said she left a card game with Nicolas.” Pres pushes a notepad toward us and jerks his chin. Callan and I tip our gazes to read the list of Kitty’s movements written down with timestamps.

“A bit excessive.” Callan frowns.

Kitty had gone out of her way to avoid me yesterday. If I hadn’t been such a dick to her, maybe we wouldn’t be balls deep in this shit.

“I only asked him to drive her. He took it upon himself to document her fucking whereabouts. It’s a good thing too because here we fucking are,” Pres growls, his finger stabbing the notepad.

Rubbing his temple, Callan relents. “Fine.”

“She uses a different name for card games outside these walls,” I say, cutting through the tension. “If people know who she is they get wary, so she rarely plays in the same crowd for long periods of time and changes the name frequently.”

Two sets of hard dark eyes land on me. “You sure it’s not you documenting her whereabouts?” Callan snorts.

“Fuck off. She was talking about it in the bar the other day.” Lies. It was in my bed about three months ago after she came home with a bunch of men’s watches she’d won.

“Let’s also not forget Nicolas gave his bodyguards the slip. If he’d had a tracker on his phone, they would’ve used it. Michael won’t know Nicolas was at a card game.” I shrug, moving us on from me being Kit’s stalker.

“They’ll have his phone records traced to see what cell towers it pinged. We know the phone was dead when he got here—we don’t know when it fucking died.” Pres makes a good point.

“This might all be irrelevant. The last location is in Redwing territory. That’s all Michael will need. He won’t look beyond that,” Callan interjects.

“Still, this is Michael’s only brother and Michael Senior’s youngest son. We have to make sure there’s no crumb left to point to them here. It won’t matter which one of us killed him, it’s my club and my daughter who brought him here.” Pres gets to his feet and begins to pace. “If anything happens to Kitty?—”

“It won’t,” Callan and I bark.

“You’re damn right it won’t.” He punches the air with a pointed finger. “Let’s not have to kill their entire bloodline over this. Our payoffs won’t protect us if we do. Preston is running for senator for fuck’s sake.”

“What do you need us to do?” Callan stands, his jaw set firm.

“Tim took them to a tattoo parlor. Said Kitty knows the owner.” He rounds his desk, pulls open a drawer, and slaps a piece of paper on the wood surface with an address scribbled on it.

“There are only two of them who work there. If they know who Kitty is, it’s a problem. They need to be dealt with.”

“And Tim?”

“Take him with you. Make him participate to test his backbone and loyalty.”

“What happens if he doesn’t cut it?”

“It goes against who I am as a brother and especially the club president, but he came here a month ago and has no affiliation with any of the brothers. If we have to, we take him to ground.”

“I don’t like it,” Callan bites out.

“You don’t have to.”

“Is it necessary? He doesn’t know who the kid was, right?”

“He’s the only other person outside the tattoo artist who places Kitty with him. He fucking drove them here.”

“I’ll do it, if it comes to it. Let’s wait and see,” I placate.

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