Page 59 of The Last One You Loved
I wasn’t sure at all, but she was a fugitive who’d broken her probation, and we knew where she was at. Even more than wanting to catch a criminal, I wanted her out of my life. I wanted her locked up and unable to rain havoc on me and my family.
“We’ll send Bruce and Liam out the back, keep Jones and Stanton out front, and you and I will go in,” I told Scully, who nodded with a grim face. I looked at the rest of the men. “I don’t want to scare Sybil or any of them into drawing weapons by showing up with a bunch of squad cars. We’ll all squeeze into Scully’s Escalade, stop short of The Nest, and walk the rest of the way on foot. Everyone good with that?”
They nodded, and we all ducked under our hats and headed for the SUV. We were dripping water over the seats and floor by the time we got in. Scully accelerated up the muddy road to the Gears’ Nest atop the mountain. It was part bar, part slum, and part warehouse that many of the gang called home. I’d heard stories about what happened in the basement, but I’d never had cause to go down there and hoped to God I never would. My goal was to systematically put them out of business, hoping the building would eventually just rot away without its members to care for it.
Scully pulled over in a cutout just before we rounded the last corner. We all got out, hands tucked on our weapons as the cold wind and rain blew around us. There was a hint of snow in the air, but I doubted the fires of hell that burned here would ever let the pristine flakes land in this place.
Our men broke off, and Scully and I gave them a moment to get into position before heading for the door covered in bars you might see in the middle of a gang-riddled city block. We didn’t knock. We just swung the door open. We were greeted with guns already pointed in our direction—exactly what I’d hoped to avoid. The two burly, leather-clad men welcoming us were the ones who’d dropped off the bail money the other night for the peons we’d arrested with the stolen appliances.
I didn’t care about them, their guns, or what may or may not have been downstairs. I was there for Sybil. As my eyes scanned the room, I didn’t see her, but that didn’t mean anything. The place was a warren of rooms.
“Think you wandered into the wrong place, assholes,” Burly One said.
“Maybe we should show themourcells,” Burly Two chortled. “Give them a taste of what it’s like to be held in an actual prison.”
“Those guns in your hands legal, shithead? Maybe we should take you down the hill and find out,” Scully grunted out.
The men laughed. “I’d like to see you try.”
My body was tight, ever synapse on alert, eyes scanning the periphery, watching the three other people in the room and the unwavering guns.
A door leading to a stairwell behind the main room slammed open, and everyone’s trigger fingers flexed in a way that didn’t bode well.
“Get up off your asses and go after?” The dickhead storming into the bar stopped himself, his instructions trailing off once he saw us. His entire frustrated demeanor changed, cold nonchalance replacing it.
Chainsaw had been the leader of the West Gears ever since Trap had gone to prison. I wasn’t sure, but his being enormous might have had something to do with the reason he’d been chosen. Six foot five, with muscles built on top of muscles, he looked like he could swallow anyone whole while not even breaking a sweat. Unlike the rest of the gang, with long hair and equally long facial hair, Chainsaw looked almost like a banker. His dark-blond hair was cut short, and he had a tightly trimmed goatee that bordered on red, but his beady eyes screamed menace rather than numbers. He wore a Rolex on his wrist, tailored gray slacks, and a black button-down shirt opened to show off a mile of chest hair and several gold chains.
“Sheriff Hatley, to what do we owe this unwanted pleasure?” Chainsaw asked. His deep Louisiana accent layered with years of smoking sounded raw.
“You know why I’m here. I’m surprised you let her in the door.”
He shot a look back the way he’d just come, and a flicker of rage spread over his face before he hid it. “Sybil isn’t here.”
My eyes narrowed. “She got something on you, Chainsaw? Is that why you’re protecting her?”
He laughed as if the idea was ridiculous, but there was a wariness to him making me think maybe I was right.
“Then, there’s no reason for you to hide her. She’s in violation of her court-ordered rehab. She’s going to prison this time.”
The front door of The Nest jerked open, and all the guns in the room, including Scully’s and mine, swirled in that direction. Someone was going to get fucking shot if things didn’t simmer down. Bruce stepped in, breathing hard, rain pouring from his face. His hat was missing, and his uniform was spattered with muck, as if he’d taken up mud wrestling.
“She left. Slider took her on an ATV down the backside of the mountain,” Bruce gasped out. “Ran after them, but the mud pulled me under like quicksand.”
I turned to face Chainsaw, whose jaw was ticking.
“I don’t know what she has on you. I don’t know why you’re protecting her, but it’s a mistake. Not only because I won’t rest until I have her, but because Sybil doesn’t know how to be loyal to anyone but herself.”
Chainsaw’s eyes narrowed. “Ask yourself, Hatley…if she had something on me, do you think your deputy here would have seen her leaving with Slider? Ask yourself if I would have let her walk away at all. The only reason she was here was out of honor for our former leader and for everything Trap once was.”
Every time I thought of Sybil being dead because of her lifestyle and her choices, I had to fight the flicker of relief…of almost joy. I wanted her to pay for her crimes against McKenna and Mila, and I wasn’t sure I’d have it in me to stop a bullet if it went in her direction.
But it wasn’t what he’d said about Sybil that piqued my interest. It was the way Chainsaw had talked about Trap in the past tense, as if he was dead instead of out on parole somewhere in Tennessee.
“I do have a deal to offer you, though,” Chainsaw said. My eyes narrowed, but I didn’t respond, and it made his smile widen as if he had me in his sights. “You go back to minding your business like Sheriff Haskett used to, and I’ll see what I can do to bring Sybil to your door.”
My gut twisted. There was no way my mentor had turned a blind eye to the West Gears’ crimes. He was as straight of an arrow as you could get. Chainsaw was trying to mess with my head.
He didn’t wait for me to respond. Instead, he turned his back to me, sauntered over to the bar, and fixed himself a drink. He swallowed the contents, eyes finding mine in the mirror behind the bottles of alcohol.
