Page 34 of Inglorious
“I’ll do it,” Inglorious said, and I shook my head.
“This is on me, I’m president,” I murmured. Was I really contemplating taking Manda’s life?
“Have you ever killed?” Chuck asked as he placed his hand over mine.
“No.”
“Let me or Inglorious do this,” Chuck offered. “We’ll call the cops and explain what we found. She’ll be dead, and with the state of her, we can say we didn’t find her in time. The police won’t look too deeply into this. Bitch will just be another junkie overdose.”
Chuck had a point, but I shook my head.
“I’m president.” I approached Manda, and Chuck held her arm out.
Track marks were everywhere alongside bruises. Manda was that pale her veins stood out. I didn’t hesitate and pushed the needle in and quickly inserted the drug. A couple of minutes later, Manda spasmed, and Chuck nodded.
“Call nine-one-one. If we leave, the cops will have questions. It’s no lie to say we discovered her in this state,” I said.
“Nanci…” Inglorious began.
“Do it!” I snapped shrilly and strode away. This moment would stay with me forever. I’d just taken someone’s life. Albeit it was a cunt who was abusing and neglecting a child, but even so, it had been a living person.
Quickly, I walked outside and drew in several deep breaths of air. The squalor was terrible, and that stench would take a long time to fade. It felt as if it was burned into my nostrils.
“She dead?” a woman demanded, and I turned. An older lady stood in front of me.
“Yeah.”
“You took the kid?”
“One of my men had custody. We’ve been looking for Kya,” I lied.
“Kya needs help. She’s in danger,” the neighbour pressed.
“We’ve a doctor back at our clubhouse. Kya will be cared for. Here, this is the clubhouse address. Give it a couple of weeks and you can come and visit her. She’ll be a lot better looked after when you next see her,” I said.
The woman stared dubiously at me. “I’m still reporting this.”
“Go ahead. We welcome any input that child services might have. Honestly, I’ve a bad feeling Kya may need therapy.” A cop car turned the corner, and I nodded to it. “There’s the police.”
“Oh, you called them?” the woman asked, surprised.
“Yeah. We’re legit, hon. We found Manda overdosed inside and got Kya out immediately. No kid needs to see their parent dead, even if they’re a piece of shit,” I replied.
Without another word, I headed towards the black and white parking up and greeted the officers. Deftly, I quickly described the situation, claiming Manda had kidnapped Kya from her legal guardian and we’d been searching for her.
Inglorious showed the official documents, and then we explained that when we arrived that the door had been open and Manda had been dead inside. The cop looked dubious at first. But when he went inside and came back out moments later, wrinkling his nose and gagging, he bought into our story a lot more. The officer took our names and addresses, and we gave a brief statement repeating what we’d said, and he released us.
Saddened, I climbed up behind Chuck, much to Inglorious’s consternation. I could see that irritated him, but Inglorious didn’t comment. As soon as we hit the clubhouse, Inglorious disappeared towards the clinic without saying a word.
“Guess we’ve got a joint secret now,” I murmured to Chuck as I dismounted.
“Yup, we’ll both do time for that,” Chuck replied.
“You don’t need to prospect. Chuck, you understand that, right?”
“So, you mentioned. What would my road name be?” Chuck asked as we headed in the clinic’s direction.
I bit my lip as I considered Chuck’s question. “Sabre. You have an amazing sword on your bike surrounded by flames. Sabre suits you.”
