Page 55 of When It Reins
“What’s going on here?” A voice from behind us makes me look, then take a double take at the woman standing there, her expression furious but authoritative.
“Just having a friendly chat,” Mick answers, his gaze roaming over the woman. She was a looker, that is for sure. Her long, nearly black hair was swinging down near her butt, and her combat boots, leather pants, and black tank top left little to the imagination.
“Well, you can’t be doing that on this property, so take it somewhere else.” She flicks her hand at us, dismissing the whole thing, and if this situation wasn’t so serious, I probably would have laughed at Mick getting dismissed.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you just head back inside and grab that boss for me like I asked the other girl?” Mick shows a sweet smile, one that hid the truth of his feelings, and that was that he was getting incredibly annoyed with having to pause his interrogation.
“Sweetheart.” The woman scoffs, stepping close enough for her to touch Mick, but her eyes take him in, a smirk crossing her lips. “Iron Horses, huh?”
Mick lifts a brow. “That’s right, darlin’.”
The woman steps closer to us, looking at the man who’s hanging on us like we broke his legs. I have a feeling he’s doing that to try to trick us into letting him go. Not fucking happening.
“Aaron, what have you gotten yourself into?” She points a finger at all three of us, then looks down at David with pity. Wait. Aaron? “You know who these assholes are, right?”
“Assholes,” David replies.
“Dangerous ones, Aaron.” She tilts his chin up, and it’s then I notice the sharp black nails that grace the very tips of her fingers in the low light of the parking lot. She looks like she could use them to slice his head clean off.
“I’ve warned you too many times to not fuck around on my property. Now, what do I do with you?” she muses, her voice nearly a whisper. I glance up and Loki gives me a what the fuck look.
Yeah, she is kind of scary.
Mick stands then, moving closer. “Listen, I don’t know who you are, but this fucker owes us some answers.”
“Mary says she was being held by him when you showed up.”
Mick nods. “Sure was.”
She takes a sigh, not answering the question of who she is, but it is clear by the way she spoke and moved that she is the one in charge. I am positive that Mick is feeling all sorts of ways about that.
“Well, you were warned.” She turns, and he starts panicking, fighting against the hold we have. The problem is, both Loki and myself are big motherfuckers, and David is…not.
The struggle barely made me put tension in my muscles, and I watch over my shoulder as the woman saunters away.She glances over, giving the dumbstruck Mick a wink, and says, “He’s all yours, boys.”
The door slams behind her, and David stops struggling. “You can’t kill me! The police will find my body.”
“Ah, see, they really wouldn’t,” Mick assures him, making Loki laugh out loud. I let a subtle smirk cross my lips and shake my head.
For a moment, Mick doesn’t say anything, thinking through what he wants to do.
Then he surprises me by saying, “Let him go.”
My head snaps to Mick. “What?”
“Let him go,” Mick says, nodding as he does. I see that there’s something to his statement, something he’s planning, but I feel the way my arms nearly refuse to let him go before they finally obey. Loki seems to be fighting some demon about it too, but inevitably we listen to Prez.
He’s the boss.
David—or Aaron—scurries away without another look back, jumping into a slick Range Rover before peeling out of the parking lot.
I glance back at Mick, who raises a calming hand toward me. “Just listen.” He gestures toward the taillights that are quickly fading. “We wait, we watch, we find out who he’s talking to and where he’s going. We weren’t going to get any answers out of him, which means whoever is threatening him on the other side has a bigger gun.”
I grit my teeth, wanting to put this fucker behind me and move forward with my life once and for all. But I can’t deny that what Mick was saying is true.
The question is, who is going to pull the trigger first?
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