Page 10 of Queen of Anarchy (Dirty Broken Savages 2)

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Gage

We regroupthe next morning over breakfast.

My brothers and I are used to talking shop in the kitchen while we go about our usual morning routines. Knox makes a shit ton of eggs and bacon and toast, and Priest and I usually just opt for coffee. Ash goes for some cereal, and we sit around the table and plan out the day.

Now, River is a part of the routine, and it’s starting to feel just as familiar to have her down here as any one of the others.

I can track what she’s going to do before she does it, watching as she comes into the kitchen, barely acknowledging any of us. She goes for the bag of dog food first, grabbing the bowl that’s still sitting on the floor and feeding the mutt. The furry little animal barks joyfully, either excited about the food or just happy to see her after a long night apart.

She’s got bedhead, her silver hair mussed and wavy, and she’s dressed in just some shorts and a t-shirt as if she rolled out of bed and came right down here to have breakfast.

Like she’s at home.

Unable to stop my gaze from following her, I let it run over the tattoos that crawl up her arms and leg, stark on her skin, and the shadows under her eyes that point to a restless night of sleep.

She pets the top of Dog’s head and then washes her hands and gets herself a cup of coffee. Sometimes she opts for toast, and sometimes she needles Knox into sharing his bacon. She doesn’t bother with either this morning, which likely means there’s something on her mind.

As soon as I have that thought, I hate it. It bothers me so fucking much that this all feels so familiar. That I’ve been paying attention to her enough to know her morning routine and why she might make changes to it.

In the few days that she wasn’t here, it felt like there was something missing from the mornings, and now that she’s back, it’s like things are ‘right’ again.

Which is wrong as hell, because she was never supposed to be here in the first place. And once she was gone, she was supposed to have stayed gone.

This whole mess with Ivan’s body and whoever put it there fucked everything up, and the sooner we get to the bottom of it, the better. We can go back to normal, and eventually things will even out.

I take a sip of coffee, letting the bitterness of the dark liquid clear my head a little so I can refocus on the matter at hand.

“We need to think about who could have done this,” I say to the room at large. I don’t need to clarify what ‘this’ is. Everyone knows what I’m talking about.

Knox chews on some bacon thoughtfully. “I mean, wehavefucked up a lot of people,” he offers. “If we’re looking for someone who might have a vendetta against us, it’s a pretty long list.”

“They’re not all this stupid, though,” Priest puts in.

Knox shoots him a look. “If they weren’t stupid, then they wouldn’t have deserved to get fucked up.”

Priest dips his head like he’s conceding that point. “What I mean is that not everyone who has ended up on our shit list would be bold enough to do something like this. Petty drug dealers and thieves? This is out of their league.”

I nod, because he has a point. Most of the small-fry criminals in Detroit wouldn’t want to have a run in with Ivan St. James, alive or dead. Putting his body on display in a room full of some of the most powerful players in Detroit—both on the legal and illegal side of things—isn’t a move for some rando with a grudge.

Or it would have to be a pretty big grudge if it was.

“There was that one guy,” Ash says through a mouthful of cereal. “What’s-his-name.”

“Oh yeah, good old what’s-his-name.” Knox nods sagely with a smirk. “Can’t forget about him.”

Ash flips him off. “The guy who was trying to smuggle counterfeits through the club. Knox fucked him up good, and he had a lot of connections. I don’t remember his fucking name, so sue me.”

“Monroe,” I say, supplying the name. “Last I heard, he’s dead. Tried it with someone else, and they were even less lenient than we were.”

“How do we know it’s someone we pissed off?” Ash asks. “Maybe it’s one of her enemies.” He jerks his head in River’s direction but doesn’t look at her.

She bristles, gripping her coffee mug tightly. “My enemies are all dead. I don’t go around starting shit with people just for the fun of it. And what I start, I fucking finish.”

There’s anger in her voice, but something else is there too. Something I can’t place.

I don’t have time to dwell on it.

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