Page 7 of Only The Strong

Allie hums as her eyebrows knit together and she cocks her head slightly. “I don’t think I’ve met Callum. Do you have his Insta? Show me what he looks like.”

I look at Allie, confused as to why she’s choosing now to stalk his socials, but I guess what better time right? “No, I don’t. He didn't tell me his last name.”

“Scandalous. Isn’t that a Carrie Underwood song?” She laughs. Taking my phone out of my hand.

I roll my eyes, leaning into her side to look down at my phone. “Shut up, we’re not getting married.”

Allie shrugs. “Well lucky for you I'm resourceful. The club has an official Insta, I'm sure he's on there somewhere.”

“More like creepy,” I mumble but I watch her search the club and locate their page. She starts scrolling and a few rows down I see a picture of him with two guys in black leather cuts. “There.” I click on the picture. The caption says“Hosting our brothers from California. F.A.O.”

“Which one is he?” She asks, bringing the phone closer to get a better look at all of the guys.

“The blonde one with short hair.” I point to Callum. “What’s ‘F.A.O’?” I ask.

“I’m not sure.” Allie scrolls through the comments. “Oh. Looks likeForever An Outlaw,”she says, hovering her finger over a comment saying just that.

Allie scrolls back to the photo and clicks on the tags so they show up over each person. She clicks on Callum’s tag and it takes her to his profile. He’s following a couple of hundred people and followed by thousands. We scroll through his profile, it's mostly just pictures of him with a dark haired guy covered in tattoos and another guy with longer blonde hair. “That’s Saint.” Allie points to the guy with long blonde hair in one of the pictures we pulled up. She scrolls back up to the top and clicks follow on his profile before quickly killing the app and locking my phone.

I panic and snatch my phone away from her. “Allie, he’s going to think I'm a creep and obsessed with him after one night!”

She crosses her arms and turns to look at me. “Did you like it the other night?”

I sigh, frustrated with her, “Yes, but that—”

“Then stop worrying about what everyone thinks about you and own that shit. You know you wouldn't mind seeing him again and this way you can if you want to.”

“Fair enough,” I concede. “You might be right sometimes.”

She smiles, typical Allie, always glad when she can convince someone to think of things her way. “I’m always right, just be careful they have the reputation they do for a reason.”

I shrug. “He seemed nice, even for a criminal.”

Allie laughs. “I’m sure he was, they just operate outside of the lines sometimes.”

I shake my head, thoroughly confused with Allie’s new friendship. “You’re a law student, Al, shouldn’t you be telling me to stay away from him?”

“Just because I’m going to defend the law doesn't mean I always agree with it. I also can separate a person's character from their lawful, or unlawful, actions.” She pulls her hair tie out and runs her fingers through her loose blonde hair.

I stare at her. “You are going to make one interesting lawyer.”

She shrugs and laughs. “It’s helpful to be able to see beyond the rules sometimes.”

7

CALLUM

I walk downthe claustrophobic concrete stairs into the dimly lit basement. I can hear the smacking of skin beating skin and the groaning of the guy Finn has chained to the chair in the middle of the room.

“Fucking took you long enough.” Finn turns around to face me, shaking his hand out.

I step down from the last step and walk over to the tool cart holding the torture tools, or motivational devices, and lean against it crossing my arms. “Sorry, some of us actually have to work at our jobs, not just sit on our asses doing paperwork.”

Finn shakes his head, turning around to deliver another brutal punch to the guy’s swollen, bloody face. “I fucking hate paperwork!” He roars and something crunches under his fist, probably the guy’s eye socket. The guy groans long and low, doubling over as much as he can when his chest is chained to the back of the chair. I shouldn’t goad him into beating the shit out of this guy when we need answers, but he left himself wide open for that one. Ever since his garage started picking up business he's had to hand most of the rebuilding over to his employees and he's taken over the books; the stubborn asshole doesn't trust anyone else with the admin shit.

“He give you anything yet?” I turn my head to look down at what tools Finn has pulled out to use on the spy we found staking out our warehouse last night.

Finn shakes his head, stepping over to the tool cart and taking a long drink from a water bottle. Torturing someone for answers is hard work and Finn has been at this for a good fourteen hours, he’s got to be exhausted, and the guy in the chair is looking like he has been put through the wringer! His shirt is cut open up the middle, hanging loose on his arms. His jeans are soaked with blood at the knees, evidence that Finn smashed his kneecaps. His torso is bloody with small cuts and stab wounds littering his chest and stomach; each one in the perfect placement to cause maximum pain with minimal damage. The man’s face is barely recognizable from the beating and smashing of the brass knuckles looped around Finn’s fingers. “He hasn’t said a fucking word. Like literally not a goddamn word has left his mouth.”

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