Page 23 of Montana Mystery

Shoving his head back, he looked at the ceiling. “It wasn’t supposed to get this bad. I swear.”

I held up a hand low so only Kate could see it. Let him talk. He was going to, but at this point, we just needed to listen. She moved to one of the chairs and sat, waiting.

“It was just a party I got invited to,” he said. “I’d been hanging with these guys and they said there was a cool place where we could drink and play poker and shit. When we got there, it wasn’t like that. Dogs were fighting, and the energy...” He closed his eyes. “I know it sounds bad, but the energy in there was overwhelming. It felt good. I haven’t felt like that since... Anyway. The betting was easy. I made some decent money that night, so I kept going back.

“There was poker too, but it was mainly fighting. Dogs, sometimes people. I never bet on the people.” He locked eyes with me. “I swear.”

I had to ground myself, freezing every muscle and not allowing myself to move thanks to the anger that was simmering through me. Only betting on the animals did not make this better.

“I kept going back, and this one fight, it was so obvious who was going to win. It wasn’t just me. There were a lot of people that bet big that night. Easy money. But it was a bait and switch. This little dog that seemed like it was about to die took down a dog three times its size. When I didn’t have the money, they threw me in the pit with both of them.”

Brandon looked down at his hands. “You know the rest about the money.”

“The people,” I said. “Did they choose to fight?”

“I don’t think so.”

I steeled the rage that boiled in my chest. “Did you see anything else? Drugs? Guns?”

He looked at me again, and now I didn’t see the angry soldier. I saw the scared kid who was barely old enough to be dealing with any of this. “There were drugs and guns. Not the kind that you’re talking about, just in general. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they were doing that too.”

Finally, I turned away from him. I very much wanted to be in the Resting Warrior gym pounding on a bag right now. That would have to come later. As angry as I was, and as bad as this was—worse than we’d originally thought—Brandon needed help. We hadn’t been able to get through to him the first time. Maybe we could now.

“You can help us find these guys?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I pinned him with a stare. “No more lies. Or hiding things. It’s one thing when it’s just you, but now Kate is in it. They know where you live, they definitely know about her. Understand?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to pay for the next two weeks of this payment plan,” I said. “That should give us some breathing room to figure out how to take them down.”

Both of their voices spilled on top of each other, telling me I didn’t need to give them money.

“Yes,” I put enough power into the word to quiet them, “I am. Unless you want to be in a world of hurt, there’s not really another option. I have the money, and we’ll use it.”

Brandon aside, I wanted to help Kate. She needed it. I’d seen the desperation and misery in her eyes earlier today. It wasn’t the same, but I knew what it was like to be desperate, alone, and everything spinning out of control. It was the exact feeling that haunted me at night and chased me from sleep on a regular basis. I knew my friend Jude felt the same.

I thought about what we knew. We couldn’t reveal our hand to the Riders before we got inside and figured out how to shut the operation down. And that meant doing something I didn’t want to do.

The last thing I wanted was for Kate to have more direct involvement. But with Brandon in the hospital, if she wasn’t the one to deliver the money, then they might be suspicious and go to ground. Members of groups like these usually acted first and thought later. If there was even a chance they knew who we were and what we wanted to do, we’d never see them again.

Yet, if we had the opportunity to take them down, I was going to make sure we didn’t waste it.

“The ‘week’ is up tomorrow, right?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get something set up then. I’ll call in the guys so we can follow these assholes once they pick up the money from Kate.”

“Hey,” Brandon snapped. “You can’t let her do that. She doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

I leveled him with my gaze, but my words were as kind as I could make them. “I don’t want her to have to, but the fact that it’s necessary is on you. There’s nothing we can do about it now if we don’t want them suspecting how much we know.” I looked over at Kate. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yes.” Not even an ounce of hesitation.

“We’re going to do everything in our power to keep you safe in this,” I said. “If everything goes smoothly, it could all be gone in a couple of days.”

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