Page 45 of Tuck & Roll

“Gotcha.” She’d finally found the end of the thread she’d been pulling on. She found the account Chet had been sending the money he’d been skimming from Bottoms Up. The account was listed under the name Clark Gussman. By the looks of it, Chet and Clark had been skimming for a while according to the amount of money in it. Race was going to be pissed.

She had the search she’d been doing on the chief pulled up on one screen, showing all his personal and banking information. On the other screen was Clark’s banking information. Looking closer, something caught her eye. Once a month Clark made a $5,000 withdrawal and within no more than two days, a $5,000 deposit would be made in the chief’s account.

“Huh.” What she’d discovered all pointed to the possibility of the chief and Clark knowing each other. She needed to dig a little deeper.

Her head jerked up at the sound of a loud commotion coming from the common area. What was going on? Were some of the brothers having a fight? She started to stand up to go check it out when she heard, “Police! Freeze! Hands on your heads!”

Oh shit! She quickly backed up the new information onto her flash drive and shut everything down, going so far as to unplug both computers. She pulled the flash drive from the computer and shoved it in her shoe. It wouldn’t be comfortable to walk on, but she wasn’t letting anyone have it. From what she was finding, they couldn’t trust the local law enforcement and wasn’t sure how far the corruption went. With everything shut off and unplugged, she got up and was coming around her desk when two men dressed in tactical gear came storming into her office, guns pointed at her.

“Hands up where I can see them!” one of them shouted.

Her eyes flew wide at the same time her hands went up next to her shoulders. One of the men roughly grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her toward the door, shoving her again when she didn’t move fast enough. The flash drive in her shoe dug into the bottom of her foot, but she refused to draw attention to herself by limping.

By the time she made it to the common area, the police were herding everyone outside where they forced everyone to their knees with their hands behind their heads. Kylie was unceremoniously shoved to hers, the loose gravel on the broken black top digging into her knees. “Ow!”

“What are you guys looking for this time?” Race wanted to know as he was shoved to his knees to her right, his fingers laced behind his head. An officer came behind him, roughly pulling his arms down, securing them at his back with zip ties.

“Shut up and don’t talk!” one of the officers shouted.

“Well if you tell us what you’re looking for maybe we can help you find it,” Dagger snarked. He grimaced when the same officer secured his arms behind his back.

One by one, the officer went down the line securing each person’s arms behind their backs while another one patted them down, presumably looking for weapons.

She moved her knee, hoping to find a spot without a rock and was shoved to her stomach without warning. She caught herself with her hands, scraping her palms in the process, before her face hit the pavement. It didn’t matter a whole lot when someone stuck their foot in her neck, holding her down, grinding her face into the gravel and hot pavement.

“Let her up! You’re gonna burn her face on the pavement!” Jed shouted from down the line. His outburst earned him a hit to the back with the butt of a rifle. “Motherfucker! Come at me when you don’t have a gun in your hand,” he growled.

The booted foot left her neck and another officer helped her back to her knees. “Knock it off, Kitowski.”

“If she’s gonna whore for the bastards, she can expect to be treated like one of them,” the asshole who’d shoved her face first into the ground sneered.

She could feel loose pebbles embedded in her cheek and went to wipe them away. Kitowski grabbed her by the wrist to stop her. “Hands in the air, bitch!” He squeezed and twisted her wrist sharply, causing her to gasp in pain and bend to the side to escape the pressure he was putting on her wrist.

“What the fuck, man!” Darren was shoved to his knees on her left.

Kitowski smacked Darren in the face with the flat surface of the rifle butt. He spit blood on the pavement and bared his bloody teeth in an angry snarl. His nose flared as he cracked his neck side to side. The intense gaze he pointed Kitowski’s way told the man without words that payback was coming. Not right now, but soon.

“Takes a real big man to hurt a woman,” Darren told him. “What’s the matter? Your woman never lets you be in charge at home so you have to prove you’re a man by beating up women at work?”

That earned him a flat-out punch to the face. His head jerked to the side before slowly turning back to face Kitowski. It was like the idiot had a death wish or something, she thought.

“Stop!” Kylie shouted. “You’re hurting him!”

“That’s the point, bitch,” he snarled in her face. “Watch yourself or I’ll find a reason to take you in.”

She slammed her mouth closed not because she wasn’t afraid for herself, but for what would happen to the men trying to protect her.

The two officers restraining everyone settled behind her. “Kitowski, knock it off or I’m reporting you. One more bad report and you’re out.” He wasn’t exceptionally gentle when securing her wrists, but he wasn’t overly rough either. The one officer doing the pat downs took a little longer patting Kylie down than what she thought was necessary. She bit into her lip to keep from crying out when he groped her boobs a little too hard.

“You done yet? Or do you plan on finger fucking her while you’re at it?” Race’s face was flushed and his teeth clenched so tight, Kylie could see a muscle ticking in his jaw. She imagined that if he could get his hands on the man feeling her up, he’d do some real damage.

“Do you even have a warrant?” Dagger asked one of the officers.

No one immediately replied. Did that mean they were raiding the Sons of Redemption clubhouse without the law behind them? Why would they do something like that? Did the club experience this kind of thing often?

She didn’t know how long they all knelt there before the man in charge came outside with a handful of men dressed in tactical gear following behind him. He shook his head as he made his way over to an unmarked car. From where Kylie was kneeling, she could see a man in the passenger seat that from the DMV picture she’d found looked like Police Chief Whitener. She inhaled sharply in surprise.

“Easy, girl,” Race spoke quietly. “Don’t show any emotion.”