by Wilde, Kati
That smile finally reaches her eyes, though her lips are trembling now. “Do you still intend to go after Papa?”
“Yeah, I do.” Because she won’t be safe until he’s dead.
“Or they’ll use me as a witness to put him away.”
And to catch him. “They’ll try.”
“Then maybe…” She gives an uncertain, hopeful little shrug. “Maybe when this is all over with—whether he’s in jail or whether you get him—we can meet up again. And compare notes about the Papa hunt.”
That shit Anna said about letting something go and it coming back goes flying through my head, dropping a bomb in my chest.
“That ain’t how it works, angel,” I tell her hoarsely. “They’ll give you a new name, a new life, maybe even a new face. Then they’ll tell you real clear to never get in touch with anyone from before. Because that’s always where witness protection falls apart.”
Her brow furrows. “You think I’d still be in danger? Even after he’s been put away?”
“Especially if he’s put away.” Just another reason to do this my way. “Rich fucker like that will keep appealing and trying to overturn any verdicts against him. Which means he’ll never stop wanting to get rid of you or any other witnesses. So this step you’re taking now is forever.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have told her. Because she looks so torn, eyes swimming as she looks toward the room where she’d be heading.
But a part of me knows exactly what I’m doing. Hoping she won’t go through that door. Hoping she’ll choose me.
Tears slip over her cheeks. “I have to take that step. And I have a really good reason. I wish I could tell you now what the reason is, but I can’t yet.”
Christ. This big fucking hole in my chest. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“Maybe not. But I’d like to give you one. When I can.” She wipes her cheeks on her sleeve and reaches into her pocket. Pulls out a little metal tag—Daisy’s tag that she used to break out, and then went scrounging around behind a cabin to find before we left. A good luck charm, she said then. But now she tells me, “Maybe one day a stranger will call you up and say that she found your dog. And maybe you’ll take that call, even if Daisy isn’t really missing.”
That hole in me fills up with so much sweetness. Not all the way full. But I’ll take partial. “Don’t lose that tag, angel.”
And I won’t ever change that number.
“I won’t.” She slides it into her pocket again, draws a deep and shuddering breath. “Will you go in with me? Just until I’m settled.”
“Never planned to do anything else.” I take her hand, lacing my fingers through hers. “Any reason you don’t feel safe or you want to bail, you say the word and we’re out of there. I don’t leave until you’re certain.”
And fuck—after that, maybe just keep following her. Until I’m certain she’s safe.
Her fingers squeeze mine so tight as we walk up to the door. Wearing only jeans and a T-shirt, in his bare feet like he was catching some sleep while waiting for us, Creek opens it up. He eyes her quickly before narrowing a look at me. “You decide to talk a little more, too? Or you’re a package deal?”
Going into protection with her? That shouldn’t sound so tempting.
Not the protection part. Just the part where I’m with her.
But it’s also real stupid. “You couldn’t ever hide this face good enough,” I say, shouldering my way past the door and scoping out the room before leading her in. “Just you in here?”
“Just me.” Creek holsters the gun he’d been holding behind his back. “And we could make those scars go away.”
Nothing will ever make these scars go away. Still holding her hand, I head across the room. Two queen beds, still made up but one showing signs that a single person was lying on it for a while. Folders stacked up on the nightstands and table, a box of takeout and one empty water bottle in the trash. No one in the bathroom except maybe a cockroach or two, just a single hand towel used.
“All right,” I tell him. “I know Blowback told you I was bringing her, and the deal was that we share information. So while you’ve got me in here, why don’t you ask me what you want to ask. And while we’re talking, that’ll let her get a feel for the man she’ll be trusting with her life.”
“That’ll work. Have a seat, then.” He gestures to the table, then looks her over again. “You’re the one they call Cherry?”
Fingers tightening on mine, she nods.
“And your real name?”
She swallows hard. “Maybe a little later?”
“Fair enough.” He grabs a few bottles of water out of the mini fridge, sets them in front of us and sits, notebook in hand. Looking over at me, he says, “How you want to play this?”
“Anonymous tip. And real dumb. I figure that I overheard two guys talking while I was trying to nap at a rest area. Didn’t see who it was, don’t know nothing else. It’s just some shit your anonymous tipper overheard.”
“So this girl will stick her neck out but you won’t?”
My neck will be out there. But not for this fucker. “You think I don’t know how that’ll work? All at once, you’ll be trading for everything. You say you’ll ignore what happened in the Cage in exchange for my testimony in that witness stand. Because you know I’d get off if it came down to a trial, but also know the whole process would fuck up my life real good, and I’d do just about anything to avoid that. So you’ll hold everything I say over my head, use it to jerk me around and make me do what you want me to do. Which is a whole lot like what Papa did. So all of this? It’s just something I heard.”
“You think we’re like Papa?”
“You? Maybe not.” Or Blowback wouldn’t be talking to him. “But I ain’t taking bets on the rest. How’s your friend Gillam? Are they trading with him for info about Papa? And how many bodies will be swept under the rug so they can make that deal?”
His jaw tightens. “Gillam opted out.”
Ate a bullet before they got to him. “Bad luck for you.”
“Yeah, it was.” He sits back, his gaze touching on my girl before returning to me. “I’ve got a pile of photos showing what was left in that barn, but it might put you off barbecue for a while. Long story short, we’re running DNA, but that takes time. So no hits yet. But we’ve got plenty left to match up dental records—we just don’t have any clue what records to pull, where to start. We know they were militia, but where were they out of? Where did Papa pick them up from?”
“No fucking clue.” I look to my girl. “You?”
“The truck they used around the compound had Arizona plates. A black Silverado.”
“There was no Silverado at the site,” Creek says, frowning. “You got a tag number—even a partial?”
She shakes her head.
So maybe Victor had the pickup off-site. Or maybe one of the Bedlam Butchers or escaping fighters stole it during the raid. I’ll ask around about that.
Still, Arizona’s a smaller place to start looking for the militia than every-fucking-where is.
Creek looks pleased, too, as he asks me, “You were military. What was your sense of them?”
“Boys playing soldiers,” I tell him. “Except for Victor. You won’t find him in those barns, though. Was on holiday leave. But he had a direct line to Papa.”
“Victor?” he confirms while writing it down.
“Yeah. Six-two, one-eighty, brown hair and blue eyes. Forty to forty-five years old. Obviously in charge.”
“Distinguishing marks?”
“Does a tight little sphincter for a mouth count? No?” Too bad. “I’d bet my left nut that he was Army once upon a time. Now he hates one-percenters—bikers, not billionaires—and anyone who steps outside the law. Sees the Cage as a way of meting out the justice that your boys won’t.”
“And hopefully wrote that on a message board somewhere,” Creek says, scribbling in his notepad. “Victor. They used first names?”
“
NATO alphabet. There was also a Bravo, Charlie, so on.”
His eyes sharpen. “Did they go in order, Alfa to Zulu? If they got to Victor, that would mean at least twenty-two in their militia. Or random, maybe matching first letters of their real names?”
“There were sixteen—and no Alfa. At least not by the time I got there,” my girl says. “In the east barn, those bodies are Hotel and Tango…and probably Charlie, though I didn’t see for sure.”
“It was Charlie,” I tell her.
A sad look comes over her face, then her expression seems torn by confusion—as if she can’t help grieving for the fuckers, yet isn’t even sure if she should. Men she’d known for months and that she might have killed, too, if given the chance.
“It ain’t easy for anyone to see what you saw,” I say to her quietly. “Whatever you’re feeling, don’t you beat yourself up for it.”
She nods, then says, “Hotel was five-ten, one hundred and sixty pounds, blond hair and blue eyes. Mid-twenties. Slightly chipped front tooth, tattoo of a crucifix on the nape of his neck. Tango was five-eleven and stockier, so probably one-ninety. Late twenties, early thirties. Brown and brown, a surgical scar on the back of his left hand that was probably only a year or two old.” She traces a line up her own, demonstrating. “Charlie was six-one, one-seventy, dark blond and green, early thirties. I think he wore corrective contact lenses. Oh, and all of these guys were Caucasian, wore high-and-tights.”
Christing fuck. “Are you a cop?”
That doesn’t feel right but…the fuck? Combined with her asking specifically for Luke Harris by name, obviously she’s got some connection to law enforcement. Which might explain a whole hell of a lot.
Biting her lip, she shakes her head. Her eyes are dark and apologetic when they meet mine. “But I did pay attention.”
Knew it. I laugh and sit back. “Go on, then. He apparently doesn’t need me for this part.”
She gives him a list of guards most likely on duty in the west barn—men that I’d only seen in the warehouse and whose names I didn’t know. She’s got names, descriptions, every damn thing. She fills out the remaining roster in the east barn, then tells him, “And there were five more, but they were already dead and buried out back.”
“Out back?”
“You didn’t find the graves?” she asks and when he shakes his head, tells him, “They’re a couple of hundred yards behind the barns. The three newest are Delta, Mike, and Oscar.” The guards that Tusk killed when he got out and went for her. “Rome’s out there, too. He’ll be the one with a broken neck. Because he had…an accident. And fell.”
Into Handlebar’s hands. But she isn’t telling Creek that. The man’s not buying the accident claim for a second but he doesn’t press her, either.
So she’s looking out for Handlebar. My chest feels real tight as I gently squeeze her fingers. She gives me a little smile, then it falters when she goes on, “And Bravo. They executed him after Lissa was…” She trails off, her throat working. “After Tusk dragged Lissa into his stall and killed her. And she’s out there, too.”
“Lissa?” Creek prods gently.
“Yeah. She was…I think a dancer in Vegas? She never really said for certain. But she had a little girl who was being looked after by her parents. That’s how they made her do what they wanted. But she still tried to escape.” Tears slip from her eyes before she looks to me, hard and angry. “You would have called her bait pussy. But she was so good and sweet. And helped me so much.”
“And I’m so fucking sorry, angel.” I bring her trembling hand to my lips, press an apologetic kiss to her fingers. Sorry she was hurt so bad, sorry I was such a fucking asshole. “Creek will make sure she gets out of the ground and home to her family. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says softly.
She nods, still quietly crying, and I crack open her water bottle while Creek snags the box of tissues from the vanity.
To me, he says, “There was a fourth body in the barn. One of the rear stalls. Big guy. Bullet wound to the head.”
“That was Tusk,” my girl spits out. “A piece of shit murdering rapist asshole.”
Surprise arches Creek’s brows. “One of the fighters?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “And most likely you’ll be getting a hit on that DNA. Either already in the system because he’s been in prison for rape or murder, or waiting to be matched to some serial killer shit. That fucker loved what he did in the Cage. Fucking loved it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Any idea how he met his demise?”
My girl shakes her head. “It was really dark in there. And it was so loud. Bullets going everywhere. He probably got confused and just…accidentally fell into the path of a ricochet.”
“‘Accidentally fell into the path of a ricochet,’” Creek echoes slowly as he writes that down, barely doing a better job than I am of not laughing. “Any idea who was pulling the trigger that started the ricochet?”
“No clue. It was so dark,” she says again. “I was locked up in my stall. The next thing I know, someone picked me up and carried me out of there, and I saw Tango and Hotel on the ground as we went out. But other than that…nothing. Because I swooned.”
“Swooned?”
“Fainted. But elegantly.”
“Seems like a reasonable reaction,” he says, lips quirking. “Maybe we’ll come back to that. What can you tell me about the other fighters?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.” She regards him steadily. “I’ll call it patient confidentiality.”
“You can’t claim that privilege if you aren’t a doctor.”
“Maybe not. But they were under my care. So if they want to come forward, fine. But I will not be responsible for doing more harm to them, if naming them puts a target on their backs. Or on their family’s backs. They’ve been through enough. And I’ve got enough guilt to deal with.” Beneath the table, she reaches for my hand again. “You want me for Papa. Ask me about him, instead.”
This fucking girl. I don’t know how I ever thought she was just saving her own skin. She doesn’t say it was me who killed Tusk, doesn’t say she saw Gunner and Zoomie coming into the barn and shooting the guards, and now she’s protecting the fighters. She doesn’t owe any of us a damn thing. Hell, she’s probably got reason to make some of us pay. Yet she’s not giving the feds any leverage over us.
Creek takes that explanation in stride. “All right. Give me Papa’s basics first. Do you have a description?”
She does, and there isn’t any more to it than what she already told me. A tanned, rich-looking asshole. Of course, the FBI will get her in front of a forensic artist and maybe have a portrait soon.
More interesting is what she says about his security. No names for the suits, but the general descriptions matching what Spiral reported from the Iron Blood’s compound. No surprise that it was Papa’s crew, but good to have confirmation. She describes sedans instead of SUVs, but likely they use different vehicles to escort Papa than they do when transporting crates of guns. And best of all is a state for those plates, too—Nevada.
Already narrowing him down. And this feels real fucking good again. Getting shit done.
Creek flips over a page in his notebook. “Tell me about your first meeting with Papa.”
She hesitates for a long time, biting her lip—her fingers squeezing mine. Finally she says softly, “I’d like to save that for a little later.”
A little later…after I’m gone. Because that meeting with Papa is part of the explanation that she can’t give me yet, her good reason for walking into this motel room instead of leaving with me.
A silence falls as Creek looks at her, a quiet that feels so damn heavy. I can’t fucking breathe again. And I’m thinking that maybe I would let them cover up these scars, if it meant never letting go of her hand.
But the best way of keeping her safe is staying out, and killing Papa when I get that chance. Not heading into another cage
called witness protection.
For her, it’s right. It’s her choice. But she’s got her good reason to go in, and I’ve got a million fucking reasons to stay out.
“All right,” Creek says, closing his notebook and looking to me. “We can call it a night. We’ll meet up again another time and get those details from the Cage.”
After my girl will already have been handed over again to the Marshals and squirreled away. My throat a knotted wreck, I nod.
“One last thing, though,” he says, reaching back to pick another folder out of the pile. “I’ve got photos of men who have been reported missing and who we suspect might be in one of the stables…or might have already fought in the Cage. I understand that you don’t want to expose any fighters who are already free, Cherry. But some of these men are beyond harm. And others are still in danger. So if either of you can identify any who have been killed or who are in the other stables, we’ll have a better idea of who we’re searching for—and for the others, give their families some closure. Just as you wanted Lissa’s family to have.”
She meets my eyes, as if seeking agreement. I don’t care what we do if it means staying here a little bit longer with her.
“Okay,” she says softly to him. Maybe thinking what I am, because she’s holding my hand so tight.
Or maybe she’s just bracing herself against what’s coming. A set of four pictures. Airbag’s one, but she doesn’t seem to even look at his. Instead her gaze settles on the second photo.
I know him. “That’s the one Tusk killed in the Cage, yeah? Draft.”
She nods. “The week before Thanksgiving,” she tells Creek, her voice wavering. “The next one went by Zero. He was from our stable and he was killed in the Cage in, um…mid-October?”
“Killed by whom?”
“Papa,” she says and Creek’s eyebrows arch high.
“He was in there?”
“No. But that’s who killed Zero by making him fight.” Her breath trembles again and she looks to the fourth. “That one was…I’m sorry, I don’t know his name. It was my first time at the Cage. And he was killed right after the first fight I saw and I knew they said it was a death match but I didn’t really… So I wasn’t— I couldn’t— It was really hard to pay attention.”
