Page 35 of Beyond the Cut
“Thank you.” Arianne gave a mock bow.
“Thor to the rescue.” Shelly-Ann snorted. “Where’s your hammer? Oh. I forgot. You don’t need one. You prefer to kill men with your bare hands.”
“What’s she talking about?”
“How much?” Cade said to Shelly-Ann, pointedly ignoring Dawn’s question.
“She owes me another eight hundred.”
Cade pulled out his wallet and counted eight hundred dollars into Dawn’s hand. “Your choice, sweetheart. You can pay her, or you can walk out of here and leave her to me.”
“Hey.” Arianne gave an indignant sniff. “I was here first. If anyone gets to throw a few punches at Shelly-Ann it’s me, and only if Dawn doesn’t want to do it first.”
Dawn stared at Shelly-Ann, considering. But how could she inflict violence on someone after what she’d suffered at Jimmy’s hands? She hated Shelly-Ann, but she couldn’t physically hurt her, and she couldn’t ask anyone else to do it. “I’ll pay her.”
“Good call,” Shelly-Ann let out a breath. “Didn’t think you were the type who could live with blood on her hands. Thor, on the other hand, probably went drinking with his brothers after killing Rusty the other night.” She scrawled the babysitter’s address on a piece of paper and handed it to Dawn.
“You killed Rusty?” Dawn whirled around and stared at Cade aghast. She remembered Rusty from her time in the Brethren—a tall, thin, redhead with a scraggly goatee, and one of Jimmy’s closest friends.
“Club business.”
“Club business is the same in every club,” Shelly-Ann said bitterly. “It’s all about blood and pain. And bikers are the same wherever you go. Does your man beat you like Jimmy did? ’Cause from what I saw there’s not much difference between them.”
Dawn’s mouth opened and then closed again. Why was she so surprised? The Sinners were outlaw bikers. They would do anything for their club—even if it meant taking a life. Cade was the Sinner treasurer and one of Jagger’s right-hand men, positions that had to be earned by proving yourself in the MC. Plus, Rusty had been part of the gang that had kidnapped and beaten Cade. He would have known justice was coming…
Still, she couldn’t shake the niggle of doubt Shelly-Ann had planted in her mind. Cade was a violent man. Just like Jimmy. And what if that violence spilled over to her?
NINE
I will follow the creed before I follow my heart.
SINNER’S TRIBE CREED
The Whitefish trip wasn’t going as planned.
Although Cade had initially been glad to take off with Zane and the prospect right after the altercation with Shelly-Ann, he couldn’t get Dawn’s shocked expression out of his mind. Not during the spectacular three-hour drive through the mountains. Not when their new prospect had to keep pulling the cage off the road because every damn cop seemed to be on the lookout for black SUVs. And especially not when they arrived at the house of the Brethren’s weapons broker and found him dead.
“Well, damn.”
From the state of the poor bastard’s body, and the pungent smell of rotting flesh, the broker had been dead for a while, and from the fact his body was untouched, no one really cared.
“His guards are out here,” the prospect called. “They’re dead, too. Looks like there was a gunfight.”
“Weapons are missing from the shed,” Zane called out. “I’ll text Jagger and let him know. My guess is they were taken weeks ago.”
Could this day get any worse? Dawn had acted almost as if she were afraid of him outside Shelly-Ann’s house, and yet he’d exercised almost unbelievable restraint when he’d let Shelly-Ann off with only a warning. And what did she expect? That he’d slap Rusty on the wrist and tell him not to do it again? Dawn had been part of this world. She knew how it operated. She knew he might have had to take a life. Or eight. But only to protect his brothers. And now they were short the weapons they needed to launch an offensive against the Jacks.
Cade did a walk around the small, isolated, villa-style house that had served as the broker’s base. But other than the four dead guards, and two whining pups, he saw nothing that would give a clue as to who might have stolen the weapons.
He fed the dogs and filled their water bowls, then went in search of the prospect. Damn, he couldn’t remember the dude’s name. Of all the prospects they’d had over the years, the quiet, geeky, pretty boy with blazing green eyes and sharp features had to be the least likely prospect ever to want to be patched into the club. But he was a tech genius, and could fill a gap in the club’s knowledge base that was getting larger by the day.
He found the prospect throwing up in the bathroom with Zane looking on in disgust.
“Why the hell did you bring him?”
“Prospects need to learn,” Cade said. “Plus there was no way I was driving the damn cage and I knew you wouldn’t volunteer.” Brothers rarely drove in vehicles when they could ride their bikes, leaving the cage driving to old ladies, prospects, and junior patch.
“That prospect can’t learn dick.” Zane turned and Cade followed him from the bathroom to the small patio out back.
