Page 101 of The Devil's Reward
Shit. He turns towards me and the ice in his eyes sends a chill down my spine. “What the fuck?” he rasps out, reaching for me. I pull the trigger, thanking God I remembered to put the silencer on so it doesn’t bring the whole damn club running in. He stares at me as he slumps, and then he hits his head again before he collapses to the floor.
The whore opens her mouth to scream, but I point the gun at her and snap, “Shut the fuck up or I’ll kill you too.” I make my way around the counter and she backs up, heading for the back door. “I don’t fucking thinks so.” I reach out to grab her, but she tries to run past me. I block her and shove her back, making her hit the edge of the counter. “You’re coming with me so I have some insurance,” I tell her menacingly.
Suddenly the back door is pulled open, and I immediately turn and aim my gun at whoever is daring to try and interrupt my getaway. My blood runs cold when I see the man in the dark suit, black leather gloves on his hands. I don’t need to know who he is to know he’s one of Dmitri’s men. Fuck. “You are coming with me,” he orders in a low voice. “The girl too,” he adds with a nod at her, while she’s trying to inch her way backwards.
“I have this under control,” I tell him, grabbing her arm and yanking her back. He doesn’t reply to my words, just points his gun and nods for me to get walking. “Listen,” I try to reason.
“No,” he says coldly. “You have caused Mr. Norikov too much trouble and he wants to see you.”
“But she—”
“She is coming with us. She has seen too much,” he snaps. “Now let’s go.”
I curse but follow him out, dragging the struggling whore with me. This is not how this was supposed to go. I need to figure a way out of this and fast. Because I am not letting Dmitri kill me before my plan is done.
FIFTY-TWO
SHADOW
Dagger is our mole, and I’m going to get Quinn back if it’s the last thing I do.
“Check Dagger’s birth certificate and see who his father is listed as,” I order Cryos.
He quickly types away, and then he curses. “His father is listed as C. Markins. Mother is Allison Malloy. Baby is listed as Christopher Malloy, but looks like somewhere along the way, he switched to the last name Arnold. Fuck, I never noticed that before. How the hell did I not notice that?”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Dagger ended up here at our club,” I say to Sniper. “Or that he purposely changed his name so it would be his father’s.”
Sniper nodded. “It’s all circumstantial, though. We have no hard proof of why he hid that information.”
“We need to talk to Bullet,” I tell Sniper. “Maybe he can fill in the blanks. Cryos, keep this to yourself until we know what’s going on.” Cryos nods, still looking stunned.
Sniper and I make our way to the med room and shut the door behind us. Bullet is awake, and Rose is beside him, looking exhausted. She gives me a cool stare, but I ignore it. I glance over and see that Sage is fast asleep. Shit, this can’t wait, so if she wakes up, we’ll just have to tell her to keep quiet. Medic frowns when he looks at our faces.
“What’s wrong?” Bullet asks quietly, straightening slowly in the bed.
I give him a quick rundown of finding the note and the picture in Hammer’s room. “We think that Dagger is Bull’s son,” I explain as I hand him the old picture. Bullet’s eyes harden as he takes it, and stares at the man in the photo.
“He certainly looks like him here,” Bullet remarks quietly. “Who’s his mother?”
“Allison Malloy,” I answer. Rose starts and lets out a small gasp, and Bullet looks over at her sharply. I look at Rose. “You know that name?”
“Allison was my friend. She’s the one that brought me around the clubhouse the first time, way back when, and I met Bullet. She and Bull were hot and heavy, and he kept her plied with drugs and booze.”
“I remember her,” Bullet says with a grim nod. “The bitch was always hanging around, and Bull fucked her as he saw fit. She would do anything he asked, and he liked that power. How did we not know this when he applied to be a Prospect?”
“Because he changed his name,” I answer. “He was born as Christopher Malloy, but maybe he figured that it would raise some flags so he changed his name, built up a whole new life for himself. Or maybe his mother changed it afterwards. And Bull’s middle name is—”
“Arnold,” Bullet interrupts. “Son of a bitch. This can’t be a coincidence. Not with the mafia knowing some of Bull’s old hideouts. You think Bull gave Allison the journal and she gave it to Dagger?”
“It makes sense,” I say but Rose shakes her head.
“Allison wasn’t that bright,” Rose counters. “She was so strung out half the time, that if Bull gave her something like that, I doubt she would have remembered it or put it down and it was lost. It’s possible Dagger stumbled onto it, I guess, but we’re making assumptions. It could be all a coincidence.”
Suddenly the door bursts open and Macy runs in, eyes full of terror and tears streaming down her face. “He took my Mommy,” she sobs, launching herself at me. “The bad man took my Mommy.”
My heart drops as I scoop her up and run from the room. I see nothing in the common room and I ask Macy, “Where was your Mom, Macy?” She points at the kitchen, and I walk in and find Viper on the ground, blood on the floor around him, the back door open, and no sign of Quinn.Fuck.Medic rushes to Viper, cursing.
I turn my head and say to Macy, “Who took her, Macy? What did he look like? What happened?”
