Always Someone’s Monster (Battle Crows MC 1)

CHAPTER 8

It’s okay if you don’t like me. Not everyone has good taste.

-Haggard to a new acquaintance

HAGGARD

The hospital was a maze of hallways, all leading to fuckin’ nowhere.

But not the presidential suite.

No, that one had a fuckin’ chef, a masseuse, and eight million other things that Jaylin Smith did not deserve.

Dressed as I usually dressed—jeans, a t-shirt, and my cut with a leather jacket thrown over it—I headed in the direction that Easton led.

“Everyone is gone?” I asked curiously.

“The family requested that traffic be kept to a minimum,” he answered. “As per the nurse. I’m showing you to his room, and then leaving so I am far, far away from whatever you’re about to do.”

I shrugged.

I didn’t need him.

In fact, it worked out in my favor that he was with the nurse.

“Just tell her I’m still taking a shit,” I suggested. “Tell her that I had something spicy for lunch. She’s old. She knows that our stomachs don’t handle spicy as well as we age.”

Easton pointed out the room at the end of the hallway, where again, nobody loitered.

I would think, having been a complete dumbass and tried to break into someone’s house and rape a twenty-two-year-old woman, the man would be watched because he was a flight risk.

But whatever hookup the kid’s parents had? It was good, because there were no cops to be found.

And, lucky for me, there was also no surveillance.

Fuckin’ stupid asses.

You should always have surveillance.

But whatever. Worked the fuck for me.

“Take off,” I proposed as I walked to a closet marked ‘supply closet.’

Easton did as he was told, turning around and heading back the way he came.

I used a code to get into the supply closet—a code that I’d gotten from the nurse Easton had spoken to—and cleaned off the panel.

Lucky for her, the code was the same throughout the entire hospital. They wouldn’t be able to track her going into the room by her code.

I appreciated her help, and I would’ve hated to incriminate her for what I was about to do.

But I’d do it.

Because I wasn’t a nice man, and she wasn’t family.

Once I had what I wanted, I walked back out, cleaned off the keypad with a wet wipe I found hanging from a wall in a canister, and headed for the room at the end of the hall.

My boots squeaked on the white linoleum as I ripped the syringe from its plastic and shoved the trash into my pocket.

Once I had the syringe pulled back and full of air, I walked into the room that held the dickbag that tried to do things to my girls.

He was asleep with about ten pillows surrounding his head.

I wanted to smother him with one.

Instead, I walked to his IV line, threaded the syringe to the port in his IV, and shoved every ounce of air into the line that I could. I even pulled more air into the syringe and repeated my actions.

Once I had it taken care of, I used the same wipe to wipe the port and the IV line before shoving that too in my pocket.

Done, and with a fuckin’ smile on my face, I headed for the door.

I heard the alarms blaring twenty-one minutes later.

Code blue.

Fucker was dead of an air embolism.

Deserved.

I arrived at my house with a skip to my step.

When I pulled into my driveway, it was to find the door open, and Body out in the front yard chewing on his bone.

Either Clem or Sophia was there.

And since they both parked in the back of the house, I didn’t know which one or both until I walked in and heard the two of them laughing.

This was such a common thing—hearing the giggling—that I didn’t question it.

I walked in through the garage door—something that I’d fixed today and was now rigged up to the alarm—and heard the ‘garage door’ bing.

I didn’t even grimace like I used to.

Not anymore.

I never would again.

“Hey, Daddy!” Clem called as she jumped off the kitchen counter and headed my way. “You’re home early.”

“Didn’t go to work,” I said as I wrapped her up in my arms and squeezed her tight. No matter how old she got—goddamn I couldn’t believe my baby was now twenty-two—she was still that little girl that’d been put in my arms weighing a whopping five pounds. I’d eaten burritos bigger than her when she was born. “What smells so good?”

“Nothing your daughter cooked,” Boston said as he walked into the house. “Sophia cooked. I used your bank card to buy more steaks. Hope that’s okay.”

I gave a chin jerk as I said, “What are you doing here? Thought you were staying with friends.”

Boston grimaced. “Dumbasses were doing ‘shrooms. Couldn’t get caught doing that shit, so I left. Don’t know why Drake is doing it, either, to be honest. If anyone is going to get popped for a random drug test, it’s going to be the starting pitcher. But that’s just me.”