It was a brutal speech, and one of the longer ones I’d ever made, but the lingering wrath that curdled my blood made it impossible to care about the flinch of pain that rocked Garro like the strike of a bullwhip. Loulou looked about ready to whip me herself, but it was King who seemed the most impacted. He stared at me with wide eyes that betrayed the fact that he was still fresh, a recruit of The Fallen instead of an initiated brother at arms. Only a man without blood on his hands could look at a cop like that; like a little boy who hero worshiped the cop next door.
I watched as he shook himself out of it and his jaw set to ticking, a bomb about to detonate. I wondered idly who he was angrier at. Me, for being right, or himself, for agreeing with me.
“You throw that in his face one more time, I don’t care if it’s tomorrow or in twenty years, I will personally cut off your balls, Danner.”
I looked down from Garro’s eyes to see Loulou leaning forward, little teeth bared, a biker built like a Barbie throwing threats at the feet of a cop. It should have been funny, that image, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t because I could see the ferocity in her eyes, read the restrained fury in her body and the pain at her lips that made them twist funny in the corners. I’d hit a nerve not only for her man but for her as well. After all, he’d gone to prison after killing the man who’d shot Loulou as a little girl right through her chest in a gang war that erupted outside a fucking church.
I hooked my thumbs in my pockets and raised an eyebrow at her. I couldn’t let her know, any of them know, how much I reluctantly admired them, their courage and conviction, the way they fused themselves together into one fucking beautiful family unit.
I tried not to spend too much time near the Garros because each time I did, my moral compass went haywire in the face of their magnetism.
“They aren’t done with her yet,” I told her blandly.
She blinked then put her little claws away and tipped her chin up like the snotty Princess she’d been raised to be. “Fine. We’ll just wait right over here until you’re done interrogating a victim.”
She tugged Garro away by the hand and with one last vicious glare directed my way he stalked after her, already tugging his phone out to update the brothers or call them to arms. It was lucky Cricket was already a dead man ’cause the damage Garro would’ve done to him once he found out the extent of his crimes… let’s just say that death by cleaver was a hell of a lot less painful.
King lingered a second, peering at me in that brooding way he’d mastered even as a kid. “What’re you still doin’ out here? Go make sure those fucks aren’t fuckin’ with her.”
I locked eyes with him as warmth loosened the dozen knots tied in my chest. Even after all the years and all the bad blood, it felt good to know the kid still believed in me, at least a little.
I gave him a curt nod then turned on my heel, shooting a quelling glance at the nervous rookie officer on duty behind the front desk as I stalked from the front bullpen, up the stairs and into the back where the interrogation rooms were.
They hadn’t been fucking with H.R. when I’d left. I’d spoken with the two interrogating officers, laid it out for them that this wasn’t about takin’ down an associate of The Fallen, but helping a long-time victim work through her shock and horror after taking a life.
They’d gotten me, mostly because I hadn’t given the option not to.
But as soon as I saw Timothy Guzman, I knew things had gone to shit in my absence.
He proved me right by immediately stating, “You gotta bring her in, son.”
Heat raced from the base of my spine up my neck and I had to physically bite back the fury to keep from throttling the man next to me.
I took three deep breaths before I faced the middle-aged piece of shit I had to call my superior.
“First off, not your son, Sergeant Guzman. Not going to tell you again,” I paused, waiting for him to acknowledge it with a terse nod. “Second, I told you once I told you fucking twenty times, no.”
“You can’t just say no,” he said through his teeth, slamming a fleshy hand down on the counter in front of the one-way mirror that looked into the interrogation room Harleigh Rose was currently sitting in. “This is official business and I’m your boss, Danner. This isn’t some suggestion box at a fucking coffee shop.”