Counter To My Intelligence (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 7) (7 page)

Dallas got up and ushered me out of the booth.

I rolled my eyes, scooted out of the booth and stood. I took her and the diaper bag that Bristol held out to me.

I took it, looping it over my shoulder and walked with the now smiling little girl to the bathroom.

Where I realized they didn’t have any baby changing stations.

I looked at the non-existent sink area where there was no room to change a kid, let alone set anything down.

“Family establishment my ass,” I mumbled, pulling the door to the bathroom open and walking straight to the bar.

I knew the moment Silas realized I was making my way towards him because his body that was relaxed, stiffened.

Then he turned in my direction, crossing his arms over the top of the bar and watching me come.

“Need something?” He asked, taking in the baby and the diaper bag.

I nodded.

“You have no diaper changing station.”

It was meant to come out as a question, but instead sounded more like an accusation.

He blinked.

“Huh,” he said, turning and making his way around the bar.

I watched him come until he stood in front of me.

“You can use my bathroom. It has a big sink area,” he said, gesturing with his hand for me to follow.

I did, right into the same hallway that I’d found myself in from earlier.

I could smell him over certain
other
things, and it was wonderful.

Like pine needles and leather… the latter might be explained by the leather vest he had on.

A picture of a creepy woman was on the back, with
Dixie Wardens
over the top of the figure, and
Benton
under the bottom of it.

I wondered if he was really as important as everyone was making him out to be.

I doubted it.

A man that was supposed to be important wouldn’t be serving people food at a bar.

He hired people to do that.

Not to mention he didn’t mingle with the masses.

“Bathroom’s through there,” he said, gesturing to another closed door.

Danni made a cooing noise when she saw the lights above her eyes, and I nearly did too.

They were pretty cool.

He had a chandelier in his office.

Sure, the chandelier was made of beer and whiskey bottles, but it was still pretty awesome.

“Nice,” I said, gesturing to the light with my head.

He grinned.

“Made it myself,” he said as a way of thank you.

I smiled, but refrained from asking, ‘did you drink it all yourself, too?’

He was waiting for the question, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Walking to the bathroom, I shut the door so he didn’t see anything unsightly and laid Danni down on the cleanest bathroom counter I’d ever seen.

The bathroom matched the office.

It was pretty straight-forward.

Black granite. White tiles. White toilet.

There was a shower, though.

Something I wouldn’t expect in a restaurant office, but whatever.

“Oh, yuck.” I said, as I unsnapped the onesie Danni was wearing.

Shit had crawled out the top of her diaper and started to mingle with her shoulder blades.

Thank God I’d been holding her with a blanket underneath or I’d have it all over me, too.

“Hey!” I called. “Do you mind if I, ah, borrow your shower for a minute?” I called.

“Have at it. Since I’m in here I’m going to do a little paperwork,” came his mumbled reply.

Well, he probably didn’t mumble, but the door was shut, so it was inevitable.

I got the shower turned on, then thought, ‘fuck it.’

I rinsed her off, onesie and all.

Setting her down carefully in the bottom of the tub, I unhooked the showerhead and started to spray her off.

“Wow, kid. What did you eat?” I asked.

She smiled and giggled as I used the man soap on the ledge to wash her down thoroughly.

And I knew immediately where the smell of pine came from.

Yummy.

By the time I was finished with Danni, she smelled like a Christmas tree with a hint of man and leather.

It was a very nice smell, and I couldn’t help myself as I pulled Danni up into my arms, ten minutes later, fully dressed in a new set of clothes, and inhaled her scent.

I came out of the bathroom with Danni cradled to my chest.

Seemed like pooping and eating had tired her the hell out.

The door to the bathroom opened silently, and what I saw when I walked out had butterflies taking flight in my belly.

“Do you have a bag or something I could put these clothes in? Trash bag, grocery sack? I just don’t want to drag all of this with me through your bar,” I explained.

Silas looked up from his desk, and my breath caught in my throat.

He wore glasses perched on the end of his nose.

Ones in which he ripped off the moment he saw me standing there.

“Yeah, I think I got one when I brought my extra clothes a few weeks ago,” he muttered, pulling open drawers.

He found what he was looking for and yanked it open before dumping the contents on the desk.

My eyes fell on the underwear that were on top, and I nearly let out a moan.

He wore tighty whities.

Holy shit.

Sweet baby
Jesus
.

“Here ‘ya go,” he said, holding out the bag to me.

I took it, then looked at the bathroom before looking back down at Danni.

“Do you…ahhh…mind holding her?” I asked.

His cool demeanor melted into a puddle of goo on the floor.

“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, holding out his hands for me to place the sleeping Danni in them.

I handed her over, and her body was engulfed by his massive, scarred hands.

He cradled her to his chest expertly, and I was left staring at him dumbly for a few long moments while he looked down at the baby in his arms.

“She’s cute. I can’t even remember when my girl was this size,” he mumbled. “My granddaughters though… they were cute like this. Now they’re just shit heads.”

I had to laugh.

No bullshitting from him.

Which didn’t really surprise me.

He seemed the type to tell it like it was.

I smiled as I shoved the dirty clothes and the blanket into the little bag, and smiled even more when I came back out to see Silas still staring at Danni as if she were a piece of spun glass.

“How many kids do you have?” I asked softly.

He stood when he saw me with the things I’d brought with me and went to take them from me.

I shook my head.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like you to hold her while I take all this out to Bristol. Then I’ll go wash my hands,” I said softly.

He nodded and walked with me out to the restaurant once again.

“I have three kids. They’re all older now. Now I’m working on ruining the grandkids,” he murmured softly as we walked down the darkened hallway once again.

My senses seemed to be honed as I listened to him.

The way his voice rumbled in his chest. The way he smelled.

I’d never felt like this around anyone in my life. It was an odd experience.

And when I got to the table where my brother and Bristol didn’t even seem to care that I’d had their child for over twenty minutes, I was very disappointed.

I didn’t want him to leave.

“Thanks man,” Dallas said when Silas handed the baby over.

I set the bag of dirty clothes on the floor and offered the diaper bag to Bristol. “I have to go wash my hands. There are things on them that I’d rather not think about.”

Bristol laughed, and I turned to find Silas gone, and nowhere in sight. Only the hint of pine in his place.

I couldn’t figure out why I was so disappointed, but I was.

Really
disappointed.

But it wouldn’t be the last time I saw him. Nor the last time I smelled him.

World’s greatest farter…I mean father.

-T-shirt

Silas

“Get the fuck out of my sight,” I hissed to Crotchet.

Crotchet narrowed his eyes. “Do you realize who you’re talking to?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I realize exactly who the fuck I’m talking to, now move.”

“You’re not authorized to be in here.”

“Crotchet, back off and let him through,” Rosenthal ordered.

Crotch Rot froze and turned where his boss’s boss stood behind him, ordering him to move when he hadn’t even had the chance to meet him yet.

Everybody knew what Rosenthal looked like, though.

He was infamous… just like I was.

“You heard the man,” I said quietly. “Move.”

Crotch Rot’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward. “You won’t get what you want. Trust me.”

I smiled. “Watch me.”

Crotchet moved to allow me to pass, and I barely held back the urge to pop him in the face with the back of my hand.

Rosenthal didn’t say a word until we were well away from Crotchet.

“You’re making an enemy where you don’t need to,” Rosenthal said amusingly.

I shrugged. “Like I give a fuck. I’m old and on the downhill side of dead. I don’t have to please everyone anymore. All I have to please is God and myself… and he’s neither.”

Rosenthal laughed.

“You never seem to lose the bad attitude,” Rosenthal rumbled.

I sighed. “I got it from my mama.”

“What can I help you with?” Rosenthal asked as we made it into his office.

He closed the door, and I took a seat and waited for Rosenthal to follow suit before I handed him a paper.

Shovel’s name was the only thing on the paper, but he knew right off the bat what I was after.

“I haven’t seen or heard anything from him. He fell off the grid the moment he got out,” Rosenthal said before I could even tell him what I wanted.

“I know that,” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “What I don’t know is why he got out. There was no forewarning. No call to tell me he was out. No mention of parole at all, as a matter of fact. Why did something as important as this slip through the cracks? I check on this motherfucker once a week…then in between this week and last, he not only gets out…but then fucking disappears. Is that a coincidence? Because I’m thinking it’s not.”

Rosenthal’s face hardened to stone. “I don’t know what you want me to say to you, Mackenzie. I know you have a man on it. When I became aware of the situation, I started to follow the stepping stones, but I got nothing. Not a single thread.”

I tilted my head back to stare up at the ceiling.

“Need I remind you that he tried to kill my kids… my wife? Which was why he was in prison in the first place,” I said, not bothering to look at him.

“I know exactly what happened. I was right there with to you. Remember?” He reminded me none too gently.

I closed my eyes and let my mind wander back to that night. The night that my life changed forever.

“You’re going to watch. Watch while I rape her. Watch while I rape your son. Your daughter. Your other son. That other trash isn’t worth it… I know you don’t care about her…but the other four…yeah, I know that’ll get a reaction out of you,” Shovel smiled manically.

Bile rose in my stomach as I watched him rub a hand up and down the thigh of my wife.

She was drugged.

Shovel had drugged us all.

I’d trusted the wrong person, and now they were all going to pay.

My mistake was going to probably kill everything I loved in one fell swoop.

And I didn’t see a thing I could do to help me get out of it.

Then he snuck his hand into her panties, and my hands fisted behind my back.

Outwardly, though, I appeared calm.

God help him if he moved to my kids, though.

I couldn’t do this for much longer.

They were never supposed to get to my family.

I never agreed on this.

I knew this one moment in time would forever alter my course in life.

Whatever I had to do, I’d kill this motherfucker.

It may be now…or it may be twenty years from now…but the fucker would die. And at my hand.

“Coming in hot,” Rosenthal, my partner, said into my mic.

He was going to get here fast, I knew that.

But when Shovel started to run his hand along the side of my children’s faces, I nearly lost it.

Shovel was never supposed to get this close.

All he was supposed to do was get to the front door. They were supposed to apprehend him…except Shovel had my other kids…the ones that were supposed to be in Galveston, eight fucking hours away.

So my partner had held off, and now the piece of shit had us all, with me helpless to do a goddamn thing about it.

This whole charade had been fucked.

I’d been undercover for years now.

It was never supposed to go on this long.

I wasn’t supposed to get married.

I wasn’t supposed to have kids.

And I sure as fuck wasn’t supposed to have another wife.

Yet, I did every single bit of it for my fuckin’ country…and look where I ended up.

Having four of the people I loved most in this world under the hands of a madman who couldn’t see past his own fuckin’ rage.

Thank God Rosenthal and the rest of my backup finally made it through the door, causing Shovel to freeze.

Because if he’d been even seconds later, I would’ve killed Shovel with my bare hands. Carved his heart out with only my fingernails.

“Freeze, put your hands up!” Rosenthal screamed.

Shovel smiled, and slowly lifted his hands up away from Sam’s belly.

My throat convulsed as I thought about how much worse this could’ve been.

What he could’ve done to my other kids had he not been hell bent on revenge.

“I’ll see you in hell,” Shovel said as Rosenthal and another officer put him into handcuffs.

“No you won’t, because there is no escaping to hell for you yet. You’re going to live a nice long life, in a maximum security prison with no chance of parole, and I’m going to make sure you fucking enjoy the fuck out of it,
” I smiled.

Shovel glared as he saw that I was serious, and I stood, not sparing him another glance.

My family needed me.