Saviour: A Devil's Spawn MC Novel (Savior Book 3) (21 page)

Priss starts shifting on my lap, and while I’d like to think I have my shit under control I don’t. I am just a man after all. My cock throbbing in my jeans is proof of that.

“I don’t understand, what trump card? If you had just come out and told us they wouldn’t have had anything to hold over your head.” Priss asks. It’s a good question. One I’d like to know the answer to myself.

“It wasn’t just about me, sweetheart. Your uncle’s have families too, jobs, people that trust them, our work, who we are would’ve called all that into question, and we just weren’t prepared for that back then.” Priss has a puzzled expression on her face, but I understand all too well what he’s getting at. Six years ago we didn’t have a contingency plan. There was no out that wouldn’t have involved retribution from either the MC, or the bureau if we pulled out suddenly. “All of us had put too many years into the MC, and this town to up sticks and leave, we didn’t want to either. We’d talked about it, before all this went down, and we all came to the same conclusion that regardless of what happened we’d be staying. It didn’t matter if Devil’s Spawn voted against us retaining our positions, we’d weather the storm and stay in Blackwater anyway.”

“I didn’t know, honey. I promise I knew nothing about your dads other life until he told me we had to leave, and he didn’t know if we could come back,” Sally adds with tears in her eyes. If Priss is affected she doesn’t show it. She sits still and quiet in my lap absorbing what she’s being told. I’m fucking proud of her holding it together like this, most people wouldn’t.

“Even though the guys and I had talked about it shit hadn’t been decided. With the deadline the bureau set four days later, there wasn’t much time to consider the alternatives. Even if I did have the time to tell them we wouldn’t have been able to come up with another solution that quickly.” I wasn’t aware there were other agents inside the MC back then, it wasn’t until a few months after Jones and Sally’s “deaths” Damon approached me with the news. Irrespective, I can see where he’s coming from regarding time constraints. An extraction like that would need careful planning to ensure minimal casualties. Not casualties how you’re assuming either. I highly doubt the MC would have actually killed them for being FBI, but outing them to the club would be effective punishment enough. “Having to tell your mother that I was essentially being blackmailed by the FBI who I also happened to work for was one of the worst days of my life, second only to that clusterfuck of a car wreck those assholes staged.”

Whilst Priss hasn’t said anything that’s not stopping her body from speaking for her. She’s getting more rigid in my lap by the minute, any more tightly wound and she’ll snap. It’s a given. People can only take so much before they lose it, and we’re fast approaching her limit. I can feel it.

“Okay, so if I’m hearing you right, you’re telling me that in order to protect yourself and the men I’ve called my uncles my entire life, you agreed to go through with a plot to fake your deaths in one of the most horrific ways someone could die, and leave us with no knowledge you’d done it for six years, and then all of a sudden showing up to what? Reunite? Is that about the gist of it?” The sarcastic tone of her voice brokers no disagreement. If Jones is a smart man he’ll carry on without responding to her. I hope to God for his sake that he’s a smart man, because I pity him if he makes the wrong choice here.

Thoroughly chastised Jones looks down to his boots then up at Priss. When he does I can see the sheen of tears in his eyes, and I know that she’s gotten to him. Albeit the situation was bad for him, that he was forced to make an almost impossible choice, he needs to understand that it was even harder on her.

“I’m not going to excuse what I did, sweetheart. The whole situation was fucked up, but I made a choice, and even though I know that choice gutted you and your sister it was the best one out of a bad bunch at the time.”

“Fuck you,” Priss snaps. “Don’t presume to know what we went through. You have no fucking idea what you two did to that innocent eleven-year-old girl. Forget about me, at the end of the day I was an adult, I had the maturity to find a way to cope, Tilly was just a kid. You left her alone in the world with only me to rely on, and I had no clue what I was doing half the time,” not stopping to take a breath she goes on. “It wasn’t until Hunter and some of the other guys at the club started pitching in, taking some of the other weights off my shoulders that I had the chance to try and make heads or tails out of how to raise an adolescent. So before you say you’re sorry again you need to understand that your sorry means shit to me, and it probably will mean even less than that to Tilly.”

With that said Priss slumps back into my body wrapping her arms around my shoulders, burying her head in the crook of my neck. I can feel the tears run down my neck, pooling in the hollow of my throat, but that’s the only indication she’s crying. Otherwise she’s completely silent in her grief. Offering comfort the only way I know how, I run my nose up and down her temple sporadically stopping to place a kiss in its path. Less than a minute later a shiver wracks her body. She’s trying to get a handle on it, and her strength in being able to do that is just another way she’s made me proud as fuck of her today. Sighing heavily I don’t let her go, but I do stop my ministrations to say,

“How about we move this along, it’s been a long day, and I know my woman is going to want to be getting to her sister sooner rather than later.”

“That’s one of the things we need to talk about,” Jones replies with an element of hostility in his voice.

“Yeah, well talk then.” I may be known for my infinite patience in volatile situations, but this is getting fucking ridiculous. Beating around the bush isn’t his style, and I can see he wants to say something I just don’t get why he hasn’t spit it out yet. It’s not like him to hold back, and that has me concerned.

“This isn’t the way I wanted to do this, I don’t want this shit to be any harder than it has to be, and you’re not gonna like what I have to say next, so I’m just gonna spit it out.” Huffing out a breath the man looks like this is going to hurt him as much as Priss. “We’re moving back to Blackwater that goes without saying, but when we do we want Tilly back living with us full-time.”

Say fucking what? Shooting out of my lap faster than I can catch her Priss strides over to her dad slapping him firmly across the face. The sound reverberates around the mostly empty, undecorated living room, and her mom stares on in shock. I’ll give the man credit, he doesn’t even flinch at the hit, but he does at her next words.

“If you think for two seconds you’re going to coming waltzing back in here, and take my sister from me, you’ve got another thing coming. You are aware she turns eighteen in three weeks aren’t you?” They don’t answer, it’s obvious that it was rhetorical. “How about you come back then, and you can ask her yourself if she wants to go with you or not. I can assure you you’re not going to get the answer you’re expecting.” Eyeing her mom and dad cautiously Priss sucks in a huge gasp of air and, on the exhale breathes out, “Oh my God. That’s why you’re here isn’t it? You know you’ve got no control over her after her birthday, so you timed it this way.”

They wouldn’t, would they? Glancing around the room I take in the scene, and realise in a heartbeat they definitely would, and they have done exactly that. Jesus Christ, these two have to be the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet to try this shit with me standing right in front of them.

“Priss better be wrong motherfucker, because if that’s why you’re here you can get the fuck out. Not just out of my house, but out of Blackwater altogether. You try and take that girl from her sister, from me, I’ll hunt you down like the fucking dog you are.”

“Both of you need to calm down that was pure coincidence, it looks bad but I swear we didn’t plan it like that,” Jones rushes out. “We only got the news a week ago that the threat against the MC was neutralised, and we were free to leave seclusion.” With a snarl he says, “You think being locked away from the only family we have was a fucking picnic? You don’t think we knew the risk we were taking when we left, that there was a good chance that when we came back our daughters wouldn’t want anything to do with us anymore? Of course I fucking knew, but it was a choice between that or the possibility that the whole MC would be wiped out. Families included, because of a crooked fucking agent that compromised the whole operation. Jesus Tank, he had my name. It was only a matter of time before he found out the others. Yours too.”

“Have you got a name, or am I just supposed to take you at your word? Because right about now that isn’t worth a whole hell of a lot, is it?” Calling his bluff is a dick move, but if what he’s saying is true it casts a new light on the decision he made.

Jones nods at me solemnly fisting his hands by his sides trying to control the rage that’s creeping up his neck staining his skin red.

“I never met the guy, my job was just to gather Intel while another agent did the legwork. My cover was blown, and it wasn’t safe for me to be caught on the streets staking out some assholes house. Worse still, the guy was a fucking veteran. Nearly twenty years on the job, and he all of a sudden turns? I’m not buying it there’s more to it than that call it gut instinct, but somethings telling me eliminating him didn’t solve our problem completely. Thing is, this guy confessed, he admitted to feeding information to several criminal associates, and swore till he was blue in the face that mine was the only name he knew. Don’t know if I believe that either, but the asshole is gone now, so I guess we’ll never know.”

I notice he still didn’t answer my question.

“Most of the time the why is more important than the who, or the what. If you don’t believe the threat is eliminated why are you here?” It doesn’t make sense. Jones isn’t a stupid guy, far from it. He tested higher than any of us on the intellectual aptitude test we were all required to take on entering the FBI, and with his background in negotiations and information he was a valuable member of the team. I believe him, if he says there’s an outstanding complication, then there is.

He scrubs a frustrated hand through his hair answering in a subdued tone.

“I don’t like it, and I don’t fucking agree with their decision to close the case, but then again I don’t agree with most of how they’ve handled this shit. I figure its best to be here where I can keep an eye out instead of locked away in a fucking house somewhere trying to keep tabs on everyone from afar. If all hell breaks loose then you’ll need an extra pair of hands, the Intel I’ve got stored on a flash drive somewhere safe wouldn’t hurt the cause either.”

I don’t disagree, but that won’t be up to me and he knows it.

“A name would be good,” I say reminding him of my earlier question. “And I’ve gotta say, that slap my woman gave you before is nothing in comparison to what you’re going to be facing when you show up at the clubhouse. You get that, yeah?”

“Yeah I’m expecting as much, I’ll deal though. As I said, I never met the guy before we arrested him two weeks ago. He was out of Chicago, a long way from home if you ask me.” A chill runs down my spine as I try to recall the last time I heard from Damon. It would’ve been about a week ago. Fuck. Wracking my brain I try to think of anyone else working the operation that came from Chicago, because I don’t want to believe he would betray us like that. “Damon Ulysses Ford, forty-one-years-old, born in some bumfuck town in the Carolina’s, impeccable service record, no suspensions, tested well, and his last psych eval was on the up-and-up. I’ve got no clue what this guys’ motivation was, for all intents and purposes he came up clean on every check I ran. No debts, owns his townhouse outright, decent size bank balance, one credit card always paid before it came due. Shit, the guy was clean as a whistle that’s why it makes no fucking sense. Someone like that doesn’t fit the profile for what he was confessing to.”

He’s not wrong. By the sounds of it Damon’s checks balanced leaving me with the burning question; why? Why would he confess to something he didn’t do? As much as I don’t want to believe he would, the other side of the sword is sharper. If the bureau has something to do with setting up an innocent man, this goes far deeper than any of us have the ability to handle. Even as a team there’s no way to get to the bottom of a cover up without inside sources. And that would mean federal government involvement, well above any of our pay grades, unless there’s something else I don’t know about these guys.

Priss breaks into my train of thought that’s barrelling down the wrong track at a million miles an hour.

“I don’t mean to come across uncaring, but while this is all very educational it doesn’t deal with the matter at hand. Tilly is going to freak if I don’t get home soon, and we need to sort this out before I can do that.”

“Can we try it this way?” A very softly spoken Sally asks. “How about you tell us what you think the best way to meet with Tilly is sweetheart. You have been her parent for a long time I realise that, but I want to see my little girl. Please,” she begs with tears running down her face.