Page 44 of Cutter's Hope

“Few years back the Russians moved in, took over the skin trade. No one really had a corner on the market and no one really wanted to fuck with them, I mean, these was some nasty sons of bitches. Brutal fucks, and I can appreciate me some brutal bastards, just not when they start movin’ out of skin and start poaching on our trades. You feel me?” I nodded, picking up what he was putting down… we had an ally in this. Maybe more than one if we played our cards right.

“Look, all I want is my sister, you can have whatever is left over after I put these rabid bastards down. I don’t care.” Hope looked at each of us in turn, defiant.

“Calm your tits, Sugar. I’m on your side,” Ruth said with an easy smile, “You got yourself a solid lead with ol’ Walter there. He’s the bottom of the food chain, but he knows who and where to find someone higher up. Why don’t we pay ‘im a visit and see what he knows?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Hope said and I exchanged looks with my guys, most of whom were nodding slowly.

“We don’t all need to go,” I said, “Radar, Nothing, you’re with me and Hope,” I said. They nodded. Nothing put a cigarette between his lips and lit up.

“La Croix, Saint, with me,” Ruth was all out smiles.

Hope strapped a knife to her outer thigh, and looked as lost inside her own head as I’d ever seen her. This was playing hell on her and it was plain for me to see. Her expression was dark, a little too neutral; hard and focused.

I sighed and caught her before she reached the door and pulled her into an alcove, just her and me. She melted into me a little but remained stiff in my arms. I tipped her chin up so I could meet her eyes and sighed.

“You doin’ okay?” I asked her.

“I’m fine,” she said with her lips but her eyes told me a different story, wild and too wide, she was desperate and freaking the fuck out inside. We were silent for just a fraction of a minute and she came clean.

“What if I’m too late?” she whispered and wouldn’t look at me.

“Then we take every one of the bastards out, even if it takes years. We wreck ‘em. It’s as simple as that,” I said with a shrug. She looked up at me.

“Didn’t figure you for the ‘vengeance will be mine’ type.”

“Ohhhh, you’re still getting to know me, Sweetheart,” I said with a low and dark chuckle.

“True enough,” she murmured, voice sweet and husky.

“This is over, I’d really like to finish getting to know you,” I told her honestly.

She bit her bottom lip and looked away from me, eyes gone distant as she imagined, at least I imagined, what could be.

“I’d like that, but there’s no telling which way this is going to end, I…” I touched a finger to her lips.

“Then let’s just keep doing what we’re doing,” I whispered.

“Which is?”

“Figuring it out as we go along, Sweetheart, we’re just figuring it out as we go along.”

She nodded and offered her lips for a kiss which I would be crazy not to take so I did. She pulled away first and I smiled and followed her out to where most of the guys were ready to roll.

“See you at the hotel, Captain,” Marlin said and I nodded. We fell in and followed Ruth’s man, Saint, to the lawyer’s office which was in the Central Business District. We parked the bikes in an adjacent alley.

“La Croix, break anybody that touches ‘em,” Ruth told the big man, who grinned one of the toothiest, unfriendliest grins I’d ever seen on a man. Okay. Bikes were safe.

We fell in behind Hope who slipped into the lobby and went to the floor map. She found the suite of offices occupied by Walter Baines Criminal Defense Attorney and we took the stairs, noting the lack of cameras.

“Shady motherfucker right there. No cameras in the stairwells,” Ruth commented quietly.

“Mm,” I grunted non-committedly.

Hope slipped out into the hall and gave the all clear. If there were cameras, we couldn’t see them. I opened the office door and she went through.

“Can I help you?” the lawyer asked when we bypassed the empty secretaries desk and went right on through into his office.

“You’d better hope so, Partner,” Ruth said with a smile, “Otherwise the lady is gonna be pissed, and youreallydon’t want to see what that looks like.”

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