“I killed him.” Her eyes are still glued open in horror of it all, but the tears start to fall. “My father. I killed my father. He was the only thing I had left.”
There’s nothing I can say to make any of this better, so I put my arm around her lower back, bringing her to me, and lend my shoulder for her to cry on.
I drummy fingers on the steel table, ass already aching from this chair. For somebody who has just been involved in a fire and sent straight to the station, a comfier chair would be nice.
Once checked over by the paramedics, we were all driven to the station by the cops, Snapper included. He’s lucky the smoke paralyzed my body earlier—I would have taken a page out of Diesel’s book and broken his neck for spying on us this entire time, feeding intel to Jax about our relationship with his daughter.
The door cracks open and two officers enter the room, each taking a seat in front of me.
“We have accessed the Reaper Sons live footage that Robert Strongbow has been using to watch his victims. Police are already on their way to the clubhouse.”
“Don’t hurt Melissa,” I blurt out.
The two of them share a look. “Melissa will be questioned accordingly,” one of them says. “We need to get through some legalities first before she can be released. The good news is—considering the circumstances, this won’t need to be raised in a court hearing.”
“It was self-defense.”
One of the men refers to his clipboard, then meets my eye. “What started the fire?”
I take a deep breath. Melissa’s kill was self-defense, but I’m not too sure if mine was. “Melissa was tied downstairs in the second tier of the basement. That’s where the other two were—helping her. I was on my way down, but ran into gasoline. There was a lot of it. I think he stored it all down there to use on his victims.”
Of course, that isn’t the full story. I can’t risk exposing Venom Vultures. If one good thing has come out of the fire, it’s that it eradicated any evidence that others were killed.
I know what I was doing when the others were in the second room with Melissa. Jax’s man was on me, gun to my throat. He was telling me all the things he was going to do with Melissa once I was gone, and it was making me ill, somebody else thinking they have the right to put their hands on what’s mine.
So, I deliberately unscrewed one of the gasoline caps. I was about to fire a bullet and start the fire myself, burning the bastard to a crisp, but another came in from the staircase, landing right in the puddle of gasoline. The Reaper Sons member was immediately engulfed in flames.
I sit back in the chair.
“Tell us,” continues the police officer. “What business did you have with Mr. Strongbow exactly?”
I clear my throat, buying more time. Saying this is a gamble—they’ll know I’m lying if Bishop, Diesel, and I each say something different, but it’s the most obvious answer. Plus, it’s the one that keeps our club off the police’s radar. “He was jealous,” I begin. “He couldn’t stand seeing his daughter with a man…withmen…that weren’t him.”
“How would that explain him tying her up in the basement?”
“It got to the point where he was threatening us with her. Things got messy. I wish I could understand that man’s mind. There was a lot of—excuse my French—fucked-up things going on inside his head. I can only assume that’s why he locked her up.”
The cops watch me, silently digesting my answer. “You also go by another name.”
“Cash,” I say.
“This’s what Melissa called you.”
I shrug. “Just a stupid nickname.”
They nod, scribbling down my response. “Okay, you’re free to go.”
I thank them, rising from the steel seat with two very achy ass cheeks.
“Oh, and David?”
I make it as far as the door before I turn around, almost forgetting my real name. “Yeah?”
“Stay out of trouble.”
EPILOGUE
MELISSA