Page 23 of Ride Long
“For what?” Gasket rose to his feet, the tenor changing in his voice. One minute he was all fatherly and sweet, and the next, his bad biker mode was switched on. It was slightlyterrifying.
Turning, I swallowed a gasp as I saw the swollen blob that was Ratchet’s eye socket, and I knew. I fucking knew who’d done it to him. I wanted to shout out the forbidden C-word at the world, but even I was too pious to swear that much. I would stick with the f-bomb, which wasn’t much better, but at least I didn’t flinch when it passed mylips.
“I gave a bitch a tattoo,” Ratchet said, glaring at me with his one good eye. “Daddy didn’t likeit.”
Gasket grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from the engine. Dropping the spanner, it clattered to the concrete, the metallic clang echoing through thegarage.
“Betty,” he exclaimed when he finally saw the tattoo on my thumb. “What the hell are you doing,woman?”
“Don’t call me Betty,” I snapped, wrenching away fromhim.
“What are you trying to do? Get yourselfkilled?”
“It’s been a long time, Gasket,” I said. “A very longtime.”
“She ran away. Now she wants to be one of us.” Rocket. I hadn’t noticed when he’d shown up, but it didn’t matter. He would be the voice of dissent wherever I went. He would be the hardest to win over if I won him at all. I had to be realistic. There would be casualties whatever Idid.
“There’s more going on here than you realize,” I said, ignoring him and focusing on Gasket. “Me leaving has nothing to do withit.”
“It has everything to do with it to them,” he replied. “You know what Fortitude is like,Sloane.”
Isnorted.
“What?”
“You called meSloane.”
“I hear that’s what you changed it to.Don’t fucking call me Betty,remember?”
I smiled, not threatened by him in the least. He was the closest thing to a father I’d had growing up. If you could call a six-foot-six biker a healthy role model for a littlegirl.
“Watch your footing,” he went on. “You know what your father islike.”
Spike snorted, and I glanced at him, aware everyone in the garage was listening to our conversation. Ratchet was still glaring at me like a sullenchild.
“He can’t do this…” I said to him. Marini wasn’t going to own me, let alone scare off every single person in this place. It was counterproductive to my secret plan for worlddomination.
“What are you going to do, huh?” Ratchet asked, curling his lip. “Cry todaddy?”
I couldn’t do anything, and he knew it. They all knew it. I was just a woman playing at a man’sgame.
“You’ll see,” I muttered, turning my back on him. “You’ll allsee.”
