Page 65 of Warrant
“Get off him, you asshole!” Jared yelled.
I lowered my arms enough to see that the kid had jumped on this guy from behind and wrapped his arms around his neck in a chokehold. A good one, too, Riggs had taught him well. Jared was still a growing kid, gangly, all arms and legs with no real mass yet. But he had reach and he used it. His arm was wrapped tight around the guy’s neck and he let his body hang, letting the weight do the choking.
It was over in a few seconds. The fire extinguisher dropped with a loud metallic clang and then the two of them went over backwards. “Oh shit!” Jared yelled as they went down and the guy landed on top of him, unconscious.
I leaned on my knees catching my breath, Pyre came out, looked at me, then at Jared. “Quit fucking around and get that guy off of him, his dad’s waiting.”
CHAPTER 26
Warrant
The sound that Riggs made when he saw his son walking between me and Pyre was more wounded animal than human. Someone had rung the kid’s bell pretty good. He had varying degrees of bruises, indicating that someone had beat him more than once. His left eye was swollen shut and ringed with black and purple, but otherwise he had an air of determination about him. And as I had witnessed first hand, he still had a lot of fight left in him.
But as soon as he saw his father he lost all that teenage bravado and ran at Riggs. They hit hard enough for me to wince and Riggs lifted him in the air in a rib crushing hug.
If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind whether Jared was Riggs’s kid, just because he was adopted, watching this reunion would put those thoughts to rest. It was obvious the man was willing to do whatever was necessary for Jared. That he was as much his son as Aella was his daughter.
All of the Austin guys looked damn relieved to have found Jared. Hell, all of us were. None of us liked how long it took to track him down. Now that we’d found him, we could fucking breathe again.
Riggs finally let Jared go. The kid was tall and lanky, but nowhere as tall as his father. The guy gave Demo a run for his money in the size department.
“Aella,” Jared said, panic crossing his features. “They took her away a few days ago-”
“She’s safe,” Riggs reassured him. “We found her and she’s staying with a friend.”
Jared’s sigh was one hundred percent relief. His shoulders slumped as he nodded.
“Who did that to you?” I asked, jerking my chin at him. Then I pointed to where the remaining men who were still alive were tied up.
Jared’s eyes skimmed over the five men—most were already dead and their bodies piled up in the corner. “He’s not here. Their leader showed up about half an hour before you did and took half the crew with him.”
Cypher frowned. “Half? Where the fuck did they get all these guys from. Certainly not Sentinel. Do you know where they were going?”
Jared shook his head. “He said something about leverage.”
“The fuck does that mean?” Jury asked.
Glitch sighed in frustration. “Do you know why they took you in the first place?”
“They wanted me to sign something,” he said with a shrug. “Wouldn’t let me read it or explain what it was. All I knew was they wanted me to sign, so I refused. They realized after they sent Aella away they’d sent away the only way they could get me to go along with them.” He pointed to his eye. “Then they tried this way. Tied me up and…” He glanced over at his dad,but at Riggs’s nod he continued, “They beat me until I was unconscious. Anyway, they messed up by sending Aella away before bringing the papers in.”
He grinned, then winced as his lip split open again. He sucked on it to keep the blood from running down his face. “I didn’t tell them shit or sign shit.”
“I’m going to rip their heads off,” Riggs muttered.
“We can rip one of their dicks off and shove it down the hole that’s left over,” Pyre offered.
Everyone stared at him. He shrugged. “Most men would consider that a pretty horrific way of defiling their corpse. Sounds to me like they deserve the worst of the worst after what they’ve done to these kids.”
“He’s not wrong,” Demo said in a hesitant tone.
“I like him,” Butcher declared with a grin. “I’m not touching any of their dicks, though. Probably diseased.”
“Couldn’t pay me to touch any of that shit,” Hush added.
“Most of them are probably so small it wouldn’t do much defiling,” Toxic mused.
Cynic laughed and slapped his cousin on the shoulder. “Look at their faces.”
