Page 44 of Dusty and Dented
“There.We’ll hear back from him in a couple of minutes.Want to share what’s on your mind?”
“Not until everyone’s here.”He shook his head, debating if he should tell the others all of it or not.He didn’t have to.In fact, he probably shouldn’t but they would want to know why he insisted that Montiglio had to die.And if they were going to help him get away from it, they deserved to know why.Why he was so insistent, why it was so important to him.Hell, if it wouldn’t leave her all alone to face it all, he wouldn’t care about getting caught—he’d just go off the fucker now.But Andy was having a hard enough time now, he didn’t want her to have to struggle through it all by herself.
“Raven and Jersey are on their way.He says they’ll listen to what’s going on and decide where to go from there, whether it’s taken to the whole club or what we do.”Hawkeye let him know after the phone beeped on the table next to him.
Dagger continued to pace.He didn’t know if it was doing any good, but at least he was burning off some of his need to move, even if it wasn’t doing quite what he wanted to be doing.
Jersey was the first to show.He came in the door, looked around, then made his way past Dagger to take a seat on the sofa.Dagger ignored both Hawkeye and Jersey as they said nothing but watched him pace back and forth, their heads looking like they were watching a tennis match.When Raven arrived, he stood in the doorway for several seconds, then waited until Dagger was away from the door to step inside, close the door, then make his way to the desk and the extra chair beside where Hawkeye sat.It was where he sat when he thought there might be something on the computer he needed to see.
“Okay, everyone’s here.You go first ...I think what I’ve got will make more sense after we hear what you’ve got,” Hawkeye said to Dagger.
Dagger stopped pacing.He turned and looked at each of the faces in the room, all watching him, as if expecting some big revelation.And he had one but now that it was time, he wasn’t sure how to put it, how to tell the people who needed to know without sharing what Andy saw as shame with everyone.
“I trust you all like brothers, you know that, right?If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t tell you any of this.I would just do what needs to be done and move on, but I can’t.”He looked at the floor as he shook his head.He didn’t go into why he didn’t want to do this on his own, that he would likely get caught.If he went to prison, that would leave Andy alone, and he wasn’t going to do that to her.“Montiglio is dead.He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s revoked his right to oxygen.”
Raven didn’t say anything, not right away, but lifted both brows in surprise.He knew Dagger well enough to know it wasn’t a decision Dagger came to easily but once he determined someone needed to die, he’d never been wrong.At least not as far as any of the Angels knew.No one spoke, waiting to hear what else Dagger had to share.
“We already know that fucker abused her.We know he was beating her and that’s why Panther moved her up here.But what I didn’t find out until a couple of hours ago was that he passed her around his friends.”
“Some people are into that,” Jersey said.“They seem to get off on the variety or the sense of doing the forbidden.”He shrugged.“I don’t know.Do I look like some psychiatrist asshole who sits around telling you how to solve all your problems?Fuck no.I’m just asking if she was into it.”
“I get that some people are into it.We all know most of each other’s kinks, if not all of them because we know we won’t be judged for them here.”
“I’m just going to say if someone shows up in a giant diaper, hauling around a baby bottle complete with a nipple, I’m going to be doing some judging.”Hawkeye just couldn’t keep his mouth shut for this.Dagger shot him a dangerous look but before he could say anything, Raven did it for him.
“Shut up unless it’s relevant.”He looked from Hawkeye to Jersey and back again, making sure they both got the message before turning back to Dagger.“I take it you asked if she was into it?”
“I did.She wasn’t.She said the more she fought, the more she cried, the more they liked it.And that Montiglio would encourage it, say degrading things to her while she was ‘punished’.”Dagger checked the faces of each of the men in the room before he continued.“I want them all dead.She doesn’t know names, but she thought she might recognize faces if she saw them again.She’s not sure, though.”Dagger stared at the wall for a moment then looked back to Raven.“I’m not sure what we’ll do if we can’t figure out who they all are.Somehow, I don’t think Montiglio would tell us, even with some creative interrogation.But even if we don’t get the friends, Montiglio is dead.”
“Agreed,” Raven said with a nod.He looked around the room for a moment, then let his gaze come back to Dagger.“Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of.Let’s hear what Hawkeye’s found.Maybe that will help us figure out where to go next.”Dagger looked at the tech genius to see what he’d found while he’d been holed up in here with his computers.
“I have one Anthony Roberto Montiglio, originally from Chicago, now in Denver.He’s bad news.”
“As if we aren’t?”
“Even we have some lines, it looks like Montiglio doesn’t.This guy is under investigation for human trafficking, weapons smuggling, a list of drug charges longer than my arm.Oddly none of them are for use or being under the influence.”Hawkeye looked around the room as if they all knew what he was thinking.And they did.This Montiglio was somewhere near the top of the drug food chain, at least for Denver.“He’s been questioned in the disappearance of three former girlfriends.They can’t prove anything, but the general suspicion is that once he’s done with whatever his flavor of the year is, he finds a buyer.”He paused and looked around, making sure he had everyone’s attention.“It looks like he makes their breakup public, and messy, making sure he’s heard by plenty of witnesses, saying he’s done with her, he never wants to see her again, and there’s no reason they ever have to encounter each other again.Then he’s careful that he’s alibied for whenever the woman disappears.”
Dagger folded his arms over his chest, not liking the way this was going.
“But if they’re broken up and he’s alibied, why do they suspect him?”Jersey asked with a frown creasing his brow.
“That’s just it.His alibis are too good.No one has a perfect alibi for every single event, with tens, and sometimes hundreds, of people who will swear as to where they were.If he’d done it right he would have a least one iffy alibi.You know what I mean?Where were you on whatever date?I was home sleeping, alone.That kind of thing.To be in a public setting from more than an hour before each woman disappeared to several hours after, it’s just too...”Hawkeye shrugged.“...too pat, too perfect.As if it was planned that way.”
“Okay, I see what you’re saying.In everything you’ve found, any known associates?Can you find pictures of any of them?”
“Several known associates.Right now, all I’ve got is names.I’ll look for photos.If nothing else I should be able to get MVD photos.”He lifted one shoulder and let it fall.“They won’t be ideal, but they’ll be better than nothing.I’ll look for better ones, though.”Hawkeye turned his attention back to the laptop on his lap.
“You want to be part of this?”Raven asked.
A glance at the club president told Dagger he was the one Raven was addressing.He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush.“Want to?Fuck, yes.But I’m going to step back and let someone else take care of it.Andy isn’t at a place where I can leave her, even for a day or two, and not feel like a total ass for doing it.”He shook his head again.“As much as I want to be the one to look him in the eye and tell him why he’s dying, I’ll leave it to someone else.”
“Only way to be sure it’s done right is to do it ourselves,” Jersey said, his gaze lingering on each of the men in the room.“I would suggest we send one or more of the enforcers to do the job.Use it as a measuring stick to determine who will be the next to wear the SAA patch.”
Dagger tilted his head to one side as he considered the remaining enforcers and which he thought could best do what they all knew had to be done.If it were just killing the bastard, that would be easy, and any of them could handle the job.But it wasn’t that simple.They needed to question him, to get the names of the friends who had raped and hurt Andy.He wanted her not only to be safe but to feel safe too, and the only way he knew to get that was to show her that her attackers were dead.
How exactly he would show her, he didn’t know yet.
