Page 41 of Rattler's Revelation
I shrug. “I don’t know. I thought maybe…” I trail off as I realize I don’t know what I thought Viper’s reaction would be.
She chuckles as she strokes Dalya’s head and lowers her into the container. “You can’t help who you’re attracted to. Do you think I would have picked a cop if I had control over it?”
I grin and shake my head. While Puma accepted Rafe with little objection, I know it wasn’t easy for the club to welcome a cop into our confidence. “Now, I’ve invited another,” I say. “Do you think Puma and the others will have a problem with Randy?”
Viper shrugs. “I don’t know. It depends on Randy. Rafe trusts him, but we’ll need to discover if he’ll put the badge first, or us. Do you know?”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“You need to find out before you get too far into the relationship,” Viper says, squeezing my arm. “I’ll support you no matter what happens. You know that, right?”
I nod.
“Good, now let’s grab Toro, then we can scare the truth out of that bastard Walt.”
Toro is our favorite Mojave Rattler. We often use him to finish off our prisoners before we dump them in the desert. It makes things easier because the authorities write off the death as an accidental snake bite.
We leave the snake room, and I spot Jasmine coming toward us. “What do you want?” I ask her.
“Nothing, I’m just walking here. Why do you have to be so mean?” Jasmine pouts.
Viper gives me a quizzical look, but I ignore her before pushing past Jasmine.
“Problem?” Viper asks as we leave through the back door.
“She’s irritating. She keeps throwing herself at me, and it makes me uncomfortable. Not only that, but she upset Bianca.” I explain about Jasmine lying to Bianca about sleeping with me.
“Kick her out,” Viper says with a shrug. “We don’t need someone like her in the club. You’re a patched member now. The Kutte Bunnies shouldn’t be making you uncomfortable.”
“I’m thinking of bringing it up in our next meeting. I’m hoping we can take a vote on it.”
“You’ve got my vote. The others will vote with you. No one likes Jasmine much.”
When we reach the Pit, Viper leads the way into the torture room. Walt hangs naked from a hook in the ceiling. Dice and Chill have already started on him. He’s bleeding from cuts across his chest and abdomen. Bruises blossom on his back where someone punched him hard in the kidneys. Probably Dice. Walt glares at Viper and me until he sees what Viper is carrying, then his eyes go wide. Yeah, it may not take us long to break him after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: RANDY
Bianca was my focus, so I didn’t immediately notice that Rattler hadn’t followed Rafe and me into Spark’s office. It wasn't until I turned around to ask him a question that I realized he was missing. Before I could go looking for him, Rafe was instructing me to bring Spark up to speed.
“Bianca was taken from the diner when the three of us stopped there to eat,” I tell him, handing him the USB drive. “Rattler copied the security feed onto this drive. There are also photos on the drive taken by Nadine Hartley; we believe she’s another victim. She suspected the Fake Max of causing her coworkers to disappear. She didn’t come out and say she thought he kidnapped them, more like lured them away, so she followed him to see where they were going. She mentioned taking photos of him at various locations. We’re hoping she has something on there that we can use to locate the location where they’re holding the women. We think whoever took Bianca took her to that location.”
“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got,” Spark says, inserting the drive into a slot and pulling up the directory.
“I know you can follow vehicles through the traffic cams,” Rafe says, grabbing my attention.
“They can? How? That’s illegal,” I sputter out without thinking.
Rafe and Spark give me a pitying look.
“Is this going to be a problem?” Puma asks as he joins us. “If it is, you might be more comfortable waiting in the common room.”
I consider his words before turning back to find Rafe and Spark watching me. Rafe has always been my hero; he’s the reason why I joined the police academy instead of attending law school, as my father had wanted. Rafe was the best cop I knew. If he didn’t have a problem bending the law, then why should I? Bianca’s face flashes in my mind, and I realize that I would not only be willing to bend the law to find her, I’d shatter it into pieces and grind it into dust under my feet.
“I’m sorry, knee-jerk reaction. Ignore what I said. Let’s do this,” I say, moving to stand behind Spark.
In the corner of my eye, I see Rafe and Puma share a look. Ignoring them, I focus on Spark. He studies the security feed and manipulates the image until he obtains a clear view of the license plate. Hitting a key, I hear a phone ring once before someone picks it up on the other end. The image of a man with close-cropped brown hair and a two-day scruff appears on the screen.
“Spark, what can I do for you?”
