Page 43 of Ryder
“I’d have fucking taken care of shit. She’s a woman, and I’m a man. Without the benefit of her fucking roofies, I can take her easily, and she knows it. That’s why she was hiding.”
Ice was watching me. “So… out of interest, how did she even know you were there?”
I shrugged. “Like I said, I think she was hiding nearby. Maybe she even lives there somewhere.”
He shook his head. “I checked into all residents in the nearby buildings. The only one that could have been her moved out over a week ago.”
I stared at him. “Well, that’s a bit suspicious, brother. You don’t think that was worth us knowing?”
“We knew,” Reacher said, leaning back on the sofa.
Oh.Charming.
“Was her name Tori?” I asked Ice casually, hearing him curse.
“So it was her?”
I shrugged, enjoying winding him up for a bit, because everyone seemed to think my business was theirs for some reason.
“That’s not really an answer.”
“Tori Hastings. There’s no paper trail on her, but since she’s a serial rapist or whatever, I’m guessing she’s been playing her cards a little close to her chest.”
“Rapist?”That was Has-Been. The only asshole in the room who apparently really didn’t know what had gone down that night. It helped. It made me think that maybe the entire fucking club didn’t know.
I watched him as he absorbed that fact.
“That cunt,” he muttered, nodding at me.
“Any luck tracking the GHB?” I asked Ice, since the cat was firmly out of the fucking bag now. He shook his head.
“Alicia says she gets those for the bitch.”
“Tori,” I corrected Reacher, before I realised what I was doing. “Uh… yeah, the bitch.” What the fuck.
“So your MILF gets her the drugs, drugs the men, and brings them to her. How the fuck doesn’t she know more about her? She must have met her. She must know more than she’s letting on.”
Reacher was rubbing at his piercings, his head low. Finally he spoke.
“And that, brother, is the only reason she’s not dead yet. She said she brings the men outside, and the bitch, I’m sorry, Tori,your girlfriend, is waiting outside in a car. She helps her load them in, and then she drives away, and that’s job done. The money gets transferred in advance.”
Has-Been had gone pale. “Wait… you guys are saying there’s some chick out there, doing this to men on the regular?”
We all looked at him again. “Why is he here now? We’ve kept this between us until today.”
Reacher gestured at my shocked brother.
“He insisted. For some dumb reason he thinks you deserve his support, even though you’re acting like an entitled asshole again.”
Oh. I nodded. “Yeah, sorry. She got me riled up again.”
“So riled up that you jizzed all over yourself?” Stitch asked quietly, finally getting to the one question I wasn’t prepared for, no matter how long we put it off. I guess they’d all seen the mess when I got back.
Everyone was firmly focused on me, so ignoring him wasn’t looking like it’d work.
“Fucking hell! We had… I mean… you know, I haven’t been able to… since it happened.”
I heard a few of them curse quietly, but they still waited. They still expected me to tell them even more of my personal fucking business.
