Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1) (3 page)

What mattered to us was guilt and innocence.

I didn’t give a flying fuck if there was no evidence to tie a rapist to the rape scene.

“Speaking of which,” Casten said as he strolled in, a large rectangular box in his hands. “I found some shit you need to see. Shit that I think you’ll be interested in.”

Casten sat the box on the table and flipped it open, revealing two AR-15’s that had the serial numbers filed off them.

“Where’d you find those?” Wolf asked.

“Bought them,” Casten said. “Off of one of those garage sale sites. Look familiar?”

It took me a while to see it, but the moment I did I came right out of my chair…then nearly lost my lunch.

They were the guns that had taken down my son in the drive by shooting.

I’d studied the school surveillance video feed of my son’s death…of his murder…hundreds of times.

I knew the bodies of the men who’d shot my baby. Knew the guns that they used.

Knew the area directly surrounding where my child was murdered.

Knew everything I could from just a video.

And these guns were the ones that had been used to shoot my boy.

“Who sold it to you?” I asked roughly.

“Some kid, all of eighteen,” he answered. “She had no clue about what they even were. Said her father asked her to drop off what was in the box and to make sure she got eighteen hundred dollars for it,” he answered.

“Got her address?” I asked carefully.

Casten smiled. “Of course,” he said.

My eyes closed, and by the time I opened them again, after counting to a hundred, the box was closed and moved to the side of the table.

“You’re not giving that to the cops,” I said.

Casten gave me a look. “No. I’m not.”

We’d all lost our way from the justice system under different circumstances. What bound us together, though, was inherently good men we all saw in each other, the good men we knew each other to be.

We were men at the end of our ropes, pushed too far by an unfair, flawed justice system. We only wanted those who did wrong to be punished for their crimes.

And I’m not talking petty theft or getting caught speeding.

I’m talking about the types of crimes that guarantee the perpetrator a spot in hell.

Drug dealing.

Murder.

Rape.

Those were the crimes we were trying to fix.

“I need the address,” I said hoarsely.

Casten slid a piece of paper at me.

“We’ll go when he gets home. The girl says he works in Jefferson as a mechanic,” Casten said. “Doesn’t get home until after eight in the evening.”

I nodded.

“You’ve got a date.”

Before I could get up to leave, though, Peek stopped me with a raised hand.

“You won’t go without us,” he ordered.

My jaw clenched.

“I won’t go without you,” I assured him.

I was lying.

I was going to go
now
. I was going to figure out any and all connections this man had to my ex-fucking wife and her douche of a husband, and I was going to make them all pay for what had happened to my son.

One broken bone at a goddamned time if I had to.

The beard made me do it.

-Lenore’s last words

Lenore

I took walks at night when I couldn’t sleep.

This night was no different.

Working nearly every night, until a minimum of two in the morning, meant I had an unusual sleep pattern.

Uncertain was a small town. Population five hundred.

Although very beautiful, the town had a certain ‘feel’ to it.

It wasn’t often that I could tell you just what that feel was, but tonight, I could almost taste the danger in the air.

I had my dog, Doogan, with me.

That didn’t help, though.

There was something going on in my neighborhood, and I just knew I shouldn’t have come out tonight.

“Come on, Doogan. Let’s go home,” I whispered, too afraid to make too much noise.

Doogan suddenly stopped at my side, and I stopped with him.

Doogan was my baby, even if he didn’t look much like a baby anymore at eighty pounds.

He was as smart as a whip and beautiful to boot.

He just wasn’t very fast, and when he didn’t want to go somewhere…he didn’t.

Doogan is a
Neapolitan Mastiff
. He was already a good eighty pounds, and according to the vet, he wasn’t finished growing yet.

I’d found him on the side of the road when he was just a newly born pup.

These lonely highways were a popular place to abandon dogs, and I spent the majority of my time looking for them when I wasn’t working at my shop.

I volunteered at the shelter two towns over, crossing over into Louisiana to do it.

And it wasn’t unheard of for me to bring dogs with me when I went.

Sadly, I couldn’t keep them all.

I just couldn’t afford it.

Doogan was bad enough when he required a fifty-pound bag of dog food a week.

“Come on, Doogan,” I urged, giving his collar a tug.

Doogan didn’t budge, which was why I had a front row seat as a man sailed over the railing of Mr. Marshall’s porch, and landed about ten feet away from where I was standing.

“Oh, my
God
,” I breathed.

I didn’t move, though, because the man was suddenly surrounded.

Men in leather were
everywhere
…but the one man that held my attention was stomping down the porch steps and heading straight to the man on the ground.

Griffin, the man who’d bought batteries from me just two days ago, was well and truly pissed.

When his eyes swung to me, I didn’t know what to do.

Should I run?

Stay where I was?

Question after question barreled through my mind, leaving me shaking in fear…and something else I wasn’t ready to admit to just yet.

“Go home,” he ordered.

I blinked, looking to my left and right to be sure he was talking to me.

Since I didn’t see anyone else around me, I decided he
was
talking to me, but I just couldn’t get my legs to cooperate out of fear.

Not to mention that I would have to walk through the lot of them to get to my house.

When I didn’t move fast enough, he issued the order again, only this time it was biting.

“Go. Home,” he snapped.

I turned on my heel and started walking, coming to a sudden stop when Doogan still refused to move.

“Mother of God,” I whispered. “Come on Doog,” I whispered frantically. “Let’s go.”

He did move, just not in the correct direction.

No, he walked straight up to Griffin and licked his hand, a hand that was stuck out, not in invitation to approach, but instead to stop the dog from getting too close to him.

“Can’t you control your fuckin’ dog?” He grated out angrily.

Tears were stinging my eyes, because, by that point, I had the attention of not just Griffin, but the whole freakin’ lot of them.

My heart was beating frantically in my chest as they watched me, and I just knew that if I didn’t get the hell out of there I’d get the hell beaten out of me…or worse.

“Where do you live?” Griffin asked, taking a hold of Doogan’s leash.

It slipped from my hands, and I watched in helpless horror as it did.

And what did Doogan do?

He freakin’ followed him!

“Umm,” I whispered. “Three duplexes down from here.”

“Be back,” Griffin said as he took my hand in his free one and started to walk me back to my house.

The men returned their stares on the man they were circling, and I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see one of the big ones kick the poor guy on the ground next to his feet.

He didn’t say a word, and neither did I.

I was too scared.

What if he beat the shit out of me?

Raped me?

What if…

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Griffin growled, interrupting my inner diatribe.

“I know,” I lied.

He snorted. “Stop shaking. I said I wouldn’t harm you. I’m a cop.”

Yeah, but good cops didn’t beat the shit out of people in the dark of night.

So what did that make him?

“Keys,” Griffin said, snapping me out of my reverie.

I did not want to give this man the keys.

But did I have much of a choice?

No.

So I gave the man my keys, as I nervously watched him walk into my house, look through all my rooms, before heading in the direction of my bedroom.

I probably wouldn’t have freaked out the way I did had I realized he was only going to be more persistent in going into my room, but I did freak out.

Then he got a curious look in his eye.

“Don’t go in there!” I yelled when he started to push my bedroom door open.

He cocked his head. “Why not?”

Because the vibrator you gave to me is on my nightstand…next to my lube!

Instead, I settled on, “Because that’s my room! Get out!”

He grinned.

It was the first grin I’d ever seen grace his lips, and I knew I’d do anything to see it again.

Even humiliate myself by letting him go into my room where he would undoubtedly see what I most definitely
did not
want him to see.

And I knew the instant he saw it once he turned on the light.

His body froze, spine going solid.

He went through the room, checking under the bed and in the closet, before he stopped in front of my night stand and picked up the vibrator that had very recently been inside of me.

Very recently
– as in a scant hour ago.

Then, with me watching in horror, he brought it up to his nose and inhaled deeply and obviously.

My mouth dropped open at the way his eyes darkened.

Mother.
Fucker
.

Then, without a single word, he placed the vibrator down gently on the nightstand and disappeared into the night without so much as a backwards glance.

Leaving me with a proverbial flood going on in my panties as arousal shot through me at the way he’d knowingly smelled the vibrator.

Sweet baby Jesus, that was hot!

So very, very hot.

And so very, very
bad
.

My mind was torn between wanting him to come back and never wanting to see him again.

I did, however, sneak out onto my front porch to look down the street.

By the time I got in a place where I could look without being seen, every single one of them was already gone.

My eyes snapped open as my heart beat out a rapid staccato in my chest.

Someone was in the room with me.

“Shh,” a familiar deep timbered voice soothed. “It’s me.”

“Why are you in my room?” I asked Griffin.

“I want you,” he whispered.

The storm that was raging outside shook the house with a massive thunderbolt, and I groaned as Griffin’s body settled on the bed, pinning my thighs with his.

“You want this,” he said roughly.

I shook my head no, but my ass betrayed me by pushing up and back against his hardening dick as his big body was pressing me down into the mattress.

My mind was only partially online, which might’ve been the reason that I was letting some virtual stranger, one who’d beat up my neighbor only hours before, touch me.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

Griffin ignored me, lifting his knees, one by one, to remove the sheet that was keeping me from him.

My hair was in a tangled mess around my face, and I threw the braid back, coming up on an elbow to look behind me.

But I couldn’t see a damn thing except for the blinking clock in the corner of the room that told me the power had already gone out once tonight.

“What are you doing?” I asked when I felt him reach over my body to the night stand.

I had my question answered only moments later when I heard the familiar buzzing of the vibrator as he turned it on.

“I debated on whether or not I should come back here tonight,” he whispered, running the vibrator all the way down the length of my spine.

I gasped.

“I probably shouldn’t be here…” he whispered against my neck, causing shivers to course down my body. “I’m not a very good person.”

“You’re a cop,” I breathed, inadvertently pushing my butt up to allow him better access to the good stuff.

But the way his legs bracketed mine kept me exactly where he wanted me.

“Doesn’t mean a damn thing in this day and age,” I heard him rumble right before his lips began trailing down my spine just as he’d done with the vibrator only moments before.

“Hold still,” he said gruffly.

I did.

The snick of a pocket knife being opened had me stilling even more, if that was even possible, and I waited, shocked and unmoving, as he used the knife to cut my panties from my body.

Oh. My. God!

Ohmygod
.

He just cut my panties from my body!

Griffin slid the vibrator between my thighs. The way he had me laying on my belly with my legs held shut by his, created a tight passageway between my legs.

So when the vibrator slipped between my thighs, running along the outside of my sex, I shivered in anticipation.

The vibrator was already slicked up with lube, something I hadn’t even heard him open.

And with the way my pussy was already leaking for him, the vibrator sank all the way down between my legs until the tip touched the bed.

As he slowly dragged it back up across my closed sex, my eyes crossed when it moved over my unexposed clit.

“Mmmm,” I moaned into my pillow.

My arms were now at my sides, and I latched on to his thighs.

They were covered in jeans, but they were so soft, and I focused on the way his hard thighs felt underneath my hands to keep from coming like a two pump chump.

“When I gave this to you, I thought you’d just repackage it with new batteries and resell it since it wasn’t opened,” he murmured softly as he continued to pump the dildo between my thighs.

That’s probably what I should’ve done, but, honestly, it had never crossed my mind.

The only thing that had crossed my mind was using it – while I thought about him – and that’s exactly what I did.