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“And neither am I,” Zoey reminded them. “And my brother and cousins like to forget that before we came here, we weren’t exactly angels. Slipping into the biker bar close to our home was a normal occurrence for us. We couldn’t have done that and remained safe there if we hadn’t been protected by more than one of the customers. And they wouldn’t have been so loyal to us without a reason.”
“And what exactly was that reason?” Brogan was rubbing at the back of his neck as though trying to remove actual skin.
“Because a twelve-year-old girl with more guts than brains slipped into an old warehouse and helped three of her friends escape when they were attacked by a rival gang trying to move into the area,” Timothy explained. “One of those young men was the son of a gang that controlled that area. His father gave Zoey lifelong protection by the gang and made damned sure everyone knew he wouldn’t think twice about killing for her. When she moved, he and three of his friends, now leaders of two other gangs, rode out to check on her. That was the summer you were invaded by bikers and going nuts trying to figure out why.” The former agent smirked.
“Witchy.” Dawg nearly choked on the name. “You’re Witchy.”
Zoey smiled easily. “Wow. That was easier than I thought it would be.”
Doogan sat down slowly himself and shook his head. He should have known. Sweet Lord, he should have known.
“Where’s the whiskey?” he muttered.
Natches was on his feet and hurrying to the kitchen. He pulled the bottle from one cabinet, the glasses from the other. He looked as stunned, as shocked, as Doogan felt.
“You’re dead, Cranston,” Doogan assured him. “Officially dead.”
“Officially,” Dawg agreed.
Rowdy snorted. “And none of you suspected? You surprise me.”
“And I guess you did?” Natches sneered back at his cousin.
“Who do you think helps protect her at those negotiations, Natches?” Rowdy said softly. “One of those bikers is a friend. And he’s smart enough to know which of us to come to. Three of the gangs would very well kill for her, but there’s three other gangs, smaller and wanting a larger cut of the pie than what they received in initial negotiations. Unfortunately, Zoey didn’t tell any of us about her nightmares, and Doogan was too dumb to let any of us know what the hell was going on in his own life. Doogan spearheaded the first negotiation when he learned that influx of bikers that year was because of one person the bikers called Witchy. He assumed she was an adult. Rigsby tried to destroy Doogan first.” Compassion filled Rowdy’s voice. “When they didn’t, they came looking for Witchy instead.” Grief filled his expression. “I’m sorry, Zoey, we didn’t know you’d be found, sweetheart.”
Zoey shook her head. “And it wasn’t your fault either.”
“What are we looking at then?” Doogan ran his hands over his face, the look of rage and pain in his eyes causing Zoey’s chest to clench in regret.
“Jack won’t be able to keep my friends from hearing about the attack today, either,” Zoey injected. “If I don’t meet with them soon, then you’ll be invaded by bikers again. Pissed-off bikers. And I don’t want that.”
And there she was. Zoey stood strong and proud in front of them. She didn’t have to raise her voice and she didn’t have to force her point across. She was Witchy. Everyone listened.
Everyone but the one man determined to see her destroyed.
SEVENTEEN
Witchy.
He’d called her his witch, but Doogan assured himself he hadn’t suspected who she was, and he knew that next night he’d been lying to himself.
He’d known the night he asked her to dance, and he’d known she belonged to him. He’d been in Somerset that summer to identify the woman known only as Witchy. He’d had no description, no way of knowing who she was, but when he met Zoey’s gaze across the room, he’d stopped looking for her. He hadn’t searched for her since. He’d sent messages to her, read hers in reply, but he hadn’t accepted what he knew inside.
He also pretty much figured out that Eli had known who she was all along as well. The younger man had kept her secrets, watched over her, worried and took the weight of those secrets with silent acceptance.
How in the hell she’d kept a secret like that, he wasn’t entirely certain. He was just amazed it had taken this long for someone to figure out a way to strike out at her. Whoever orchestrated it, he rather doubted it was Luther Jennings. The background he now had on Johnny Grace’s son showed a rather ineffectual little bastard with barely enough intelligence to stay out of Kentucky and out from beneath the Mackays’ circle of knowledge.
Jennings just wasn’t smart enough to put something like this together. That impression was confirmed after Doogan got off the phone with yet another c
ontact he had reached out to for information. Luther Jennings dreamed of glory but had very little drive to attain it.
He was a coward, just as his father was, just as his grandfather was. And he was always blaming someone else for that cowardice.
“You have to do something about this,” Dawg hissed as he stepped into the garage where Doogan was working on the racing bike rather than dealing with her family, who refused to leave.
“And what do you suggest I do?” Looking up from the finishing touches he was making to the motor, he arched his brow curiously. “I’ve worked with Witchy for five years now, Dawg, albeit long distance. She’s damned good at what she does.”
“Damned good at what she does?” Dawg plowed both hands through his hair, stomped to the metal doors, then back again. “At dealing with cutthroats, drug runners, and murderers?”
