Page 51 of Two Tricks

Doc shook his gun at me. “Now, now, none of that. I do enjoy a sharp tongue on a woman, but I hate to be interrupted. Letting me say my piece will keep your friends alive and speed things along.”

Proving a point, I holstered my gun and walked around the loveseat to sit on the coffee table, one leg crossed over the other and my chin resting on my hand. To them I looked bored and relaxed, but it gave me perfect access to the knives and gun in my thigh holster if I needed to move quickly.

“As I was saying, now that we are stuck in this deal with the De Leóns, they are holding us by our balls. We would so much rather work with you, and Two Tricks, of course. After all, you were promised to us ages ago,” Doc stated, causing me to gawk at him.

“Let me tell you a little secret about your brother and his lovely wife.” The smug look on his face told me that I wasn’t going to like one word of what he was going to share. “When your twin got out of jail and was kicked to the curb, he tried everything to get back in their good graces, even offering you as an incentive. They turned him down, so the lovely Kimber came to us asking if we would take over the Blackjax in retribution. Oh, and they kept you part of the deal as well. Sadly, before any of this could happen, your brother was gunned down in a drug deal gone wrong. Imagine my surprise when his twin sister who was promised to us makes her splash into the dark world by helping Two Tricks wipe out an MC.”

My stomach rolled at the thought of my brother, my twin, the other part of my soul, selling me out. I knew it was Kimber’s doing if it was true at all. She’s always hated me.

“Mastiff wanted to take you from Two Tricks quickly, but we ran into our own troubles and had to leave. We always kept an eye on you though, Dax, watching you turn into a beautiful deadly weapon.” Doc grinned at me like a proud parent. “As you can see, you were promised to the Mad Dogs. It’s where you belong. So we need you to drop the Phantom Saints and then kill off Diego so we are free of him. Simple, really. I know what you’re thinking—how can we ask you to do this when you don’t trust us or know what we have to offer? It’s simple—we aren’t asking.”

What the fuck kind of bullshit was this man spewing?

I let the silence hang in the air as I just watched him, not reacting to what he just said. Inside I was seething. How the fuck could they think they could walk into my city, hold my friend at gunpoint, and expect me to just do or believe what they say? Some fans they were—clearly they hadn’t been paying attention, and now they done fucked up.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re butt hurt because you acted too rashly and got into a bad deal with a known two-timing bastard. Twice, now that I think about it, when you include that skank Kimber—if any of that is even true. Sounds to me like your problems are a result of your own poor choices. Boo hoo,” I said, giving him an exaggerated pout. “Whoever your mole or moles are didn’t do a very good job getting you accurate facts on the situation between the Phantom Saints and myself. I didn’t agree to work with them until I found out that my best friend was being targeted.”

Doc opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hand. “Shhh, I’m not done talking yet.”

I couldn’t help but smirk at the vein that started throbbing on his big shiny forehead.

“I’m glad you’re not asking, because no matter what you do or say, there is not a flaming fart of a chance that I will ever work with drool hounds like yourself. Now that we have that all cleared up, what happens next?” I asked, raising a brow at him.

Doc gave away his intentions with the evil glint in his eyes, and before I could question myself, I acted. Drawing my gun with my left hand and a knife in my right, I shot Doc between his eyes and threw my knife at Mammoth. It landed in his chest, and it threw him off balance long enough that I was able to get my next shots off into his heart. Harper screamed and crumpled to the floor, scrambling away from Doc as his blood started to seep out on the tile.

Rushing forward, I dropped my gun and grabbed Harper, who then clung to me, sobbing into my chest.

“I got you, Harper. I got you. You’re safe now. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here faster,” I murmured as I stroked her head, rocking her as she cried.

Mastiff fucked with the wrong person, and he was going to figure that out very soon, because I was going to destroy him and everyone around him.

Falling back against the couch, I let out the breath that I’d been holding since Dax entered the house. Thanks to the security system, I had been able to watch and listen to the whole thing as it was going down. Seeing my woman in her element was something I never got tired of, but this one was far too close to home, having Harper involved.

Seeing her wrapped around Dax as her body shook with sobs made it hard for me not to head straight to the closest Mad Dog crew and kill every one of them. Not only had they been after Dax, they’d used the one person who was her true weakness. I had no doubt that she would do anything to get me back if need be, but if she lost Harper, it would break the last part of her innocence.

“So is no one is going to bring it up?” Cognac asked, breaking my train of thought.

I looked over my laptop screen at the other four guys, who’d been watching everything on the TV before I cut the link off, wanting to give Harper some privacy. Once Dax had called and let me know what was going down, I woke up everyone else and gathered them here. They wanted to go after Dax, but I knew they wouldn’t get there in time for it to matter. Situations like this were what Dax lived for, and she was good at it.

“Bring what up?” Eagle snapped, glaring at Cognac. “If you say something asinine, I’m going to punch you in the nuts.”

He was the one I almost had to tackle and tie to a chair to keep him from going after Dax and his brother, but Sprocket talked him down. Void wasn’t much better, but he wouldn’t go without Eagle.

“Our woman just took out six armed men and saved two hostages single-handedly. She’s like a live version of Lara Croft or some shit,” Cognac said as he stood, looking down at the other three. “You’re telling me you didn’t realize that if she really wanted to get the fuck out of here, she could have? So why didn’t she?” Cognac asked.

After a moment, they all looked at me like I was just going to give them the answer. “Oh no, you guys either need to figure it out yourselves or ask her, but I’m not gonna tell you if you don’t already know.”

“I think that is a conversation for another time. Right now we need to prepare for the war that is about to descend on us,” Sprocket interjected before Eagle could try and wring the answer from me.

Looking back at my screen, I saw Dax wrapping a blanket around Harper and then heading over to Picasso, who was still out cold. Dragging him away from the very dead Mammoth, she checked him over carefully, but from what I saw he’d just been pistol-whipped. Once she was convinced he would be alright, she went back to Harper.

“Babe, I’m gonna pack you a bag and we are gonna stay with some friends of mine. I promise I will explain everything once we get there, but we need to move before any more bad guys show up,” Dax explained in a soft voice.

Harper didn’t really react to what Dax said as she kept picking at the tassels on the blanket. Letting out a sigh, Dax left her and headed up to Harper’s room. Now that she was alone, I felt comfortable enough to call out to her. Hitting the button that would activate my side of the comms, I tapped twice.

“Wondered how long it would take you to reach out,” Dax said, glancing up at the camera. “You catch all that went down?”

“Yeah, I made sure to record the audio so we could go back over it once you didn’t have Harper’s life hanging in the balance,” I assured her.