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The other men smirk at another inside joke. Indigo sets Goose’s drink out and asks if I want anything. I shake my head since I’m not looking to lose my sharpness around these men.
Goose downs a good portion of the booze from the copper mug. Her earlier worries clearly had more to do with the swanky setting than a fear of this club.
“Any news on our rides?” I ask when the men don’t seem in a hurry to get to their point and instead watch Goose as if fascinated. “Also, when can we get our weapons back?”
“Those bikes are wrecked. No saving them,” Golden says when Bear remains silent. “Got you similar ones. Figured you can personalize them when you’re back in your hometown.”
“That’s real kind of you,” I say, and Goose snorts.
“And our guns?” she asks, losing her amusement. “I don’t like walking around unarmed in this shithole town.”
There’s no denying these guys find a chick biker to be simply mesmerizing. Every damn thing Goose says amuses them to no end.
Bear glances at a biker I didn’t see the night before. “Marbles, get their weapons and the titles for the bikes.”
After the man disappears in the back, Bear focuses on me. “Noble and Zoot are giving a sanitized version of this conversation to Suzanne Knutsen. She doesn’t need to know the specifics.”
“About what?”
“We located the remaining men involved in Austen’s attack.”
“Can we see them?”
Bear frowns like I’ve got a screw loose. “There’s nothing left to see.”
“You didn’t happen to ask them any questions before you buried them, did you?” Goose demands, seeming intent on poking these affable assholes.
Golden immediately replies, “No one buries their dead in Banta City.”
“That’s not the question I asked,” she snarls, losing her temper in a wholly unhelpful way.
“Be cool,” I tell her.
Bear stops frowning at her and glances at Golden. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m not trying to help.”
As the two men eyeball each other, Marbles sets our weapons on the bar top, and Sync takes over the conversation.
“We had to ice a few of them right off. Those fucks weren’t cooperative at all. But the other two were worn down from all this cloak-and-dagger shit. We got them to talk.”
“Torture them real good, did you?” Goose asks.
“We don’t torture people around here,” Bear replies. “Banta City is civilized.”
Goose takes their inside joke as a sign of disrespect. However, I sense they wouldn’t be so relaxed if we were in danger.
“How did you get them to talk?” I ask, trying to get through this chat so I can return to Austen. “And how can you be sure what they said was true?”
“Got them high as a kite,” Bear explains. “People get chatty when they’re flying. They both said they were the last ones. I got them to give up their friends’ names, so you can double-check with the assholes you killed back in your valley.”
“Did they mention anything we should know?”
“One of them claimed he was told there was money to be made from killing Austen. According to him, after they failed in your area, a lot of them wanted to disappear into the wind. But one of them named Frank claimed there was a payday if they got to Austen. He didn’t say who’d give them the money.”
Bear rubs his bearded chin and glances at Goose chugging her drink. “Unfortunately, Frank was one of the assholes you killed yesterday. We checked their phones, but they were new burners. The only calls were to each other. Nothing ties them back to Austen’s other family.”
When I only nod, considering what to share with these people, Tack asks, “Do you think Austen’s Halvorson family is capable of sending someone else to finish the job?”
