Brinks (Fallen Lords MC Book 9), page 12
She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “I need more than that.”
I held up another finger. “Clubhouse.”
“I guess I could work with that. I’m sure I could get the Girl Gang to help.”
I grabbed her hand with the ring on it. “Can we just backtrack for a minute and go back to where you said yes?”
“You didn’t really give me any room to say no,” Cora grumbled. “You can’t tell me I’m your first and last. That’s some romance novel shit there.”
“You read a lot of those?” I asked.
She reached up, wrapped her arms around my neck, and pulled me down on top of her. “I don’t need to read them when I’m living them with you.”
“Is that so?” I whispered against her lips. “I guess I’ll have to keep my game up.”
“That you will, Robert Long.” A huge smile spread across her lips. She knew exactly what she had just done. She couldn’t call me Robert without paying the price for it.
“Babe,” I growled.
She held her hand in my face. “You signed up for this, Brinks. No going back now.”
I pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. “I don’t want to go back. Only going forward with you.”
“And,” she laughed. “I can’t wait to tell the girls that we have a wedding to plan when they still haven’t wrapped their heads around the fact you and I are together.”
“Well, they better get used it.”
Cora smiled wide and laughed. “Alice is going to glare at me so hard.”
“As long as my wiener doesn’t come up in your meetings anymore, she can glare at you all she wants.”
“Oh, Brinks. I don’t know if you really know what you got yourself into, but I’m not going to let you go now.”
“It’s all the same as it was before.”
Cora shook her head. “Nope, it’s not. You wanna know why?”
I pressed a kiss to her lips. “Why?”
“Because we’re not a secret anymore. We’re not sneaking into each other’s rooms and stealing kisses in the hallway.”
“Good. Now I can kiss you anytime I want.”
“Then you better start,” she pressed a soft kiss to me lips, “right now.”
*
Chapter Twenty
Cora
“Babe.”
I rolled over and buried my head in my pillow. “No.”
“Babe, I gotta go.”
My eyes popped open, and I was instantly awake. “What?” Our room was pitch black, but Brinks wasn’t in bed with me anymore. “What do you mean?”
“Wrecker called.”
It was the middle of the night. Why the hell was he calling? “What’s wrong?”
The light on the bedside table turned on, and Brinks stood next to the bed. “They got Jenkins.”
My heart beat rapidly in my chest. “Okay,” I whispered.
“I gotta go to the clubhouse.”
I heard what he didn’t say. I knew why he had to go to the clubhouse. “I’m coming with you.”
“Cora, no,” he insisted.
I tossed back the blanket and jumped out of bed. “Yes, Brinks.”
I had to see Jenkins one last time. I needed answers to questions I had, and Jenkins was the only one who could answer them.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his arms. “You can’t come with me, Cora.”
I yanked my arm out of his hold. “If you don’t take me with you, I’ll steal a fucking car and get myself there. I am going.”
“Just go back to sleep, Cora. You had a long day yesterday, and you should just be sleeping.”
I tipped my head back and glared at him. “You’re gonna kill him, Brinks. Don’t act like I don’t know what is going to happen.” I stalked over to my bag by the door and crouched down in front of it. “He deserves to die. I just need to ask him some questions before.”
“The answers he’s gonna give you aren’t going to fix anything, Cora. They aren’t going to change anything.”
I quickly dressed and shoved my feet into a pair of boots. “You don’t know what answers I’m looking for, Brinks. I don’t expect him to say he’s sorry for all of the shitty shit he did and everything is fixed.” I grabbed a sweatshirt and pulled it on. I kept the hood up and looked at Brinks. “I’m ready.”
Brinks stared at me, and finally, his shoulders slumped. “Fine, Cora, but if it gets to be too much, you’re out.”
It wasn’t going to be too much. I had lived through hell and made my way out of it. “Let’s go.”
*
Brinks
“How’d you get him?”
Boink took off his coat and tossed it on the couch. “He was sneaking around the clubhouse. We had eyes on him at the end of the block, but we let him go to see exactly what he planned on doing. He was tweaking on something too. Fucking shaking and paranoid as fuck.”
Cora grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “Meth,” she called.
“Whoa,” Pipe called. “Uh, what are you doing here?”
She twisted the top off the bottle. “I have some questions to ask my brother.”
Pipe turned his back to Cora and cringed. “Wrecker is going to shit a brick when he sees her. Leo, Oakley, and those other two are almost here.”
“Other two?” I asked.
Boink headed toward the garage. “Del and Tray.”
Pipe, Cora, and I followed him.
“Del and Tray?” Cora asked. “They were part of this?”
I grabbed her hand and threaded my fingers with hers. “Not from the beginning, but they did play a pretty instrumental part in getting you back.”
“Here I thought they were just scumbags.”
“Didn’t say they weren’t,” Pipe chuckled. “Leo and Oakley just happened to have a business proposition for them that worked in our favor.”
Boink walked into the garage and hitched his thumb over his shoulder to us. “Cora is here.”
“Fucking Christ,” Wrecker cussed. “This was supposed to be quick and shit.”
Cora butted around Boink. “I just have a few questions. Honestly won’t take more than a couple of minutes.” Her voice was strong and loud.
Where most women would crumble and crack under the thought that their brother was about to die, Cora was fine. I had no idea what questions she had to ask, but I knew whatever they were, she needed to ask them.
“Everyone else here?” I asked. It was the middle of the night, and as much I wanted this asshole dead, I would much rather be in bed with Cora.
“Leo and Oakley were on the edge of town when I talked to them five minutes ago.” Pipe pulled his phone from his pocket. “Del and Tray should be pulling up right now. Freak and Slayer are outside waiting for them.”
“A regular fucking party,” Wrecker growled. “I’d much rather just kill this fucker and go to bed.”
“Not until I ask my questions.” Cora piped up. She held up two fingers. “Just two.”
“Women,” Wrecker grumbled. “You got five minutes, and then, your ass is out.”
Cora nodded. “That’s more than enough time.”
“I didn’t know we were bringing our wives to the meeting.” Oakley walked in with Leo behind him.
Cora and I stepped to the side to let them walk in. Leo and Oakley looked Cora up and down and nodded at her.
“Wives?” Maniac asked.
Cora held up her hand. “Uh, I’m just his fiancée.”
“Damn,” Pipe laughed. “Nikki and the rest of the girls are going to be on our asses to get married now.”
“Congratulations.” Leo grabbed Cora’s hand and kissed the back of it. “You’ll make a beautiful bride.”
I clenched my fists at my side and controlled myself from punching Leo in the face.
“Thank you,” Cora murmured.
Oakley nodded to me. “Congrats, brother.”
Shouting and yelling echoed from the common room.
“What the fuck is going on now?” Wrecker grumbled.
“Let me the fuck go!”
“This is bullshit!”
Freak and Slayer stumbled into the garage wrestling two guys into submission. Leo and Oakley stepped back and watched the four men stumble around with amused looks.
“I forgot about this,” Oakley mumbled.
“How could you forget about this?” Leo asked him. “This is going to be more exciting than killing Jenkins.”
“Knock it off!” Wrecker boomed.
Slayer, Freak and the two men froze.
“Let ‘em go,” Pipe ordered.
Slayer and Freak released the two guys and pushed them in front of Wrecker.
“What in the fuck is this?” Wrecker’s voice was a mix of confusion and disbelief. “Where the hell did you find these two?”
“The one with the scar is Del and the other one is Tray,” Cora whispered.
I looked down at her. “No, that’s Warrior and Snapper.”
Cora shook her head. “No, Brinks. They are the guys who were going to buy me.”
Holy fucking shit.
I shook my head. “No, babe. Those two were prospects for the club a while back.”
Cora’s jaw dropped, and she blinked quickly. “Say what?”
Wrecker looked them up and down. “What the fuck is going on?” he asked them.
Snapper, or apparently Del, nodded to Wrecker. “Long time no see, bossman.” His tone was light and amused.
This was fucking insane. How had two former prospects of the Fallen Lords become players in a human trafficking ring?
“Things didn’t really turn out with the Fallen Lords so Del and I went off on our own.” Tray stepped forward and held his hand out to shake with Wrecker.
Wrecker’s eyes snapped to Oakley and Leo. “You fucking know about this?”
Leo shrugged. “I happened to stumble on that fun fact after we made our deal.”
Oakley raised his hand. “I was the one who actually figured it out. They had that devil may care attitude about them that all you seem to have. A little digging and they spilled the beans.”
“And you didn’t think that was something I needed to know?” Wrecker hated having shit sprung on him. Leo and Oakley were lucky Wrecker wasn’t close to them.
Oakley shrugged. “I mean, they technically aren’t Fallen Lords anymore so did they have to keep you in the loop with their doings?”
“They just fucking disappeared!” Wrecker shouted. “They were there and then they were gone.”
“May I point out,” Del interrupted. “You never came looking for us until a week ago when we got word you were asking where we were.”
“You guys had a lot of shit going on with the girls and sitting outside when all the important shit is being discussed in church isn’t a good time.” Tray held his hands up and shrugged. “We figured we would branch out and start out on our own.”
Pipe stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “So, you thought selling women was a good place to start.”
“We didn’t want to step on any of your toes, and it’s been a lucrative business.” Del nodded to Leo and Oakley. “We were doing good if they knew our names.”
“What we heard was there were two new cookers were looking to come up,” Wrecker growled.
Del shrugged. “We started on that route but quickly realized we weren’t cut out for that life. We keep our fingers in that cookie jar, but it’s not where the money is for us. Leo and Oakley seem to have that cornered. Though Jenkins thought he could bust in with some shitty blow and make a dime.”
“You were cut out for kidnapping women and selling them for pennies,” Cora spat.
Del turned to Cora. “We don’t do the kidnapping. We’re more like the broker between the seller and buyer.” He leaned toward her. “And it’s hardly pennies.”
“You’re disgusting,” Cora snapped.
Del turned a slow circle. “You’re not exactly surrounding yourself with upstanding men, darling. We just have a different kind of merchandise than what your boyfriend and his friends offer.”
Jesus Christ. I think all of us were shocked as hell except for Leo and Oakley who were just enjoying the show. That seemed to be their MO, especially since they always seemed to be the ones who knew everything.
“Enough!” Wrecker shouted. He pointed at Del and Tray. “You should have fucking told us. I get that you didn’t want to be part of the Fallen Lords anymore, but a little heads up would have been good.”
Tray shrugged. “We realize that now and do regret not mentioning it to you, but things just seemed to snowball, and there was never a good time to reach out to you.”
Not really an apology, but as Del pointed out, this wasn’t exactly a room filled with upstanding men.
Wrecker nodded to Nickel who had been standing at the edge of the group. “Let’s get the shit with Jenkins over with, and then, we can discuss the future.”
Cora had heard enough club business. Wrecker halted the conversation, but I knew it would be discussed later.
Nickel walked back into the garage, dragging Jenkins behind him. “Did you break the assholes’ legs?” he grunted. He tossed Jenkins in the middle of the floor, and he landed with a thud.
Clash shrugged. “I wouldn’t say they are broken. Just bruised.”
Jenkins groaned and rolled over on his back. He itched at his arms and flailed around on the floor.
Oakley kicked his foot and laughed. “That comedown is a bitch, isn’t it?”
“He probably got that shit laced with speedballs,” Tray snickered. “Swear to God, if you could snort it or inject it, this guy was game.”
Cora stepped close to me.
She didn’t need to see this. We were all going to be assholes to Jenkins, and I knew at the end of the day, he was still her brother.
Wrecker read my mind and nodded to Cora. “Your five minutes starts now, darlin’.”
Leo and Oakley looked at Cora.
“I wondered why you wanted to be here for this,” Leo mumbled.
“Maybe she’s here to make sure he never fucks with her again?” Oakley suggested.
“I think that’s why the rest of us are here,” I growled.
Cora let go of my hand and took a step forward. She looked down at Jenkins and took a deep breath.
He stared up at her and stopped itching. “What do you want, cunt?”
She flinched at his words, and I took a step toward her.
“No,” she whispered. She held her hand up to me, and I stopped in my tracks. “I know you’re there, Brinks. I’m not afraid.”
“I always knew you would start fucking that club. You were always a whore, Cora.” Jenkins words were harsh and raw. “If I needed to make a deal and they wouldn’t budge, I would send you and you make it happen by opening your legs.”
Cora snapped her head back to look at me.
She had told me about her past. She told me she did what she had to do to survive. It didn’t make me love her any less. It made me love her more knowing that everything she did had brought her to me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Oh, you gonna cry because this asshole knows now? He knows you liked a cock in your mouth and your ass at the same time?”
Wrecker reared back and kicked Jenkins in the stomach. “Shut the fuck up and let her talk,” he growled.
Jenkins withered in pain and clutched his stomach. “You fucker,” he shouted.
Cora turned back to Jenkins and knelt down by him. “You can’t hurt me anymore, Jenkins. All of the hurtful things you have to say aren’t anything I won’t tell. I did all of that and more, but I did it because you made me. You made me do all of those nasty and vile things. The thing of it is, that didn’t change me. That didn’t make me a bad person.”
She glanced up at me.
“And then you gave me away. You sent me to live with a different club, thinking they would continue to do the same things to me, and I would just fade away. I didn’t fade, Jenkins. I didn’t let the evil that’s in your heart, overtake me. I knew you were the evil in the world and as long as I wasn’t with you, I would be okay.”
“You have the same blood as me running through your veins, Cora. You’re the same as me!” Jenkins shouted.
She shook her head. “No. No I’m not.” Cora wiped a tear from her eye. “I’m not here to argue with you over the fact of me being the same as you. I know I’m not, and that’s enough for me. I just have two questions for you.”
“You’re a fucking traitor and a slut,” Jenkins growled.
They guy was like a broken record.
I wanted to reach down and punch my fist through his face. He was lucky I was giving him five minutes with Cora because after she left, his ass was mine. I was going to punch him for every mean word he had ever said to Cora.
“Susie,” Cora whispered. “Why did you have to make her evil? Why did you have to take a person and make them as miserable as you were?”
“Susie fucking hated you,” Jenkins spat. “She wanted you dead. She didn’t want to take care of you. SHE WANTED YOU DEAD!”
Cora laughed flatly. “Well, the joke was on her when she was the one who got killed, right?”
“She was just as worthless as you. You think you’re gonna hurt me by telling me she’s dead?” Jenkins laughed maniacally. “All of you bitches are worthless. You’re only good for the few grand I can get when I sell you to those assholes.”
“If you guys don’t kill this guy, then we will,” Tray whispered to Wrecker.
Wrecker snarled at him and folded his arms over his chest.
Tray held up his hands and stepped back. “Got it.”
“What was your second question for me, bitch? What fucking answer do you need to know?”
Cora tipped her head to the side and sighed. “I don’t need to ask it anymore, Jenkins.” She rested her hand on his leg, and he kicked it away. “I’m sorry, Jenkins. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the one to save you.”
She rocked back on her heels and stood. I reached my hand out to her and pulled her into my arms.
“I’m here, babe. I’m here for you.”
She tipped her head back and smiled sadly. “I know, Brinks. You’ve always been there for me.”
