Before I could do so, hands were wrenching me off McDougal and dragging me to the ground beside him where I was flipped on my belly to have my hands roughly shackled in handcuffs.
“Cressida Irons, you are under arrest for assaulting an officer of the law,” the other cop, the one who had been waiting in the car, kneeled over me and clicked the bitingly tight cuffs around each wrist. “If I were you, I’d remain silent.”
* * *
* * *
King
* * *
No. Fuckin’. Way.
I turned off the engine of my Dyna Low Rider and swung off the bike before any of the brothers followin’ me could even park their rides. My boots ate up the asphalt as I prowled up the stairs to the Entrance Police Department and shoved through the glass doors.
“Where the fuck is my woman?” I demanded from the center of the reception.
The woman mannin’ the desk went pale as her eyes raked over my windswept hair, the leather cut sportin’ the infamous Fallen skull and tattered wings, and the wicked lookin’ knife holstered at my hip.
“Um…” she hummed, but then interrupted herself with a squeak as the door burst open behind me and the stomp of motorcycle boots filled the suddenly dead quiet police hall.
My brothers had arrived.
“You want me to ask again?” I cocked my head and smiled at the woman, but it wasn’t a pretty thing. It was a threat.
“King, Jesus, man, calm down,” Officer Gibson said as he appeared from down the hall, hands open and raised to the heavens in surrender. “We got her.”
“Yeah, you fuckin’ do. I want to know why the hell she was pulled over in the first place?” I stalked forward, getting in Gibson’s face. He was tall, but I was taller, and the gym had been good to me, packin’ me with muscles so I was built stronger than most men too, him included.
He didn’t let me intimidate him, not really, but I saw the flash of apprehension in his eyes, and it stoked the fire of my vengeful fury higher. If he thought his friendship and ex-partnership with Lionel Danner meant I wouldn’t nail him to the wall for keepin’ me from Cress, he would be sadly fuckin’ mistaken.
“King, calm down. McDougal pulled her over for a broken taillight, and things got a little out of control.”
“Yeah? Thinkin’ things have been out of control here for a fuck of a while now, Gibson. Only half-decent copper left seems to be you. So excuse me if I don’t buy your brand of bullshit. Now, bring out McDougal, or I’ll go back there and find him myself.”
“I’ll have to arrest you if you manhandle an officer,” he warned me.
I sneered down into his face, lettin’ him see a side of me that few ever saw. One that lived to dominate and subdue, one that yearned for chaos and rebellion against the fuckin’ Man. I let him see that barely leashed animal in my eyes and then smiled that weaponized smile.
“You don’t take me to see my woman or that motherfucker in the next two seconds, I guarantee it’ll be more than just me you gotta arrest for manhandlin’ an officer,” I said with a jerk of my head to indicated the handful of brothers at my back.
Zeus was there too, lettin’ me handle things my way because it was my girl they’d done wrong.
Gibson swallowed thickly, searchin’ my face for somethin’ he wouldn’t find, and then sighed. He rubbed a hand over his buzzed head and then stepped slightly to the side in physical capitulation.
“I’ll take you to see her.”
I nodded, lookin’ back at my brothers in a silent bid for them to stay there, and then followed Gibson down the hall.
“I am sorry about this,” Gibson muttered quietly as he led me through the maze of the station. “Things are…getting difficult around here for those of us who don’t agree with SS Danner. The cop with McDougal wasn’t okay with what went down, but he couldn’t very well side against him.”
“He damn well could’ve,” I countered. “That’s the thing about you pigs, your blind loyalty means you don’t take care of business in your ranks. Your shit stinks to high fuckin’ heaven because you never deign to take out the trash.”
Gibson sighed again as we stopped in front of a holding room door. “Not arguing with you, King. Cress is a good woman, and I hate to see her in here…’course, maybe it was only a matter of time since she hitched her cart to you.”
I stepped forward threateningly. “Whatever you think of me and the club, keep Cress out of it. You got any honour at all, you’ll leave all our women out of this grudge match.”
“It doesn’t have to be a grudge match.”
I laughed coldly. “Should’a thought of that before you arrested my woman.”