A moment later, the door opened, revealing a man I didn’t recognize in a dark grey suit and Mr. White, the club’s attorney.
I tipped my chin at White. There weren’t many people outside of my brothers I respected, but he was one of them. We’d been through a helluva a lot together.
As I said, it wasn’t my first time in an interrogation room.
White blinked at me and adjusted his glasses as he rounded the table and took a seat beside me.
The suited man stood behind the chairs on the opposite side of the table staring at me.
I stared back, expressionless.
He was short, but held himself rigid, chest puffed, shoulders pinned back like an ex-military man. Bat and Dane still stood like that, feet braced, faces stern, eyes an empty receptacle to place orders from their superiors. He had that vaguely traumatized depth to his gaze and deep grooves between his brows like he only ever frowned.
So, ex-military, probably divorced, definitely RCMP.
“How can I motherfuckin’ help you today, Officer?” I asked, cocking my head to the side as I addressed him with a close-lipped curl of my lips that might have been a smile on someone more pleasant.
“Priest McKenna,” he said slowly, tasting my name, making it Irish. “Good ole mick, eh?”
I didn’t flinch at the derogatory insult for Irishmen. I’d stopped identifying as one years ago, even if I couldn’t quite shake the song of it in my words.
The officer tried again, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he finally took a seat. “I’ve heard about you, you know? The maniac who kills for the notorious mother chapter of The Fallen MC. You take that name as a joke? The sinner Priest? Does it get you off to kill in the name of the Lord?”
I didn’t say anything.
This was more boring than I thought it would be.
I yawned widely, showing the man a nice view of my naturally sharp incisors.
“This is all speculation, Moore. Why don’t you speak factually from now on?” White suggested mildly.
Moore.
British, of course.
He had the pallor of spilled milk, ruddy with age and too much drink.
I yawned again.
The skin around his eyes tightened, the only tell of his irritation with my ennui.
“Mr. McKenna, we found a dead body in a garage adjacent to your property,” he stated dramatically.
“Oh?” I asked with mock and mild curiosity. “How strange.”
White cleared his throat, but it was too late.
I’d goaded Moore’s ego.
“Strange that you couldn’t be bothered to clean up your latest mess?” Moore prodded me, thinking I was an animal in a corner he could provoke into violence with the end of a sharp stick.
I was not a reactionary man, some rabid dog looking for a fight.
I did not fight at all. I put men down. They came to me to die.
If Moore wanted to grapple, he’d be disappointed.
Though if he continued to be as irritating as he was proving himself to be, I’d be happy to find him an early grave.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I was not. “You think I killed someone on my own property and put them in the garage next door? Not to mention, the warehouse isn’t even my own. It’s held in trust, I believe, by a Double Edge International LLC.”
Moore’s jaw worked. “You were found on the property, about to open the door.”
I hummed in response. “Very good detective work, Officer. Of course, that must mean I own it.”
“Oh, were you breaking in, then?” he countered, leaning forward, his aggression getting the better of him. There was a brutish, almost pit bull set to his underbite and small, dark eyes.
Bea had told me once that there were two kinds of violent offenders. I’d listened, not because I was interested, but because I liked the way her mouth looked when it moved around the words, how her chest flushed pink when she spoke about her passions.
There was the pit bull and the cobra. The former exploded into brief, hellacious rages that brought violence down on everything around them. They often regretted their rages, felt remorse for the way they couldn’t control themselves.
The cobra, on the other hand, was cold, calculated. They did not strike without intention and when they did, they went for the kill.
It was easy to draw the comparison between the likes of Moore and me.
I cocked my head as I absorbed all his obvious little tells, knowing that no matter how loudly he barked, he would never be as controlled and powerful as he wished he was. He had a complex, this one. Wanted to make himself feel like a big man by putting down big criminals.
As I said, too fucking easy.
“Mr. McKenna was simply checking in on a building owned by a person of his acquaintance. If need be, we will sign an affidavit to that effect. Now, did you have any motive or evidence tying my client to this crime?” White asked, dryly.