Maverick’s face was set in a deep scowl. “How’d he finally find these assholes?”
Putting on his sunglasses, Dare said, “He was tailing Davis and saw him meet with them. Looked confrontational, so the PI talked to them and threw fifty bucks their way. They folded like a house of cards in a strong windstorm.”
“Sonofabitch,” Slider said, stunned that they kept finding Davis everywhere they looked. Which made him having hassled Cora that much less acceptable. “All the pieces are just lining up.”
“Yeah, they fucking are,” Mav said. “And I’m going to bury Davis with them if it’s the last thing I do.”
Twenty minutes later, they rolled up to a fenced-in concrete course filled with hills, dips, curves, rails, and obstacles. About a dozen guys skated around, music blaring over a loudspeaker.
They dismounted, and Dare said, “We’re looking for Bam, Bucky, and Mikey Mo.” He gave them a droll stare.
“Seriously?” Phoenix said with a groan, and Slider got it. Because these were the lowlifes who’d landed Jagger in jail? “Mikey fucking Mo?”
Inside, Dare asked the first guy they came to and he pointed to the far side of the course. They found who they were looking for without any trouble.
The first of their targets who noticed them scrambled off his board and reared back, his red-rimmed eyes going wide. “Oh, shit,” he said, pushing blond dreadlocks out of his eyes. He wore a pair of knee-length shorts hanging low on his hips, a pair of sandals, and nothing else.
“We need to talk,” Dare said. “And I think you know why.”
Luckily, the skate rats read the writing on the wall and didn’t try to run. Before long, the Ravens had them lined up against the fence, Slider and his four brothers in their Ravens cuts, a solid wall of muscle and anger.
“Tell us about the dumping on our property. And start at the beginning, from how you got involved to what happened after,” Maverick said, his voice tight.
The one named Bam was apparently their leader, and he spoke first. He had tattoos visible through his hair, piercings . . . pretty much everywhere, and wore jeans hanging so low on his hips that Slider wondered how he could skate with them. “Dude, it wasn’t our idea. That muthafuckin’ sheriff said he’d jack up charges against us if we didn’t help him move a bunch of shit.”
“And then he promised us payment that he never delivered,” Mikey Mo said. He was the one with the dreads.
“Yeah, dudes, we didn’t even know what we were moving until the night of the job,” the third guy said. When he opened his mouth, Slider understood his name, Bucky. The guy was missing half his teeth. Add to that his holey clothing and he looked like he lived on the streets. “When we realized where we were, we didn’t want to do it, but the sheriff got all up in our grill, threatening us and stuff.”
“So he was there?” Slider asked, stepping forward. “Curt Davis was there?”
“Muthafucker would only come partway,” Bam said. “He took us to this dirt road that led onto your property and then waited there while we unloaded the stuff. Asshole wouldn’t even help. Fucking cops, man, you know?”
“Did you ever meet with Grant Slater?” Maverick asked.
“Don’t know no Slater,” Bam said. “We’re telling you everything.”
“Look,” Mikey Mo said. “We didn’t mean no harm. I mean, my dad used to take me to your races, and they were fucking gnarly.”
“Yeah, and the demolition derbies are epic,” Bucky said with a toothless grin.
Slider traded looks with Dare and Maverick, who rolled his eyes. These guys were just a bunch of loser kids who’d been pulled in by Davis to do Slater’s dirty work. Hell, Slider would be surprised if Mikey Mo was even in his twenties. He crossed his arms. “You three need to clean up your fucking acts. And I’m not talking about the skateboarding. What are you? Twenty? With arrest records already the length of my arm. Get your damn lives together because the next time people like us come knocking, it isn’t going to be to talk.”
Dare nodded and stepped closer, getting right up into Bam’s face. “He’s right. Which is why I’m going to let you off with a warning—you ever do something that interferes in our business again, you even think about it, and I catch wind? We’ll burn down your whole fucking world—with you in it.”
“Yeah, yeah, man. We get it,” Bam said. “It’s cool.”
“And if we ever call on you to do something,” Caine said, that icy gaze as intimidating as Slider had ever seen it, “your answer—your only answer—is yes.”
Mikey Mo held up his hands. “Sure, sure. Whatever you say.”
Slider sighed. Goddamn kids with no idea of consequences. This could’ve gone so much worse for them, and it still could, now that the Ravens knew how dirty Davis was. “You need to watch your backs around Davis, too,” Slider added. “He’s not a friend to you. You need help with a police matter, you ask for Sheriff Martin.”