STRIKE: Storm Runners Motorcycle Club 2 (SRMC) (22 page)

CHAPTER 26

G
race lifted her hand to know, and Tom grabbed her wrist before her knuckles could make contact. “Don’t.”

“It’s procedure.”

“Not in this case.” He pulled her arm down, his movement gentle. “Don’t give them a chance to leave from the back or hide the girl. Let me open it.”

He could almost see the gears turning in her head before she nodded and stepped back. A heartbeat of silence while Tom backed up, then he reared forward and kicked in the door, the wood shattering at the lock. It hit the ground with a thud that echoed through the house.

Before they could get farther than the foyer, the girl ran out, sobbing. She threw herself at Grace, who shoved her behind her and watched the way she’d came for signs of life. No one was there. Tears streamed down the woman’s face, coating her cheeks with dark mascara.

“Help me,” she said. “They—they’re bad.”

“It’s okay.” Grace’s voice was soothing, but her eyes were active, darting this way and that, watching the stairs and the room entrances on either side for the man she’d seen enter. “Where is he?”

“He had me over there.” She pointed a finger toward the room on the left. “He let go of my hand when the loud sound happened.” The woman was shaking so hard that her teeth chattered.

“Go outside and get away from here. Go to the police.” Tom shot Grace a hard look, but she just shook her head. “You’ll be okay.”

The girl backed out of the room, clattering down the stairs and moving jerkily until she hit the sidewalk. Once there, she started running.

“Grace…”

“Quiet,” she snapped. Tilting her head, she listened for any sound that would give them an advantage. Being the hunter was more difficult than being hunted, at least here. They could lie in wait for her and Tom, if they chose. After a moment, they moved up the stairs together, reaching the first landing and pausing.

A quiet thump echoed from the floor above them and Tom’s head turned in its direction like a hunting dog finally on a fox that’s gone to ground. Grace lifted her arm and signaled him to stay quiet—a heartbeat of silence, and then a soft scrape from upstairs, the rubber sole of a shoe dragging over the hardwood floors.

Unless he was going to take a header from a third story window, there was no way out for the man who’d come in—nor for Butch. Tom cleared the rooms on the second floor while Grace watched his back.

Once he’d completed the task, nerves grinding with each door that opened, each door Butch could be behind, he returned to the landing. Grace moved ahead of Tom toward the stairs, but he touched her back above the waist of her jeans and she stopped.

“Let me go first,” he said, his breath a hot kiss on her ear.

“Me,” she said, her words so quiet they made almost no impression on the air. “I’m the cop. I’ll make the arrest.”

He took a deep breath. Letting his woman go into danger ahead of him stuck in his craw, but she was already moving ahead.

_____

Both ascended the stairs with quick, measured steps and drawn weapons. Thick, faded rugs muffled their footsteps. At the top, Grace went to her knee and peered around the corner, gun out, ready to fire if necessary—but no one was there. The air felt thin, but it could have been her tight, even breaths. Darkness pressed in around them and she wished to god she had a flashlight.

They moved into the dark hallway, in the direction the sound had come from. The door at the end of the hall was slightly open, a flickering light emanating from inside. She cut her eyes over to Tom and he gestured to it, then shook his head. A trap or just a way to get them to the end so Butch could get out the front.

She reached for the first knob on the left and cleared the room. Nothing but a few pieces of furniture and floor length drapes. Tom cleared the second room while she watched his back. The darkness and silence was oppressive; only the whisper of water rushing through the pipes disturbed the dead air. At the door to the third room, Tom raised his weapon while she opened the door and went in low.

“Don’t move,” Butch said, his voice monotone. His gun was trained on Grace, but both she and Tom had their guns trained on him. Confidence rushed through her, pushing through the shock of terror that rose in her blood when she saw his gun. Two versus one. They had him. He wasn’t stupid enough to fire when he’d be dead in the next second.

That’s when she heard the click from her right. She’d been so focused on Butch that she hadn’t seen the second man.

_____

“If you so much as shift your weight, Jerry is going to put a bullet through this pretty little girl’s head.” Butch sighed and took a step back, not lowering his weapon. “I really didn’t want to kill you Tom.”

“I don’t believe you.” Tom lowered his weapon, his eyes darting between Grace and Butch. His urge to fire was so strong his finger throbbed. “You had no problem pumping Dad full of lead.”

“The cost of doing business,” Butch said, and closed his eyes. “You can’t believe I wanted that either. He was a brother to me. Throw the weapon into the hall.”

“You could have just left.” Rage swamped Tom, like late summer thunderstorms when the air charges and everything goes flat and still. “Left the club. Left my father alone.” When Butch motioned for him to throw his gun again, then turned his flat eyes to Grace, Tom tossed the gun behind him.

“No,” Butch said, shaking his head. “He wouldn’t let me do what I needed to do. He talked to the police, Tom. Can you believe that shit?” His belly jiggled when he laughed. “Your father, a rat at the end.”

“He wasn’t a rat. You’re a piece of shit.”

“Throw your gun out too, bitch.”

Grace said nothing. Just took her gun and threw it where Tom had thrown his.

“These girls are nothing. Dime a dozen street trash that nobody misses.”

“That’s not true.” Grace stepped forward and Jerry raised his gun. Tom didn’t know him, but his eyes were bloodshot and his slim frame shook while his lips curled up. He looked like a tweaker.

Nothing about him made Tom think he’d hesitate to shoot.

“You haven’t taught her how to stay in her place yet, boy?” Butch laughed again, like the entire situation was beyond amusing. Like Tom had no recourse and wouldn’t be leaving the room alive.

All the years he’d spent with Butch at his dinner table, long rides together, drug deals, weapons trades, church—all of it meant nothing now. The man in front of him was as good as a stranger. Maybe Butch was family once, but that was over now.

Only one of them was leaving the room alive.

“I’m a man, Butch. I don’t need a woman to stay in her place.” Tom shook his head. “You’re as arrogant and full of shit as ever.”

“Maybe,” Butch said, turning his head to Grace. “And maybe you need to learn a lesson, too. Maybe I’ll just shoot you in the gut and let you die while I enjoy your woman in front of you. Could probably teach her a few things too before I put one in her head.”

“Fuck you,” Tom snapped, moving forward.

The room erupted with sound.

One shot.

Another.

Then silence. Tom turned slowly, fear trickling slowly into his stomach.

But Grace was standing there with her service pistol trained on Butch, smoke rising from the barrel.

Jerry was on the floor with a bullet buried in his neck. His gun had fallen feet away from where he lie, gasping for breath as blood welled out of the wound and choked him. It fell thick and crimson on the rug, which drank enough to keep the pool from spreading far him.

“Idiot,” Butch said, keeping his gun trained on Grace. “Why’d you pull the goddamn trigger?” Jerry tried to speak, but it was only a gurgle and then he went limp.

“Shoot me, then, bitch,” Butch said to Grace, who didn’t reply. Just looked at him, keeping her body to the side, trying to minimize the target she presented.

Tom moved as Butch’s arm shook, grabbing the gun Jerry dropped and aiming it at Butch.

“Fuck you,” he said, but he’d already pulled the trigger.

The bullet his Butch in the shoulder and he went down hard. His head made contact with the wall, a crack that filled the echoing silence after the shot.

“Tom…” Grace started forward, then stopped herself. Part of him wanted to reach for her, to check her for shock or fear or anything that was putting that tremor in her voice—but he couldn’t.

His prey was wounded.

In front of him.

Just a man bleeding on the floor with fire-filled eyes that blazed with rage.

“I need to work on my aim,” Tom said, more casually than he felt as he moved toward Butch. “But first I need to ask you something. Who are you working for?”

For so long, he hadn’t cared. But now that he was standing here, the information did seem to matter. Grace needed to know. The Storm Runners president wanted to know. The club wasn’t dead because Max was—and Tom was still alive too.

Butch would die and they stop the shit festering through the streets of Detroit. It was going to be okay. Grace was here, at his back—and he was going to give her what she needed.

“I’m as high as you can get,” Butch said, ragged breaths escaping his bleeding lips as his face twisted with the pain of speaking.

“You aren’t. You’ve been doing this for two years and we know you’re working for someone. Tell me who.”

“There’s no one,” Butch said. But under the pain from the gunshot wound in his chest was a smile. When Tom reached down and pressed on the wound, working his fingers against the shredded flesh, Butch choked and laughed again.

“I fucking hate you,” Tom said. Then he moved back and collected Butch’s gun from the floor, handing it to Grace. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, but he could see her chest rise and fall with each of her hard breaths. “We need to call this in so I can get backup for the arrest.”

“Please do,” Butch said and his grin was so smug that Tom almost shot him right there just to take the look off his face.

“You don’t need to call it in,” Tom said as Grace took out her phone. She stopped, looked at him. “I’ll get the information you need, but there’s no reason to involve the police.” Her face fell and he remembered. He said he wouldn’t kill Butch. He’d let the police handle it.

But he couldn’t do that.

“Tom…”

“I’m sorry.”

“You promised me that we’d end this my way.”

“I lied.” Part of him wanted to go back, find another way to reach this point. Anything to keep the look of betrayal off her face—but he couldn’t.

“I can’t live with myself if I let you shoot him.”

_____

Tom shrugged. “You have to do what you have to do, Gracie.” He watched her levelly as she raised her weapon, pointed it at him.

“I can’t let you shoot an unarmed man, no matter what he’s done.” She didn’t know it was possible to feel more wrecked than she had the moment she’d learned he was using her for information. This was a worse place. This was pounding temples, rising gorge and god, she still loved him so much, but Butch was unarmed and that meant she couldn’t let Tom kill him.

Why couldn’t his aim have been better the first time
?

“How many people have you killed Butch?” Tom directed his question to the man on the floor without taking his eyes from Grace.

“Personally?” His laugh was a wet gurgle. “A lot.”

“You think this piece of shit deserves to live?”

“I think it’s not up to us.” Grace stepped forward and Tom tensed, but she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

She didn’t think she could hurt him either—though her training screamed at her to keep the weapon up, on the only armed threat in the room.

“There’s a system for a reason. There are ways for him to be tried for murder and trafficking outside of Detroit. I will campaign night and day until we get a change of venue. You know I’ll never turn—I’ll always tell the truth about who and what he is.” She took a deep breath, watched as Tom’s hand relaxed on the dead man’s gun. “Please, Tom.”

Grace stepped closer again, let her weapon drop to her side and then reached up a hand to stroke his face. “Please don’t do this. We can take him. We can leave. He’ll pay for all the bad he’s done and he’ll die years from now, alone and miserable in a cell somewhere.”

“Okay.” Tom nodded, his voice tight. “You can’t live with me killing him.”

“I’m a police officer, Tom. I’m sworn to protect and serve everyone—and he’s not an immediate threat right now.”

“I love you, Grace,” Tom said. He lowered the weapon. “I love you more than I hate this asshole. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give you. Call it in.” His face was shuttered and part of her wanted to say fuck it. Kill the bastard. But the words froze on her lips.

There was one thing she could say, though.

“I love you too.”

She took out her phone and started to call in what had happened. Before she could hit send, Butch’s laughter filled the room.

“Hey, Tom,” Butch pulled himself into a sitting position and coughed in great, thick hacks until he could get his breath back. “Max begged when he died and then he shit his pants like a baby when I put the bullet in his head. Bet you never thought your old man would beg like a fucking pussy.”