Rough Justice (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #1)(94)

They descended the stairs to the basement, and Wheels led her down a long narrow hallway, and through a spacious games room, his fingers twitching against her.

“What’s got you so agitated?” She skirted around the pool table, and eyed the well-stocked bar with appreciation.

Wheels stared straight ahead and mumbled. “Sometimes I forget.”

“Forget what?” she said in an uncertain tone.

“Who he really is and how careful I have to be.”

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. They walked into a small room with blacked-out windows, and she knew.

“Banks!” A sudden coldness hit her core, and she flung herself forward, her cry echoing through the small space.

Tied to a chair in the center of the room, his left eye swollen shut, blood trickling down his temple, and his face a mass of cuts and bruises, Banks regarded her with a resigned expression. His eyes flicked to Jagger standing to his right, fist raised to deliver another blow.

“Bastard.” Banks growled. “Did you have to bring her down here?”

“No.” Arianne threw herself in front of Jagger and held up her hands, palms forward, taking in Cade and Sparky, leaning against the wall and Zane behind the chair. “Don’t touch him. Don’t you dare touch him.”

The room, pungent with the scent of blood and sweat, stilled. Jagger turned to her, his eyes cold, hard, and resolute. “He has information I need, and so far he’s been reluctant to give it up. Apparently, the women who took you to him told him the whole story, and it’s a story I want to hear.”

Seized by an unbearable fury, heedless of the muttered warnings around her, Arianne turned on Jagger. “You’re doing this to get information I did not want you to have. This is between you and me. Let him go. Now.”

Jagger’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, sweetheart. There’s a line you don’t cross, and you’re standing on the edge. I’ll tolerate only so much disrespect, and right now my patience is at its end. I want a name and I’ll do what has to be done to get it. He knows who fired the gun.”

Her face twisted in revulsion. “So you’re going to beat him up? He looked after me, Jagger. He took a bullet out of my arm. And right now he’s suffering for being a good friend to me. And this is the thanks he gets? I trusted you—”

“You don’t trust me.” He said through gritted his teeth. “You told me last night. What would the Jacks think if they found out was a woman I had claimed had been shot and I did f*ck-all about it? Or the Triads? Or the Mafia? Everything we do or don’t do sends a message. Everything is a power play. I have one hundred men depending on me to keep them safe. We are the dominant club in the state, and we stay that way because we make sure no one f*cks with us. And beating my girl, tying her up, chaining her to a floor, and shooting her goes way beyond that.”

“I’m not your girl.” She couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice. “I’m your prize. Your finger to Viper. The life you took for Cole’s life. If I were anything more, you wouldn’t be doing this.”

“You were mine the second you drove onto Sinner property.” His flat, toneless voice sliced through her heart. “You will be mine until I let you go.”

He sidestepped Arianne and looked down at Banks. “Name.”

“Fuck you.”

Without warning, Jagger punched Banks in the jaw. Banks’s head snapped to the side and he let loose a string of swearwords.

“Oh God. Stop.” She grabbed Jagger’s T-shirt and yanked him toward her. “Stop.”

His face twisted with rage. Stark, raw, and almost unrecognizable as the man who had been so gently cruel with her last night.

“I want a name.”

“Don’t f*cking tell these bastards anything.” Banks spit blood on the floor. “Told you bikers were nothing but trouble. You keep your secrets to yourself and know they are safe with me. I’m not gonna break ’cause some * with marshmallow hands is pattin’ me on the cheeks.”

Jagger looked over at Sparky and dipped his chin. Sparky picked up an iron bar from the floor and tapped it in his hand. Wheels paled. Arianne took a step toward Banks, and Jagger grabbed her arm.

“Don’t interfere.”

Her stomach sank, and a wave of nausea washed over her. Wheels was right. She, too, had forgotten who Jagger was: not a friend or a savior, or even a lover, but a ruthless MC president who put his club above everything else. Just like her father.

Softening her expression, she swallowed her pride and dropped her voice to a pleading tone. “Please, Jagger. Don’t hurt him.”

But he wouldn’t be moved. “I’m tired of playing these f*cking games, Arianne. You know I won’t hurt you, but I have no problem hurting him. None whatsoever. I want the name of the guy who did those things to you, or I’ll start at his ankles and work my way up.

She cast one last, frantic glance at Sparky, but he just gave her a sympathetic shrug and looked away. Zane snorted, amused. Wheels’s face contorted in shared anguish and he looked away.

Damn him. Damn them all. Damn stupid biker culture. How had she misjudged him so badly? How had she fooled herself into thinking he wasn’t like the other bikers she knew? He was as bad as Viper. Maybe even worse.

She spun around and stormed out the door, searching for a weapon. She had her .38 strapped to her leg, but she wasn’t prepared to go that far. Not yet. She grabbed a pool cue from the rack and raced back into the room. Jagger was still in front of Banks, his back to her. She moved quickly, swinging the pool cue before anyone could bark a warning.