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CHAPTER 3

GHOST

Or at least I used to.

“I’m getting bored.”

I smirk at Poker, the club’s Enforcer, and shake my head. We’ve been in the Nightmare Room with Sonny, a low-level drug dealer who somehow got his hands on our product and thought it would be okay to sell it for his own profit. Fucking idiot.

“Where’d you get the powder?” I demand, shifting my attention back to Sonny.

“I told you,” the prick sneers like he’s not about to lose his life any second. “I work for Limitless Throttle.”

I haul my fist back and crack him in the nose for the tenth time. “Ya know, I might stop doing that if you’d tell the fucking truth.”

Soulless Kings MC and Limitless Throttle MC haven’t been enemies for a while, not since Shuffle became president. Hell, they even helped us eradicate the Wingless Angels.

Sonny spits blood onto the concrete floor as his body sways from the chains hanging him from the ceiling.

“Dude, he’s goin’ easy on you,” Poker tells him, his bored expression morphing into a sinister grin as he stalks toward the man. “I won’t be so nice.”

For a piece of shit dealer, Sonny’s got balls, I’ll give him that. Normally, this would be the point where our captive is begging for mercy, not tempting the devil.

“Gimme whatever you got,” Sonny taunts. “I can take it.”

Poker and I exchange a look before he walks to the wall and snags the fire poker from its perch. Next, he grabs the torch and hands it to me.

“Make it glow,” he snarls.

I open the fuel valve, and a blue flame shoots out of the nozzle. Poker sticks the tip of the iron into the heat, and both of us stare at Sonny for several minutes while we let the tool get hot.

“W-what are you doing?” Sonny asks, fear finally entering his voice.

Poker walks toward him, the glowing tip of the stoker a promise of what’s to come. When he reaches the swaying man, he taunts him by holding the fire poker centimeters from his skin, careful not to touch him.

“We gave you every opportunity to tell us what we want to hear,” our enforcer says with a shrug. “You chose not to.”

He shoves the tip into Sonny’s thigh, and the man screams like a little girl. Having been a cop, you’d think I’d detest stuff like this, but I don’t. There’s something about not having to worry about blurred lines that just feels… right.

“O-okay, I’ll tell you.”

“Seriously?” I drawl. “That’s all you can take?” I glance at Poker. “Didn’t he just tell us to give him all we got, brother?”

“He did.”

“Whaddya say we up our game?”

Poker stretches his arm toward me so I can light up the tip of the implement again. Once it glows orange, he faces Sonny and shoves the heated spike into his chest, right where the prick’s heart lies beneath the ribs.

“Dammit, man,” I groan when Sonny’s head lolls to the side, his eyes vacant of any sign of life. “You killed him.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Bullshit,” I retort with a dark chuckle. “If you meant to keep him breathing, you’d have aimed lower.”

“Eh, who cares? He was a waste of breath anyway.”

“Yeah, and you’re gonna be the one to fucking tell Crow. He wanted answers, and we got nothing.”

“And we weren’t gonna get anything,” he snaps, tossing the fire poker to the cement floor.

He flattens his palm on the scanner by the door, and the steel barrier slides open. Poker stalks out of the Nightmare Room. As I follow him down the hall to the stairs, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and stare at the text.

Crow: Addi got you what you need

Included in the text is a contact sheet for ‘Nurse for Ghost’. Fucker couldn’t even put a real name in there. I chuckle even as a sense of calm washes over me. If the nurse is someone Addison found, I might actually be able to relax a bit where my mom is concerned.

When Poker and I reach the common room of the clubhouse, he veers off to speak to Crow, but I head straight for my suite. I want to place my call immediately, but I need to take a shower first. The blood on my clothes and body isn’t going to wash itself off.

Once I’m clean and dressed in a pair of gray sweats, I flop onto my bed, cell phone in hand. I tap the screen a few times, bringing up the contact Crow sent, and then put the call on speakerphone while I wait for an answer.

The feminine voice that comes through the line is muffled. “Hello.”

“Hi, um, I got your number from Addison,” I say.

A sharp intake of breath is my only response. I wait for several seconds, hoping the woman will say something, but she doesn’t.

“This is the nurse who knows Addison Thompson?” I pause. “Or maybe you know her as Addison McGill, the cop.”

She clears her throat but still doesn’t speak.

“Look, if you’re not interested in the job, then just say so,” I snap, annoyed at having my time wasted. “I can find someone else.”

“Omigod,” the woman groans, so quietly I almost don’t hear it. “Is… Is this… Parker?”

That voice. I know it. I know the woman it belongs to better than I know myself.

Or at least I used to.