Page 21

21. INTERROGATIONS

BIGFOOT

Everyone except the old-timers and younger members who went on the run to deliver the mushrooms to our buyers had been on lockdown for nearly a week, and we were all getting pretty sick of one another’s faces. I loved my club brothers and their families, but there was a reason we opted for a compound where we had individual houses built, too. The problem was that we had grown beyond those houses. We needed more land to be able to house everyone within our fenced property, while also keeping people from being crowded on top of one another and the clubhouse.

We also had extra bodies with Sammy’s family under our roof, too. I couldn’t complain about that either, since Josh had saved our asses and our future crops. Had we let the disease spread much further, we would have lost the whole business and not known how to start it back up. Since we lost our one and only mushroom guru before, I put Josh in charge of teaching some of the guys how to care for our crop and what to look out for in the future. We also established clean room rules for anyone who went down into the cave. It was imperative for us not to introduce shit we might pick up from outside to our underground farm.

“Doc has the DNA results. He’s on his way here now,” I announced when Brian finally joined us all downstairs. His face drained of color at the mention of the DNA test and then he sat down and shoved his face into his hands. I could tell by the slump of his shoulders that he already suspected what Sammy and I had figured out. Ryan wasn’t his.

“What the hell am I supposed to do if he’s not mine?” Brian asked the room at large. My mom and Lis had the boys in the gaming room upstairs, so we weren’t in danger of them overhearing us. “What the fuck am I supposed to tell that boy about his mom? Why didn’t I ask for a test before? Fuck!”

“She preyed on a heartbroken man, and you let her because you needed to move on from Mom. You can’t regret anything if Ryan really is yours. You just have to try to figure out how to tell him about his mom in a way he will understand, because there is no coming back from this for her. Her intention was to kill all of us off, since the trust was finally explained to her, and she knew that was the only way to get it.” Sammy explained to her dad.

“Yeah, that works if he’s mine. What if he’s not? What am I supposed to do?”

“He’s been your son since before he was born, Dad. You have held him, bathed him, told him stories, and taught him the things you know. You signed his birth certificate. It’s the same as if you had willingly adopted a child. You don’t give them back just because you realized they weren’t going to look like you. He’s yours. He’s ours. That little boy will forever be my brother because it isn’t fair to take our family away from him, when his only crime is having a cunt for a mother.”

Brian nodded his head, and I gave my woman a little squeeze. She was the best of the best. Loyalty dripped from her veins and there was nothing fucking sexier to me than that.

I glanced around to make sure there were no lurkers to overhear when I told Sammy and her dad that we located Colleen. “She’s shacked up with good ol’ Sheriff Estes.”

“Fuck. You think he’s the father?” Brian asked. My woman smacked him on the arm. “What did I just say? No matter the results of that test, you are still his dad. So, stop asking yourself who he came from biologically, because he belongs to our hearts.”

“You’re right. It’s just, what if he knows and he tries to fight us for him?”

“That won’t happen,” I assured him.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Estes isn’t long for this world. He was in on the second assassination attempt against Sammy. No man threatens my woman’s life and lives.” I stood and walked away from them to let what I had to say seep in and for them to come to terms with it. I didn’t think Sammy would have a problem with how I just put shit, but Brian was made of softer stuff than his daughter and brothers were. The more time I was forced to spend with him, the more it became obvious. The way Sammy and the other Mortons talked about him, the more I thought his spirit did pass on with his first wife. He sounded like someone I would have liked when Joy Cosay was still alive. Once she passed to the next world, a part of him did, as well.

We worked over Estes for two fucking hours and the bastard was either a champion under pressure or he didn’t know shit about shit. He was simply on the Riveras’ payroll, but obviously wasn’t a key player. I was sure Colleen knew more, but the men were loath to torture another woman.

“How about we use Sammy to do it?” Knuckles asked. He earned a brand-new shiner as a result. “What? Come on, Prez. It’s not like she hasn’t killed for you before. Besides, this bitch tried to off her entire family, or at least planned to do so. I’m pretty sure your woman would want a few minutes alone with her.”

“That might be, but I don’t like the idea of my woman being used.”

“Then offer her the choice,” Baffle interjected. “If she says no, then we figure something out. If she wants to do it, we let her.”

“Yeah? And which of you will be there for her when she wakes at night from nightmares about what she had to do to get information for us?”

Dime snickered. “No offense man, but I don’t think your woman will be wallowing in nightmares. When it comes to the wet work, she seems to have a switch she can flip and disassociate what’s going down around her. Love that for her.”

“Fuck. Okay,” I agreed because Dime wasn’t wrong. It was something I’d spent time marveling over as well.

Knuckles, Baffle, Glitch, and I made our way back upstairs while Dime stayed put with our prisoners. As soon as we got upstairs, it was like Sammy had some kind of radar. She homed in on me and then got up and made her way to our little huddle.

“What’s going on?”

“Come with us first,” I told her. She followed all of us down into the secret caves beneath the compound.

“This is cool.”

“We need to ask you something.” Glitch got right to the point while ignoring how Sammy felt about where we were.

“So, ask.”

“We need a woman to coerce the information we need from Colleen.”

“Why do you think I’d be able to do it?” I could tell by her demeanor that Sammy was fucking with him, but as per usual with Glitch, he didn’t catch on right away.

“You were in the Army. Didn’t they teach you interrogation techniques?”

“I was in the Army, not the fucking C.I.A.” She laughed as she corrected him.

“So, they didn’t teach you anything?”

“I was a Quartermaster, Glitch.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It could mean a lot of things that involve being support staff for the troops, but for me, it meant that I packed parachutes.”

“You packed…” Glitch’s brows pulled together as he tried to fit Sammy into that field of work. She laughed at him again.

“You’ve clearly been watching too many contrived Hollywood movies, Glitchy-poo. I packed parachutes. I didn’t off people. I didn’t interrogate anyone. I didn’t even fire a weapon except during training and quals.”

“She’s always been a useless little bitch!” Colleen yelled from the chair she had been secured to. Sammy strolled over and smacked her across the face. “I’m sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you around the shit that was coming out of your mouth.”

“I said you are a useless bitch!” the woman growled at her. Sammy grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back so fast, Colleen let out a startled yelp. While she was disoriented from the quick movement, she hadn’t seen Sammy pick up a knife from the table of materials that had been left there to intimidate the bitch into talking. Sammy didn’t care about appearances. She was pissed and stabbed the knife into Colleen’s thigh just an inch from where her groin was.

Colleen screamed.

“I didn’t fucking hear you,” Sammy whispered into her ear. “Now, you were saying something about who you were working for.”

“My Uncle. Hammer. He-he-he needed someone to get close to one of the Mortons. I tried with Josh when he was drunk, but he didn’t even give me a sideways glance and then, thankfully, didn’t remember me when Brian introduced us later.”

“Why the fuck were you supposed to get close to my family?”

“Your family is nothing. We need your land.”

“You could have killed us all off.”

Colleen shook her head violently. “No. If we didn’t have a legal right to take it, and killed all of you, the trust states that the land is donated to the state and is to remain open to the public’s use.”

“So, you set out to baby trap one of the Morton boys?” she asked.

“I had to.”

“No, you really fucking didn’t.” Sammy took another knife and stabbed Colleen’s other thigh.

“Why?” Colleen screamed. Sammy laughed at her. “I’m telling you things…”

“That was just because you’re a bitch and I didn’t like what you were telling me. Now, I suggest you answer whatever questions these men have for you, or I’m going to get creative with the pieces of you I start to carve up next, Colleen.” As if to emphasize where she might start, Sammy took a third knife and tapped against the woman’s pussy.

I looked at Sammy then turned to Baffle. “Get what you need. If she gives you a hard time, call me and I’ll bring Sammy back to deal with her.”

“Where are you going?”

“To fuck my woman.” I grabbed my cock and adjusted it. “Fuck, I’m so hard right now, I can’t stand it.” I grabbed Sammy up, threw her over my shoulder and ignored the pain that ripped down my side. It was nothing compared to a few weeks ago. Technically, I was healed up. That didn’t mean everything wasn’t still tender when I put it under strain. I made my way down the long hall before I finally kicked a door open and went inside. It ended up being an oversized supply closet. It would have to do.

“Can’t wait to get you upstairs, baby.”

“Good,” she said as I set her back down on her feet.

I smirked when the heat in her eyes made it obvious she was in the same state I was.“Now, strip for me, baby, because I need to fuck you hard.”