Page 37 of Whips and Chains (Saint View Murder Squad #2)

Grayson rubbed the back of his neck, his agitation common during these meetings.

His clipboard with his notes rested on his crossed legs.

“Okay, so we have a dead body on site. That’s great.

My kids are asleep in their beds just down the road.

” He sighed. “How about you all sit here and think about your behavior while I go get someone to deal with that.” He eyed X.

“Seriously, you need a time-out. Don’t freaking move until I get back. ”

He stood and went to the door, pulling it open.

X twirled his wrench like he was a cheerleader with a baton. “Uh-oh, I made Dad mad.”

“You make all of us mad,” I told him.

He leaned over and ruffled my hair. “Aw. I love you too, Whip.”

“I will break every finger on your hand if you don’t get them out of my hair,” I said through gritted teeth.

He leaned in closer, giving my hair one last stroke and withdrawing his hand just in time to keep it. “It’s okay. Even if I have no fingers, I can still get Violet off with my dick.”

Levi made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. “I can break that for you too, if you want?”

He didn’t get to answer, because the workshop door opened again.

I twisted to see Grayson coming back in the door. “That was quick. Did you sprint up to the clubhouse and back?”

He shook his head. “Didn’t even get as far as the road. Found a friend hanging around outside eavesdropping.”

All of us shoved to our feet, weapons drawn, muscles tensed and ready for a fight.

Grayson glanced over his shoulder.

Violet stepped into the open doorway, her cheeks pink but determination in her eyes.

My stomach flipped in a sickening roll. She was supposed to be at work.

She’d been scheduled at Psychos tonight, and that’s where she’d been because I’d watched Fang drop her off there hours ago.

They had security, and on any given night, half the bar was filled with Slayers keeping an eye on Bliss or Rebel, so it had felt safe to leave Violet there without a babysitter.

But she was clearly not there any longer, and there was a dead fucking body up at the Slayers’ gates, currently frozen along with the Ben and Jerry’s.

Levi lurched forward, his face like a thundercloud, but putting himself between Violet and the rest of us holding guns. “What are you doing here?” He was clearly having similar thoughts to me and Grayson about having dead bodies anywhere near the people we cared about.

X seemed oblivious to it all, as usual. He just blew her a kiss, which she ignored.

She instead focused on Levi. “I want in.”

X cocked his head to one side as the rest of us holstered our guns. “Into the squad or into Levi and Whip’s newly discovered gay awakening? Because I have questions about both.”

So did I, but I decided to focus on the Violet question first, since she was standing right there next to Grayson, so incredibly tempting but also super out of place in the middle of a dirty workshop where a group of killers were having a meeting. “You shouldn’t be here, sweetheart.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me. And where should I be, Whip? Hiding at home with one of you babysitting me?”

Irritation rose up my spine. She’d had a brick thrown through the car window the last time she’d followed us, but clearly that hadn’t been enough to scare some sense into her.

She was being reckless with her own safety, and frankly, it was starting to piss me off.

That bubbled to the surface. “Preferably, yes!”

Her mouth flattened into a line, and she moved around Grayson, beelining for me until we stood pretty much eye to eye, me staring down at her just a few inches.

She poked me in the chest with a finger. “You aren’t my keeper. And I can join your stupid group if I want to.”

To prove her point, she sat down heavily in the chair Grayson had vacated.

All eight of us stared at her.

“You are not joining the group,” Levi practically snarled. “No freaking way.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, and then her hand followed. “I pledge allegiance to this group of emotionally unstable boys, who think murder is a love language.” Her sarcasm was so thick it dripped from every word. “There. I’m in.”

Scythe leaned in toward X. “That didn’t sound sincere.” He paused a second, then added, “And it is a love language, just for the record.”

Grayson cleared his throat. “That isn’t exactly how this works, Violet.”

She glared at him. “Oh, isn’t it? My bad.

Is there an initiation I have to pass? Is it murder?

” Her glare moved across the three of us who’d shared her bed recently.

“I can think of a few people I wouldn’t mind taking out right now because they clearly don’t have my back, even though they promised they would. ”

The fight went out of all three of us and the shame sank in. It was like a literal deflation, all three of us dropping our gazes to the floor like dogs who’d just been told off by their owner.

It was a pretty spot-on analogy. It definitely felt like Violet owned me.

One by one, the three of us sat, the others all taking their cues from us and following. Grayson didn’t seem happy, but he pulled over a chair with wheels from behind a desk filled with messy, oil-smudged paperwork, and we widened the circle a little to fit him in.

All of us stared at Violet.

She nodded, like it was exactly the reaction she had wanted, and I couldn’t help the flare of pride deep in my chest for the way she was owning this.

Where was the timid woman from the back of my car that first night we’d met?

The one who’d been scared of her own shadow and too afraid to take her panties off for me?

She seemed far away tonight.

The Violet who sat at the head of our circle looked much more like some sort of Mafia don, owning the attention and respect of the eight men in the room.

It was hot.

Instantly, my brain started conjuring up all sorts of things we could do in this workshop if there weren’t currently seven other people in here.

The workbench was just the right height for bending her long torso over.

There was an old Chevy with a hood I could lay her on to bury my face in her pussy.

Levi behind me, finishing what we’d started the night before.

I swallowed down a groan at the very thought of being sandwiched between them like that, him taking me from behind, me going down on her at the same time.

Fucking hell.

“I heard everything you said,” Violet announced calmly.

X turned sheepish. “I swear, it’s still safe to eat my ice cream. The body is wrapped in plastic. Nothing is touching.” He couldn’t help but add, “Apart from Levi’s and Whip’s dicks.”

Violet frowned at him. “You make jokes, but, X, someone tried to kill you. Someone tried to kill me. It’s only a matter of time before someone comes after Levi and Whip too, if they haven’t already.”

She looked at the two of us.

I bit my lip but then admitted, “I think I was followed the other day. They backed off pretty quick when I turned around and confronted them. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t connected to the list. Saint View isn’t ever the safest place to be walking alone at night.”

Violet wasn’t convinced. “But it could have been someone targeting you because the sick fuck playing games with us is paying them to.”

I couldn’t deny it was a possibility.

She turned her attention to Grayson. “I want to see a copy of the list.”

He shook his head. “Violet—”

It was Levi who spoke up. “She wasn’t asking, Gray.”

The two of them exchanged a look, Gray still hesitant, but Levi clearly willing to stand up for Violet, even if just minutes earlier he’d been objecting harder than anyone.

His mood swings gave me whiplash. But Violet had put him in his place, and he was backing her.

Just like X and I now were as well.

Jesus, this woman had all three of us so pussy-whipped. I knew it, and I didn’t even care. It didn’t feel like a bad thing to want to protect her, to give her what she wanted as well as what she needed.

Right now, she was asking for our support.

And we were giving it.

Grayson handed over his copy of the list. We all reported back which targets we’d taken out, and the list now had several crossed-through names, mostly all courtesy of Trigger, Ace, Torch, and maybe Scythe.

I knew Levi, X, and I hadn’t contributed much, since we were too busy running around after Violet and fucking around in sex club camera rooms. But at least the body in X’s truck would help toward evening up our tally just a little.

Violet ran her nail down the list of names, though I wasn’t sure why. She was a nice girl. A good girl, who didn’t hang out with criminals.

Well, she hadn’t, until she’d met us, but that was beside the point. She wasn’t going to recognize anyone on that list.

Except halfway down it, she paused, and her head jerked up. “I know this name.”

I leaned in to peer over her shoulder. “Travis Jones.”

Any humor that might have been lingering in X’s expression faded away. “Travis? As in the Travis who was bothering you at Psychos the other night?”

She nodded. “Travis as in my foster brother Travis. I don’t even want to know what he did to get himself on here. But I can imagine.”

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t know off the top of my head what he’d done either, but Grayson didn’t put people on the list lightly. There was nobody on there who’d done time for a simple break and enter, or someone who had been sentenced for fraud.

The list was reserved for the worst of the worst. People we knew were associated with the most vile things humans could do to each other. Rapists. Traffickers. Murderers.

For her brother’s name to be on there, he had to have done something reprehensible.

And the thought of her growing up in a house with someone who could do things like that sent chills down my spine.

I suddenly went from wanting to bang Violet up against a wall, to wanting to lift her in my arms, taper her in bubble wrap, and never let anything bad happen to her ever again.

She’d already been through too much. She’d been dealt so many shit hands, it just didn’t seem fair she’d found herself square in the middle of another, just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And I hated it was all because of us.

If she’d never met us, none of this would be happening to her and she and Toby would be living their best lives right now.

Except if X hadn’t been there that day, to save her from Paul Jeddersen, the very man whose name had been scratched off the list she held now in her hands, she would be the one chopped up into little pieces and dropped off the Saint View bluff.

Everything happened for a reason.

And there was no turning back now.

“You need to use me as bait,” Violet said quietly.

We all stared at her.

“It makes sense,” she continued, like she couldn’t hear the screaming in my head.

“Either I’m a target for them, or they’re using me because they know it will hurt all of you.

Either way, they’re watching me. So let them come.

I’m sick of them having the upper hand and us always looking over our shoulders, wondering when they’re next coming at us.

We need to flip the tables. Take back the power. ”

The screaming in my head got louder. I managed to keep it from pouring out of my mouth, but I could feel the same sort of thing vibrating off X and Levi.

Nobody liked this plan. But nobody was willing to say it either, because all three of us wanted to have her back.

A tiny part of me really wanted the others in the room to object though.

Grayson nodded. “It could work. Something staged and well controlled with all of you working together. We’ve been picking off people from the list one by one, but it’s not getting us anywhere. Maybe this will.”

I sent a mental punch straight to Doc’s groin. “Would you be so quick to make Kara the sacrificial lamb?” I couldn’t help but ask him.

We all knew he wouldn’t.

But he didn’t even get to answer because Violet answered for him, “Kara has two girls who need their mom.” She swallowed thickly. “I don’t have anyone who needs me like that.”

“I do,” I muttered.

She glanced at me. “Not like that, you don’t.”

I might not have been a little girl who needed her mom, but I was a grown fucking man who very much did need her.

She just didn’t know how much, because until that moment, I hadn’t even really admitted it to myself. I breathed out a long, slow stream of air, trying to get my shit under control.

Trigger’s team was all nodding, in full approval of this new plan Violet was proposing. And slowly, X and Levi nodded, too.

Which left me.

Her gaze locked with mine, and there was a fire in it. One I knew was fueled by what Paul Jeddersen had done to her. What that trapped warehouse had taken from her. And from the shitty childhood that had stamped her down, beating her into the ground time and time again.

She needed this.

And I was never going to say no to anything she needed. Whether that be food or affection or sex.

Or murder.

I sighed. “I guess we’re setting a trap for a psychopath.”