Chapter 4
Olivia
“I’ll escort you out, Agent Banks,” the guard said.
“No need. Give him fifteen seconds,” I said.
“Who?” the guard asked.
I leaned back into my chair, waiting for him to come back. I knew I had rattled him. Gotten underneath his skin. That was the point. I knew men like him were hard-pressed to talk. You had to prove yourself to these types of people. Not simply impress them, but work your way underneath their skin and push their buttons. They were tight-lipped unless you brought something to the table that either intrigued them or pissed them off.
And I had managed to do both.
“Agent Banks—.”
“Five, four, three—.”
Footsteps came back down the hallway and I peeked up at the guard trying to get me to stand up. He furrowed his brow and looked down at me, then chuckled and shook his head. Thirteen seconds. That was a new record for me. I winked up at the man before he patted my shoulder, walking out of the room and for the doorway.
I stayed there, with my arms and legs crossed as the guard that hauled Colt away sat him staunchly back down in front of me.
“Yes?” I asked.
Colt leaned forward, pressing his forearms into the table. And I was able to take a good, hard look at him. I wondered about his age. How a man like him would have to be to justify the salt in his hair. He had a few strands at his temples. And a few small streaks through his thick head of brown hair. His dark brown eyes were mean. Hard. Cold. And the crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes lent a wisdom to his features I didn’t find in most men who ran with the kinds of clubs he did. I looked down at his forearms. At his hands. At the tailored veins running underneath his skin. The man was lean, but strong. Toned for his age.
I slowly ran my eyes back up his body, locking my gaze with his.
“Did you come to stare, or talk?” I asked.
“What do you know about the Black Hornets?” he asked.
His voice was like smooth velvet running over my ears. Not too deep, not too soft. Not too much of anything. And it crackled like fire. Like licks of flames against my skin.
“I know you’re a muscle-for-hire club. I know you have ties to a group called the High Rollers out of Las Vegas. Probably for work-related things. And I know you also work closely with the Dead Souls. I know that you have a fairly decent reputation in the community despite the trouble you seem to get yourselves into. Which is why I’m more concerned with why the shootout took place than what happened. Though, I’d also like to know what happened,” I said.
Colt nodded. “It was a shootout. People gathered. Shot guns. Some were wounded. A couple died. I don’t know who killed your officer, though.”
“I’ll figure it out eventually. I always do. But, I’m going to need a few more specifics if I’m going to help you.”
“Help me? How the hell do you expect to help me?” he asked.
“By getting you out of here so you don’t stand trial for something you didn’t do.”
If words could have slapped someone across the face, the look in Colt’s eyes would have been the reaction garnered. It looked like I had knocked the wind out of him. I wasn’t here to play games. If this man was innocent, I wanted him out of jail. I wanted him out from behind these holding cell bars. But, if he wasn’t innocent, then he was where he needed to be.
What I needed to figure out was which one it was.
“Who all was involved in the shootout?” I asked.
“Some people,” Colt said.
“Was the cartel involved in it?”
“They were.”
“Were you involved in it?”
He went silent and I nodded my head.
“Did the cartel start it?” I asked.
And still, silence.
“Did the cartel deserve it?” I asked.
“Don’t they always?” Colt asked.
“You’d be surprised. You know your silence is answering my questions for me, right?”
And when he did nothing but grin, I understood what he was doing. Answering without answering. So, he wouldn’t betray his brotherly code, but be able to give me what I wanted. But, it didn’t work that way. I’d need concrete answers I could hear if I was going to get this man out of jail.
He had a nice grin, though. Lit up the green swirls mixed in with his brown stare.
“How old are you, Colt?” I asked.
He cocked his head, confused by the change in topic.
“I’m thirty- five,” he said.
“So, you’ve been running with the Black Hornets for a while. Right? Or did you pledge at an older age?”
“Are you doing that thing again where I tell you about my life and then you predict my future?”
I giggled. “I don’t predict the future. I simply see what others don’t. My specialty is psychological profiling.”
“And you use that to predict the future.”
I shrugged. “Sure. If you want to call it that.”
Colt nodded. “I pledged when I was younger. Around eighteen.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I wasn’t going anywhere else. I didn’t have anything going for me in my favor. I hated school. Had no passion to sit in an office cubicle or teach bratty little kids.”
“So, you don’t have a family.”
His eyes locked hard onto mine, and I wondered why me mentioning his family was such a hot-button topic.
“Bad home life?” I asked.
I watched his jaw physically grind itself together. Huh. Curious.
“Did you lead the charge into the shootout?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Okay. That’s good. I can use that to get you out of here.”
“Why would you want that?”
“Because if you didn’t kill that cop and you didn’t lead the charge, I can make sure a bail is set for you to match,” I said.
“Seems like you’re pretty motivated to get me out of jail rather than figure out what happened.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve pieced together more about that night sitting here and shooting the shit than I have with you not answering my questions,” I said, grinning.
I watched him swallow before he shifted in his chair. It was a beautiful thing, making men like him nervous. I wanted him to be nervous. I wanted him to know that this was serious. That the court system had the biased power to ruin his world if he let them.
“I’m your last line of defense. If you get a lawyer in here, it makes you look guilty. A jury is going to stereotype you until your very last breath. You don’t have to answer much, but the questions I’m asking you are going to help either get you off the hook or not. It’s your choice, Colt. Make the right one. If not for yourself, then for the family you refuse to talk about,” I said.
He drew in a deep breath through his nose before he slowly leaned back into his chair.
“There was a shootout. The cartel didn’t start it, but they did finish it. They’ve run amok in Redding. Slain the lives of innocent people. They’ve funneled drugs back into an area they were pushed out of almost two decades ago. Just like you guys do, we were following leads. Trying to find the head honcho and keep our people safe. My club and I are the last line of defense for the innocents in Redding. Their children’s schools are about to be littered with drugs. We did what we had to do to send a message,” Colt said.
“This isn’t making you look innocent,” I said.
“I don’t give a shit about looking innocent or not, Agent Banks. What I care about is protecting what’s mine and making sure the people of Redding stay safe.”
“Including your family?”
“Get off my fucking family!” he roared as he stood up.
The door behind me was thrown open and a guard stepped into the room. Colt’s eyes whipped up to the man and he promptly sat back down into his seat. I held up my hand, stopping the guard in his tracks. This man wouldn’t hurt me. He had lines. Boundaries. Morals. That was the undergird of this shootout. I was almost certain it had been started by his club. Led probably by his President. But, it was fueled with a passion that fueled all of us. That was instilled in all of us.
Justice.
I knew there was more than what Colt was saying. Much more. I had no idea what he was hiding or why he was hiding it, but I understood him the more we talked. The more we related. The more we picked at topics that didn’t have to do with the shootout. He was a family man. He cared for those he loved greatly. But, there was regret in his eyes. Tinges of guilt and anger he still hadn’t resolved. This shootout wasn’t for family. It was for justice.
I just didn’t know who required the justice in the first place.
“He’s fine. We’re okay,” I said.
“One more outburst like that and you’re done,” the guard said to Colt.
He grunted and looked over toward the wall as the guard faded back.
“I know you’re hiding a great deal from me, and I get it. You don’t want to rat out your club. You want to keep them safe. You’d rather take the fall for it than see your buddies go down with you. Whatever task you’ve got going on, it’s not finished. But it will be if you rat and we take them down. I understand it,” I said.
“You don’t understand shit,” he murmured.
My gaze locked onto the profile of his face.
“I understand more than you will ever know.”
It must have been the tone of my voice, but his eyes slowly found their way to mine. He cocked his head slightly, looking into my eyes. They began to dance over my locked-out shoulders, and my stiffened posture, and my flaring nostrils.
Colt grinned. “Look who’s on the hot seat now.”
“Agent Banks, sorry to interrupt.”
Sheriff Barnes’ voice dripped over my ears and I furrowed my brow.
“Sheriff?” I asked.
“Yeah, sorry. I was coming in to see how things were going, and there’s someone out here to visit Colt,” he said.
I heard murmuring in the hallway before Sheriff Barnes drew in a deep breath. And in that moment, I knew exactly who had come for Colt.
“Sorry. There’s an attorney out here to speak with him,” the sheriff said.