Broken Songbird (Vicious Games #2)

15. Chapter 15

D el and Scarlett hug before Herrington, Lucas, and Del leave. Scarlett locks her door while I dispose of the rubbish down the chute at the end of the hall, then we take her bags and travel down to the lobby.

Scar lives in a nice apartment building with decent security measures like cameras, and key-activated doors and elevators, but it’s still way too easy to slip in with another resident and use the stairs to access the floors.

She might not be happy to leave, but it settles some tension in me knowing she’ll be safe at Savage Wings. Safe with me.

“How are we getting to Savage Wings with all these bags?” she asks as we walk out of her building.

I point out the two brothers loading my motorcycle onto the bed of my utility vehicle.

Scar goes to comment but stops in her tracks when she looks over at the scene from earlier. There are three of Herrington’s guys sweeping up glass and dumping it in containers of liquid or scrubbing at the ground while Isaac, Del’s half-brother, oversees it all. The dead Navarro cronies are gone.

“What are they doing?” Scar asks, walking toward my car again.

“Making it look like a robbery.”

As we draw closer, Isaac spots us and walks over, concern in his gaze.

“Are you okay?” he asks Scar.

“Could be better,” she says, moving a little closer to my side.

I don’t know Isaac much, but I know that he and Del don’t have a great relationship. I’ve seen him leaving Herrington’s hotel a time or two when I’ve gone for meetings, so they must be trying to make amends.

“Where are the…” Scar gestures at the car.

“Taken care of,” Isaac says, knowing she was asking about the bodies. Scar nods and he turns his attention to me. “Your men said they’d handle it.”

“Already done.” Phantom and Hawk are visiting an old friend of the club for disposal.

He nods and returns to the ruined car. One of the men wearing gloves reaches into the car and opens the glovebox, throwing the contents around, then reaches further and pulls out a wallet and pockets it.

He then moves out of the way and the other two men starts sprinkling glass fragments around to stage the robbery.

I nudge Scar to move toward my car.

“The one without patches is our prospect, Two-Shot,” I tell her. He gives her a short wave before returning to the straps holding my bike. “And the redhead is Heartbreaker.”

Heartbreaker rounds the car with this signature big, heartbreaking smile and leans in to kiss Scar’s cheek. “I’m Theo. Or Heartbreaker. Whichever you’d like to call me, gorgeous.”

I roll my eyes.

“I’m—”

“Scarlett,” Heartbreaker finishes her introduction, taking her overnight bag, his smile deepening. “The Cheese Thief.”

Scar turns and looks at me with raised brows. “I have a reputation already?”

“He was really pissed we ate his cheese,” I say as I pass the suitcase to Two-Shot to tie down, holding onto the messenger bag.

“But you didn’t tell me the Cheese Thief was so beautiful,” Heartbreaker says, leading Scar to the passenger side and opens the door.

She bats her eyelashes at him with a cheeky smile. “Does that mean I’m forgiven?”

He leans closer to her, his eyes dipping to her lips. “Not a chance.”

“Will you forgive me if I replaced your cheese with the expensive imported stuff you can only get if you know the right people?”

Heartbreaker groans in pleasure, his head dropping back. “She knows the way to my heart, Pres.”

Scar smiles and shakes her head incredulously, then slips into the car. Heartbreaker closes her door, then tucks her overnight bag in the backseat and turns to me with an easy smile.

“I like her,” he announces.

I smile until he’s closer, then grab his cut, pulling him to me. “Don’t even think about it.”

Heartbreaker’s unbothered smile deepens. “Scared of a little competition?”

“Won’t be much of a competition if I cut your dick off and bleed you slowly.”

Heartbreaker chuckles and holds his hands up in surrender. Threatening his favourite body part gets him to relent every time. Two-Shot jumps down from my car and closes the tailgate.

“Need anything else, boss?” he asks.

I point to Two-Shot, looking at Heartbreaker. “ He has respect for his president.”

Heartbreaker rolls his eyes. “He’s a prospect. He’ll suck your dick if you asked him to.”

We both look at Two-Shot, and he winces. “I mean… I… Do I have to?”

Heartbreaker and I laugh, clapping him on the shoulder as we walk past him. I climb into my car that Two-Shot drove here, and the men go to Heartbreaker’s car. I place Scar’s bag at her feet, turn my car on, and open the window.

“I’m going past the bar,” I shout to Heartbreaker over our combined engines. “I’ll see you at the warehouse.”

He salutes me and peels away in his muscle car.

“Heartbreaker’s fun,” Scar comments as I pull away from the curb.

“He’s a pain in my ass,” I grumble. “But he’s our numbers guy, so I tolerate him.”

“Why is the other guy called ‘Two-Shot’?”

I smile. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.”

“Is it a sex thing?” she says conspiratorially.

I bark out a laugh. “ That I don’t know about. But no, it’s not.”

She hums in contemplation, fiddling with her smashed-up phone in my periphery. When I saw that banged up pink case laying among the shattered window glass, and splattering of blood soaking into the asphalt nearby, the horror I felt was indescribable.

I was relieved when I found her under the car, but my heart ached all over again, seeing her raked with terror.

“What happened,” I start softly, “under the car?”

Scar sighs, her fidgeting stops. “I have claustrophobia. I opened my eyes and saw pipes close to my face and freaked. And it was dark under there—I don’t like the dark, either.”

A memory unlocks in my head. “Light.”

“Hmm?”

“Something you asked for the last time we…” I trail off, clearing my throat. “What was the initial incident? A sibling locking you in the trunk of a car?”

“It was a wardrobe,” she says distantly. “And it was my mother.”

My head whips to her. She’s looking out the window, playing with the end of her hair.

“Did I hear that right?” I ask, moving my attention back to the road.

In my periphery, I see her pull her legs up and wrap her arms around them. “My birth mum was a heroin addict who sold her body for her drugs. If her dealers were coming to the house, she would lock me in the closet. I had a flashlight until the batteries died, which she never replaced. So, it was just me and complete darkness.”

Rage boils my bones. She could have died in that fucking wardrobe. I swallow, taking a moment before asking. “Did she ever—”

“Use me for payment?” Scarlett finishes my question like she’s been asked that question before. “No.”

“And your dad? Where was he?”

“Also an addict. From my hazy early childhood memories, pretty sure it was his idea for her to use her body. They didn’t earn much money and when they did, they used it for other drugs or the barest essentials when they remembered.”

“Are they around?” I ask, gripping the steering wheel tighter. I was telling Scar the truth when I told her I have curbed my appetite for violence unless it’s necessary, and both of these people deserve my fists breaking their jaws.

“Both of them are dead,” she says neutrally. “My mum overdosed at a party and my dad ran that night. She died en route to the hospital. Luckily, the medical staff alerted police she had a child, and they came looking for me.” She drops one of her legs back into the footwell. “I found out when I was in high school that my dad died two days later when he attempted a carjacking. Crowbar to the cranium.”

Good.

“That’s how you met the Sakuras?” I ask as I roll to a stop at a red light.

I look over and she smiles softly. “Yeah. After trying to stab a police officer with a fork, they—”

“A fork? ”

She lets out a soft laugh. “What’s a feral six-year-old to do when a big, scary man tries to make you leave the only place you’ve ever known?”

“I would have probably done the same,” I say, then turn back to the road as the light has turned green and continue driving.

“Dr. Sakura was the treating doctor the night I arrived at the children’s hospital,” Scar continues. “After a failed attempted at foster care and a stint in the psych ward, they adopted me when I was seven.”

“They’ve been good to you?”

“The best,” she breathes, her tone a little wistful.

“Why don’t you want to go home?” I ask carefully.

She releases a deep sigh. “They saved me and gave me a life I would never have dreamed of. But they’ve also coddled me my whole life like I’m a terrified little bird with a broken wing. I don’t need their comforts to thrive.” She moves to face me. “If we’re sticking with bird metaphors, I want to discover the strength of my wings on my own.”

My attention flicks to her with a brief smile before returning to the road. “Just so happens, we specialise in wings.”

She scoffs out a laugh, which is cut short when I turn into the street of the motorbike shop. Blue and red lights flash from the fire engine and the police cruiser as black smoke billows out of the ruined building.

“That looks really bad,” Scar says softly. “No one was hurt?”

“Bull and his old lady Rita live above the bar, but they weren’t here when this happened.” I pull up a couple of doors down and get out of the car.

I open the door for Scar, and we walk toward Ink, who’s speaking to someone from the fire department and an older man dressed in a simple suit.

“Ink,” I call as we approach.

He turns, face neutral. “Creed, Scarlett, this is Fire Chief Bernard and Detective Hayes.”

I turn my attention to the men. “Were the neighbouring buildings damaged?”

Directly next door to the motorbike shop is an “office” space, which is actually a mostly empty building owned by Savage Wings, often used to store contraband. Luckily, it’s been empty for at least a month.

Savage Wings bar is connected to the motorbike shop in the back, and there’s an alley which we share with an actual office building with a family-owned café on the ground floor.

“The building directly connected has significant damage,” Chief Bernard informs me. “The building sharing the alley behind has minimal water damage, some smoke markings on the outside wall, but no fire damage.”

“Accelerant?”

“The suspects broke through the front door, doused the place in kerosene and then used Molotov cocktails to light the fire,” Detective Hayes reports.

“All the bikes torched?” I ask Ink.

He nods. “Nothing’s salvageable. Total rebuild.”

“Fuck,” I breathe, raking up my loose hair and tying it up.

The motorbike shop was one of the club’s legitimate incomes. We have insurance, but it’s going to be a bitch-fight with them to prove we didn’t do it ourselves. The bar was a central place the brothers could blow off steam. To top it all off, Bull and Rita are now without a place to live or possessions.

Fucking Navarros.

“I’m glad the residents of the apartment above the bar weren’t home,” Chief Bernard says.

“Me too,” Scar adds.

“Any information, paperwork, whatever you need, Ink can provide,” I tell the men, who nod, and then steer Scar back to my car.

I pull my phone out and call Flash, Savage Wings’ Road Captain.

“Prez,” he answers as I’m opening the door for Scar.

“Status of the warehouse?”

“Darwin and Hammer are there with Herrington’s guys. No incidents so far,” he reports.

“Viper?” I ask as I round the car and get in. My Seargent at Arms is in prison with people who’d do anything for a cartel offering the right price.

Flash is quiet for a moment. “He got jumped.”

“Fuck,” I bark, making Scar jump. I reach across instinctually and grab her knee gently. “How bad is it?”

Flash snorts. “It’s Viper. The guys stupid enough to attack him are dead.”

I frown. “That’s not a good thing if he could get murder charges.”

“Nah, he’s fine. As soon as they went at him, it started a whole riot. They can’t determine who killed them. But—”

“It was Viper,” I finish. It was definitely him.

“At least his mum won’t flay us,” Flash comments.

“Tell Darwin and Hammer to stay until sunrise then get their asses to the warehouse. You go there now. And Maya?”

“She’s already there with the little man.” Knowing his wife and son are safe loosens my shoulders slightly. “Bull and Rita are there already, too. And the club women.”

“Heartbreaker and Two-Shot are on the way. So are we.”

“We?” Flash asks. “Who’s we?”

“See you soon,” I say, ignoring his question and end the call.

Cool fingers wrapping around my wrist make me aware that I’m still touching Scar’s thigh, drawing circles on her knee with my thumb. I go to move my hand, but she grips my wrist a little tighter.

“Are you okay?” she asks softly.

I look into her chocolate-brown doe eyes burning with genuine concern. Having her here, feeling her under my touch, that sea salt and jasmine scent filling my space entirely—I want to lean over and kiss her to forget about the absolute shit-show playing out. But first, I need to get her safe.

I give a smile that doesn’t even feel reassuring and pull my arm from her, starting the car. “Let’s get to the warehouse.”