Vice and Void (The Savage Wolves Brotherhood #1)

26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Callum

“What are you going to do?” Callum asked as he clicked around the mechanic shop’s ordering system. “Seems like you have to go to the prison.”

Dakota sighed as she sat back in the old seat, the metal groaning under her shifting weight. “I have to go to the prison. I can’t see another way out of it that doesn’t end in my murder.”

Callum huffed a laugh. “You think the governor would execute the daughter of a Ranger? Seems a little far-fetched.” He typed in the serial number for the oil barrels he needed to be delivered to the shop next week.

Dakota set an unimpressed look on him, one that he once would have wiped off her face. His fingers curled into a fist against his leg to keep him from hauling her onto the fucking desk.

“They’ve been abducting people for how long now? And you think I would be a deterrent to that?”

Callum couldn’t argue with her there. He sighed, typing in another serial number and entering it into the system. “How long will you be gone tomorrow?”

Dakota shrugged, picking at a loose thread hanging from the bottom of her shirt. “I don’t know. Most of the day, I assume…” She trailed off with a hard swallow, and her anxiety flooded the room.

He looked over from the computer screen, scanning her from the blonde crown of her head to the point of her chin. It was difficult, but he refrained from letting his gaze slip any lower. “You’ll call me when you’re done.”

Dakota’s full lips parted as her gaze lifted from her lap. “And if I don’t?” A challenge gleamed in the depths of her eyes. The corner of her mouth ticked up, and he was suddenly desperate to see the other side tip the same way.

“I’ll burn it down,” Callum replied casually as he typed in a third serial number. She swallowed again, the column of her throat bobbing. He wondered if she would taste the same if he kissed her there. From the shadow that passed in the green of her eyes, he knew that she believed every word he said. “Easy as that.”

“You’ll burn down a prison made of metal and cement?” Dakota asked with a quirked brow. “How?”

“A few explosives and a handful of guns,” Callum smirked, his heart pounding against his chest when Dakota’s gaze settled on his lips.

She rolled her eyes, pushing from the seat. “I’ll shoot you a text when I leave. Can’t have you bombing the prison and every person inside.”

Callum would do a whole host of illegal shit to find her if he was forced to. He didn’t voice that, instead saying, “Texts can be faked. Calling is better.”

Dakota nodded as she surveyed him. “A call then.”

He turned back to the computer screen, afraid he would reach out and grasp her hand in a last-ditch order for her safety. She was an adult, and she could make her own choices. That didn’t stop the roiling in his stomach. The thought of her getting hurt was unbearable. The idea that he couldn’t have done anything to stop it was unfathomable.

Dakota’s voice in the narrow hallway forced his gaze toward the office door, and Callum’s brows rose as Max crossed the threshold. Behind him, Dakota disappeared around the corner.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Callum said as he returned his to the ordering system. He typed in a fourth serial number. “Duke said he sent over all copies of the recording yesterday.”

Max hesitated. Dropping the briefcase he held, he wrung his clasped hands before grabbing the back of Dakota’s seat and falling into it. “I have some information for you. I—I wasn’t sure if I should come to you or Duke.”

“When in doubt, Duke is the Lead,” Callum answered dutifully as he placed the order for the oil barrels. “You should always contact him first.” Max’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, and Callum leveled him with an annoyed stare as he leaned his forearms on the edge of the desk. “What is it, Max?”

“Look, I—I know that I was supposed to find some information about Raven’s murder.” Max paused to reach for the briefcase, set it on his lap, and opened it with a pop from the brass locks. “I couldn’t find much, but I did find this.” He pulled out a stack of papers and set them on the desk between them.

Callum’s brows notched together. “I was under the impression you handed information over to Duke already. Named the guy as Dominic Sinclair.”

“No,” Max said with a quick shake of his head. “No, no, no.” He pointed a heavy finger at the pile of papers, shifting them against the desk. “I haven’t talked to anyone about it yet. There’s no evidence of any deputy being involved in Raven’s murder. Look…look at these. It’s the autopsy reports from the coroner.”

Abandoning the order system on his screen, Callum pulled the papers toward him and fanned them across the desk. His heart lodged in his chest, anger and revulsion braiding together to coil around his throat like a noose. The first set of pages were black and white photocopies of Raven’s naked body, the bullet hole in the side of her forehead prominent amongst her pale skin.

Even through the grittiness of the copies, Callum could make out her matted hair. Blood, bone, and flesh tangled in the dark locks. Her lips were parted as though still in shock, and dirt crusted the tops of her shoulders and forearms from when she collapsed to the ground.

It had been two years, but Callum remembered that call like yesterday. Remembered Ace screaming the entire drive to the crime scene, remembered Callum holding Ace back as Rocco slipped under the yellow tape to identify her body. The red and blue lights flashed around them, blanketing them in a roaring silence. Time may as well have stopped in the following days, but somehow, it only continued marching faster and faster.

Callum pushed the photos away, his jaw tightly clenched. “I saw her body. You didn’t need to fucking bring these in.”

Max’s eyes widened, an understanding of his stupid mistake etched into the frown lines around his mouth. “No, I—Callum.” He reached forward to flip the photographs upside down, shuffling through the pile until he found what he was looking for. “Ballistics. Look at the ballistics.”

Callum scanned the report first, bracing to launch himself over the desk to fucking throttle Max, when he halted mid-way through the page. His gaze darted back up to Max, whose pinched shoulders sagged with relief .

“The bullet doesn’t match what any of the Iron Guard carries. Not even privately registered weapons.” After his father's death, Callum had obsessively studied ballistics reports and the gun licenses of every Iron Guard member in Norwich. At one time, he could have recited them all by heart.

Max shook his head. His hands graced the cover of his briefcase, and his skin rasped against the leather. “You don’t think it could have been a gun that's illegally owned?”

Callum sat back in his seat, dragging his finger across his lower lip. “The Vipers run guns, but…” He paused to shake his head. “Even they wouldn’t be stupid enough to sell guns to Dominic Sinclair.”

Any member of the Iron Guard wouldn’t have been able to keep that secret, anyway. The Vipers wouldn’t have been able to keep their glee to themselves if they sold an illegal firearm to a deputy ranger. Leaks and arrests between the two weren’t uncommon. And neither were subtle.

Max remained quiet as Callum picked up the report and reread it. The bullet casing didn’t match what the Vipers were known to run, and the discomfort of the sudden unknown was a feeling he wasn’t used to having.

“Let me take care of this,” Callum finally said as he unlocked a drawer in his desk and tossed the papers inside.

Max’s hesitation was noted, but when Callum didn’t elaborate, he lifted himself out of the old chair. With a gulp that echoed through the small room, he said, “Duke never…he didn’t…I don’t have the recordings.”

Callum blinked, though made no further indication that the information was a surprise. “They’ll be in your hands by the end of the day.”

Max nodded and clicked his suitcase shut. “That information will—it’ll remain between us?”

“Get the fuck out, Max.”

The man didn’t need telling twice, and he scampered from Callum’s office with the speed of a rodent being chased by an owl.

Well, that news was concerning. That news was more than fucking concerning. Callum stared at the locked drawer, envisioning the papers burning a hole straight through the metal. He should look over it again. Read the ballistics report and figure out what the fuck his next move was supposed to be.

“What the fuck was that asshole doing here?” Ace asked. He leaned against the frame, his tongue playing with the toothpick he had settled in the corner of his mouth .

Callum sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. “Bringing information about…” He trailed off, uncertainty a plague threatening to gape within him like a festering wound. “About Raven.” He held his breath as he watched his best friend.

Narrowed eyes, stiffened shoulders. The stillness of a predator. That wasn’t fucking good. Just as expected.

“He already dropped information to Duke. Dominic Sinclair, remember?” Ace spat. He raised a hand to remove the toothpick from the side of his mouth, breaking it in half between his fingers. “Is he a fucking liar then?”

Callum stood, the papers in the drawer now an inferno that set him on fire. If Ace got ahold of those photos, of those reports…who knew what the fuck he would do. Probably derail, a runaway train blasting off the tracks.

“He’s not a fucking liar, Ace, he—“

“If he’s not a fucking liar, then what is he?” Ace shouted. Rocco lifted his head from the engine in the garage bay to stare through the window. “Then what the fuck is he?” Ace took a dangerous step forward, one that was meant to intimidate. He should have known better. “Are you calling Duke a liar?”

Callum stormed around the desk, coming so close to Ace that the buttons on their uniforms would have collided if he took too big of a breath. “I’m saying that you gotta let me handle this one. And you need to calm the fuck down.”

Ace let out a cruel, unkind chuckle. “Let someone kill Kane, and then you can tell me to calm the fuck down.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out his cell phone. “Duke helped me put a tracker on that fuckers truck. I’ve been mapping him for days now. So you can either be with me on this, or you can walk away with twenty-five fucking years of friendship shoved up your ass.”

Rocco appeared behind Ace, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched. Callum knew he would step in if needed. He hoped it wouldn’t be needed.

“We need more information than we fucking have. We need—“

Ace jabbed a finger into Callum’s chest—right in the inked flesh where a matching raven was tattooed. Everyone in the Brotherhood had gotten one when Raven was killed. “No, we don’t need more fucking information. We have what we need. I have everything I fucking need.”

He stepped away from Callum, disgust coating every inch of his face. “I’m fucking glad Duke took over the Brotherhood. You blew it with Raven’s murder. You blew it with Lyra’s disappearance. I wouldn’t be fucking surprised if you’re slow-walking all of this just to keep Dakota-fucking-Montgomery along for the ride—“

The fist Callum threw at Ace was devastatingly quick. It connected with Ace’s jaw, bone against bone, brother against brother, and Callum’s knuckles split on contact. Ace didn’t give him a chance for a second hit. His fist reeled up in search of Callum’s face, and Callum stumbled back to avoid the punch.

“Callum!” Rocco shot out as he stepped into the office, wrapping his arms in a band-like grip around Ace’s chest. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t ever say that shit again,” Callum warned, pointing a threatening finger at Ace, whose eyes had gone feral and lethal. “You’ve got no fucking idea—“

“What!” Ace bellowed back, blood dripping from the cut in his jaw. “It’s the fucking truth, and someone should fucking say it to you—let go of me.” He wrestled out of Rocco’s grip and turned his wild attention to the man at his back. “Are you with me or with him?”

Rocco’s hesitation was all Ace needed, and he scoffed as he shook his head.

“Ace, don’t do this,” Rocco said as Ace pushed past him. “We’re your brothers, man. We’re here to help you.”

“No, you’re fucking not!” Ace roared in return. “If we were brothers, you would be by my fucking side instead of stopping me. You would be with me when I gunned this fucker down.”

“We don’t know if it’s him!” Callum yelled back, ignoring the sting of his own throbbing knuckles. “All we have is Duke’s fucking word—“

“And Duke’s fucking word is good enough for me,” Ace cut in, his voice dangerously calm against the tension that threaded the air. He disappeared into the hallway, slamming the office door shut behind him.

Rocco and Callum stared at one another for a long minute. A motorcycle growled to life from the parking lot, and Callum saw Logan lift his head from one of the standalone computers in the bay to track Ace flying down the road.

“Watch the shop,” Callum ordered Rocco as he shed his mechanic’s shirt over his head and replaced it with his leather Brotherhood cut. “I’ll go after him.”

“I know it might be tempting, but don’t fucking shoot him.”

Callum paused at the door, his hand hesitating over the knob. “It should go without saying,” he started, glancing over his shoulder. “But I am not slow-walking this shit with Lyra. She’s like my sister, I—”

Rocco swallowed before nodding his head. “I know, man. I knew this shit was gonna be a fucking marathon the moment she went missing.” He clamped his lips into a tight white line, uncertainty wavering his next words. “When you get back, tell me what your old man had to say. I want to hear more.”

Callum’s gut squeezed tight as he yanked the door open. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Unbeknownst to Ace, Callum had opened the location on his phone over a year ago. When Ace lost himself to the darkness, he sought distills and fights. Callum half-expected Red at the Brotherhood's front step, asking for bail money or to tell the Brotherhood that Ace finally landed in the morgue. When it didn’t come, at least not yet, Callum relaxed his efforts to track Ace…but didn’t let go of them entirely.

He followed the pin on his phone, his eyes darting down to watch Ace’s progression through the side streets, through the main thoroughfare of downtown, before cutting west toward Viper territory. Unease was something that Callum had become accustomed to despite his best efforts to remain firmly in control. And it was unease that drove him forward.

Cityscape gave way to forested dirt roads as Callum dashed through Viper territory, praying to any god who would listen that the Vipers didn’t spot him in their region. The last thing he needed was to be tailed by the rival club after setting their headquarters on fire, murdering eleven of their men, and stealing back the distills that would have launched them into financial paradise.

Retribution would be swift and damning, but the Brotherhood was already on the lookout for that. That was if the Vipers didn’t find Callum and Ace first.

Callum watched as Ace pulled off on the side of a narrow road that didn’t have a name, the pinpoint coming to a complete stop. He shifted his motorcycle into the next gear, hoping beyond hope that Ace didn’t find Dominic Sinclair.

He followed the pin, turning down the narrow road and spotting Ace’s motorcycle hidden in the shade near the treeline. Fifty feet ahead was a deputy ranger patrol unit. Heart thundering against his chest, Callum parked his bike next to Ace’s and quickly swung his leg over, scanning the forest for proof of life .

“Admit it!” A shout snapped over the underbrush. “Fucking admit what you did!”

A blubbering cut with a sob followed, and Callum launched himself toward Ace’s voice.

“Ace!” Callum called out as he clawed through the thicket, ignoring the thorns and branches that scraped his exposed skin. “Ace! Fucking stop, man!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” a second voice responded, the pleading tone slicing through the wind whistling in the leaves. “What murder?”

Ace was having none of it. “I know you fucking killed her! Don’t fucking—“

A single pop cracked, the acrid scent of a used gunshot twisting with musty moss and sweet cedar. Callum’s footsteps jolted with that shot, a twig snapping under his sneaker. Hazy fear clogged his vision, but he blinked it away. With a surge that only came in the wake of adrenaline, he parted the remainder of the branches and shoved into a small clearing. What he saw made dread sink like a heavy stone in his stomach.

“That’s what you get, you dumb fucker,” Ace said, his voice now relaxed and filled with retribution. He tipped his head back toward the sky, a relieved smile curling up the corners of his lips. “That’s what you fucking get.”

Dominic Sinclair was slumped against the nearest tree, apparently not having enough time to yank his pants up over his hips. He pulled over to take a piss in the woods. That innocuous stop got him shot. Blood bubbled from a wound in his chest, every heaving breath becoming more and more shallow.

“Fuck.”