30. Matías

30

MATíAS

R oman, that asshole.

I'd had drinks with him before I started to distance myself from the Dirty Dogs. He was crouched behind a bush, trying to shoot at the windows, probably just hoping to catch someone.

Without an ounce of regret, I shot him, execution style.

We moved around the perimeter, picking off a small group.

They didn't look like they made it inside. Anton was running along the roof, and some of my brothers’ men were right there with us, clearing them out. Until the threat was almost gone.

As far as we could tell, there was one lone man standing.

Tad. He was a fuckup. A big one. Javier always complained about how much money Tad lost the Dirty Dogs. But Javier was fond of Tad’s mother, so he never kicked him out.

The Dirty Dogs had always been strange like that. They cared about people. Valued family. It was a weird attraction that I'd wanted to figure out. At the time, it had been like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

I raised my gun, but Rita placed her hand on my arm. I glanced at her, and she shook her head.

"We need him." Then she turned and shot the fucker in the back of the knee. He screamed, falling to his ass, but not letting go of his weapon.

"Shit," I muttered, adjusting myself. And just because I still had rage sitting in my stomach, I shot his hand, and he finally dropped his gun.

"Call them. Let them know we're here." Rita walked up to Tad, aiming her gun at his face. "Well, Tad. Looks like we have a bit of an issue, don't we?"

"Rita," he gasped, flopping between trying to cup his hand and tuck his knee to his chest. Failing on both accounts as he wailed.

Esteban tucked his gun in his waistband and yanked Tad off the ground. "You're the last one standing. Guess what that means?"

"That he gets to be our plaything." Parker opened the door before I even had a chance to pull out my phone. His eyes glittered as he crossed his arms and leaned against the frame.

His signature smirk was nowhere in sight. My baby brother was pissed.

"He's lucky Cossette is sleeping, or he'd be in a world of pain."

Grey appeared behind him, moving him out of the way with the back of his hand. "What are you talking about? He's in for a world of pain anyway. Just not upstairs. We have a room specifically designed for that."

Then Amorette stormed out, wearing one of their T- shirts. She could have been naked underneath since it covered her like a dress. Appearing like a kid wearing her dad's shirt also took away from her anger.

"Sorry, this one is mine." Amorette ducked under their arms as they tried to catch her.

"Amorette," Rita breathed as she caught Amorette up in a tight hug.

"Rita!" Amorette exclaimed, squeezing her arms tight around Rita's neck. Without her heels, Rita didn't tower over Amorette how she usually did. "What's wrong? Why are you shaking?"

"It's a long story," Rita said with a shaky laugh. "I'd love to tell you all about it, but I have to get names out of Tad."

"Tad." Amorette glared at Tad in Esteban's grip. He still moaned as his bad leg was raised off the ground and his bloodied hand was clutched against his chest. "I'll help you. Lafe is with Cossette and Andre is in there now too. Nothing will wake her up."

"Rita, don't do this."

"Shut up," she hissed, pulling halfway out of Amorette's embrace. "Your time for sympathy ended the second you teamed up with Due."

"Come on, Esteban." Parker waved a hand. "Let's get him into our special room."

Esteban grunted and carted Tad like he didn't weigh anything. That was one strong little fucker. Not that he was small, but damn, he was almost a decade younger than me. It still took some getting used to.

Amorette and Rita walked inside, arm in arm, their heads bent close together as they whispered furiously to one another.

"Well?" Grey asked as I followed after them .

"Well what?"

"Let's have a drink and you can fill me in." Grey tapped on his phone. "I let the guys know the threat was gone, but they're going to do one last sweep.

"Why weren't you all outside taking care of the attack?" I scratched the back of my head.

It was always a mind fuck leaving an intense scene and dropping into a room so clean and crisp, like I stepped into a parallel universe. My adrenaline was automatically leveling as if my system realized that clean dishes and counters meant the threat was over.

And it was.

As long as Tad gave the girls everything he had. And if he was apprised of who was involved.

"Our house is pretty much attack proof. The windows are bulletproof and the doors are reinforced. Cossette's nursery is a glorified safe room." Grey grabbed a bottle off the shelf and got down a handful of glasses.

"Poor girl doesn't get to have any windows." Lafe walked in carrying a baby monitor in his hand.

I'd spent a decent amount of time with them since I'd come back and it was still just as shocking to see my hard as shit, deranged brothers so happy in domestic bliss. Even if there was a twist, like making their nursery into a safe room.

"She doesn't need windows." Andre came around the corner sighing, like he'd had this conversation with them thousands of times. "Windows when she's sleeping means someone can break in. Windows when she's awake means that she can break out. Neither option works for me."

"She's less than a year old," I reminded Andre. "She's not breaking anywhere."

"That's what you think." Parker joined us and Esteban was right behind him .

Grey grabbed two more glasses and started to fill them as Parker and Esteban found a spot on the island, Esteban moving next to me. The glasses were slid out with two fingers of bourbon.

The label caught my eye. "Does that say what I think it says?"

Grinning, Grey twisted the bottle around. "Yeah. Bastard Brothers. It's a gold label liquor. Just a fun side business because Amorette is adamant that we have enough above board businesses to cover our more illegal activities."

Andre glanced at me, before shifting his gaze to Esteban. "Want to tell us why we had a Dirty Dogs attack? And why Esteban isn't in the basement with the other guy?"

Esteban tensed, his fingers turning white on his glass.

"Relax." I nudged him with my elbow. "Andre is joking."

Steel slid through Andre's gaze. "I'm not joking."

I blew out a breath. "Fine, then take my word for it. Esteban doesn't have anything to do with it." I downed the liquor, enjoying the sweet burn. Immediately, warmth spread out through my stomach and I started telling them the story.

Leaving out the more intimate parts, of course.

Esteban remained quiet, happy to let me fill my brothers in. As I got to the part about tonight, and the heads rolling across the floor, Parker whistled as Lafe winced.

"That's ruthless." Parker sounded impressed.

"That's reckless," I returned, the words whipping through the kitchen. Grey filled my glass up again and this time I sipped it.

"Did you do the research I asked on the group?" I'd called and given Andre everything I had on them. Hopefully they wouldn't have anyone left to take revenge in their name .

While Rita was right, we should have given them a chance, I didn't want to take the chance that anything like this could happen again. If even one of those pendejos were still alive, they had to go.

"They were a unit of soldiers who served in the Iraq war. A couple of them got dishonorably discharged. Some got out when their next term was up. And two retired in the last few months. All single. No kids. They seemed to enjoy the war side of life a little too much. It seemed like they all had trouble assimilating back into civilian life," Andre rattled off like he memorized a report.

"That was twenty years ago. They've just been hanging out since then?" I took the last sip. When Grey went to fill up the glass again, I waved my hand and pushed it back. That was enough for me. We may still need to deal with the club tonight.

Esteban hadn't even touched his, instead eyeing all five of us with too much interest.

"And several of the men spent time in and out of jail or prison for various charges. Nothing related to any kind of trafficking. Surprising, since those are the businesses they wanted to start up."

"It's easy money." Parker rolled his eyes. "That's why."

Lafe curled his lip, his eyes glued to the monitor. He was such a good daddy. All of them were to the point that it was sickening.

"Hmm." I checked on Esteban again. "You okay?"

"Of course, he's okay. Why are you checking on him like he's your kid?" Parker always ran his mouth.

"It's not like we're scary." Grey gave him a closed lip smile.

"Right," Esteban laughed, but it was good-natured and not filled with fear .

"He's fine." Parker waved his hand. “I remember how he handled himself and Rita."

I ground my teeth. That must have been after I was gone. For the thousandth time, I kicked myself for leaving. At the time, it had seemed like the right idea. Now? I wished I'd never left.

Checking the time, Grey tapped Andre on the shoulder. "Pull up the footage of the girls. They've been down there too long."

Andre did, setting his phone on the counter.

The sound wasn't on, but the camera was high definition. Amorette and Rita both circled Tad. His head hung low like he was exhausted. Knife marks lined his arms and the ends of his fingers were bloody stubs.

He must have said something because Rita reached over and wrote something down on a notepad.

Amorette must not have liked what he said because she reached over and stabbed him in the thigh. His head shot back and cords of muscle stood out in his neck.

"I love when she goes psycho like that." Grey had a manic grin on his face.

Esteban and I shared a look and laughed. Rita had always been a little bloodthirsty. What were the chances that she'd rubbed off on Amorette?

"What's this now?" Parker pointed between Esteban and me, his eyes narrowed.

"What's what?" I played dumb just to fuck with him.

"The last we spoke, you wanted to fuck his shit up for touching Rita and he hated you just as much. Because you also touched Rita," he added on as if we needed the explanation.

"Always a shit-stirrer," Lafe mumbled, clearly listening in on the conversation even while watching over his baby girl .

"I don't fucking believe it," Andre said. He glanced between us with his mouth open. "You followed in our footsteps." A grin broke out over his face.

Esteban popped a dimple with his closed lip smile. He thought this was funny as fuck.

I just sighed. "Yeah, maybe I did."