So Steady: Silver Daughters Ink, Book Two (Silver Daughters Ink Book Two) Page 25

  In his head, he heard Gil defend himself. It wasn’t personal, man, I just wasn’t making enough to make ends meet.

  Maybe he’d phrase it differently in the flesh, but Noah was sure he wouldn’t apologise and he sure as fuck wouldn’t give back what he’d taken.

  “Wow,” Tabby said. “You look scary. Are you thinking bikie thoughts?”

  Noah looked at Scott. “You gonna go talk to him?”

  Scott’s tight smile said he was thinking the same things he was. “Perhaps. Sam wouldn’t like it, though.”

  And neither would Nicole, but looking at Scott, he could see they agreed—the girls didn’t have to know. Not if things played out the way he, and he suspected Scott, wanted them to play out.

  “His kids aren’t home,” Scott said. “They’ll be with their mother until next week.”

  “Useful information.”

  “I thought so.”

  Noah patted his pockets for his cigarettes and remembered he was out. He’d have to fix that before they saw Gil. “I know his address, should we go over there now?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Hang on,” Tabby said loudly. “I thought the plan was to go to the cops?”

  “The cops won’t be able to do anything with what we have,” Scott said. “Not before Gil goes interstate and makes it twenty times harder to investigate, let along prosecute him for what he did.”

  And even if we found proof, Noah thought, the courts run slower than mud. It’d be months before Sam’s saw a cent from Gil, maybe years. She’d have to spend thousands on a solicitor and a shit judge could still fuck her over.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Huh?” Scott said.

  “How much did Gil take?”

  “Almost eighty thousand dollars.”

  Noah could see some of his rage reflected in Scott’s eyes. “So, we talk to him.”

  “By ‘talk’ do you mean ‘break his kneecaps?’” Tabby asked. “Are you going to make him give you money or you’ll kick his ass?”

  Noah didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if Scott intended for her to come with them or not. All in all, he’d prefer not. It wasn’t a girl thing; Tabby was a loose cannon of the highest order and a situation like this one needed zero of that. And if he was honest, he was still stinging from the way she’d come at him about the bikie thing. He knew she’d apologised, but they’d been friends and she’d been so fucking quick to believe he was scum.

  “Holy shit,” Tabby stage whispered. “It is on! Should I go back to the house and get my balaclava?”

  “You’re not coming,” Toby and Scott said at the same time.

  Tabby turned to the kid. “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because you need to stay at the house and make sure Sam and Nicole don’t get suspicious,” Toby said.

  Tabby scowled. “That’s a fake job to get me out of the way.”

  The kid didn’t deny it. He was standing taller than before and his expression reminded Noah of a teacher, the kind you couldn’t fuck with.

  “I want to see Noah doling out vigilante justice,” Tabby said. “And I’m useful in these situations, remember when I tasered Scott’s dad?” She turned to Scott. “Sorry for tasering your dad.”

  Scott shrugged. “He deserved it. But you shouldn’t come with us to Gil’s.”

  “Why?”

  Toby put a hand on her shoulder. “This is going to be intense and you’re not the best person to have around when things are intense.”

  “But—” Tabby snapped her mouth shut. She looked furious, but Noah could see she wasn’t going to push harder.

  “Tab, please don’t be mad,” Toby said. “I’ll wash the puppies for the next six months.”

  “Whatever,” Tabby said. “I’m heading home. Good luck with your OG bikie shit, I guess.”

  She turned on her heel and marched away, the swishing sound of her pants undercutting her furious exit. When his graffitied door slammed shut, Toby winced. “She’s never gonna forgive me for this.”

  “You did the right thing,” Noah said. “She’s a liability.”

  Toby looked miserable. “I was just worried she’d get hurt. I couldn’t handle that.”

  “How long you been together?” Noah asked, mildly curious. As far as he knew, Tabby had never had a serious boyfriend.

  Toby’s expression became even more miserable. “We’re not together.”

  An awkward silence fell.

  “So…” Scott said. “What now?”

  “We sit down and discuss this.” Noah clapped his hands together hard, then cringed. He’d just echoed his dad opening a chapter meeting. “Let’s just sit down.”

  “Sit down where?”

  Noah looked around his fucked up kitchen, every chair broken, the floor covered in splintered glass. “Pub?”

  Chapter 20

  Noah looked in the rear-view and saw Toby gnawing a fingernail. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want. Two’ll be enough.”

  Toby shook his head. “I can handle it.”

  “You’re nervous as fuck,” Scott said, his feet tapping up a symphony on the floor and a thin sheen of sweat on his brow.

  Noah readjusted his grip on the wheel. He didn’t blame them for being nervous, but he hoped they’d pull themselves together by the time they got to Gil’s. The little prick wasn’t dangerous, but this was a dicey, borderline illegal situation where a million things could go wrong. For the first time in years, he racked his mind for old memories. Helpful shit.

  “Best shakedown’s a quick shakedown,” his dad had said some half-forgotten summer afternoon. “Quick, and you keep your mouth shut.”

  Yarrow had said something about a tyre iron, and his old man laughed. “You come in that hard, they’ll run out the back door. Call the pigs. You need to come on reasonable. Half the effort and better results.”

  “Stay quiet,” he told Toby and Scott. “We’re not here to chat about what he did and how we know. We say what we need to say and take it from there.”

  Toby nodded, as though to prove he could keep quiet.

  Scott rubbed his sweaty forehead. “Did you do this sort of thing for your father?”

  He kept his eyes on the road. “Not as much as you’d think. They’ve got guys to do what we’re about to do.”

  “Punishers?” That came from Toby.

  “Sons of Anarchy?”

  The young man flushed.

  “How’d you join The Rangers?” Scott asked.

  Now the cat was out of the bag, Noah knew he should get used to being asked about it, that he owed answers and explanations, but right now it felt like Scott was trying to start shit. “Why’d you want to know?”

  Scott didn’t look remotely ruffled. “Curiosity, mostly.”

  Hard to argue with that, especially on the way to a shakedown as he gave tips straight out of Harold Newcomb’s mouth.

  “My old man was the president of the mother chapter. I was recruited before I was ever recruited.”

  “Did you like being a bikie?”

  “I didn’t like it or not like it. It was all I knew.”

  “So, why’d you leave?”

  Noah had no interest in answering that. He tugged a cigarette out of the pack he’d pulled from the machine in the Edinburgh Castle. As he did, he glanced at the back of the van, the empty spaces where Nikki’s boxes and bags had been laid out just last night.

  “Nicole got her stuff okay?” he asked, but Scott didn’t say anything. It was clear he wasn’t going to until he answered his question. Noah gritted his teeth. “We’re almost at Gil’s, we don’t have time to get into my memoirs.”

  More silence. It proved they’d been listening to him, though that was more annoying than anything. He wondered what Nicole would say if she was here.

  Not so nice the other way, is it?

  No, it wasn’t.

  So, what are you going to do about it?

  What could he fucking do? He drummed the s
teering wheel, echoing Scott’s foot tapping. “I left because I couldn’t breathe.”

  “Can you be a little more specific?”

  This fucking guy. He lit up, tasting the prickle of tobacco. It felt almost new after his break and it eased the snarl in his chest. It still felt like a fist would come crashing across the back of his head if he talked about it. But maybe that meant he should. Burn that old loyalty and the shame underneath it. “I wanted to tattoo full-time, but I wasn’t gonna get the time while I was under my old man’s thumb. Which was where I was staying unless I wanted to do something about it. So, I left.”

  “And now you can say you left a bikie gang because of creative differences.”

  Noah didn’t want to smile, but he couldn’t help it. “Pretty much.”

  “I’m sorry if I sounded aggressive,” Scott said in a different, more amiable voice. “The news just took us all by surprise.”

  The smile faded from his face. “You think I’m still connected? That I’m a risk?”

  “Not necessarily, but Sam and I have realised we don’t know much about you. So, we don’t know if you’re a risk and I think that concern is higher, now you and Nicole…”

  Noah’s head pounded with nicotine and sudden, bright-hot fury. “Me and Nicole, what? You think I’m gonna hurt her?”

  “I don’t mean it that way.” Scott’s voice was calm. “It’s clear you care for each other, but like I said; we don’t know you as well as we thought we did. We’re going to need some time and a little fucking reassurance, Noah. And if you can’t talk about your past with transparency or warn us before something like what happened with your ex-roommate happens again, Sam and I are going to have a hard time supporting your relationship.”

  The worry in Scott’s voice was the only thing keeping Noah from pulling over and punching him in the mouth, because he’d rather fucking die than expose Nicole to The Rangers. That was why he’d stayed away, told her she couldn’t paste him into her storybook future even though it was killing him.

  “Noah?” Scott asked.

  “I’d never hurt Nikki.”

  “I know that,” Scott said, and he sounded like he meant it. “She defended you. About stealing the money. She never believed you took it. She had a fight with Sam about it, then she went off and figured out Gil was skimming the cash.”

  Noah felt a key slide between his ribs and open a place he didn’t want opened. At least not right now. He turned and met Scott’s gaze squarely. “After this, I’ll sit down with you and Sammy and tell you whatever you want to know, but we’re less than five from Gil’s and I need to focus.”

  Scott settled back into his seat, looking pleased. “Sure. We okay?”

  Noah took Sam’s boyfriend in, studied him like he was about to tattoo his upper arm, or paint his portrait. His milky skin made him look closer to twenty-three than thirty, but his eyes were calm. That said he was comfortable in his own skin, aware of limits. He’d never considered being mates, but maybe that could change, now he didn’t have anything to hide. “Yeah, we’re okay. Smoke?”

  Scott shook his head. “Quit after university. Only have them when I’m drinking these days.”

  “Maybe we should get a drink after this?” Toby said. “If it all goes well.”

  Noah was going to say that sounded like a good idea, but Gil’s street came up sooner than he expected. He hit the indicator. “We’re almost there.”

  The car fell silent and nerves he hadn’t expected to feel twisted in his belly. Gil’s place was exactly how Noah remembered it—a squat brick flat with a dying lawn and skeletal lemon trees.

  “Shit place,” Toby said.

  He and Scott laughed and some of the tension in the van dissolved.

  “Maybe he hasn’t stolen enough of Sam’s money to upgrade,” Scott said. “Should we get going?”

  Noah ground his cigarette into the ashtray. “Yep. No sense hanging around.”

  They got out of the van. Scott was sweating again and Toby practically walked to the gate on his tiptoes. Noah’s nerves twisted harder. He headed for the front door, Scott and Toby in his wake.

  We’re tall, he reminded himself. Bigger than Gil even with all the heavy lifting shit he’s been doing, and we don’t need to kick the shit out of him, we need to get the job done. With a bit of luck, this’ll be last time I do something like this.

  He rapped on the door, not too hard, not too insistent. There was a faint clatter inside the house. Toby made a noise like a dog toy getting stepped on. “He’s here.”

  “Breathe,” Noah warned. “Relax and stand tall.”

  He followed his own advice, straightening up, squaring his shoulders. He could feel Scott and Toby following suit. Footsteps padded toward the door, then it swung open.

  “Hey…” Gil’s unshaven cheeks sagged. “What are you doing here?”

  Noah smiled, sliding his foot between the door and the jamb. Clichés were clichés for a reason. “Afternoon.”

  Gil looked wildly from him to Scott to Toby. “I…hey, how’s it going?”

  “Not bad. Can we come in?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Noah moved forward. For a second it looked like Gil wasn’t going to get out of the way, but he stepped aside. “Sure. Got beers in the kitchen.”

  Noah headed down the hall and paused at Gil’s living room. It smelled faintly of weed and baby vomit, and it was covered in boxes. Most were taped shut, but the ones that were open were full of clothes and kitchen stuff. He turned to look at Gil, who was the colour of an old sports sock.

  “Going somewhere?”

  He swung his arms, seemingly lost for words. Scott and Toby were doing what they were told—standing behind Gil, triangulating him between their bodies so that if he ran he’d have to move through them.

  “What’s happening?” Gil blurted out. “Is the studio in trouble or something?”

  Noah folded his arms across his chest. “You’ve been stealing from Sam, skimming out of the till for more than a year.”

  Gil’s face was a pantomime of shock, eyes wide, mouth open. “That’s fucked! You’re the one who was stealing!”

  God, what a fucking rat. What a cowardly little bastard. How hadn’t he seen it before? Hadn’t he run away when Scott’s dad had tried to burn Silver Daughters down? Wasn’t he always bitching about what the world owed him, while being as mediocre a father, friend and employee as possible? “We’ve got proof, Gil. You’ve been paying your gym membership in cash. Eric, the guy who runs the place, gave us some of the notes you used. They match the ones Sam got from the bank a month ago.”

  It was all bullshit, but it was useful bullshit, meant to cut Gil’s whining at the knees, get a confession out of him if they could. It worked like a charm. He collapsed like a sandcastle onto the dirty carpet. “Noah, mate, I didn’t mean it, things were tight, and I needed the cash, but I swear I didn’t mean to hurt the business. I swear it wasn’t a year, it was…”

  Noah looked around at Toby. His phone was in his hand, filming everything Gil said. Shitty evidence, but good insurance.

  “…my ex wants to send the kids to St Martins and—”

  “I don’t give a fuck,” Noah said, because he knew Gil would go on all night if they let him. “We’re not here for excuses, we’re here so you can make amends.”

  Gil took his hands away from his face, all sobbing and shaking instantly melting away. “What do you mean?”

  Noah smiled, walked over to the nearest box and sifted through it. It was mostly mens shirts. He picked one up and read the label. Eton. He picked up another one. Givenchy. He didn’t know much about fashion, but they looked and felt expensive. Gil watched him, his expression rat-like. He didn’t like him touching his precious shirts. That was too fucking bad. Noah turned and handed Toby the box. “In the back. Pack it properly, we’re gonna need the space.”

  “What the fuck?” Gil put a foot to the ground, about to stand.

  Noah put a hand on his shoulder, keeping
him down. “I told you already, we’re here so you can make amends.”

  “But that’s my stuff!”

  “And who paid for that stuff?”

  “I did!” Gil tried to get to his feet, but Noah pressed hard on his shoulder. His skin was damp beneath his t-shirt. He’d hit the panic stage.

  “Calm down.”

  But Gil twisted like a rat in a trap, turning to look at Scott. “Mate, you’re not gonna go along with this, are you?”

  To his credit, Scott’s gaze stayed ice cold and he said nothing.

  “Hey Scott,” Noah said. “How much money has this prick taken from Sam? Seventy thousand?”

  “Close to eighty.”

  Noah whistled. “That’s a lot of shirts.” He shook Gil’s shoulder. “Are you telling us you’re in a position to pay us out eighty grand right now? Today?”

  “I….”

  “Cash or transfer—we’re not fussy. We’ll even round it down to seventy, if that’s easier?”

  Gil flinched. “I can pay you back, just give me some time!”

  “We don’t want to give you time. And even if we did, you’re not coming near Silver Daughters again.”

  “So, what do you want?”

  He smiled. That was the fucking question to ask. “Money. But since you don’t have that, we’re gonna go through your house, take everything of value we can find and call it even. Sound fair?”

  Gil’s eyes bulged. “You can’t fucking do that!”

  “Not normally, no,” Noah agreed. “But you stole eighty-grand and a lot of people would say you can’t do that, so swings and roundabouts.”

  Noah felt Gil swallow. “What if I go to the cops?”

  Noah tightened his grip on Gil’s shoulder, feeling the bones and muscle shift. “You want to think hard before you say something like that again.”

  Gil lowered his head, saying nothing.