“Someone’s hurt?” I ask, rushing forward, “Who?”
“It’s Belle,” shouts Mac, the snowy-haired president of the Wraiths, “Belle Taylor. The new girl.”
“Who beat her up?” Brooks growls, his voice full of deadly anger.
The assembled brothers exchange stormy looks. No one offers up an answer.
“I said, who the fuck is responsible for this?” Brooks roars, his fists balled tightly.
“She says it was Tyke,” Leo reports solemnly.
I feel the air leave my lungs in a painful rush. Tyke? The sweet, shy kid with the blonde crew cut and the easy blush? How could he have done something like this?
“Tyke...Tyke has a thing for Belle,” Brooks says, uncomprehendingly.
“We know. It doesn’t make any sense,” Declan says. “We’re just trying to calm everyone down so that we can get to the bottom of this.”
“Where’s Tyke now?” Brooks asks, his face unreadable.
“Took off,” Leo says, “He was too gutted to stick around. Seemed blindsided by the whole thing.”
“And Belle?” I ask. “Where is she?”
“In the back,” Mac says, “the poor thing is a fucking mess.”
“Can I see her?” I ask. “Maybe I can help.”
“If you can get past them, you can do whatever the hell you like,” Leo says, nodding at the brigade of strippers.
I turn to face the line of fierce women. They covered a lot of situations at Quantico, but I have to say that this was not one of the them. Still, I have a hunch that the timing Belle’s assault is no coincidence. I have to talk to her.
“I’m going in,” I tell Brooks, “Just...wait here.”
The women eye me suspiciously as I make my way toward them. But no one tries to impale me with a stray heel—so I take that as a good sign.
“What do you want?” snaps one of the head girls, a voluptuous blonde with mile-high legs and a broken bottle clutched in her fist.
“I just want to talk to Belle alone,” I say, “I’m trained to handle these kinds of situations.”
“What are you, a counselor or something?” asks a porcelain-skinned red head.
“Or something,” I shrug.
“She’s in a bad way,” says a tomboyish girl with a pixie cut, “if you can do anything to help her through this...”
“I think I can,” I say, “if you’d just let me through?”
The women exchange loaded glances, deliberating in silence. Finally, the busty blonde says, “Just you. None of these MC fuckers.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, darting around the assembled women in search of Belle Taylor.
I don’t have to hunt for long. As I make my way into the belly of the strip club, I spot a single sliver of light coming from one of the dressing room doors. I pad toward the illuminated room, and a soft sobbing catches my ear. I ease the door open as gently as I can.
“Belle?” I say softly, “Belle, is that you?”
“Who the fuck are you?” a voice asks from within. Jesus, she sounds so young.
“I’m...a friend of the Nine,” I say, unsure of which name to offer at this point, “Can I talk to you for a second?”
The door flies open before me, and I gasp as I take in the sight of Belle Taylor. Her girlish face is swollen and tear-stroked, a ghastly black eye blooming across her skin. A surge of rage rises like bile in my throat. This will not stand.
“I already told them everything,” she says, struggling not to weep in front of me.
“I have reason to believe...that that’s not entirely true,” I say slowly.
She tries to slam the door in my face, but I wedge myself in before she can. Frustrated, she storms away from me, bracing herself against the makeup-covered counter. Her shoulders tremble with suppressed anger, but there’s something else brimming up inside her. It’s fear.
“I know you’re afraid, Belle,” I say softly, “And I know we just met. But I’m going to need you to trust me now. I need you to tell me who really did this to you.”
“It was Tyke,” she spits, “I already said—”
“I know that’s what you told the girls,” I reply, taking a tentative step toward her, “but I can also see that it’s killing you to say that. It’s killing you because you care for Tyke. And because...it wasn’t him that did this.”
Belle’s eyes find mind in the dressing room mirror, confusion clouding her baby blues.
“What do you know?” she whispers.
“I know that someone recently paid you a lot of money,” I say, making my way toward her, “and I know that this someone is not a good person. I think he’s the type of person who would buy a false accusation from someone who may not be in the position to refuse.”
A long, drawn out moment passes as a thousand emotions crash across Belle’s bruised face. I watch as the wave of conflicting impulses rears back and washes over her. All at once, she sinks down onto the floor, wracked with heartbroken sobs.
“H-he said...h-he’d kill me,” she weeps, holding her face in her hands, “if I d-didn’t...blame Tyke.”
“Who said that?” I press, kneeling beside her.
“You know who,” she wails, shaking her head, “He gave me...t-ten thousand dollars...to do this to me...and s-say it was Tyke. I tried to say n-no, but...he knows where my family lives, in Indiana. And I couldn’t...I couldn’t...”
“It’s OK Belle,” I whisper, tucking her candy-colored hair behind her ear. “I don’t blame you. Neither will Tyke. But Belle...I need you to tell me who did this to you. I need you to say his name for me.”
“I can’t do that,” she insists, looking at me in terror, “I told you, he’ll kill me. My family. What the hell could you even do if I told you—?”
“Plenty,” I whisper, digging my badge out of my purse and flipping it open for her to see. Her eyes go wide as she registers my meaning. “Belle, my name is Quinn Collins. I’m a special agent with the FBI,” I say evenly. “And I have reason to believe that a fellow agent has gone totally off his fucking rocker. Pardon my French. I want to take this motherfucker down, and I think I can do it, too. But first, I need you to tell me who did this to you.”
She holds my gaze as her frantic thoughts settle. A look of steely determination comes over her face as she comes to her decision.