by KJ Dahlen
Moose opened his arms and she took the few steps to walk into his embrace. He folded his arms around her, not to trap her but to hold her safely.
Gunner and Boone shared a look.
Brinn looked up at Moose. “Now, what did you find in that file?”
“We found a few news articles,” Moose explained. “Announcing a kidnapping of a child from a high profile family. Only half the article is here though and we don’t have a name of the family, so we don’t know what it all means but this could be about you.”
Brinn was stunned. The puzzles she called her life suddenly snapped into place. “So the woman who raised me might not have been my mom, my real mom?”
“We don’t know for sure honey,” Moose admitted.
“Can you find out?” She had a pleading tone in her words.
“Yeah honey, we’ll find out,” he promised her.
She trembled. “I’m not sure I really want to know but I know I have to. I have to know for sure who I am. Even if I don’t like it.”
“You won’t be facing this alone, baby girl.” Moose comforted her by rubbing her shoulder. “I’ll be right here beside you, every step of the way.”
“And we will have your back, every step of the way,” Gunner assured her.
“Really?” Tears rolled down her face.
“Every step of the way.” Boone nodded at her.
She planted her face in Moose’s chest and cried tears of relief. Her tears soaked his shirt but after a couple of minutes, she lifted her head and wiped the tears away. “Then let’s find out what the truth is. The woman who raised me hated me at times and I never understood why. Then she lied to me and told me Luther was my dad but he hated me as well. I was stuck in that house for ten years with little to no hope of ever getting out, then he sold me to the cartel as if I were nothing to him. If for no other reason, I need to know why he could something like that.”
“Your life could change if we find the truth, you do realize that don’t you?” Gunner asked her.
Brinn shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Who’s to say my family will ever accept me after all this time? Who’s to say I’d want to be part of them after all this time?”
“I’ve got your back either way sweetheart,” Moose told her. “I don’t care who you are because you belong to me. Anyway you fucking slice it, you belong to me.”
She turned shining eyes to him. “Yeah, I do. Just as you belong to me.”
“Damn right I do.” Moose growled.
Chapter Ten
All afternoon, the men got to know the business Craylon was in charge of. The pieces of the puzzle began falling into place.
Gunner looked up at one point and said, “Luther was losing control of his little part of the whole. I’ll bet he never even knew what Craylon was doing behind his back.”
Boone glanced up from a file he’d been reading. “Craylon was taking over; he was screwing Luther and he didn’t care if Luther knew it or not.”
The girl Skeeter brought back with him snorted. “You guys have no clue what Craylon was doing.” She nodded at the files. “There was so much more than what’s in those files. So much more than he dared to write down. He always said there would never be a trail back to him if anyone dared to look over his holdings.”
“Exactly what kind of stuff was he into?” Gunner wanted to know.
She began to tremble but couldn’t or wouldn’t say anything. She just hung her head.
“Honey, we need to know what the man was doing so we can stop it,” Gunner told her.
She lifted her head and she had tears running down her face. “And if I tell you, someone I love could die before I can get back to save him. I know what I have to do.”
“What the fuck is going on in that town?” Boone growled impatiently.
“You aren’t going back to Laredo.” Skeeter shook his head as he glared at her. “It’s too dangerous, especially now. There is war in the streets, buildings blowing up and the factions are shooting people just for being outside their homes.”
She whipped her head to the side to glare at him. “You don’t own me. You can’t tell me what I can or cannot do!”
“You know what’s going on under the radar in that town,” Moose stated as he glared at her. “You could help us shut it down.” Motioning toward the papers all over the table he said, “You claim this doesn’t even touch the whole of Craylon’s workings, so tell us what else he was into. Tell us, help us out, so we can stop it altogether.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know everything, when the other leaders would come over to parley with him, I was never allowed to be present.”
“Wait a minute, you said parley.” Gunner narrowed his eyes as he stared at her. “Where did you get that particular term from?”
“One of the men in the group always called it that,” she explained. “They only came in at night and they would go to his office to talk. Craylon always put me in my room and locked me in, so I couldn’t overhear anything.” Then she rolled her eyes. “The big dope didn’t realize my room was underneath his office and I could hear everything they said through a vent that fed into my room. All I ever had to do was listen.”
“And what did you hear?” Boone wanted to know.
“I know some of the people that came to that house rode bikes. He always greeted one of the men he called Brazos. I never saw them but it always sounded like four or five men came with him.”
Gunner narrowed his eyes as he glared at her. “And what kind of man was this Brazos guy?”
She made the sign of the Cross again and whispered, “He was the devil himself.”
“What did they talk about?” Skeeter asked.
“Pure evil,” she whispered nervously.
“Details woman.” Gunner growled. “We need the details!”
“They grab two, and always two people off the street, one goes into service and the other goes to a farm. It is run like a prison. The one on the outside is used and abused and if she fights back, they hurt the other one. But that isn’t all they do. Sometimes, they throw money on the ground when they take you, as if they are buying the person or persons they take. It’s never a lot of money maybe a hundred dollars, maybe less. I think it depends on the pair they are taking. Sometimes, they let you stay and sometimes, they put you aboard a boat and no one ever sees you again.”
“What happened to the one they keep at the farm then?” Moose asked.
She just stared at him without saying a word. Then after a long moment, she admitted, “The farm has pigs, so no one ever knows they hold people there. They just disappear, leaving no trace.”
Growls of anger and rage spread through the room.
“How long have you been with Craylon?” Moose decided to ask.
“About four years.”
“Where is this farm you spoke about?” Skeeter demanded. His voice was flat and low and the people who knew him knew he was pissed. And they knew a pissed off Skeeter was a dangerous man.
“I won’t tell you that.” She shook her head. “If you storm that place, and they will kill everyone they are holding there before you can find them.”
“How many are they holding?” Gunner frowned as he looked around the room.
“I have no idea.” She shrugged.
Rigger came out of the backroom a while later with some papers in his hand. It had taken some time but he was able to find the original newspaper articles. He headed over to where Gunner, Boone and Skeeter were sitting. He simply handed the papers to Gunner and stood back, waiting for the man to read them.
Gunner’s eyes snapped up after he read the original article and he stared at Rigger. “Are you sure about this?”
Rigger nodded. “The first part of the articles match up, word for word.”
“Holy fucking shit,” Gunner swore under his breath.
“So who is she?” Boone stared at him.
“The granddaughter of Judge Bartholomew J Morgan.”
Skeeter frowned. �
��Isn’t he a Supreme Court judge?”
Gunner nodded.
“How the hell did he not bring the world down on this matter? His granddaughter was kidnapped and nobody knew it?” Boone asked. “I know I didn’t hear about it and there were just two articles? What the hell is going on here?”
“I’m not sure yet, but let’s find out what we can,” Gunner said. “Something just doesn’t add up here. If it were my granddaughter, I would never stop looking for her until I found her, dead or alive I wouldn’t stop looking for her.”
“Maybe that’s what happened,” Moose said from behind. “Maybe the old man was told she was dead.”
Gunner turned his head. “But we know differently don’t we?”
Moose nodded. “But we have to do this carefully. We can’t get her hopes up, only to have them crumble to dust.”
“You’re going to go behind her back?” Boone looked troubled by this idea.
“Until we know where we stand, yeah I am.” Moose shrugged. “Personally I don’t give a fuck who she is. I’m not looking for anything from her but herself. But something is going on here and we have to find the truth of it.”
Rigger nodded his head. “We do need to find out what happened.”
“Why is that?” Gunner frowned.
Rigger shifted his stance. “Because Judge Morgan is known for his stance on family law. We need to find out why such a man like a Supreme Court Judge could turn his back on her, if she does belong to his family. Hell, like I said, part of the man’s campaign was on being a family man and how he would always fight for family. He was in family court for years before he went to the supreme court.”
“And you know this how?” Boone asked.
“The law has always interested me,” Rigger shrugged. “So I like to follow the process and Morgan caught my eye years ago. He’s basically a very good man.”
“See what you can find out about his family.” Gunner nodded. “We need to know more about how something like this could happen in the first place.”
Rigger nodded. “I’ll find out what I can.” He grinned. “When Annie was here, she showed me a few tricks.”
“Just don’t get caught there sparky,” Boone warned him as he raised a brow at the Savaged Souls’ IT.
“I don’t plan too.” Rigger grinned then turned around and went back to his den of seeking knowledge.
”I hope he finds something quickly.” Moose shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of lying to my woman for very long.”
“Please don’t lie to me at all,” Brinn whispered from behind him. “I have to be able to trust you, so please don’t lie to me.”
Moose turned to her and saw her standing there with tears in her eyes.
”I can take the truth.” She stared into his eyes. “But I don’t think I can forgive the lies. I’ve been lied to all my life.”
He opened his arms and she came toward him and planted her face in his chest. When he wrapped his arms around her she just shook in his arms. When she backed up and looked him in the eyes he knew he had no choice but to tell her what they knew. “We found the original articles from twenty three years ago. It was about a kidnapping in New York. A year old child was taken from a stroller a woman left on the street when she went inside a café. She left her child in the stroller while she was inside having lunch. The woman’s last name was Morgan and her father in law was a Judge just confirmed to the Supreme Court.”
“What happened after that?”
“That’s what we don’t know,” Gunner took up the story. “We’ve only got the two articles and we need more information before we contact the Judge.”
“So, they didn’t even look for me?” she asked brokenly.
“We don’t know that yet,” Moose explained to her. “We don’t have any of the details yet.”
She trembled. “Is it possible that I was just a baby no one wanted?”
“If that’s true, you got a family now that wants you,” Gunner told her. “You are one of us now and we don’t do giveaways. You have this MC for a family.”
“Damn right, she does.” Moose growled. “No matter what, I’ll never give up on you.”
Brinn wrapped her own arms around his waist and held on for dear life. “Ok, I’m holding you to that, no matter what.” Pulling back from Moose, she looked over at Gunner and asked, “So what do we do first?” She went over to the table and began looking through the things Craylon had in the file. One of the items was a small charm. She studied it carefully and when she did, she noted it had like a family crest of some kind. She turned around and held out the charm. “Did you guys see this?”
Gunner got up and went over to her. Taking the charm, he studied it intently. Then he looked at her. “This could be very important to your case. I’ll take this to Rigger and see what he can do with it.” He turned and walked down the hall to Rigger’s den.
Gunner came back twenty minutes later with a smile on his face. “Well sweetie, I think we got his attention.”
“What does that mean?” Brinn asked.
“We sent him a photo of the charm and asked him if he knew what it was.” Gunner grinned. He came back with a ‘Where did you find the charm? It belonged to my granddaughter when she was a baby before she was killed by her abductors.’ We then told him it belonged to someone we just rescued.”
“Then what?” Brinn asked.
“I told him you were very much alive and with us,” Gunner told her. “I think he might be coming here shortly.”
Brinn hung on to Moose. Laying her head on his chest, she could hear the pounding of his heart in her ear. No matter what happened next, she knew she would never be far away from this man. She might find her real family but he would always be important to her. She would always belong to him and he would always belong to her. He promised her that and she would hold him to that promise.
Moose leaned down and whispered in her ear, “No matter what we uncover, you belong to me. I don’t care if we find your family or not, you belong with me.”
“This might not be my family and that’s okay, I just need to know the truth,” she whispered back. “But what if it is?” She peered up at him. “What if I do belong to them?”
“Then they have a lot to answer for.” Moose growled. “Such as... why they let this go on for twenty three years, why they never looked for you before.”
“But we don’t know that they didn’t, do we?” she asked.
“I suggest we just wait and hear what the old man has to say before we delve too deeply into this,” Gunner stated. “This may all be a moot point.”
“True enough.” Brinn shuddered. “We just have to wait and see how this plays out. If not them, then my search goes on.”
“We will find out, even if this isn’t your family,” Moose vowed. “We will find the truth.”
Brinn looked over at him with tears in her eyes. “Thank you. This is the most hope I’ve ever had all this time, and even this might not be the truth.” She thought about what this meeting would be like. Could this man be her actual grandfather? She pushed the thought away. It couldn’t be, if so... Where has he been all my life?
Chapter Eleven
Rigger came out of his den a few hours later and went over to where Gunner and Boone were sitting. When he sat down, he looked at Gunner with a sour expression on his face.
“What’s with the look?” Gunner finally asked. “You look like you swallowed a fucking lemon.”
“You remember asking me to look into the Judge’s family?” Rigger asked.
Gunner nodded.
“Well like I said, the Judge is a fair and open man, so is his son Jackson. Jackson runs a company that could be in contention for being one of the best and it’s been growing at a rate that could mean big money.” He shifted in his chair then admitted, “He also has a daughter Jillian, she followed in daddy’s footprints and could become an exceptional attorney.”
“Could be?” Boone frowned.
Rigger snorte
d. “Yeah, but sadly, it will never be as big as it could be as long as Cindy Morgan is Jackson’s wife. She spends more in one day than most people spend in a month.”
“Is she Brinn’s mother?” Gunner cocked his head at Rigger.
Rigger nodded. “I believe so. I went deeper and found out how Brinn got taken. I’m not sure any of us would want her to know but Cindy left the child in the stroller out on the street with no one watching while she went inside the restaurant to have lunch with her girlfriends.” Shaking his head he claimed, “She’d done it before, several times. She didn’t even care that her daughter had been taken. But she sure played the victim when the Judge or Jackson was around.”
“What else did you find out?” Gunner wanted to know.
“They had a second daughter, they named her Liberty. She’s only fourteen years old at the moment. And from what I can see, she’s a miserable lonely child. Her dad’s too busy earning the almighty dollar, so she barely sees him, her grandpa is at court ten or twelve hours a day and her mother ignores her, she’s busy spending money shopping, getting her hair and nails done, having socials with the other ladies. The poor kid is left at home alone all the time.” Rigger just shook his head. Then he looked like he’d found something else important. “Oh and I also found that Cindy is playing patty cakes with another man while hubby is out working himself to death to keep wifey in the money she is used to living in.”
Gunner glanced at the clock on the wall and growled, “The Judge will be here soon. He called back about four hours ago and even though we told him to wait until Brinn was ready to see him, he insisted on coming right now.” He was a bit of an arrogant ass on the phone. I hope he’s not still hell bent out of shape when he gets here. Brinn will not do well with him.”
Boone snorted. “Don’t worry about Brinn, I’d worry more about him facing Moose. You know he’ll protect her, come hell or high fucking water.”