Axl gave it to them about the setup.
When he was done, Hawk shifted his attention to Lee, “You’re up.”
Lee nodded and launched in.
“Part one, I had Brody on something else yesterday, so it sucks you lost a day when he could have saved you that time, but he had to put your search aside until this morning. But he got on it and Laszlo Kovack took a company transfer about a week after Boone handed him his ass. He’s currently up to his neck in packing to move to Portland, Oregon, something that’s scheduled to occur next Monday. And as a farewell to Colorado, he’s up in Vail right now, and this morning he had a Denver omelet for breakfast prior to gassing up and heading back down. However, what there is absolutely no evidence of him doing is dicking with Axl and Boone. So it’d come as a big surprise to him if you boys showed and handed him his ass again.”
And there it was.
They were being played.
And Axl bet there were eyes on Laszlo Kovack’s house so they could get caught in the middle of handing a man his ass.
But now, they couldn’t look for those eyes because, in how they needed to look, it was very illegal, so they couldn’t get caught trying to find the means set up to catch them out.
“Onward from that,” Lee continued, “Brody confirmed Kovack’s computer was also hacked. He sometimes takes pictures of his partners. And those are the shots that were sent to Hattie. So as Axl figured out, it was a setup.” Lee looked to Boone. “He’s bi, he sometimes does multiple partners, but there aren’t any shots of your woman.”
Some of the tension shifted from Boone’s shoulders.
“Part two,” Lee carried on. “We finally got something interesting on the ME that reported the Mueller/Bogart double murder was a murder-suicide, before he changed his findings in the official report. He’s been laying low, keeping his nose clean. Though, it seems the high stress of his job had to be addressed. And he did that by sorting a vacation on a houseboat on Lake Powell, something he and his wife like to do once a year. Thing is, this time, he bought the whole fucking houseboat. And two jet skis. And to round that out, a powerboat. All with cash.”
And there that was.
He’d been bought.
“At least he didn’t sell his soul on the cheap,” Shy noted with open disgust.
“Yeah,” Lee replied.
“That needs a follow-up, he needs someone leaning on him about that,” Tack noted. “And since Eddie already got up in his shit about it, it can’t be a cop.”
“When’s he going to Lake Powell?” Knight asked.
“Next week,” Lee answered.
Knight nodded. “I’ll talk to Sylvie and Tucker. They can plan a family vacation. Head up from Phoenix, track his ass down and finesse a conversation.” There were nods of assent all around that was the way to go.
“Now for another break,” Hawk said then he focused on Jorge. “Jorge?”
“With Brody hung up, but the diagnostics run, we picked shit up on Ryn’s laptop. She had three hacks. One to download her web search history. One to download her email. And one to download all her documents and pictures.”
Boone already knew this, since it was one of the things they were following up yesterday, but Axl still looked at Boone to see his face hard, his jaw clenched.
He wasn’t over that violation of Ryn.
Not surprising.
Jorge kept going.
“These originated from three different Internet cafés. We followed up at the cafés. They got records that show three different bogus IDs were given when he bought time. We ran them. One was from a dead guy. One from an incarcerated guy. And one from a guy who doesn’t exist.”
“Another dead end?” Ally asked.
Jorge shook his head. “Nope. Checked in with some boys I know who deal fakes. One of them remembered the name that the guy asked for him to use for an ID, since it’s apparently some famous porn star’s name, Phil Charismo.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Knight muttered.
“Yeah, pure class,” Jorge agreed through sarcasm. “He remembered the name, remembered the guy and remembered the guy visited him with another guy. He thought it was a sting. Patted them down. Asked if they were cops.”
“He sold them an ID when he thought they were cops?” Rush asked.
Jorge shook his head. “Not Phil Charismo. But the guy with him, my dealer says he’d lay money on that guy at one point having been a cop. This guy does good fakes. He’s also greedy. What I wouldn’t call him is smart. He thinks if he asks a cop if he’s a cop, the cop has to say.”
The mood in the room lightened a fraction as they silently shared humor about a criminal committing a crime and being this stupid.
“He give a description?” Brock asked.
“Not exactly. Though, he says he wouldn’t forget him. But he won’t play unless he’s paid.”
“We’ll handle that,” Hawk said and looked between Axl and Aug. “B needs another visit. She knows more than she said, and I don’t pay to get jacked around.”
“She’s moved again,” Rhashan informed them.
“You got a location?” Hawk asked.
Rhashan shook his head.
“I’m on that and I’m on Brandi,” Ally declared.
“It’s not you she fucked over, Ally,” Hawk pointed out. “Wearing my money and knowing my boys walked out of her place with an operation already underway to take them out, and that operation was using their women, when she specifically said the women were not involved, I’m not okay with that.”
“Let’s just say I got a way with girl talk,” Ally replied.
Hawk didn’t argue that.
He nodded.
“Brandi and I need a conversation as well, I work with you,” Cisco put in smoothly.
“When I work, I’m a loner type of girl,” Ally told him.
“Trust me,” Cisco said on a smile. “We’ll have fun.”
Ally studied him, saw whatever women saw in him, and smiled back.
Jesus.
That was when Hawk went back to Jorge’s news.
“We’re lookin’ into the other two fake IDs to see if either of them have ties to cops. Obviously, the incarcerated one does, but he’s from Maryland and doing his time there. Doesn’t mean this doesn’t have that reach, cops know cops. But that’s going to take awhile.”
“I can get Brody to help with that,” Lee offered.
Hawk nodded again then looked around the room. “Everyone’s computer needs a hefty firewall. You don’t have a source who can do that for you, get them here. We’ll handle it for you.”
Axl made a mental note to get his and Hattie’s laptops into the office.
He then said, “We need to fuck up without fucking up.”
Hawk looked to him. “That was my take.”
“I’m not comfortable with that,” Mitch put in.
“Nothing that will stick,” Hawk returned.
“They can make shit stick, Hawk,” Mitch shot back.
“It’ll out some players and we need some threads to pull to unravel this, brother,” Hawk replied. “We’ll be careful that the fucking-up part has a stronger not fucking-up part.”
“And while some member of your team deals with legal issues because he put himself out there to be arrested, we’ve lost resources that could be put to better use,” Mitch retorted.
“Let me talk to Resurrection,” Rush suggested.
“Room’s already pretty fuckin’ packed, man,” Luke noted.
“Resurrection won’t mind a couple of brothers going down for something they didn’t really do,” Rush replied. “As long as we make sure their asses are pulled out of that sling. And anyway, back in the day when they were Bounty, if B can be believed, they were in bed with these assholes without knowing they were in bed with them. They were the ones who were running security for those transports that were taken down. If that was me and my club had that in its history, I’d wanna know. Having it in their history without knowing
it makes them vulnerable. It also makes them motivated to find out who was really behind that shit. So them getting involved in this won’t come as a surprise. They had men who did time back then, ties like that bind. We’re allies. If I don’t share that with them, they find out we knew, we’d lose that, and we need shit copacetic with MCs all the time, but now especially.”
Axl didn’t miss the proud look Tack Allen had on his face when his son was talking.
And he thought it’d be interesting to know how that felt, having a dad that was proud of you and did not hesitate showing it.
Though he suspected he’d never know.
“Mitch, you good with that?” Hawk asked.
“Plan carefully, Hawk,” Mitch said quietly. “We do not need innocent men behind bars and dirty cops free.”
No one said anything because no one disagreed.
Hank broke the silence.
“By the book.”
Yeah.
Fuck.
From here on out, they had to keep their noses clean.
Or be even more careful when they didn’t.
“Hawk, you definitely. Lee, you too. And Knight, you watch your back,” Hank went on.
Knight’s lips thinned.
“Brandi mentioned you and Eddie specifically, Hank,” Aug reminded him of something they’d already reported.
“We’re clean,” Eddie grunted.
He and Hank were partners.
Hank knew the rules, and for the most part, played by them.
It was lore that Eddie Chavez had always shot from the hip.
If it wasn’t this situation, this would almost be funny.
But it was this situation.
So it was not funny.
“We’re up,” Malik put in. “Me and Mitch and Brock. We can’t swing our asses out there, but you got inside shit you need done in a cop shop, you come to one of us.”
There were general murmurings of agreement all around.
“Right, we have movement,” Hawk said in a way they all knew he was ending it. “Not much, but there’s something there now when before, we had nothing. Cisco and I are still on Mamá to get to Lynn and Heidi. For now, we just had a huge fuckin’ wake-up call to stay smart and vigilant. Let’s not drop that ball.”
There was more murmuring of concurrence.
And the meeting was adjourned.
* * *
After the meet, they’d had time to grill burgers at Lottie and Mo’s while the women continued to do whatever women did at a bridal shower.
Hawk joined them, and not only because his wife, Gwen, was at the shower.
Boone was pissed.
And Axl had walked into the meeting raw from a conversation with Hattie.
Boone wasn’t hiding his and Hawk was the kind of man, part because he was their boss, part because he was a good guy, and part because he was a vet himself, who would not miss the kind of raw Axl was feeling.
Not to mention, one of his own was imminently getting married to a fine woman who loved him more than her own life.
So he stuck with his men.
They all started getting texts, though, and none of them fucked around with moving out to go to their women.
As Axl passed the house, he saw Hattie come out of it and he knew she’d been watching for him.
Looking out for him.
Feelings invaded, some of them bad—Jordan coming up, how he hadn’t handled that well with Hattie.
A lot of them good, culminating in him having to park three houses down from Jet and Eddie’s, but by the time he got out of the Jeep, Hattie was skip-running his way.
He was on the grassy verge up from the curb, hadn’t even made the sidewalk, when she hit him, and he immediately curved his arms around her.
She arched in, one arm around his shoulders, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck.
She’d gripped his neck like that before.
That night they made love.
He knew right then it was her brand, hot on his skin in a way that radiated out and released the tension from his neck and shoulders better than any steam or massage.
“Hi,” she said softly.
Christ, his girl was something.
“Hey,” he replied. “Have fun?”
“It was a blast.”
He grinned at her, but it was small, and it died fast.
“Babe—” he started.
“You don’t have to—”
“I do.”
She went quiet.
“I wasn’t ready to talk about that piece, or Jordan. But you’re right. It’s a part of me and with what we’re building, I need to give it to you. And I should have just said I wasn’t ready instead of being a dick to you.”
“And you were right,” she instantly returned. “That wasn’t about me. I should have let it go and then brought it up later, letting you know it was important to me to have it, but you could give it to me when the time was right for you.”
“Okay, but I could have been cooler in how I communicated to you.”
“Axl, honey, I want you just as you are. Not diluted. Not careful with every step you take or word you say. You were feeling something, and you let it out. My point is, I can take it.”
“Yes, I know, you’ve been taking a lot from your father for a really fuckin’ long time.”
Her entire head jerked, her curls bouncing.
“That’s not like my dad.”
“It’s—”
Her hand on his neck squeezed hard.
“Axl, it is not one thing like my dad. We’re going to fight. There are going to be times when you’re not cool, or I’m not cool. We just experienced one. That isn’t like what my dad does. It’s being in a relationship.”
His voice dipped. “I never wanna hurt you, Hattie.”
Emotions moved over her features, at first surprised, then gorgeous and shining.
Oh yeah.
She was falling in love with him.
Maybe already there.
After today, he knew he was.
And wasn’t that the fuck of it.
Jordan would have been all over his ass for being a dick to Hattie.
But he would have loved it, knowing a fight that was partly about him, led Axl to truly realize the kind of woman Hattie was and that she was the woman for him.
“Please stop being so hard on yourself,” she urged. “That upsets me. Having honest reactions and being real with me does not.”
Yeah.
She was the woman for him.
On that thought, he decided it was time to kiss her hello.
So that was what he did.
And he did such a complete job of it, Elvira clicked by them, ordering, “Good Lord, take it to a room.”
That was also a good idea.
So Axl broke the kiss, took her hand, moved her to his Jeep and helped her in.
Then he got in and took them to a room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Stolen Base
AXL
It was Sunday morning, they were out on the deck with fresh coffee, warm biscuits from a tube that Axl had thrown into the oven, a plate of butter and a jar of apple butter.
And Hattie had just declared, “Tonight, Jacuzzi time,” when his phone rang.
He looked down at it on the table, saw it was his dad, and he really wanted to ignore it.
Especially since he’d rather talk about planning Jacuzzi time with Hattie.
It’d be the perfect thing to look forward to if shit went south with her dad at the game that day.
Don had said yes.
Axl was a little surprised.
A little encouraged.
And a lot concerned.
But considering how cagey Axl’s mom was being, he figured he should talk to his dad just in case, by some minor miracle, Axl could ferret something out of him about what was going on with those two.
“Definitely,” he said to her as he reached for his phone. “Gotta take this, babe.”
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She nodded, staring at his phone like it was a snake that could bite him.
He put it to his ear. “Hey, Dad.”
“The girl you’re dating is a stripper?”
“Be back,” he said to Hattie, rising from his seat.
She watched him closely but said nothing.
“Is she there with you right now?” his father demanded incredulously.
“Yeah,” he answered, moving into the house and making certain the door was shut behind him.
“How serious is this?”
“She’s been to dinner at my parents’ house. How serious do you think it is?” Axl returned, stopping at the kitchen sink and aiming his eyes out the window.
“I cannot believe you brought a stripper into your mother’s and my home,” Sylas bit out.
“I cannot believe you investigated my girlfriend.”
“We have an in-house investigator, as you know, and you come from money. I wouldn’t be a good father if I didn’t do it.”
Axl couldn’t believe his ears.
“Right, and what else did you find, Dad? That she’s an artist as well as a dancer? That she pays her bills, has never been arrested, has no problems with drugs or alcohol, has a lot of good friends who love her and are loyal to her because she’s lovable and inspires loyalty? Did you find all that out and then call me to bitch about her having been a stripper? Is that what a good dad does?”
“I can’t understand you,” Sylas spat. “You’re a good-looking man. You have a nice home. A job that pays well. You could have any woman you wanted. What on earth are you doing with a stripper?”
Axl had a ready reply, but he didn’t get to say it because his father spoke again, not to Axl.
“Yes, I’m confronting him about it. Of course, I’m confronting him about it.” A pause and then, “Are you insane?”
“Dad,” he clipped.
His phone buzzed in his hand.
He looked down at it and saw he had an incoming call from his mother.
Jesus Christ.
He put it back to his ear only to hear his father demand, “Do not answer that. We’re not done.”
“’Bye, Dad,” he said, selected the button to disconnect and pick up, put the phone back to his ear and said, “Ma, I’m good.”
“Don’t listen to your father, Hattie’s a lovely girl.”
“I know that, Mom.”
Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3) Page 29