Kings of Anarchy

by Caroline Peckham

You'll never find me.

  The two of them burst into motion, howling like wild animals as they tore through the building, fighting to be the first to find her while neither of them made any move towards my room.

  I cut a look towards Monroe and I was sure I noticed his jaw ticking as he watched them hunt, his muscles tense like he was holding back on the desire to join in.

  "You look tempted to try for that prize yourself, Nash," I pointed out and he scoffed as he rolled his eyes at me.

  "She's my student."

  “And you didn't answer my question.”

  I gave him a knowing smirk and sent a text of my own.

  Saint:

  The neanderthals are searching off base. How long are you going to keep them in suspense?

  Tatum:

  No one will ever find me.

  Saint:

  Is that a challenge?

  Tatum:

  *squid emoji*

  My hand tingled with the desire to spank her for that and I growled in frustration as I fought against that idea and tried to remember the rules I'd set for myself regarding her. But it was growing more and more difficult to resist her and it was becoming clear to me that we needed a group discussion about more things than just what I'd managed to discover about Royaume D’élite.

  I looked at my messages for a long moment as Kyan and Blake raced down into the gym on their hunt and Monroe gave me a look that said he didn't really believe I'd play.

  Saint:

  I'll give you a *squid emoji* you'll never forget when I find you, siren.

  Tatum:

  I have no idea what that means? I feel like you're trying to make a threat there somewhere but the *squid emoji* just makes no sense in that context.

  I slammed my phone down on the table with a grunt of frustration. I was sure I'd figured the fucking squid out that time. Fuck them. Fuck them and their fucking squids. Even Google wouldn't give me the fucking answers to it, but I wasn't going to give up until I figured it out.

  Monroe tugged his own cell phone from his pocket and pulled up the messages, laughing loudly at me as I stalked away from him and my anger rose a fraction at that. How the fuck did a teacher know what it meant and yet I still didn't? That shit was infuriating.

  I headed up to my room and fell still at the top of the stairs as I let my gaze skim over everything until I spotted something out of place which would let me know where she was hiding.

  It took me less than three seconds to spot the crease in the duvet cover and I prowled towards the bed with purposeful strides before dropping down suddenly and looking beneath it.

  Tatum gasped as her eyes met mine and I smiled darkly before snatching hold of her ankle and dragging her out as she screamed like I was serial killer come to murder her. That really shouldn't have turned me on, but what could I say? I was a fucked up being.

  I pinned her to the carpet and leaned close to her as she squirmed beneath me.

  "Tell me what the squid emoji means," I growled as she wriggled and laughed and I began to seriously doubt the wisdom of pinning her down like this because it felt like I’d somehow given her the upper hand.

  "Never," she swore in a whisper that had my hackles rising, but before I could get any ideas about punishing her for it, she leaned up and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth.

  My grip on her slackened and I pulled back as she drew away, though my skin burned where her lips had met with it.

  "What was that for?" I demanded.

  "You won the game. Blake said the prize was a kiss."

  I scoffed as I shoved myself upright and offered her a hand to pull her up with me. "We need to talk," I said as I found myself inches from her body, her skin flushed from the excitement of the game and her blue eyes bright.

  "We do?" she asked, biting her lip and looking at me like she'd been waiting for this. Which was good, because it was well overdue.

  "Yes. I drew up an itinerary. So let's get it dealt with now." I turned away from her and headed for the stairs just as Blake and Kyan bounded up them.

  "Get out of my room before I throw you over the balcony," I warned them. I hated having people in my personal space and they damn well knew it.

  "How come you don't get mad at Tate for coming up here?" Blake complained as he turned back with a huff and jogged down the stairs obligingly.

  "She's special," I said before I could stop myself and Kyan made a wooing noise like a little girl at a slumber party.

  For fuck's sake.

  "We need to have a meeting," I announced as I moved back over to my laptop at the dining table. I had a notepad and pen ready next to it and I was itching to get started.

  "It's pizza night," Tatum reminded me as she headed around the table to put the first round of pizzas in the oven.

  As if it wasn't bad enough that we all had to eat the cheese and tomato paste bread with our hands, we had to endure the fact that they couldn't all fit in the oven at once, so the food didn't even all arrive at the same time. It was fucking traumatic every damn week. But unlike every other motherfucker in this group, I actually stuck to the rules, so I had to push through the discomfort of it.

  I worked hard at keeping my patience as Monroe moved away to help Tatum put the food on and Kyan grabbed a box of beers and dumped the whole thing on the end of the table. I tried to ignore it. Tried to pretend I couldn't see the fact that the cardboard was torn.

  I made it six seconds. And then I got up, grabbed the whole thing and stalked toward the front door with the full intention to throw it out into the trees.

  Kyan intercepted me with a dark laugh and snatched the box back from me before taking the beers over to the fridge and stacking them inside instead. He even flattened the cardboard and tossed it in the recycling. Fucker.

  With a sigh of frustration, I moved back to the table to await my food. Once it was cooking, everyone else came to join me and I opened my notebook to the first page, looking down at my itinerary and ignoring the way they were sniggering like a bunch of assholes. If they were incapable of organising themselves or this group, then I was more than happy to take command for them and I didn't give a shit if they mocked me for my methods. This was how we got things done.

  “Drink?” Kyan asked just as I was about to start and I looked up to find him holding out a beer for me with his left hand, wrist twisted just so, making that fucking squid tattoo look me in the eye. I swear the thing was smirking like the asshole who’d inked it onto his flesh.

  I swallowed my anger at everything about his offer with some difficulty and blew out a harsh breath. “No, thank you. I have not in fact, suddenly developed a taste for piss water brew and become a hick just because I spend too much time in your company.”

  Kyan laughed loudly, dropping into his chair and sipping on the beer himself while Monroe and Blake joined in. I rolled my eyes at them, but let it slide because that smile on Blake’s face looked genuine for the first time since Kyan had hauled his ass back here kicking and cursing on his mom’s birthday and we’d locked him down in the crypt to stop him from going paragliding in the dark.

  He’d been pissed at us for three days following that but hadn’t made an argument out of it, likely because he knew full well that we’d been right to do it. Luckily it seemed like today he was feeling himself again and I could allow a little of their bullshit at my expense in favour of making him smile. Not that I’d ever admit it.

  Of course, I had now added more plans for dealing with Blake’s issues to my list of chores, but while his mood was improved, it didn’t seem to be the most pressing of our issues so I was willing to let it be for now. But sooner or later, Blake Bowman was going to have to deal with his grief.

  I glanced around to make sure everyone was paying attention and then began the meeting.

  "First off, I think I'm closing the net on Royaume D’élite. I've been tracing the financial movements of the O'Briens to try and locate the organiser of the club through the membership fees, and though they u
se various shell organisations to collect them each month, the amounts don't change."

  "How the fuck are you tracing their finances?" Monroe asked me like he'd never even heard of the concept of corrupt members of law enforcement.

  "I have people who I can pay to get me all kinds of information if I want it," I said to him in a bored tone. "Money talks and secrets spill. It's a fairly simple concept to grasp."

  He frowned at me like my entitled brat was showing and I smirked because I knew it. But I was so much more than an entitled brat. I knew exactly how to handle all of the advantages that I'd been born to and how to use them to gain even more advantages over every situation I was faced with.

  Monroe looked like he had something further to say to that, but the oven timer started bleeping and Tatum hopped up to get the first round of pizzas out of it, stealing his attention so that I could go on without having to listen to him. I truly believed that he was perfect for the position of our final Night Keeper, but sometimes his peasantry grated on me to the point of despair. I’d cut him a check to make him feel better about his lot in life if I didn’t know he was too damn proud to take it. Not that it mattered anyway. I firmly believed in the concept of this unit we’d built which meant my money was his money anyway. He just hadn’t figured that out yet.

  "Regardless of my methods, it's safe to say that I'm at least closing in on how the money is processed so it won't take me much longer to figure out who the eventual benefactor is. Has Niall contacted you with information on any of the other members?”

  “He managed to track one down but that’s a dead end now,” Kyan replied, looking a little guilty.

  “How so?” I asked, irritated to only be learning this now.

  “Because he was one of the men most involved with the sex trafficking side of the operation and Niall followed him home and cut his dick off before making him watch it burn in his own fireplace while he bled out,” Kyan said, hiding a smirk beneath his thumb.

  “What?” Tatum gasped but her eyes were alight like her shock was happy rather than horrified.

  “Well I wish he would have questioned him first,” I snapped, irritated that we’d missed the opportunity.

  “I’ll pass on the message for him to do so next time,” Kyan offered. “But you were pre warned that rapists were a sore subject for him so you really shouldn’t be surprised.”

  Monroe shook his head like he didn’t know whether to laugh or not and Blake smirked in amusement.

  “Fitting as the death may have been, I insist on the next victim of your uncle’s wrath to be fully questioned pre execution,” I said firmly.

  Kyan grimaced at the idea of that but didn't outwardly refuse it, so I took the opportunity to strike that matter from my list.

  “Don’t go thinking of Niall as some dog you have on a leash,” Kyan warned. “Because he will rip your head off to prove you wrong in the blink of an eye. Anything he does for us on this is because he is choosing to. So offer him the respect he demands because we don’t want him turning his anger our way.”

  “Don’t worry yourself about it,” I replied dismissively. “I have plenty of practice in bringing wild dogs to heel.”

  Kyan laughed like that was a compliment and I opened my mouth to continue, but instead Tatum shoved some of the fucking pizza between my lips.

  Her eyes sparkled with amusement as my obligation to follow the rules forced me to bite and chew and I gave her a death glare over the cheese to which she rolled her eyes.

  "So, basically what you’re saying is that you haven't dug up enough info on whoever is running the psycho funhouse yet and we need to keep waiting before we can make any more moves?" Blake interjected while I couldn't speak and my mood darkened further.

  "I'd like to see you do half much as I have to track down the members of an elite secret organisation while the entire country is on lockdown," I snarled at him.

  "Thank you, Saint," Tatum interrupted like she could see this descending fast and I was distracted from my anger again as her hand landed on my thigh and she held up another slice of pizza for me to eat. "We do appreciate your criminal mastermind ways," she added and I snorted a laugh at that. Not that it was inaccurate, but I hadn't exactly taken on that title officially. I couldn't say I hated it though.

  "Fine," I ground out. "I'll keep all of you updated as I find out more. It's also worth letting you know that some of the locations the payments were made threw up red flags for me which I hadn't expected but probably should have."

  "What do you mean?" Blake asked.

  "Just that a few of the organisations have ties to my father. Somewhat loose ties which I can't easily prove but I'm more than familiar enough with his finances to have spotted the links. It could just be a case of rich old bastards using the same money launderers coincidentally, but after finding his links to Serenity Pharmaceuticals..."

  "What?" Monroe pushed, perking up enough to make my intuition take note. He'd been like that when I'd told him about my father putting me down that well and it hadn't gone unnoticed. For some reason, Nash Monroe had a vested interest in my father. I just couldn't figure out what exactly that meant. Maybe it was time I set aside a few hours to get to the bottom of it though.

  "His Spidey senses are tingling," Kyan supplied for me and though I loathed him referencing me as a character from a comic book, I nodded once to show my agreement.

  "I have an inkling that there's more of a link there," I admitted. "And I’m not often wrong once I get those kinds of feelings. But I'll look into it more before I make any full assessments."

  "So you're saying you think your father is a member of this club for rich psychos?" Monroe pushed. "Why am I not surprised?"

  "I am assuming no such thing. Neither am I implying it. I'm just laying out the facts as I find them. The rest will fall into line with further investigation and we will deal with it from there. I'll keep you all updated."

  Monroe shot a loaded look Tatum's way and I didn't bother to hide the fact that I'd seen it. If I were inclined to entertain Kyan's suggestions of Spidey senses then I'd have to admit they were tingling again. But I wasn't, because that was bullshit. Still, our girl and our coach had a secret. And I was going to get to the bottom of it.

  I looked back down to my list which left me with one more issue to deal with.

  "Did you make an itinerary for two topics?" Blake asked me with a snigger as he looked over at my notepad and I resisted the urge to bristle at him as I just shrugged.

  "You can never be too organised. Not that that's a concept you seem to have ever gotten familiar with. But I can only hope that if I lead by example for long enough the message may sink in."

  He scoffed and I ignored him as I moved the subject on.

  "We need to discuss the issues among our unit. Kyan has fucked up the balance of power by marrying our girl. The rules are being flouted on an almost daily basis by certain members of the group and the punishments for such infringements are half assed jokes at best and in no way a deterrent for repeat offences,” I said.

  "Well she's my wife and she's staying that way," Kyan supplied. "And just so you all know, I took into your considerations the suggestion that her name go back to Tatum Rivers on the school register and decided against it. Tatum Roscoe just has too good of a ring to it to change it back.”

  My fist hit the table just as Blake launched an empty beer bottle at his head and Monroe cursed him. Tatum seemed annoyed over it too, but she wasn't making enough protests for my liking.

  "This is unacceptable," I snarled.

  "Well it's the only way to keep her safe from my family," Kyan said cockily like having a bloodthirsty son of a bitch threaten the life of the only girl he had ever given a shit about was some kind of win in his books. "Besides, I fucking love having a wife. Never really thought I'd be the type, but it turns out it suits the shit out of me. You can't ask me to give her up. I won't. I can't."

  Silence fell and I growled beneath my breath but as infuriating as
it was, I had already come to the conclusion that he was right about one thing at least. It was the only way to keep her safe from Liam O'Brien for now and so I wouldn't be forcing a divorce while he was still a problem.

  "I think we can all agree, however begrudgingly, that Tatum's safety is our priority, and as such, we will allow her to remain married to you,” I said, gritting my teeth throughout.

  "You know I'm getting pretty sick of you guys presuming you get to allow me to do shit all the damn time," Tatum grumbled.

  "Then you shouldn't have sworn yourself to be ours for all of time," I said dismissively. "That is not up for negotiation anyway. The point is that we need to all agree what this marriage means."

  "You're such an asshole," she muttered and I ignored her as I went on.

  "As far as I am concerned, the marriage contract is a contract which secures Tatum's safety from the O'Brien family. Aside from that it means nothing-"

  "Wrong," Kyan interrupted with his cockiest fucking smile. "It means she put on a hot as fuck white dress, walked down the aisle in a big ass church, looked me in the eyes and swore to belong to me for-fucking-ever while I swore the same damn thing to her. In fact, Niall was good enough to forward me the pictures this morning. I'm going to get them blown up." He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and opened up the offending photos before enlarging one where the two of them were kissing before the priest with so much passion that it looked like they were only a few seconds from fucking each other's brains out right then and there.

  Rage pooled in my gut and I cursed beneath my breath before shaking my head and shoving his phone off the table with a swipe of my hand.

  "It's irrelevant," I barked. "When the four of us swore to become Night Keepers, we swore to stand together in everything. When Tatum swore to be Night Bound, she swore to belong to all of us equally. There is no way to alter that agreement and I don't believe that any of us wish to aside from you and that's just because you're pussy blinded over her and want exclusive access for your dick."