“Two,” Angel confirmed. “He doesn’t go anywhere without them.”
Lynn nodded once, looking over at the man at my back. “Ready?”
Bruno squeezed my hip.
When I looked up at him, he was already looking down at me.
“If you need me, call,” he ordered.
I grinned. “If I need you, I’ll call. After I handle things on my own first, that is.”
My brothers snorted.
After looking down into my eyes for a few long seconds, he gave my hip one last squeezed before letting me go.
And, before my entire family, he dropped a slow kiss to my lips, unconcerned about the eye killing he was receiving from my brothers.
And without another word, he left, expecting everyone else to follow.
“I honestly thought that he was psychotic or something with the way he never smiled or spoke to anyone with any inflection,” Bourne admitted once everyone left. “I’ve seen him around before, multiple times. And I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“‘That’ being…” I said.
“He loves you, sis,” Booth said. “When a man falls, he can’t help but look at his woman the way Bruno was just looking at you. It’s impossible to hide your feelings. And that man wasn’t hiding shit. He was claiming you in front of your family. Which he knew would piss us off since we don’t know him at all.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. I never acted like this when you both found your wives. And if anyone had the right to act crazy, it was me. Y’all were dating twins. Twins that started out with the other brother. I could’ve made your life hell at first. But I didn’t. And you will give me the same courtesy and extend it to Bruno.”
“Bruno is such a weird name,” Priscilla butted in. “But it fits him.”
I thought so, too.
“Mom,” I said. “You’ve been awfully quiet. What’s wrong?”
My mom watched as my father and Bruno as well as Lynn and the rest of the men got onto their various motorcycles or into their vehicles before she said anything.
“I was just thinking that I need to have the ‘talk’ with you.” She looked over at me, causing Daniella to start to cackle.
I frowned and looked from my mom to my sister and back.
“Okay,” I hesitated.
“Do we really need to be here for this?” Booth grumbled under his breath.
“No,” my mom drawled. “Feel free to walk to the hotel we’re staying at.”
Booth sighed and shut up.
My mother gave his ‘quiet’ form a look before she turned to look at me.
Grabbing my sister Daniella’s hand, she gestured toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Booth and Bourne took lead out the door and frowned. “Where’s Heath?”
“Heath and his new girlfriend are… fighting,” my mom said. “He stayed behind to hopefully convince her to stay with him. But if we’re being honest, I’m hoping that they decide to call it quits.”
My brows rose.
My mom was normally a very nice person. She was a social worker and genuinely liked everybody she met.
That was why she’d been so supportive of Bruno and me. She liked to see the good in everybody, even though she knew there was bad in the world.
She liked to treat everyone like they were ‘good’ until proven otherwise.
“Heath and his new girlfriend had a falling out when Mom started talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mom tried to suggest that Meya—if you ever meet her, her name is pronounced me-yuh and don’t you fuckin’ forget it—come over for Thanksgiving Day Eve. Dad, Booth, and I have to work. So, like always, we’re going to schedule the holiday before the actual holiday. Only Meya decided that she was going to go to her mom’s house and cook Thanksgiving Dinner a day early and couldn’t go. Only, when Heath said that he’d go to Mom and Dad’s without her, she all but had a shit fit because Heath is supposed to be at her parents’ house with her. Not off celebrating fuckin’ Thanksgiving without her.”
I frowned at Bourne’s words. “She what?”
How do you put stipulations on a man’s time when it comes to his family?
I mean, I could see if Heath were going out and hanging out with a bunch of chicks, and her not wanting him to go there. But this was Heath’s family.
“So anyway, Heath told her that he needed a break from her selfish attitude. She automatically assumed that they were breaking up and acted like it was the end of the fuckin’ world. Said that she would do anything as long as he didn’t leave her. So they’re ‘talking it out,’” Bourne grumbled.
“If there’s this much of a problem now, how the hell do they plan on doing this when shit gets really real? Like if they ever have kids? I mean, it wasn’t like we were even asking for the actual day. We hardly ever get that thanks to y’all being in law enforcement. I mean, I think there was a time that you and Booth showed up at the Thanksgiving meal, then had to leave during the middle of it because of a SWAT call, and then Angel got called back all the way to freakin’ Austin, leaving Daniella to scramble to find a way home for her and the baby. Honestly, we’re lucky to just find a day. If she can’t do that, then how the hell is she going to do it later when it’s actually tough? God forbid us being able to celebrate on the actual day. Then what will she do?” I wondered.
“Exactly,” Mom said. “If she can’t compromise now, she’ll never compromise then.” Mom shook her head. “Then I tried to book a couple of cabins in Broken Bow. It was for the week after Christmas. Three days and nights. But her brother is coming in from California, and she went all apeshit that Heath would want to go to Broken Bow with us instead of spending it at home in their house with them. I then said that they could also book their own cabin and come with, since I know the guy that does the booking. She said that, and I quote, ‘her brother doesn’t like to go to places with trees.’”
I scratched my head in confusion. “She sounds like a real winner.”
“Heath needs to kick her to the curb,” Booth and Bourne muttered at the same time.
Daniella snorted, but it was Priscilla who said, “Heath thinks he got her pregnant, so he’s staying until he knows for sure.”
Everyone stopped walking right there in the middle of the airport parking lot.
“He what?” my mother snapped.
“Fuck me,” Angel groaned.
I looked over at my brother-in-law.
The first brother-in-law to join our family. The quiet police sergeant who had taken one look at my sister and known that she was the one. Even though my sister had been much, much younger than him at the time.
I grinned. “You’re glad that you joined this family, right?”
Angel looked at his wife, who was laughing her ass off while hanging on to Priscilla, and then grinned.
“Count my lucky stars every single day,” he admitted.
We both were quiet while the rest of our family discussed Heath’s idiocy.
When we finally arrived at the car, everyone got in at once, leaving just me and Angel standing on the driver’s side of the big passenger van.
As Angel reached for the door, he said, “It took a lot of balls to do what your man did this week.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “You think so?”
He nodded once. “I know so.”
I tilted my head slightly. “Why?”
Angel dropped his hand from reaching for the driver’s side door and turned to stare at me.
“One, he has an assassin after him.” He flipped up one finger. “Two, he took you with him knowing that he had one, but confident that he could protect you better than your own family could.”
I smiled.
“Three.” Angel flipped another finger up. “He was very open with the fact that someone came onto his property, he allowed his animals to eat him, and then he came here because he was involved in something illegal.”
“He wasn’t involved with the reason he came here,” I told
Angel. “He will be doing something illegal, though. Of that I have no doubt.”
Angel rolled his eyes. “The man’s been in prison twice, with no guilt from either crime that he committed. Not to mention that whatever that motorcycle club is involved in is highly illegal. How do you think he accomplishes the things that law enforcement can’t?”
I hadn’t thought about it to be honest but…
“I don’t really care what he has to do if he’s getting those kids back,” I told Angel point blank.
“Agreed.” Angel nodded solemnly. “Unfortunately, I’m on the other side of the law and can’t act on it. But if your man does find himself in hot water over whatever they’re trying to accomplish today, then I’ll do my best to get him out of it.”
CHAPTER 23
I’m going to let God fix it. Because if I fix it, I’m going to be in jail.
-Bruno’s secret thoughts
BRUNO
“Son of a bitch is lying through his teeth,” Belle’s father grumbled.
I looked over at him and snorted. “Did you honestly think he wouldn’t? I mean, there’s a reason Angel gets a bad vibe off of him.”
Nico shook his head. “I was hoping that the man running this state wasn’t a piece of shit, and that Angel was just wrong in this one instance.”
“But he’s not,” Hunt said. “Now that I’m able to connect to his personal server thanks to what Lynn brought in with him, I’m able to go through his files, and I’m not liking what I see.”
Hunt turned his computer, and all the men turned their heads to stare at it.
“What am I looking at, Hunt?” Trick asked in confusion.
“Times and dates of the hotshot trucks and what they’re hauling each subsequent time,” Hunt answered.
“Okay,” I hesitated. “But what does it all mean? What’s a 2BM? What’s a 3WF?”
Hunt shook his head sadly.
“It took me a while to cross reference those terms. But the first one you read is two black males. The second one is three white females.”
My stomach fucking dropped. “You’re joking.”
“No,” Hunt said stoically. “And there are pages and pages of this in his servers. Each run they make has some sort of parts in them for a trucking company that’s stationed where they’re at and where they’re going. They actually do drive the truck parts to the company. But they’re always, according to the trucking company they deliver to, missing something. Something big to where they have to ‘run another truck’ to them. To the point that they’re actively seeking out another company to do this for them. They’ve had no luck with the past four companies, because all have been bought out by the same master company—BryHoldings, Inc.”
“Meaning, when they fuck up, they just acquire a new hotshot crew to run parts down to them, and they keep ‘accidentally’ forgetting parts to the point where they have to return. Meaning that they have room for other things in the vans/trucks since they’re carrying half empty,” Nico surmised.
“Exactly.” Hunt nodded as he poked through lists. “Last month they took eight trips. Five of those trips were return trips where there was a ‘part’ forgotten. Meaning they had a nearly empty van. Which, I assume, they used to transport their victims.”
“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled. “They have this down, don’t they?”
“Is Bryan ever ‘involved’ or is he just on the outskirts?” Nico leaned back in the seat into the metal of the van at his back, looking for all the world that he was calm and collected when in fact he was pissed as hell.
I could see a vein in his neck throbbing, and his hands were clenched into tight fists that he had tucked tight across his body.
“From the public appearance, no.” Hunt scratched his head, then yanked his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He looks squeaky clean when you look at him like this. But then you look deeper, and you find that there are certain things ‘checked’ off per se. There’re initials all over the place as quality control, and all of them are SJB. Sander James Bryan is my guess. What ‘higher-up’ would have the same initials as him? I mean, there’s the possibility, but all the company databases that I’ve checked through, there are no other employees by that name. And he has a list of employees. His brother being the ‘big boss’ that all of the transporters know. The brother that has been out a week and a half due to a broken collarbone. Weird how he got that, huh?”
“Weird,” I muttered, remembering the one good lick I’d gotten in on the old man.
He’d been driving, and with nothing else to stop him, I’d thrown an iron bar at the van.
I was happy to see that at least something had hit true.
“I threw a pipe,” I mused. “It was next to the head they nearly ran over.”
“The one you used to carry on your bike?” Sin asked curiously.
I thought about it. Thought about the familiarity when it’d fit into my hand just before I threw it.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was after they ran me off of it. That fits.”
Nico sighed. “Something more needs to be done here. We can’t just sit on our hands, and it doesn’t look like he’s getting very far, either.”
“Call the press,” Trouper snapped. “Get them out here. Leak the story to them. Get some news stirred up and get them going on this while Lynn is inside.”
“You don’t think that’ll stir up shit before we find out where their base is at? What if they’re holding kids right now? And by us sharing their story, they cut and run? Kill all the kids they have and disappear into the wind? We need to plan this out,” Zach cut in, always the voice of reason.
“Anywhere in those notes tell you where their base of operations is?” Nico asked, his hand to his head as he looked at the front door Lynn had disappeared through only an hour before.
“Two possible locations,” Hunt said. “If we split up, we can hit each one with a team.”
“Do we wait for Lynn, or just go?” Sin wondered.
I looked at the front door where Lynn had been invited in so easily.
“I’ll wait for Lynn,” I suggested. “Unless you want to, Laric?”
Laric, Lynn’s actual son, shook his head. “I want to get to these facilities and find out whatever they have hiding there. Lynn can take care of himself. Not to mention I don’t think that you will be very good to us with your broken head.”
Lynn could handle himself.
Lynn may look like an average, run-of-the-mill mayor right now in his three-piece suit, but he wasn’t.
He was a trained killer in fashionable clothes.
I, on the other hand, was broken.
Though I was standing upright, I’d been slightly nauseous since we’d gotten up to altitude in the plane.
And I wasn’t doing any better right now.
I felt like I had a head that was about to explode.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll stay here in case something happens.”
“In case something does.” Hunt stood up and started to go through the crate that was holding his computer up. He shifted stuff around, then pulled out another computer. “I have this.”
I blinked. “What is it?”
“It’s all the files I was able to pull out on the way over here. I want you to deliver that to the first badass cop that you see.”
“The first badass cop,” I murmured. “Why not Angel?”
“Because Angel is with your soon-to-be wife, and I have a feeling that whoever has this is about to have an assassin on his back just like you already have.” Hunt held it out to me.
I took it and looked at the innocent-looking computer.
“Okay,” I muttered. “And, I meant, if something happens here. Not if something happens with you. You better be safe, or your wife will never forgive me.”
For real. Wyett already disliked me because of how I’d treated Six in school before Wyett was even around. No matter if it was in her best interest or not. I still hadn’t gotten her to look
at me as anything other than a nuisance. If I got her husband killed, there really would be no mercy then.
“She already doesn’t like you.” Hunt grinned.
Then he was gone, along with everyone else.
Nico stopped at the back of the van.
He looked at me with hard, unyielding eyes. “I don’t want to explain to my little girl, my mini-me, that you’re hurt or worse. So take care of yourself.”
No flowery words were needed. He knew, just as well as I did, that Belle was beginning to mean something to me that felt life changing.
I gave him a chin jerk, and I felt like my head took flight as stars burst in my vision.
“Will do,” I said through gritted teeth.
With one more harsh look, Belle’s father was gone, too. Leaving me alone with my thoughts, Lynn having a discussion with the piece of shit, and a pain in my head that I was fairly sure wasn’t normal.
Something was very wrong, and it wasn’t just with the dude on the screen in front of me.
I leaned back and watched as Lynn questioned the governor.
Hunt had hacked into the security feed that was in Bryan’s home office where we’d found the Governor ‘taking the day off.’
He’d allowed Lynn entrance into his home, and together we’d all watched as Lynn brought up his brother.
Only Governor Sandler Bryan ‘didn’t associate’ with Malcolm Bryan. ‘Hadn’t in years.’
But I knew when someone was lying.
It’d stemmed from when my family had told me ‘they weren’t going to hit me anymore.’
At some point in my young life, I’d become very suspicious of everyone, even the men that I knew would never hurt me the way I’d been hurt too many times before.
The one person that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that wouldn’t hurt me, would always choose me? That was Belle.
It’d been such a short time, but in that short time, I knew that she would always choose me.
Over her own family. Her mom and her dad. Her brothers. Her sisters. Hell, I knew she had a nephew, and I had a feeling she’d choose me even over him.
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