Wizard (Hounds of Hellfire MC #4)

Chapter 9

9

WIZARD

I had dreamed about waking up with Thea in my bed for a month, but it was nothing compared to the real thing. Especially when her naked body was snuggled tightly up against mine.

She wiggled her cute little ass, turning my morning wood into a full-blown hard-on.

“You’re playing with fire, baby,” I rasped, my voice still gritty from sleep.

Thea giggled and shuffled around to face me. “I guess I’m just a thrill-seeking pyromaniac because those words just turn me on.”

“You’re gonna be the death of me, know that?” I groaned, burying my head between her head and neck.

“But what a way to go,” she quipped.

I laughed and pulled back to look down into her sparkling green eyes. Despite her sassy words and tone, a blush was burning her cheeks. “Adorable.”

She frowned. “Adorable is not exactly the description a woman wants to hear when she’s naked in bed with a huge, sexy biker.”

I kissed the tip of her nose. “It was a compliment, baby. Somehow, you manage to be adorable and sexy as fuck all at the same time.”

“There you go again,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Talking like my very own book boyfriend.”

“Baby, don’t you think that after writing book boyfriends for so many readers out there, you deserve a real one of your own?”

“Good grief,” she muttered with a sniff. “You know how to make a girl swoon. Next thing we know, I’m going to be pregnant.”

“That’s the goal,” I murmured.

Thea laughed, clearly not realizing I was being totally serious. “You Neanderthals are all the same. Hunt, steal, breed.”

“Sounds like an excellent plan.”

She tilted her head to the side and studied me as if to discern whether I was being hyperbolic.

“Come on, baby. We’ve both got shit to do. Let's shower and go get some food.”

It took some coaxing to drag her out of bed, but I made it up to her by fulfilling my promise and fucking her up against the wall in the shower.

We found several of my brothers in the kitchen, chowing down on a breakfast casserole that smelled amazing. Courtney and Stella did a lot of the cooking these days, though most of us took the job here and there, so they had plenty of breaks. But many times, one of them would make breakfast or dinner and leave it for us to toss in the oven or even just eat cold. This casserole was one of our favorites.

“Gonna love this,” I told Thea with a grin. “Courtney makes several at a time and freezes them for us to eat whenever we aren’t in the mood to cook and neither of them are around.”

As predicted, Thea loved the casserole, but as we walked out of the kitchen, I leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Still not as good as eating you for breakfast.”

Thea flushed bright red, making me smirk wickedly, for which I earned a promise of retribution. “Bring it on, baby,” I told her with a wink.

When we stopped at my office door, I unlocked it with a fingerprint and retinal scanner before ushering her inside.

“Wow,” she breathed as she looked around the room. There was an entire wall of monitors, as well as several computers set up on the half-circle desk in the center of the room.

There was also a micro-kitchen installed on the wall next to the couch. King had it put in when I worked three days straight and forgot to eat. More than once.

A bunch of gadgets were also scattered around the room, ones I didn’t explain the function of because they were top secret or illegal.

Once the little tour was done, I pointed at a desk, then the couch. “You can set up shop in either place. Wherever you’re most comfortable.”

Thea smiled and wandered over to the couch, flopping down on it, then wiggling around to get comfy.

Laughing, I handed her the laptop bag I’d been carrying for her, which had been tucked in her suitcase when I lugged her out of her house.

I pointed at a red button on the wall next to the door. “You need anything, press that.”

“I thought you were never supposed to push the big red button,” Thea said cheekily.

“It sends a signal to my headphones, playing a tone that lets me know someone is here or needs something.” Rolling my eyes, I turned and walked around to sit at my desk. “And Blaze thought it was fucking hilarious to make it a big red fucking button.”

“Okay,” she replied, clearly repressing her laughter. “I’ll try not to bother you.”

“You’re never a bother, baby,” I stated. “I take care of what’s mine. You need something, you come to me.”

Thea huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, pouting. “That bossy, growly, possessive act should not be so hot,” she snapped.

A grin spread across my face, and I winked at her as I put on my headphones. “But it is, so why keep fighting it?”

She glared at me, making me chuckle as I got down to business.

I compiled all of the information I had for Thea’s stalker—which, admittedly, wasn’t much. But I’d had less to go on before.

I set up several searches that would comb through every corner of the web that I could access. If they caught a whiff of something, it would alert me. Then I would dig deeper—usually that meant hacking a database or server.

After several hours, I hadn’t made much progress, although something about the flower delivery shops niggled at my brain.

I decided to analyze them more closely—their locations, clientele, employees, even their inventory. The first few times Thea received flowers, they’d all been different. Then somehow, the stalker discovered her favorite flower because from then on, it was always Gerber daisies. Since they weren’t sold at every shop, I ruled out those two. However, when I plotted them all out on a map, it felt like something was missing. So I added the discarded nurseries to the map, then stood back to look at it from a larger perspective.

As I scanned the map, a pattern popped out. The funny thing about random patterns is that they’re never actually random. By attempting to make something appear random, you still end up with a pattern.

All of the stores were in different towns, but they weren’t evenly spaced as most “random” patterns tended to be. There were clusters and sections where it looked like there should be a shop but wasn’t. Some of that had to do with whether they sold the right plant.

The similarity that stuck out to me was the distance of all of them to one location. And when I took into account the dates the flowers were sent from each shop, it was clear that the stalker had started closer to this location and worked their way out to the shops an hour away but never went any farther.

The similarity point was a five-to-seven-mile grid about two towns over in the next county. I set up some bots to analyze specific data points about the area, then marked it out on a paper map.

Shortly after lunch, Ash sent me a text to head to Blaze’s office.

“Need to get to a meeting, baby.” I gathered up some of the information I’d collected, as well as one of my laptops. “You wanna stay here or go up to the room?”

Thea yawned and stretched her arms out. “I think I might go take a nap.” She gave me an impish smile. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” She shifted on the couch and winced. “And I’m a little sore.”

I grinned, completely unrepentant. “I’ll kiss it all better later,” I promised as I fished a keychain out of my pocket. “This opens the door to our room. Make sure you get everything you need out of here. I’ll get your biometrics in the system tomorrow so you won’t have to wait for me to let you in.”

Thea had been packing up her bag, but she stopped to stare up at me. “You’re going to put my finger and retina in your system so I can open the door without you here?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed, puzzled at her reaction.

“How many other people can access this room without you?”

“King and Blaze.”

“And now me.”

“What’s tripping you up about that, baby?”

“Well…it’s just…in reality, we barely know each other.”

My heated gaze scanned her from head to toe. “Beg to differ, baby.”

Thea blushed hard and giggled. “The biblical sense doesn’t count when it comes to trusting someone with access to everything you own. Particularly a fortune in equipment that I’m sure includes stuff I could be hauled away by the FBI, or whoever, just for knowing about.”

“I can’t give you access to the skiff room,” I told her with a shrug.

“The what?”

“Skiff or S-C-I-F—a secure room or data center that protects sensitive security information from surveillance and leaks. Prez had it installed when he took over, and we started hiring out our…unique skills. It also doubles as a safe for other things we need to protect.”

“Unique skills?” Her baffled expression reminded me that we hadn’t discussed the workings of the club, particularly our main income source.

“Conversation for another day, baby. I need to get to my meeting.”

“But you still haven’t told me why you’re giving me access to this room without you.”

“Because you’re mine.”

Ash, Echo, and Ace were waiting with Blaze when I arrived, and I lifted my chin at them in greeting.

“King is on his way. From what he said and the sound of Stella laughing hysterically in the background, I gathered there was a diaper situation with Cadell.” Blaze winced. “As in, I think it ended up all over him.”

Echo guffawed loudly, and Blaze turned his gaze to the road captain and muttered, “Laugh it up, Echo. That’s gonna be you soon enough.”

That shut him up real fast since they’d just found out that Violet was pregnant a few days ago.

We talked about some other club business for a few minutes until King, Kevlar, and Cross strolled in.

Blaze’s office was set up much like King’s, but the conference table was a little smaller. We scattered around, sitting at the table, the couch, or other chairs in the room.

King looked at me, but I shook my head. “Might be onto something, but I want to know what Ash found first.”

Ash sat across from me at the table, and he slid back the manila envelope he’d taken the day before. “Nothing,” he stated grimly.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. No prints left us with very little to go on.

King stood from the couch and moved over to sit next to me, then held out his hand for the envelope, which I passed along. He opened it and removed one of the letters, scanning it closely.

“I’ll take a look at the ink,” he offered. “There’s a very slim chance that it could lead us to the printer that uses it. If I can figure out how old it is, and you can give us some kind of geographical lead, maybe we can match the printer to the buyer.”

King had many talents, but his expertise was in forgery. He was also a former CIA agent. If anyone could pick up information out of ink and paper, it would be him.

I pulled out the map I’d drawn and spread it out on the table. “As a matter of fact, I think I can narrow down our search parameters to a town where the stalker either lives or works.”

I explained my method for the findings, and we agreed that it made logical sense. It was at least a place to start.

“I’ll get you a list of stores in that area who sell printers,” I told King.

“This one is fast and on the higher end, but I still think it’s a household printer and not larger office equipment.”

I nodded and typed a few thoughts onto my computer notepad.

“You read all of the letters?” Blaze asked thoughtfully.

I shook my head. “Just got ’em from Thea yesterday and gave them straight to Ash.”

“Why don’t we go over them together and see if anything pops out at one of us?” he suggested.

It couldn’t hurt, so I withdrew the stack of letters and began reading them aloud. Halfway through the first one, I recognized a specific sentence. I tapped on it and mused, “That’s a line from Monster Unmasked. ”

Instead of reading the rest aloud, I did it silently so I could get through them speedily. In each one, I stopped and pointed out at least one line, sometimes more.

“This is from Snowbound .

“This one is from Sweetest Revenge .

“This one from The Monster Behind the Mask .

“ Under the Blanket of Stars .

“ The Spy’s Return .

“ The Darkest Hour .”

On and on, line after line.

“Most of these lines are lifted directly from Thea’s books. But they aren’t ones you’d see in teasers, reviews, or any kind of marketing. This guy really knows these books.”

“We sure the stalker isn’t Wizard?” Echo said suddenly.

“The fuck?” I grunted, my head snapping up.

He shrugged, his face deadpan, but his eyes full of laughter. “You recognized all those lines, too. Either you know the books as well as the stalker, or it’s you.”

“Shut the fuck up, dickhead,” I growled.

“Wasn’t a denial,” he crowed.

“I am not Thea’s fucking stalker!”

“Maybe not,” Ace conceded, “but you’ve clearly read her books.”

“Research,” I grunted. Then feeling guilty for being embarrassed, I added, “She’s a fucking amazing writer. Don’t care what genre it is. Until one of you reads a book Thea wrote, we’re done talking about this.”

Predictably, no one had a retort for that challenge.

“Keep working your angles,” King said, changing the subject. “Anyone finds something, keep us all in the loop.”

After a few more minutes of strategizing, everyone except Blaze, King, and me filed out.

“Something else on your mind, Wizard?” Blaze queried.

“Need a vest,” I grunted. “With a property patch.”

“Saw that coming,” King drawled. “Lucky for you, the shipment of extra vests came in a couple of days ago.”

“Also made a deal with a store in town that will get the names embroidered on there in twenty-four hours,” Blaze added.

“Thanks.” I nodded as I stood, then lifted my chin at them in parting before I left to go find my woman.