Chapter Eleven
Keegan
T he week before Landry marries me is the best goddamn week of my life. My fiancée and daughter are at home with me, where they belong. Dillon is building a case against the Sons of Loki and her uncle. The MC has my place locked down tighter than Fort Knox.
Most importantly, Landry seems at peace in a way she never has before now. She doesn’t push me away or fight me. There’s a light in her eyes that’s brand new. It’s hope, and it’s fucking beautiful.
The day of the wedding, Samara and Elodie arrive early to take her and Lily to Elodie’s to get ready. We don’t have a big ceremony planned. We’re going to the courthouse and getting married in the judge’s chambers, where he’ll keep the license until the Sons of Loki are handled. But my sister and Samara want to make the day special for her anyway.
She deserves that. Hell, she deserves every goddamn thing under the sun.
As soon as they pull off with Tate and Coby in tow to watch over them, Giant jogs up the sidewalk toward me, his expression somber.
“You ready to go talk to Dillon and Jude?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I pull the door closed behind me. I’ve been putting off this conversation for the last few days, but I can’t put it off any longer. Before we get married, I want her to know that jail isn’t looming in her future. She deserves that peace of mind.
Giant is unusually quiet on the drive down to Dillon’s office…which worries the fuck out me. The man never shuts up. He’s been terrorizing this town since the day he planted roots.
“What’s up?” I finally growl, glancing over at him.
“Nothing. What’s up with you?”
“Cut the shit, Cormac. You’re being too fucking quiet. I know you know something.”
“Maybe I’m just a contemplative motherfucker.”
“Right. And pigs have wings.”
“Might.” He shrugs. “They can do all kinds of crazy shit with DNA now.”
I crack a smile despite myself. “Start talking, asshole.”
“Goddammit,” he mutters and then huffs a sigh. “Her uncle filed a missing person’s report in Dallas yesterday.”
“What the fuck? Why now?”
“Dillon thinks the MC may have spotted the DEA agent watching the club. If they know they’re planning to raid, then they’ve probably figured out where they got the intel from,” he says, his voice a worried rumble.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, my grip tight on the steering wheel. Thanks to Finn and Ryker, finding the club didn’t take nearly as long as it might have. The FBI and DEA have been getting their ducks in a row to raid at the first sign of an auction. They wanted the buyers inside first, though, so they’ve been waiting and watching. “Dallas actually took the report?”
“They took it,” Giant says. “But they aren’t doing anything with it. They called Dillon about it.”
“Fuck,” I growl, swerving into the parking lot for the Sheriff’s Office. I pull into the first available space and then kill the engine before climbing from the truck, my heart pounding a million miles a minute.
Giant easily keeps pace beside me as I jog toward the doors. Neither of us bothers to stop long enough to ask for directions. Dillon’s always hiding out in the broom closet he swears no one can find him in. Hate to tell him…but that shit isn’t working. The whole goddamn town knows not to even both looking in his actual office for him. We just go straight to the closet to find him when we need him.
I rap my knuckles against the door, and then push it open without waiting for an invitation. Dillon is seated at the tiny desk with Easton, one of his detectives, leaning over his shoulder. Neither of them even looks in our direction.
“You have to click right there,” Easton says, jabbing his finger at the screen.
“I did click right there,” Dillon rumbles. “It didn’t do shit.”
“You didn’t click the right spot.”
“The hell I didn’t.”
“Just point the fucking mouse and click, Dillon. Jesus Christ,” Easton growls. “Before I sign you up for computer literacy classes for Christmas.”
“Do you want to be the next crossing guard over at the school, motherfucker? Because I can make that happen,” Dillon threatens.
Easton just chuckles, flicking his gaze up to glance at us. “Come look at this before I decide to let him make me the next crossing guard.”
“What is it?” Giant asks, stomping the few steps across the closet. But it’s impossible for him to wedge his big ass body behind the desk with Easton and Dillon, so he just leans over the front, craning his neck to see the screen. “Is that their compound?”
“Yep.” Dillon fiddles with the mouse again. “Dallas sent us aerial footage from their drone.”
I stride toward the desk, nudging Giant out of the way. He moves aside without complaint, allowing me to look at the screen. My heart feels like it’s lodged in my chest when I see the photos arrayed across the screen. They’re crystal clear…and grim as fuck.
“Jesus,” I mutter, staring at the massive fence surrounding the compound. Razor-wire tops it, with a goddamn moat dug around it on the interior side as if to make it that much harder for anyone to get in or out undetected. The warehouses scattered around look new. But most of the cabins are in dire need of repair. Or bombing.
My gaze flicks across each image, trying to figure out where in that maze they kept Landry. She said it was hell, and she wasn’t lying. It looks like a fucking penal colony. And she survived in there for nearly a year on her own.
“They plan to raid the compound and the club at the same time,” Dillon says softly. “Sweep everyone up at the same time.”
“Will it work?” I ask, my gaze laser-focused on him.
“If they don’t know the feds are coming? Maybe.” He hesitates. “But if they know…”
“Her uncle reported her missing.”
Dillon turns a dark scowl on Giant.
“Don’t look at me like that. She’s his fiancée. He deserved to know,” Giant grunts. “And you were going to tell him anyway.”
“Yeah. After the wedding, not the day of, you dick,” Easton mutters to Giant, shaking his head. “She should be his main focus today, not this.”
“She will be his main focus. Telling him didn’t change that,” Giant argues, crossing his arms to lean up against an equipment shelf. “It just ensures he knows just how goddamn much she needs today to be perfect when tomorrow might not be. She needs perfect days to remind her what she’s fighting for, and he needs to know the truth so he can give her those days.”
Easton and Dillon look at him like they’re surprised by his logic, but I’m not. Giant may joke around and raise hell, but he knows what it’s like to have the woman he loves at risk. He’s been there, done that with his wife. And he’s a smart motherfucker.
“He’s right,” I growl at Dillon and Easton. “I needed to know. And I need to know what the fuck you’re doing about it.”
“Dallas is stringing the uncle along,” Dillon says, leaning back in his chair. “Pretending they’re looking into the case and don’t know a fucking thing about where she is. As far as her uncle will ever hear from them, they’re looking into it. Meanwhile, they’re not doing a damn thing, aside from giving him the runaround.”
“How many people know where she is right now?”
Dillon cocks his head to the side, frowning at me. “Why?”
“Because they’ve hunted her down a few too many times already,” I say. “And the more people who know she’s here, the bigger the chance that one of them leaks that info to her uncle or the MC.”
“We’re keeping it on a need-to-know basis.”
That should reassure me, but it doesn’t. Not really. I trust Dillon implicitly. He’d never put her at risk if he could help it. But the cops I don’t know? Dallas PD, the DEA, and FBI? That’s a different story. I don’t know them. Never met them. As far as I’m concerned, that makes anything they know about her a risk to her safety. They could talk, could accept a bribe…there are a thousand ways this ends with her location in the wrong hands, and I don’t like any of them.
But there’s not a lot I can do about it, either. Dillon had to bring in federal agents and Dallas PD to take the Sons of Loki and her uncle down. And he had to tell them what he knew. He couldn’t very well hide her involvement when she’s the one responsible for their downfall.
I hope they fucking choke to death on that knowledge.
“We’ve got her, Keegan,” Giant murmurs. “You know we won’t let anyone get close to her.”
I jerk my chin in a nod, inhaling a calming breath. It doesn’t really help, though. The longer this drags on, the more unsettled I grow. I want it over with. I want to be able to tell her that she’s free and they’ll never come for her again. The next time she sees those motherfuckers, I want it to be when she’s on the witness stand, telling a jury of their peers every vile, monstrous thing they’ve done.
“What do you have for me on the other?” I ask.
Dillon nods at Easton, who runs a hand through his hair.
“It took some explaining,” he says, “but I convinced the owner of the junkyard not to press charges when I towed the car back to him. The dick never even realized it was missing, but was all offended it had been stolen. He calmed down once I explained the situation and offered him the cash.”
“What about everything else?”
“The old lady’s daughter reported the license plate stolen a while ago. I talked to a detective in Albuquerque. He agreed to drop it once I let him know the situation, said he’d let the old lady know it had been recovered and keep the details to himself.”
I exhale a deep breath, relieved.
“As for everything else on the list of shit she stole…” Easton grimaces. “She’s free and clear on it. Most of the stores never even filed reports about the thefts. Jude dropped cash in the mail to repay them.”
“Anonymous?” I confirm.
Easton lifts his chin in a nod. “We figured it was better that way. They’ve been made whole, and we kept her name out of it.” He expels a short, chagrined laugh. “Gotta say, I’ve never met anyone who kept a goddamn list of everything they stole and from where.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not just anyone. Did anyone track down the old doctor who delivered Lily?”
“Yep,” Dillon says. “Finn found him. Gregory Valdova. He lives in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Had a private practice in Sante Fe before he retired ten years ago. He and his wife raise horses now.” He shuffles through papers on his desk before sliding one across to me. “This is his address and phone number. Jude tried to cut him a check, but he refused it, just wanted to know if she and the baby were all right.”
“I’ll take care of it.” I glance at the info scrawled on the paper before shoving it in my pocket. Landry will want to thank them as soon as it’s safe for her to do it. In the meantime, I’ll drop a check in the mail to them. I can’t make them cash it, but I owe them anyway. They took care of my girls when I couldn’t. That isn’t something I’ll ever forget.
“Any idea when they’re going to raid?” I ask Dillon.
He and Easton share another look, clearly hesitant.
“Just tell me,” I sigh.
“The plan was to wait until the auction was confirmed to ensure they were able to scoop up all the players and free the girls. But since her uncle filed that report, they may know the club is under surveillance.” Dillon mutters a soft curse. “They’re trying to decide if they need to go ahead and raid or if they can risk waiting it out.”
“Either way, it won’t be much longer,” Easton says. “A few more days at most.”
A few days. Christ. Just a few more days until my girls are safe. I can’t fucking wait to deliver the news to Landry…for her to know once and for all that they’ll never come for her again.