Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LOCH
Climbing two flights of stairs at the club, I tell my dick to calm down because my brain needs the blood.
And I need a plan.
I open the door to my mother’s lavish office and find her reigning behind her opulent walnut desk with ornate golden legs. It’s perched in front of the one-way glass, ruling over her dominion below, and my brothers are gathered around.
“There’s my baby.” Her warm smile greets me.
Maybe I’m partial. Maybe it weirds me out, too, but I have eyes. They can see how my mother is fucking gorgeous.
She paid an immoral price for her looks.
But survival can take notes. It’s only made her more beautiful.
She wears Chanel skirt suits; they don’t wear her. Age is her beauty accessory. Her dark hair is always perfect. Her blue eyes always see. Her nails always polished and sharp. You can’t get anything past her because she’s a hundred miles ahead of you in red heels.
“My little lion.” She beckons me over for three kisses to her cheek. It’s a Russian thing.
As I obey, Grant snickers, “Pft. Her little lion.”
I turn, jutting my chin at him. “I got your little lion right here, Blow Pop.”
Grant’s crammed beside Axel and Nash, like sardines in a can, on one of the two velvet sofas in Mom’s office because there’s nothing small about any of us, and Sire laughs. He’s reclining beside Nick on the other sofa.
All of us know how Grant treats his dick like a lollipop. How Delphine loves getting other women to suck it with her, while they finger her, and he sees how many licks it takes until he—
“Don’t start.” Mom arches a brow. “It burns my biscuits when I hear of my sons’ proclivities.”
Grant smirks at Sire. “Hear that, Breeder? Careful with your bi-clivities.”
Sire grins. “You’re just jealous cuz I’m Lord of the Love Chutes.”
Axel laughs. “Yeah, you’re so holy, you want both holes.”
“So, we’re anal gods.” Nick grins, proudly gay and defending Sire’s bisexuality. “Take notes and learn about the Super-O.”
“Hey.” Nash points. “We know how to double down too.”
Nash has shared women with Axel. Sire. Grant. Jace. Hell, DPs have been their kink, then Grant throws mine in the ring because assholes clearly love company. “Like the Oracle of the Orgasms over there is so innocent. We’ve all seen the little lion double dong a—”
“Enough.” Mom snaps her fingers. “I can still give y’all nine kinds of hell.” She points to me. “You called this meeting, and why? Is Alena okay?”
Nash whips his glare my way, sex jokes vanishing when his daughter is mentioned.
“Jace is watching her, and she’s fine,” I assure everyone, flopping down beside Sire. “In fact, she’s a badass. She broke every fucking protocol in a swift water rescue yesterday, and that’s why we’re here.”
Nash narrows his eyes. “But she told me today she just dealt with a flash flood in the park.”
“Your daughter’s a humble hero,” I boast. “When it floods up there, it’s apocalyptic. And Alena swam across a raging river of rapids to rescue a naked woman stuck on the rocks.”
“Naked?” Mom asks, her instincts dead-on. “You mean, she was being—”
“Trafficked, yes,” I answer. “They’re using RVs up there to move the victims, and she escaped. It was like she’d rather die before Alena rescued her. But it’s more like… Like…” I throw my stare to the ceiling. “Fuck, I can’t describe it, but Sasha wasn’t a typical victim.”
“Sasha?” Grant sounds like his wheels are starting to turn.
“That’s the name she gave the Feds,” I explain. “Nothing else. Alena said Sasha wasn’t from around here and didn’t trust anyone. She guesses it’s not the country cartel who had her, but—”
“How did Alena know all this?” Nash fumes.
“Because your daughter is just like you,” I counter. “She’s like all of us. She was ready to die to rescue a woman like Sasha, and—”
“You’re supposed to protect her!”
“I did!” I yell back at Nash. “I tethered my rope to her and watched her do her fucking job. Like a boss! She can handle herself, but this shit? These traffickers? I busted a ranger who’s a part of it. He was a threat to Alena. He was way too into her, and—”
“Goddammit!” Nash surges to his feet. “Do your fucking job and protect our princess!”
I surge too. I got two inches and twenty pounds on him. On all my brothers. I’m no one’s fucking baby. Not when it comes to Alena.
Fear’s making Nash an asshole. It brings out the worst in everyone. I get it. I know Alena’s at risk.
“I am!” I boom. “I’ll kill for her. I’ll smash bodies on rocks for her, but I can’t be everywhere. Not when you won’t tell her who we are. When you’re making me lie to her. Decide: what do you want? For me to keep her alive or to keep her in the dark? You can’t have both.”
“He’s right.” Mom’s calm. “Loch needs backup, and it can’t be any of you. And I don’t like lying to her either. But she didn’t ask for this life; she deserves to live free of it. And if she ever gets taken, I can’t bear the thought. The less she knows, the happier and safer she is.”
“So,” Axel reasons, “when it’s not one of us kings protecting Alena, then who? Because I don’t trust anyone else with one of ours.”
Sire offers, “I know some cousins who can watch her.”
Bingo, Brother. That’s who I was thinking of.
“Fuck no!” Nash barks. “Not those crazy killers.”
“Aw, come on. Bishop is sane.” Sire chuckles. “Sorta.”
“Bishop, maybe.” Axel shakes his head. “But Wilder is bat-shit and Remi’s a wild card.”
Nick huffs. “In our line of work, sanity is a liability. You need someone risky enough to guard our queens, but smart enough not to touch them.”
Sweat hits my pits, my guilty heart, hammering.
I’m the one fearless enough to guard Alena. The one willing to die to touch her again. I’ll take the pain. I just want a chance to love her before Nash kills me.
“Look, it’s like I told Axel today…” I crouch, sitting back down. “Alena and I are friends. We’re work buddies now. It’s the only way I can guard her without raising her suspicion.”
Or Nash’s. Or Axel’s. Or Mom’s. And fuck, what about Alena coming to the club tonight?
Pull one wrong string and all our secrets unravel.
I push my plan, telling Nash, “Talk to Wilder. Remi and Bishop too. Put the fear of God in them and a hundred k in their account to back me up.”
Axel nods. “Let’s invite them here tonight.”
Uh, let’s not. Fuck, my plan is going sideways.
“Nah, man.” Sire, beside me, must sense it. He knows how I feel about Alena. “Let’s go to their brewery. I’m craving a field trip to the country.”
I exhale, and Sire hears it, tapping his knee against mine.
“Besides,” he adds, “we might need their backup on the Florida buy too. I’m trying to get us a meeting.”
“Fuck,” Grant rants. “Florida? Tennessee? I hear rumors around the club that there’s a trafficking ring out of Hilton Head too? And now, New Mexico?”
Mom looks at him. “New Mexico?”
“Yeah,” I jump in. “The RV I busted in the park had Tennessee plates, but a New Mexico LLC owned it.”
Her inhale is deep before she seethes, “There are only a few men I know who’d run an operation that vast and evil.”
Our father.
And his enemies.
This has Bratva, Mafia, Cartel, Triads, or syndicates written all over it.
But why is this one feeling so close? Why do I feel Fate’s strings pulling us in, and like Sasha is at the center of it all?
We can’t protect her. The Feds have her. In fact, it feels sketchy how they whisked her away like she was a government asset.
“Alright.” I slap my knees. “Go to the brewery and get my backup; I don’t care if they’re killer cousins. I’ll cover Alena tonight, and—”
“How?” Nash looks skeptical.
“Uh…” I’m going to Pleasure Dom your daughter on the bondage tower. “We’re having dinner.”
Nash glares. “The fuck you are.”
“We’re friends. Remember?”
“I carry a Magnum, remember?”
Sire saves me again, joking, “Yeah, yeah, we all need Magnums, and we’re burning daylight. Let’s go.”
They head out, but I linger like I’m ten again, trying to convince my mom to let me skip school. I didn’t belong there. I belonged working on the peach farm where I grew up, where Mom hid us for so long until she secured our new lives, identities, and this place.
“Why don’t you take the night off, Mom? You deserve it.”
Her arched eyebrow makes me sweat. “No matter how slick you are, son, you can’t slide on barbed wire.”
“Ma’am?”
You don’t have to play dumb with my mom: you are.
She lifts her quilted couture bag. It hides her pistol and the keys to her muscle car.
Standing, she slings the gold chain over her shoulder, cutting me a look. “You know, family flies out the window when Love walks in the door.” She knows. “But I raised you to fight for both. You understand me?”
I swallow. “Yes, ma’am.”
Alena
Mom wants me to love her.
She sighs before pecking my cheek. “So, I’ll go home, sip vodka, and rewatch Game of Thrones…” She swishes toward the door. “Because my sons know how to fill their thrones too.”