Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Bane
“Tell me again why you brought her here?” Tacoma digs a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it with the silver Zippo Foxy got him for Christmas.
Well shit. That’s not what I was expecting him to ask. I hadn’t planned on him finding out about Frankie at all.
Buying myself a minute, I pull out the pack of Regs from my cut, take one out, and light it. Fuck it. Might as well tell him the truth; he’s seen her now. “I was gonna take her to the bunker, but when Stella called Journey, I had to improvise.”
“Yo!” I glance down the hallway at Gator. He quirks a brow and lifts his hands. “What’s going on?”
“Shit hit the fan,” I call back.
He nods his head and disappears into the chapel.
“What are you gonna do with the girl? You can’t keep her here.”
I take a long, slow drag, letting the nicotine hit my system.
I honestly have no fucking clue what I’m going to do with the little troublemaker.
Part of me wants to punish her for stealing my money.
The other part wants to drag her ass to my bed and make her work off every penny another way.
I’m not about to tell my brother that, though.
“I’m not sure what I’m doing with her yet. All I know is that she’s ain’t leaving until she gets my money back.”
“Jesus Christ,” he rumbles, shaking his head and stalking towards the chapel.
Chuckling, Journey claps me on the shoulder as he follows after my brother. “That went better than I expected.”
No fucking doubt. I half-expected him to lose his shit and demand I take the girl back where I found her. I wouldn’t have, of course.
Butting my cigarette out on the bottom of my boot, I put it back in the pack and head for church.
Inside, the room is almost full. “Phone,” Bash grunts, holding the wicker basket for me to drop my cell into.
“Yep,” I mutter back, dropping it in. No devices in church. That’s the rule.
I take my seat at the table, right next to Tacoma’s chair at the head.
Journey settles across from me, and one by one, everyone files in.
Cyber, Banks, Story, Tracer, Bishop, Lobo, Red, and Gamble.
Tacoma even signals for the prospects, Nobel and Bax, to come inside.
Their brows go up but they do as instructed, leaning against the back wall to listen in.
Once all the patched members are seated, Tacoma brings the gavel down, silencing the room.
“I know it’s late, but our problem with the Sinner’s has moved closer to home.” Tacoma nods at Journey. “The floor is yours.”
Journey leans forward, his elbows on the table. “My sister and her friend were coming out of the movies tonight when one of them fuckers tried to grab Stella.”
A chorus of what the fucks goes around the room.
“She okay?” Banks asks.
Journey blows out a relieved breath and nods. “Yeah. Her friend pepper-sprayed the asshole, and they got away.”
“Where’s Stella now?” Gator asks, a concerned look on his face.
“City and Moby are at my apartment with her. She’s safe.”
All eyes turn to Cyber for answers. He’s been working day and night, trying to get a lock on who is trafficking women in our town and who they’re working with.
His hair is sticking up in every direction, and there are dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.
The kid looks like he hasn’t slept in days, which might not be too far from the truth.
He scrubs a hand over his face and sighs.
“I…” Another sigh. “I can’t do it alone.
I’ve reached out to Dex in Miami and Zero in Jacksonville, and they’re doing what they can from their end, but this…
this network these fuckers have created is too goddamn big.
Whoever these assholes are working with is connected.
I’m talking about never-before-seen technology here.
Shit that’s so high-tech I can’t track them.
Every time I get close, they bounce through proxy servers in countries that don’t cooperate with US law enforcement.
They’re using encrypted communication channels that change every hour.
And the IP addresses?” He pinches the bridge of his nose.
“They’re spoofed through a botnet that’s constantly shifting. It’s like trying to catch smoke.”
The room goes silent. None of us has a fucking clue what he’s talking about, but Cyber is one of the top hackers in the country. There’s never been anything he can’t do. If he’s struggling, we’re in really deep shit.
My mind flashes to Frankie. She stayed a step ahead of Cyber for weeks. Maybe…
I clear my throat. “What if I can get you some help? Could we at least figure out who the fuckers here in Odin are? Get rid of the threat closest to home first?”
Cyber’s brows draw together. “I mean, maybe if it’s someone who can keep up.”
Tacoma groans, Journey starts laughing, and the rest of the room looks confused.
Cyber’s brows snap together as he looks between us. “What am I missing here?”
“The asshole who’s been stealing Bane’s money?” Journey grins. “Is a girl. And our boy here,” he nods to me, “broke into her place tonight. She’s here.”
“Unwillingly,” my brother adds.
Pop’s eyebrows shoot up. “Aww, fuck. Please tell me you didn’t do anything to this girl. Your Ma’s gonna go apeshit.”
I purse my lips. I guess that depends on what he means by “do anything”.
He shakes his head. “What’d you do?”
“Tied her up and dragged her here, kicking and screaming,” Journey answers unhelpfully.
I flip him off. “She wasn’t screaming.” She had a gag in her mouth.
Journey chuckles. “The girl’s got balls, I’ll tell ya that. She tried to take his head off with a baseball bat.”
I rub at my cheek, a grin pulling at my lips. She sure as fuck did.
“She hot?” Bash asks with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Journey shrugs. “She’s young. Nineteen or twenty, maybe? But yeah, I guess if you’re into the nerdy type, she’s alright.”
My jaw clenches, and I shoot Bash a look. “Stay the fuck away from her.”
All eyes come to me, and suddenly the room erupts into laughter.
My brows snap together. “What the fuck’s so funny?”
Pop opens his mouth to speak, but Tacoma holds up his hand. “No, wait. Let’s see if he can figure it out.”
I play back the conversation in my head, and like a bolt of lightning, it hits me.
I’m into the nerdy type. Frankie Hayes, with her oversized hoodie, hipster glasses, and messy bun, does it for me. I just stood there when she swung that Louisville Slugger at my head.
“Well fuck.”
The room explodes with laughter again.
Tacoma’s eyes go to Noble. “Go get the girl.”
The prospect leaves the room, and a few minutes later, there’s a knock at the door.
Bax rolls off the wall and opens it.
Foxy shoves Frankie into the room, and my little troublemaker stumbles forward, barely catching herself.
“Watch it!” she snaps, shooting Foxy a glare.
Foxy glances at me, rolling her eyes. “She tried to make a run for it in the hallway.”
Frankie grumbles something under her breath that I can’t quite make out, but it’s clear she’s not a fan of Tacoma’s ol’ lady.
Unable to stop myself, I grin. My girl’s got a bad attitude that makes my dick hard.
My girl?
No. Nope, Hell fucking no. Not my girl. She might be hot, but she ain’t shit to me. She’s my prisoner—the thief who stole my money.
Shrugging her shoulders, Foxy shoots Frankie an apologetic smile as she saunters over to my brother and drops down into his lap. “Sorry, honey. It ain’t personal, but this is my family.”
My brother pats her thigh, a soft look on his face. The sentiment and her fierce devotion to the Kings mean everything to him.
“Get your bitch under control,” he growls when Frankie opens her mouth to no doubt talk more shit.
My chair screeches against the concrete floor as I shove away from the table.
Frankie’s big doe eyes jump to mine at the sound, and her body tenses.
Good. She should be nervous.
“A fight with Foxy is a fight you won’t win, troublemaker,” I say low, grabbing her arm and marching her over to my chair. Dropping down into my seat, I yank her into my lap.
Instantly she puts up a fight, struggling, trying to push me away, but I tighten my arm around her waist and hold her against my chest.
“Let me go, asshole.” Her little ass wiggles on my dick, and I grit my teeth.
“Sit. Still.” I flex my hips so she can feel the bulge.
Her body goes completely still. In slow motion, she turns her head and glares.
“Told you, Troublemaker,” I smirk. “Keep fighting me. It makes my dick hard.”
“Jesus.” With an arm around Foxy’s waist, Tacoma leans back in his chair and glares at Frankie.
My girl starts to squirm, refusing to meet his stare. She looks everywhere but at him—at the table, the floor, the Kings emblem on the wall behind the prospects.
“Look at me,” he finally demands.
Slowly, reluctantly, she shifts her eyes to his.
“You know who I am?” He lifts a brow.
Frankie swallows hard. “Tacoma. President of the Kings of Anarchy.”
My brother grunts. “You fucked up stealing from us. Nobody fucks with the Kings,” he says in a deadly calm voice. “You know that, right?”
Surprising the fuck out of me, my girl squares her shoulders and leans in when she hisses, “No, asshole. You fucked up when you killed my dad.”
I tighten my arm around her waist, keeping her pinned against me when she tries to stand. “Easy, killer.”
Tacoma arches a brow, his eyes flicking to me. “What the fuck is she talking about?”
I rub at the back of my neck. Who her daddy is, is something I hadn’t been expecting. “She’s Camden’s kid.”
Foxy shrinks against my brother. No doubt this news is difficult for her to hear, especially since she came to Odin a few weeks ago solely to cover up Tom Camden’s murder. The Mayor. Frankie’s father.
Tacoma tightens his hold on his woman, but his expression doesn’t change. “We had nothing to do with your father’s disappearance.”
“Death,” Frankie corrects, her voice breaking. “Not disappearance. Death.”
“Last I heard,” Tacoma says carefully, “Tom ran off with his secretary.”
I have to give my brother credit. The lie sounds convincing. It’s a good thing we paid Tom’s secretary cash to get the hell out of town and keep her mouth shut.
Frankie’s body trembles in my lap. “That’s bullshit. He wouldn’t leave without telling me.”
“You sure about that kid?” Bash asks from across the table.
The tension in her shoulders shifts, and I can feel her uncertainty. She has her doubts.
“No,” she whispers, her voice sounding so broken my chest aches. “I’m not sure. We weren’t close, but I thought…” Her voice trails off.
And there it is.
The truth that changes everything.
This girl didn’t steal from me because she’s a criminal. She didn’t do it for the money or some insane thrill. She did it because she was trying to prove something. Because she thought the Kings offed her pops.
Fuck.
Leaning to the side, I lift my pant leg and pull out my boot knife. Frankie sees it and flinches, but I slice through the restraints on her wrists before she misreads my intentions.
The hard plastic falls away, and she rubs at the red marks left behind.
“Thanks,” she mumbles, turning slightly so I can see her face. When our eyes meet, something passes between us.
Understanding, maybe? Recognition? I’m not sure what it is, but it’s here.
Tacoma clears his throat. “I have a proposition for you.”
Frankie shifts again on my lap, her head cocking to the side. “What kind of proposition?” she asks carefully.
“I’ll get you the answers about your father.”
“What’s the catch?”
Tacoma looks to Cyber.
The kid sits up straighter and looks at Frankie.
“I need help tracking a human trafficking network operating in our territory. These… These monsters are working with someone with serious resources and tech capabilities. Every time I get close to pinpointing their location, they reroute through a new series of proxy servers. They’re using a sophisticated botnet architecture that redistributes their network signature across thousands of compromised devices worldwide. ”
“You’re dealing with a distributed network topology,” she says, leaning forward in my lap. “That’s why you can’t pin them down. They’re probably using a hybrid mesh network combined with darknet protocols.”
Cyber blinks. “LSB with a custom algorithm that varies the bit depth.”
“Shit.” Frankie runs a hand through her hair, dislodging her messy bun even more. “That’s actually impressive.”
The two of them start talking in a language I barely understand—something about packet sniffing and man-in-the-middle attacks and exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities.
I glance at Tacoma, who looks just as lost as I feel.
Journey catches my eye and grins. Yeah, we’re definitely out of our depth here.
Finally, Frankie sits back against my chest and looks at Cyber. “It’s going to take time, and I’ll need access to your setup. Full access, not just user privileges. I need to see everything you’ve got—your logs, your tools, your previous attempts. Everything.”
Cyber looks at Tacoma, who nods.
“You help us find these fuckers,” Tacoma says to Frankie, “and I’ll tell you everything I know about your father.”
Frankie’s jaw clenches. She’s quiet for a long moment, her eyes moving around the table, taking in each of us and weighing her options, trying to figure out if she can trust us.
Finally, she looks back at Tacoma. “You get me the information about my dad, and I’ll help you find the bad guys. Once the job’s done, I walk away. No strings. No obligations, and nobody touches me.” I feel her body tense in my lap for a split second before she continues. “Nobody.”
Tacoma’s lips twitch. “Deal. But if you try to fuck us over, there won’t be anywhere you can hide. Understood?. And you stay at the compound until this is finished. You work with Cyber. You do what we tell you. ”
Frankie swallows hard but nods. “Understood.”
“Good.” Tacoma bangs the gavel. “We’re done here. Cyber, get her set up. Bane, she’s your responsibility. Anything happens to her, it’s on you.”
The brothers start filing out, and I watch Frankie carefully. She’s trying to look tough, but I can see the fear lurking beneath the surface.
She’s in way over her head, and she knows it.
But so am I.
Because somewhere between kidnapping her and her breaking down about her old man, something changed.
And that’s a problem.
A big fucking problem.