Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Joey
Iwatched Elaina walk away, her back stiff and her chin still tilted high like she was trying to appear stronger and more put together than she actually was.
I didn’t rip my gaze from her until she disappeared from my sight.
I knew that stance, that walk. That was a woman barely holding herself together but refusing to fall apart in front of others.
She didn’t want to be seen as weak, and I fucking hated that it softened me toward her some.
She put up a brave front in front of all of us, but when she was alone, I could place money on it that she was ripping apart at the seams. It took every bit of my restraint not to go after her and comfort her. To give her a safe space to cry and vent her trauma.
Gritting my teeth, I focused back on Alejandro, who was watching me with unreadable eyes as he lifted his coffee cup to his lips.
Grunting, I focused back on what I’d come over to talk to him about.
It wasn’t the best fucking plan I had, but it was better than the nothing-plan we were all currently working with.
“I called up the president of the Fathers of Mayhem early this morning,” I began.
“River has agreed to help me infiltrate the Outlaws MC. He’s ready to provide men and weapons to help take down the trafficking ring.
He’d like to have a sit down with you and Elaina to find out all the details, and quite frankly, I’d like to as well. ”
“She will not talk if she doesn’t want to,” Alejandro warned me. “She’s been through enough.”
I sighed. “Look, I get that. I do. But no one can help her if we don’t have something to start with.
And she’s the best thing we’ve got to gather some intel so I don’t go in blind.
I need to set up a meeting with Yeller Giddons, but I need to have something to bounce off of so he’ll be open to a meeting.
A man with his fingers dug into these kinds of pies isn’t going to just blindly trust outsiders. I’ll need to wheedle my way in.”
Alejandro leaned back in his chair, frowning at me. “I don’t like this plan. What if things go wrong?”
I rolled my eyes. Whiler snorted. “We’re pretty familiar with shit going sideways,” he told Alejandro. “That’s like our fucking specialty around here.”
He wasn’t wrong. When Adelaide had been here, shit used to always go wrong.
I’d lost count of the number of shootouts we’d had and how many times Adelaide had been kidnapped, raped, and beaten under my watch.
Adelaide had never been willing to do what I said so she’d be safe, but I had to admit I could’ve done better at protecting her, too.
It would’ve saved us both a shit ton of heartache.
She’d been hell bent on freedom, and I’d tried caging her. We’d never tried just communicating.
“So, you infiltrate, get inside, and then what?” Miguel asked. “You don’t deal in the skin trade, Joey.”
I shrugged one shoulder. “If he hands me a van full of girls, I’ll pass them over to you and Alejandro and hope by then I’ve got the major players. Because when his van full of girls goes missing, we’ll be at war.”
Alejandro shook his head, his frown deepening. “I’d like to avoid a war,” he said. “Our goal is to protect Elaina, not drag her into more danger. She’s in enough of that as it is.”
“A war is inevitable, Alejandro. Taking down a trafficking ring this big? Bodies will be dropped. Blood will be spilled. This shit won’t go down quietly. Have a sit down with River, let me get on Yeller’s good side and gain his trust, and we’ll go from there.”
“I don’t like ‘we’ll go from there’ plans,” he said, his teeth audibly grinding together.
I threw my hands up. “The fuck do you have in mind then, Garcia?” I asked, getting frustrated. “Elaina will be safe. My men are ready to lay down their lives to protect her, and you wouldn’t have brought her here if you didn’t trust that.”
He stared at me, his expression unreadable, but there was something lingering in his eyes that sent shivers racing down my spine, and not in a bad way. I had to force myself to keep from shifting in my chair. I wasn’t sure what to make of that little gleam in his eyes nor the way it made me feel.
Like I wanted to explore that stare. I wasn’t gay in the slightest. Had never been interested in men, but Alejandro Garcia was confusing the fuck out of me with that gaze… like he cared.
He pushed back from the table. “I need to think on it.”
I sighed and scrubbed a hand down my face. “No one is getting any fucking younger, Alejandro.”
Turning, he narrowed his eyes at me. “Your plan could wind up with you killed, and then, you’d be young forever, Joey. You fucking want that?”
The heat behind his words threw me off, and I blinked. Even Whiler and Miguel seemed shocked by the anger in his voice. A low growl sounded from Alejandro’s chest before he turned back around and strode off, his shoulders tense.
“What the fuck was that?” Whiler asked, his gaze flickering between me and Miguel.
“I don’t know,” Miguel confessed. “He’s not one for losing his cool like that.
” He narrowed his eyes at me and cocked his head to the side the slightest bit, like he was trying to figure me out.
Grunting, I pushed back from the table as well and headed for my room down the hall.
I wasn’t in the mood to be scrutinized, and quite frankly, I didn’t have the mental capacity to unravel whatever the hell that’d just been between me and Alejandro.
I needed a fucking nap and some damn solitude before I dealt with anything or anyone else.