Chapter 28
Aiden
The office behind our chapel room is quiet at this time of day.
The morning sun coming through the window is the only light.
Smoke and dust fragments are my focus as Stone clicks away on his computer.
I pull my glasses off and lay them on the desk before rubbing my eyes with my thumb and forefinger.
Mia Crawford doesn’t exist.
Four words were all he had to say to have me blasting out the door, leaving Mia covered in bourbon, my cock aching and the taste of her pussy still on my tongue.
I set the alarm from my phone as I started my bike.
There’s no way for her to leave without setting it off, and there’s nothing in my home that’s personal to me.
She’s there now until Roz goes to pick her up for me this morning, and I’ve been here with Stone and Archer ever since. Trying to wrap my brain around this.
I inhale a long drag of my cigarette and look up at the ceiling.
“It’s like…she’s a ghost. I just haven’t been able to find anything concrete on her,” Stone says, lighting a cigarette of his own.
“We’ll try every variation of her last name and even look for names that Mia could be short for.”
I nod.
“Then we can comb through every nearby county police employee database, just as many ATF employee databases, and even get into the FBI. We’ll find her, but the process is slow.”
“I can’t do slow. She’s in my house.” I drop my fist to the table.
“Only one way to find out for sure, you know what I mean?” Archer pipes up from beside me with a shrug. “Unless you can get another name.”
“She’s a little lying ghost, so there’s no point in asking her,” I tell them.
Archer scrutinizes me as he leans back in his chair. “A lot of these women don’t give us their real name, and we don’t bat an eye. We rarely dig this deep, or have someone follow them. You think she’s a cop?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“We also don’t take them home with us, so why her?” Stone asks curiously.
“Aye,” Archer adds. He’s known me a long fucking time, and I don’t ever bother with women other than to fuck them.
“Dagger has his sights on her.” I look from Archer to Stone.
That’s all I have to say. They both know what Dagger is capable of.
“Not for a night. Not to play. The way he looks at her. I can tell that he wants her. She’s staying at my place so I can keep her safe, and if I find out she’s a cop, or a traitor, it’s the best place for her anyway. ”
“She lied and you don’t trust her, so who gives a fuck if Dagger takes her. Let him have her,” Stone offers up with a shrug.
My fight to pull this woman’s hooks out of me continues as I flick my lighter open and closed, my hand resting in my lap. “No.”
I don’t owe him an explanation, but this mistake of mine could put our club at risk, and it fucking infuriates me that I underestimated her. I should have waited until I knew every single thing there was to know about her. But then Dagger laid his claim to her.
“It makes sense for her to be a cop, but I don’t think that’s it,” I say.
Cops don’t usually choke on their perps’ cocks just to get intel. “She’s not asking the right questions. That’s not it.” Although truthfully, I don’t know what to think at this point. She could be an inexperienced rookie in over her—
“Holy fuck.” Stone sits forward and squints at his screen then blows out a deep breath. “Un-fucking-real.”
“What?” I ask, instantly on high alert. I stand and make my way around his desk, focusing on a police surveillance photo.
“This is from Lakeside PD. I didn’t notice it the first time through.”
It’s grainy, but as I register what it is, my fucking blood boils. It’s Mia and a fucking Hounds of Hell member on Main Street right here in town.
There are three patched Hounds in the photo.
The one named Flipp was my dad’s buddy, and another is Robby Jerome.
The one hugging her, I can’t place. His back is to the camera, but he’s a big motherfucker.
Seeing his arms around her almost makes me pound my fist right through the table, because whoever he is, they’re way too familiar.
I begin to question everything she’s told me as Stone starts talking.
“I think you might need to consider the very real possibility that she was sent here by Wolfe, which would explain why she doesn’t have an identity. Those fuckers are just like us. They know how to create or delete a person real fucking quick.” Stone rubs his forehead under his bandanna.
“But why? Things have been decent with them, yeah? Unless they’re planning something,” Archer pipes up. “I mean, I wouldn’t trust those fucking Hounds further than I could throw them.”
“You don’t recognize him?” I ask Stone. “The one touching her.” I grit my teeth, leaning back on the desk, itching to break something.
“No,” Stone answers, squinting as he analyzes. “There are no other shots of his face either. But I can try to find out more. I’ll reach out to Blaze.” He mentions one of our K-6 informants.
“Yeah, like who he is and why he’d send her here.” Archer stands and puts his hands on his hips. “Holy fucking Christ, another war with the Hounds. I thought we were fucking done with all of that shit,” he groans. “We have enough on our plate right now with all these shipments coming in short.”
“Whoever she is, we’ll know that…today,” I grit out.
“Fucking Christ. You’re too close to this, Brenin. I’ll take care of her for you. Or at least let me get some fuckin’ answers—”
“No.” I rack my brain, trying to make sense of this, but I’m coming up with nothing. “I’ll handle it,” I bite out through clenched teeth. I look at both of them. “This intel doesn’t leave this room. And no one fucking goes near her but me. No one tips her off, understood?”
“Course,” Stone answers.
“Aye,” Archer adds. “You know what you gotta do to get the truth.”
I move toward the door, a cigarette between my lips.
“I said I’ll fucking handle it.” Anger courses through me, the door smashing against the wall when I wrench it open.
This fucking woman has me in the kind of choke hold men lose a club over.
It’s a good thing I woke up to her scheming little ways now so I can start thinking with only the head on my shoulders.
Logically. The infuriating thing is that I can’t tell if I’m angrier about the fact that she might be a fucking spy, or that another man’s hands have been on her body.
If I don’t like what she has to say tonight, I’ll snap her pretty little neck.