Chapter 13 #2
Jeff was silent for a long time. He opened his mouth many times, but ended up closing it each time.
She waited. When Lee had said he’d been keeping an eye on her and her employees, there was only one person who’d come to mind who would tell him anything.
The only employee who’d known Lee since he’d been a small boy.
Jeff’s betrayal hurt. Lee was her brother.
Why hadn’t he come to her and told her that Lee was asking around about her?
Why hadn’t he come to her just to say that he’d seen him?
Jeff knew that the Wynns and Trixie hadn’t seen Lee since Marco’s funeral.
Jeff knew how much that hurt. Why hadn’t Jeff told them, her, that he knew Lee was still around, a cop?
“Lee came to my apartment about eighteen months ago.” Jeff’s voice was low, guilt-ridden. Trixie forced herself to look at her mentor when her gut told her to look away. “He told me he was going after Massey and that under no circumstances could you know.”
“He’s mi hermano!” Trixie snapped. “I had a right to know!”
“And Marco had a right to justice,” was Jeff’s reply. “If anyone was going to get that for him, it was Lee. He’s smart, capable. He’s a goddamn Marine. I knew he knew what he was doing.”
Trixie snorted. “Well, obviously not well enough, since he ended up shot.”
“Is he okay? Is he in the hospital?”
Trixie shook her head. “Pigheaded man did surgery on himself, slept it off like some twisted hangover, and then walked right out of my house. I sent Cayden away when Lee showed up and haven’t seen him since.”
“Ah.”
“What?” her eyes narrowed.
“I wondered what your fight was about. The only thing I could think of that could get between you two was family and, frankly, honey, you don’t have much of that left.”
Trixie flinched at his cruel words. “Thank you for the reminder.”
He reached forward. “I don’t say it to be mean. I say it because you’d do anything for your family, just as Lee would.”
“Bringing down the man who killed Marco isn’t going to bring him back,” Trixie snapped. “Revenge isn’t the answer.”
“Isn’t justice?”
“Marco’s still dead.”
“And the man who killed him just gets to walk free?” Jeff asked.
Trixie turned away from the man. She couldn’t face him, knowing that he believed in what Lee was doing. Because, by the laws of transference, it also meant he believed in what Cayden was doing, even if he didn’t know it.
“You should have told me about Lee.”
“He told me not to, for your protection. You know I love you like my own flesh and blood, Trixie. I’d never do anything to endanger you.
” Trixie felt a tear slide down her cheek at the confession and quickly wiped it off.
“Lee gave me a number to call when we hired someone new or when something strange happened around here. That’s all.
I didn’t tell him anything too personal. ”
“Really?” She faced the man. “You didn’t tell him about Cayden?”
“I told him he was working here. I didn’t tell him you were dating him.”
Her eyes narrowed and she debated on believing him. Lee knew they’d been seeing each other outside work, but he also could have been watching Trixie beyond what Jeff told him. “Why tell him anything at all?”
“Because he asked to know, and I thought he deserved some peace with all he was sacrificing.”
“Peace?” Trixie raised an eyebrow, skeptical. “You weren’t exactly giving him good news.”
Jeff shrugged. “It was what he asked for, so I hoped it would give him some peace.”
Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “You still should have told me. You had no right to give away our employees’ information, whether or not Lee is family.”
Jeff looked down, shamed. “I know. I just… The boy looked so lost. You didn’t see him back then, Trixie.
He was… He was a shell. It’s a poor excuse and you have every right to fire me for doing so, but I just wanted to offer him something, anything, to help him.
If keeping him apprised of you helped, then that’s what I did. ”
Trixie should fire him. While he hadn’t sold the information, he’d still given out sensitive employee information without their consent. Problem was, she’d just lost Cayden. She didn’t think she could handle losing Jeff too.
“This doesn’t leave this room,” she said finally. “And you never give him any information again.”
Jeff nodded. “Understood.” He hesitated before asking, “Will you tell me now what happened with Cayden?”
She shook her head. “What’s to tell? Lee showed up on my doorstep, shot.
I kicked Cayden out, so he wasn’t mixed up in whatever it was Lee was into.
I didn’t know he was a cop at the time. Cayden argued, we fought, Cayden left.
I haven’t seen him since. Apparently, though, he decided to take liberties with his security codes and relieve us of our Spyder. ”
Jeff bit his lip before saying, “He didn’t use his security codes.”
“What do you mean?” She hadn’t had a chance to take him out of the system yet. Why wouldn’t he use his codes?
“L and S just got through with their assessment. Cayden bypassed their system entirely. He never touched his employee access.”
Well…shit.
Cayden had been sixteen when he’d first met Carver, then the Vice President of the Black Pythons.
He’d just boosted a sweet sleeper and had driven it to a shop across the city.
Carver had been impressed that Cayden had found the tracker as well as avoided the cops to make it to that specific shop.
When Carver had asked Cayden why that shop, Cayden’s answer had been simple, “They’ll give me a bigger cut. ”
Carver had handed Cayden his prospect cut that day.
For his nineteenth birthday, Carver had gifted Cayden with the schematics to a new “un-boostable” car that had yet to hit the market. It had earned the club nearly half a mil in their coffers, and ten percent of that went into Cayden’s account.
Cayden wouldn’t go as far as to call Carver a friend. They’d had a mutually beneficial relationship to serve the MC. Cayden did his job, and Carver provided the resources and protection for that job. In exchange, they both got paid well for that job.
It took Cayden a long time to realize that he wasn’t loyal to the Black Pythons.
They’d been his ‘people’ since Carver had found him, but they weren’t his family.
They would never be his family. Some MCs were ride or die, loyal to the core.
But not the Black Pythons. Even brother chapters didn’t care about each other enough to come to their aide.
It was cutthroat, and at the end of the day, the cut was worth less than the leather it was created from.
Carver was a tall, muscular, bald man. For a criminal, he tended to wear more white articles of clothing than black, and Cayden was likely one of the few people who knew why.
“Why would I want to hide the blood splatter?” Carver had once asked him.
The statement had been rhetorical, but it hadn’t made it any less true.
“Boost!” The man’s voice boomed around the room when Lee and Cayden entered the clubhouse. Carver was in the center of the room with his fist raised above his shoulder. His other hand held the shirt of a bloody, partially-conscious man who was slumped on the floor.
The club brothers guarding the door had let Cayden and Lee pass without argument or checking them for weapons. Carver must have warned them Cayden was coming, which meant news of Romero’s getting hit had reached him as Cayden had predicted.
Carver was shirtless, donned in only a pair of white training pants and his cut. His entire body gleamed with sweat and crimson pebbles.
Cayden stopped a few feet from his former Prez.
The man hadn’t changed in three years. From his style of clothing to the ruthless look in his eyes.
He continued to pound on the man’s face like unexpected visitors hadn’t just walked in on him pulverizing someone.
Cayden didn’t see a cut on the bloody man, but that didn’t mean much.
It could have been ripped from him before Carver started beating on him.
Lee halted right behind Cayden. Trixie’s brother hadn’t said a word since they’d been inside the Spyder.
Cayden imagined silence was the former soldier’s default mode.
Though he appeared relaxed, Cayden sensed the man was anything but.
He also didn’t move like he’d done self-surgery to remove a bullet from his shoulder only two nights ago.
Cayden had been around the proverbial tough guy all his life.
No one on the streets lived long with a reputation of being a wimp.
Only the strong survived. But there were the strong like Carver, who took it by force, and then there were the strong like Lee, who earned it through his own flesh, sweat, and blood.
Lee didn’t say anything he didn’t mean and didn’t threaten anything he couldn’t deliver.
Cayden had only known the man a little over a day and he felt confident enough in that assessment.
Every single one of the club brothers present were armed.
If they were smart, which Cayden could attest to that they weren’t, they would be more scared of Lee, who was unarmed, despite the guns they carried on their persons.
Guns did not equal strength. Most of the time, guns equaled stupidity because people believed they gave them strength.
Cayden had seen more than one brother harm themselves more than they did their opponent because they thought themselves a badass with a gun in their hands.
It was one of the reasons Cayden didn’t touch them.
There were too many fools in the world who felt guns made them powerful and Cayden had resigned himself a long time ago to never be a fool.
“Carver. I like the new digs.”