Chapter 6
ONYX
Ihadn’t stopped thinking about her mouth.
It had been three days since I kissed her in the supply room, three fucking days since her body had melted against mine and her fingers had curled into my vest like she never wanted to let go.
I’d pulled away before I could strip her bare and fuck her right there against the wall, and I’d regretted it ever since.
But I’d still do it again.
I wanted her so badly it was getting hard to breathe when she was near me.
But I wasn’t going to take her in a fucking storage closet like some uncaring jerk.
Especially not when she’d looked at me with that wide-eyed hunger that hadn’t known what to do with itself.
She hadn’t touched me like a woman who’d been kissed a hundred times before.
Her breath had hitched like it was her first real one. As though it meant something.
All of it added up to her being a virgin.
She wasn’t a fling. Just a good time. She was mine.
I would be her first. Her last. Her only.
That realization had turned something primal loose in me. That no other man had touched what was mine made the obsession worse. My cock throbbed every time I so much as heard her voice.
I wanted to mark her. Possess her. Bury myself inside her until she forgot what it felt like to be without me.
I wanted her swollen with my come, ruined for anyone else, and begging me for more.
I sought to pull those soft little moans from her mouth, then make her scream in ecstasy until she had no voice left.
But I was also determined to make that first time special. And she needed to be ready because I had no doubt that once I got inside her tight, virgin pussy, I wouldn’t leave it until she craved every filthy fucking thing I wanted to do to her.
So I took things slow.
For the past three days, I’d done my best to play it cool, while still inching us forward.
I still walked her home every night. But I also stood a little too close, let my touches linger, and stared at her with so much heat I was sure she felt the burn.
There’d been a few times when I wasn’t able to resist, and I’d stolen a deep, steamy kiss.
Never at the end of the night, though. Walking away would have been asking too much of myself.
My mind was an absolute war zone, though. Since I mostly kept my hands off her, everyone except my club brothers seemed to think she was fair game.
I’d finally given her a client to ink, and when she was done with the fucking brilliant piece, he tried to get her number.
I shut that shit down with one fucking look.
One of my regulars commented on her smile, and I nearly broke his fucking nose.
And some guy who came in to schedule an appointment had the nerve to compliment her hair while undressing her with his eyes.
I stepped right between them and smiled a warning that said to keep fucking talking and see how many teeth he’d leave with.
Elena clearly noticed my over-the-top possessiveness, but she didn’t say much about it.
I often caught her watching me with those gray-blue eyes, and her breath would catch just a little when our gazes locked.
She looked at me like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to run or crawl into my lap.
And every time she flushed or shifted in her seat like she needed friction, it drove me right to the edge.
I pulled back just a little less each time. It wouldn’t be long before I broke, and I hoped like hell she was ready for me when I did.
That night, just as we were locking up, I got a text from our prez.
King
Need to meet. My office. Twenty minutes.
Elena had just slipped her sketchbook into her bag. I opened the door, and she stepped outside, then waited for me to lock the door before moving into her place beside me as we hit the sidewalk. She didn’t ask me anymore if I was walking her home.
She was moving a little slow, and I frowned. “You okay?”
Nodding, she replied, “Yeah. Just tired.”
I slowed my pace a little, instinctively matching her stride.
She glanced up at me with a smile, brushing her hair behind her ear.
I barely resisted the urge to fix it for her, but then the temptation to kiss her would be too strong.
There’d be no way I could leave her after that, and King would have my ass.
Instead, I focused on the walk, limiting myself to closing my hand around hers and lacing our fingers together.
A blush stained her cheeks, but she didn’t comment or pull away.
As usual, it was nearly impossible to stay outside as she shut her door, but I focused on the upcoming meeting to take my mind off what I’d be doing if I followed her inside.
If King was calling a meeting, Wizard must’ve found something else. I’d asked him to brief our prez after we discovered the first symbol, and as expected, King had simply requested that we keep him in the loop unless we stumbled onto something big enough to bring it to the table.
The low rumble of conversation filled King’s office when I walked inside.
Blaze was kicked back in one of the chairs in front of King’s desk, his boots in the other one, and his arms folded like he’d been there long enough to get bored.
Ace stood near the bar, not drinking yet but eyeing the row of expensive bottles of whiskey.
Kevlar leaned against the wall, looking like he was ready to put a bullet through someone out of sheer habit.
Wizard was at the conference table, typing on his laptop and glaring at the screen through his black-rimmed reading glasses. He tossed Ace a dirty look when he tried to look over his shoulder, but Ace just shrugged and kept reading. Wizard grunted and went back to typing.
I shut the door behind me, drawing almost everyone’s attention, including the Cane Corso lying beside King’s desk.
He was a sturdy, muscular guard dog trained to protect and instill the fear of hell in strangers, which made Cerberus a fitting name.
But he ignored outsiders he deemed not to be a threat.
Most people still shied away from him, put off by his fearsome presence and cold attitude.
However, like most of his breed, he was extremely affectionate with King and anyone he grew attached to, cuddling to express his approval and love.
He recognized the loyalty King shared with his brothers and was fond of most of us.
I suspected he only truly let his guard completely down with King, but he still demanded attention from us, especially if he’d pegged you as a sucker.
Knowing a softy was inside that formidable exterior made it funny as fuck when he scared the shit out of a prospect. After looking me over, he must have decided I wasn’t worth the effort today and flopped his head back down onto his paws.
Wizard didn’t even look up when he muttered, “What took you so damn long?”
“Had to make sure Elena got home okay,” I grunted as I made my way toward King’s desk.
Blaze tipped his head, his mouth curving slightly. “You babysitting now, or just playing shadow till she notices?”
“She’s noticed.” I shoved his feet off the chair across from him and sat down.
Ash poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass tumbler, then poured two more before he walked over to drop into the seat next to Ace.
“Figured she did.” He smirked. “You’ve been walking around tense as fuck.”
Kevlar grunted in agreement. “Which usually means somebody needs a fight. Or a fuck.”
Blaze snorted. “In his case, probably both.”
Wizard stopped typing and glanced up long enough to glare at them. “You boys finished? Do you wanna keep jerking each other off or do you wanna hear why the fuck we’re here?”
Tomcat, one of our enforcers—and a brilliant engineer and former Top Gun pilot—gave a low chuckle from where he sat on the couch, his ankle resting on one knee, and his scarred hand holding a glass of dark liquid on the other.
“Might as well let Onyx give us the reason you’re losing your shit since this all started with his woman, from what I’ve been hearing. ”
I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair, stretching my legs out and crossing my ankles. I remained the picture of ease even though I was tied up in knots inside.
King hadn’t said a word so far. He just sat behind his desk in his leather chair, wearing his usual scowl. Watching the room like he always did, eyes calm and calculating.
He nodded at me. “Bring us up to speed.”
I summarized what I’d seen in Elena’s drawings, my theories, and why I’d taken it to Wizard. Then I lifted a brow as I looked at the tech genius. “Since we’re here, I’m assuming you found something significant?”
Wizard flipped his laptop around so everyone could see the screen. “This is the first symbol Onyx brought me. Pulled it from a sketch Elena was working on. Almost identical to one I found associated with one of our files.”
He tapped the screen, bringing up another one of Elena’s drawings.
I’d been snapping pictures of the ones I suspected were identifiers whenever she left her sketchbook lying around.
I probably should have felt guilty for going behind her back, but this was about her safety, so I’d deal with her wrath later when she wasn’t in danger.
“Since then, I've been running any he’s been able to send me. Same fucking thing: base design, then layered code modifications. Symbolic identifiers, such as rank structure.” His brows drew down as he glanced up at me. “All of them are active.”
Fuck. This meant that with each new symbol Elena saw and reproduced, she was even more at risk.
“This morning, another one of them showed up in a file from last August,” Wizard continued.
“Job we did for an informant that took down a trafficking ring in Kentucky. While not in the direct files, the newest one has popped up in the periphery of that mess we’re still monitoring in Atlanta after the COO… disappeared.”
A heavy pause settled.
“You saying this girl’s working for a syndicate?” Blaze asked, frowning.
I shook my head and snapped, “Fuck no. She doesn’t know what she’s drawing.
Her mentor is feeding her the symbols as ‘pattern reconstruction exercises.’ Giving her partials to fill in.
She doesn’t have a clue they’re active identifiers.
Doesn’t think they mean anything at all.
But she’s got a mind that sees deeper than surface-level shit.
And she’s being trained to use it in a particular way, which makes her valuable if you’re creating a database of identifiers for rival syndicates. It also makes her a target.”
King rubbed his jaw, then broke his silence. “Finding some of her work associated with our work makes this club business.”
I hadn’t really expected King to tell me to fuck off and handle this shit on my own, but relief still hit me low and hard. My brothers would have my back. That meant more protection for Elena. More muscle if things went sideways. And more reach if I had to burn the world to the fucking ground.
While the majority of the club’s jobs were small, very detailed, and delicate work, there were times when we had to do more than just erase one person or family. Like the cases Wizard had found with links to these symbols.
Sometimes we had to go after the devil they were hiding from. Take down a larger group or even an entire organization, especially if they were involved in shit that slashed through our moral code.
Even with just the small amount of information Wizard had uncovered, I had a feeling that we’d only scratched the surface and were facing down a much larger monster.
“This mentor,” King murmured, drawing me from my thoughts. “What do you know about him?”
“Jareth Marks,” I answered, my tone filled with venom. “Big name in the art world. Runs a private studio and is on the board for several associations, as well as the admittance committee for Elena’s program.”
Wizard added, “Doesn’t seem like he does more than consult with other students, so the fact that he’s mentoring Onyx’s girl is a red flag all by itself.”
King’s eyes returned to me, and he was silent for a minute, his gaze probing.
He must have seen what he was looking for because he shifted his focus to Ace and announced, “Elena belongs to a Hound. Her protection comes first. I want you to tear apart Marks’s finances.
Personal and business. If he’s moving money for syndicates, taking bribes, paying for hookers, whatever.
If it’s illegal or even a little shady, I want to know how and where. ”
Ace cracked his knuckles. “On it.”
King gestured to Ash. “Run his name past your law enforcement contacts. I want to know if he’s on their radar. Is he being watched? Is someone protecting him? I want to know if he’s beneath their notice, or if he’s a bigger fish than he seems.”
Ash nodded once, then threw back the rest of his whiskey before shoving away from the table and walking the glass back to the bar.
“Use Rebel to help with the research,” King told Wizard, his expression hard.
“He can take on building a profile for Marks while you keep working on the symbols. Why those? We need to find the commonality between the ones Marks is giving Elena. See if there’s a sequence or if the symbols point to a bigger operation.
Look deeper. And find out why the fuck he’s made Elena a pawn in all of this. ”
Wizard grunted. “He’ll slow me down, but I’ll use him.”
“Bullshit,” I snorted. Rebel was one of our enforcers and a security expert. Not just the physical shit. He knew how to secure non-traceable numbers, emails, VPNs, and more. His tech skills surpassed most.
“You saying he’s as good as me?” Wizard snarked arrogantly.
“No,” I conceded. “But you’re a freak of nature. Rebel can hold his own, and you know it. Besides, you’ll fucking fry yourself doing it solo.”
Wizard glared, but he didn’t disagree.
“Go do your shit,” Blaze ordered as he canted his head toward the door.
Everyone stood to leave, but I stayed planted when King instructed, “Onyx, hang back.”
Once the door shut behind them, leaving only the three of us, King’s voice dropped. “There’s no safer place than the compound.”
“I know.”
“If this escalates, you bring her here. Can’t have you distracted when the shit hits the fan because you’re worried about her.”
I nodded. “Already my plan.”
“Good.” King stared at me again, his expression unreadable. Then the hard line of his mouth softened just enough to tilt up. “Sending out a vest to be embroidered.”
Something in my chest loosened. “Thanks.”
He’d seen what I had taken days to accept.
Elena was mine. It was time the whole fucking world would know it.