Page 85 of Marked

“That’s Adrian Larsh,” Dare explained. “I believe he’s running the child-trafficking ring.”

Sophia tensed on his lap and Cole furrowed his brow at her. “What?”

“It’s just...” She frowned. “Why have I never heard of him?”

Cole tapped the tip of his finger on the table. She made a good point. It was odd that the name of a high-profile criminal—which Adrian would have to be if he was working for Lionsgate and heading a child-trafficking ring—didn’t register with Sophia.

Dare scoffed. “Hell if I know, but I’ve been on this for the last few hours, since Nash called me this morning.”

“How’d you find him?”

“It was monotonous as fuck. I basically used the list of the names of all the creeps we took out last night and found footage of them using facial recognition. One video appeared to be a meeting at a hotel downtown and this guy, Adrian, walked in with one of the dudes from the farm.”

“I need that list.”

“I’ll send it to you when we hang up. The more I followed Adrian, the more I saw him turn up in all the places you’d expect. Meetings with other guys from the farm, loading docks—you don’t want to fucking know what I saw there. I even caught him visiting Conrad Hornick in prison.”

“That’s damning.” Cole looked to Sophia.

Her eyes were wide with disbelief, and she kept her palm pressed to her stomach.

“All right, good work,” Cole said. “You got an address for him?”

“You know it. I’ll text it to you. Keep an eye out for the list.”

“Yup.” Cole clicked off the line and settled back in his seat. “Holy shit.”

Sophia turned on his leg to face him. “You guys need to do something.”

Cole brought his knuckles to rest on his jaw, his elbow propped on the arm of the chair. “That’s exactly what we’re—”

She held up a hand. “No, I mean do something. The resources you all have... the police would still be looking for Bella right now if it weren’t for you and your brothers. It’s really amazing.”

“What’re you saying, like a vigilante service?” A laugh caught in the back of his throat.

She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. But you clearly have the tools people in desperate situations need.”

He nodded slowly. “Hmm. I think you’ve got me pegged as a good guy or something.”

Her mouth split into a grin. “You’re growing on me.”

He secured her in his hold. God help him. He couldn’t smile or laugh because fuck, there was nothing funny about her thinking he was something he wasn’t.

Whatever she saw was someone else—or someone she wanted him to be.

He couldn’t live up to that.

But there was one thing he could do. “You know what we just did here?” he asked.

She leaned forward and rested her forearm on his shoulder. Her scent drifted to his nostrils.

“Hmm?”

“We made progress.” He stood with her in his arms and stalked toward the bedroom.

Sophia let out a squeak in protest, but he didn’t stop.

If he couldn’t think straight, he’d have to fuck her until he could.

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