Page 17 of Ruthless Reign

“I’m not your son.” I sneered. “And thank fucking fuck for that. You look like you?—”

“Hey,” Selene cut in, stopping me from letting my attitude get the best of the situation. “If you don’t have a warrant and you’re not taking us in, there’s nothing else to talk about.”

“Roman,” Jordan said, bringing my attention back to her. “Could I have a word?”

I grimaced.

“In private,” she added, causing a glare from her partner. Evidently, she hadn’t cleared this with him beforehand.

I pursed my lips and considered her request. This could lead nowhere good. Nothing she wanted to ask me would work out well for the club, and I’d had enough of her pig shit to last me a lifetime. She’d personally arrested my father, and even though I wasn’t there when it happened, I imagined she gleefully slapped the cuffs on his wrists. She’d had it out for him for years, and if I weren’t so interested in what she had to say, I would have told her to go pound sand.

Instead, I ran my tongue over my teeth and nodded toward the mechanic’s bay. Jordan took the lead, her bright eyes missing nothing as she pushed open the door so I could follow her in.

“So?” I asked when she turned to face me. “What do you want?”

“How are you holding up?” Her features softened, and she brushed her brown hair behind an ear.

“You wanted to talk to me in private to ask how I’m doing?” I balked. “Well, let’s see. My dad’s in lockup and the Caputis are still out there killing my family. How would you feel, detective?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nose. “I heard you got married.”

“Oh yeah?” I raised my eyebrows, surprised it had gotten around that quickly. We hadn’t put an announcement in the newspapers yet, and unless she was watching the county registrars like a fucking hawk, she couldn’t have known. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Around.” She shrugged. “Now, it does surprise meyouof all people would marry Julia Caputi. Your families have been at odds for years.” She put her hands on her hips. “All of a sudden, you’re bedfellows.”

I chuckled at her mafia reference. “I suppose the heart wants what the heart wants.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “And how did you and a Caputi princess even come across one another? Would this have anything to do with the rumors I’ve been hearing about Leo?”

Now, I was curious. “What might those be?”

“That he’s still alive and living on Rose territory, cutting deals with the people who held him captive for over six months.”

I trained my features into my best poker face, zeroing my focus to her and her tells. Objectively, she was a beautiful woman. In her early thirties, she had deep ebony skin, defined cheekbones that gave her a model-esque brilliance, and eyes so hazel, they were almost the color of the sun. But her lips quirked when she wasn’t sure about something. If we were playing poker, I’d say she was bluffing. So she might have heard about Leo, but she wasn’t sure, and now she was fishing.

“I don’t know where Leo is,” I said. Which was objectively true. He could be at the house we’d given him or back on Caputiterritory, making deals with underbosses. Who the hell could say?

“Hmm. Convenient.” She raised an eyebrow, returning my skepticism.

“You know what’s convenient,detective,”I started. “An FBI raid on my clubhouse at the same time as a Caputi attack twenty miles from here.”

“What are you insinuating?” That seemed to get her attention.

“I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but if I were you, I’d start looking a little closer to home.”

Jordan didn’t say anything. She trained her features into a stoic expression, one she must have learned in all her years of investigating us lowly criminal scum.

“How did you know our clubhouse would be mostly empty that day?” I continued. “How did the Caputis know you’d be tied up there so they could savage our brothers?”

“Roman,” she said, glancing to the ground, “I’m sorry for your loss, but if you’ve got something to say, out with it.”

“I think someone on the inside is slipping info to the Caputis. I think someone cut a deal, and judging by the look of indifference on your face, you either don’t know or you’re covering it up.”

Her lips twitched again.

She doesn’t know.

“Trust me,” I said, “when I find out who it is, I intend to plug that leak.”

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