Page 13 of Marx

“Where’s he going? He could have some good intel for us?” Chewy asks, looking around the room wildly.

“Babe? Sniper has to get his thoughts in order, so maybe ask him later, OK?”

Chewy stares at Rhodie, then at everyone else in the room before throwing her hands up, “Fiiiine. But he’s going to answer my questions,” she ends on a threat.

“I’m sure he’d be glad to,” I add. “What else have you got?” I ask, eager to get things moving so we can formulate a plan.

Wire looks up from his screen, “Serpiente, or Tito Caram, is a contractor. Cartels hire him to do anything from extortion to hired kills, but it’s mainly to look after their businesses. In this case, he’s been investing cartel money into his Adopt-a-Kid scam.”

This jogs my memory a little as to what Chewy told us before Tav and Blanche had their little girl. “Chewy, you said that Tito had more than just Candice Rogers working for him?”

She claps her hands, accidentally flinging her pen at Rhodie. “Yes! So, it turns out that while Candice may have been the largest supplier of children to needy, infertile parents, she wasn’t the only one. During her, um, interview, she mentioned at least three others running operations in different states along the I-10 corridor.”

“Any idea who these women may be?” Judge asks, brow raised.

“Rem, you’re up.” Chewy says, never moving her eyes from her computer screen.

We all turn our eyes toward Remy who almost shrinks at the attention. She may be one of the Girl Gang and a badass in her own right, but she’s still the shy woman who landed at our clubhouse from the Death Riders MC a year or so ago.

Wire pats her thigh, giving it a quick squeeze in support. She grins at him, pulls her shoulders back, full of confidence. A thought crosses my mind that this is what I want with Lovely, but then it’s squashed almost as quickly as it came. Lovely has built herself up from the ground up. Yes, like Remy she may still be a little on the quieter side and not as confident as someof the other women, but she’s gone out there and grabbed life by the balls. She put herself through a computing course so she could work at Devil’s Big Tow. She deals with people day in, day out and with her quiet strength has managed to call in all outstanding debts to the company. She regularly is around the men and can joke around or mother them. This woman doesn’t need me to protect her from the world, she can do that herself. She knows she can.

I look down at her, sitting in the wheelchair in front of me. She must feel my gaze because she turns to me, her dark eyes staring up at me, a soft smile on her face. My cock thickens as I imagine her in this position in a different moment, on her knees, gazing up at me.

Her brows pinch slightly before her brow smooths. “It’ll be alright, you know? The DRMC will find out who did this. Don’t worry.” She reaches a hand over her shoulder and pats mine, still holding the wheelchair handle.

This woman, the one who saved my life by risking hers, is now comforting me. Fucking hell. I do not deserve someone so pure and kind, but dammit, I ain’t giving her up.

My head snaps back to attention when Remy clears her throat. “So, from our time in the Rev Room we know Tito told Candice to move the children. The only way to do that, while keeping Tito’s operation running, is to move them to one of the other women he has working for him. There are eight states along the I-10 corridor, and we know that Candice had Texas, New Mexico and Arizona on lock. I’ve found two other states that have businesses with the same model as Candice’s, but only one has put out a statement recently looking for couples wanting to complete their families.”

“They make it so easy,” Mira says, shaking her head in disgust while scribbling in her notepad. Nat rolls her eyes with asmirk and Tank shakes his head at his woman, pressing a kiss to her temple.

Remy taps a few keys and a picture of a dark-haired woman with a friendly, open face fills the screen. “Meet Renae Sullivan. Owner of Bayou Haven Family Services.”

“Fucking hell,” Rider says, running a hand down his face. “What is up with the names of these places?”

“Again, they make it sooooo easy,” Mira mutters.

“So am I right in thinking that this whole thing happened because we saved Laney, shut down Candice, fucked up Serpiente’s operation he was heading up for two cartel families and the town Sheriff, and messed with their lucrative kiddy trafficking?” Pops asks.

“Yup.”

“Fucking hell, Imma need to stock up on shit.”

Lovely

I think it’s the pain meds I’m filled up with, but Pops’ comment has me snorting and then giggling and then grimacing. I have to stop because laughing hurts my chest but what he said is just so funny. The MC is being targeted by two crime families AND law enforcement and all Pops is worried about is whether he has enough “supplies” to go around. I snort again and another round of giggles breaks out. Bee must also think it’s funny because she stares at me for a moment, then throws her head back and letsout the fakest laugh I’ve ever heard, causing the whole room to break out into chuckles with her.

“Well, I’m glad Bee thinks that this whole situation is laughable,” Mad Dog says. “I leave for one year and I come back to absolute chaos. You lot sure know how to spice things up.”

The large living room is full of grumbles and chuckles and I’m glad to be home. I know I was knocked out for a lot of my hospital stay, but the times I was awake were so lonely. It was the first real time that I’ve ever been on my own. Well, kinda. Marx was there on and off, making sure I had everything, and when he wasn’t there I knew TumTum and Chef were on the door outside, but since birth I’ve always been a part of something larger than myself.

The Keep, for all its faults, was a good place to grow up. I had my mom and a slew of aunts that looked after us, brothers and sisters and cousins and friends to play with. As I grew older I made close friends and worked in the laundry rooms with other girls my age. Then when I was sixteen that all came tumbling down. I remember the day as if it was yesterday. Aunt Charity visited me. She brushed my hair and instead of the loose braid us girls wore our hair in, she left it long and wavy down my back. When she told me I looked beautiful, I was taken aback. We were good servants of God, there was no room for vanity in our lifestyle. She cupped my face and told me I’d make my husband a happy man. That was all the warning I was given. Half an hour later I was married to my uncle, my father’s brother. A man forty years older than my 16 years, with a cruel streak a mile wide.

Weight lands on my shoulder, making me jerk, pain lancing through my chest. “Shit, are you OK? Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Fuck!” Marx’s rough voice works its way through my foggy mind, still stuck between memory and present.

“It’s OK, I must have been away with the fairies for a moment,” I smile at him over my shoulder.

He stares down at me, eyes as black as night, before giving me a nod. “I was, ah, just checking on you.”

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