Chapter One

Aiden

Present Day

"Earth to Pup, you gonna take a break from that anytime soon?"

Aiden looked up from his computer screen at the sound of his club nickname to find Rich leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over his massive chest. Rich was a lower member of the club who'd only become a full member about six months before. In that moment, his dark eyes glittered with merriment and excitement, telling Aiden this wasn't club business, he just wanted some company.

Being so new meant that Rich wasn't really close with any of the longer-standing members of the MC, so when he'd taken a shine to Aiden shortly after his acceptance, Aiden had done everything in his power to help Rich feel welcome. They'd started out slow, hanging out at the pool tables with Aiden listening to Rich shooting the shit. Lately, they'd been hanging out more, having lunch together, getting a beer when the mood struck. A simple friendship.

At first, Aiden thought maybe Rich had wanted more. The way he'd studied Aiden, as if looking for something had led Aiden to wonder if maybe Rich had discovered his secret. That hadn't turned out to be the case, however. It was apparently just a case of the new guy wanting a friend. Aiden was happy to be that friend. He remembered what it was like to be the new guy, unsure of whether he'd be accepted.

Since finding this group of men four years ago, Aiden had finally found his home. The officers of the club had accepted him and welcomed him, and Aiden knew they'd do anything for him. Hell, he'd do anything for them too.

Part of Aiden wanted to let them see all of him, but with his past and the number of times he'd been pushed away for who he was, he didn't want to risk it. If the other times had hurt, Aiden knew that these men pushing him away would kill him. He didn't think they actually would, but Aiden had been wrong before with much less to lose. He couldn't lose his family.

One member in particular. It would rip Aiden's heart to shreds if Rocky turned his back on Aiden. He couldn't think about that, though. Rocky would never know that he featured in Aiden's fantasies. Even if Aiden had felt comfortable revealing his sexuality, or admitting to the other secret he held, everyone knew that you didn't shit where you ate, and Aiden had finally found the abundance of love and acceptance he'd always searched for. No way was he risking it.

"Yo! Earth to Pup. You hear me?" Rich had straightened from his leaning position and looked at Aiden with worry. Crap. He'd forgotten the man was there. Again. In the course of their friendship Aiden had been called back to Earth by Rich more times than he could count. His thoughts did tend to wander often.

"What did you have in mind?"

Aiden really needed to keep looking, but maybe a break would probably be a good thing. He was having a hard time finding anything to prove someone hacked into his system anyway. Maybe taking a break would reset his methods, and introduce a new idea for finding the traitor's trail.

There was no way that shit stain, Brian Prescott, had gotten around the security set in place on his own. On his own, he never would have been able to kidnap Jane and Ham. He'd gotten through too many safety measures to be a coincidence. No one got that lucky. He'd been able to get the drop on them. He'd kidnapped them both, almost killed them in an attempt to find the wife the club had rescued from his abuse. Someone was helping Brian, they had to be, and Aiden was determined to find them.

Aiden had been at it for days now, and he'd checked everything he could think of four times. He'd lost sleep, only napping on his couch in the office; he'd missed meals, munching Goldfish crackers at his desk instead of cooking something in the kitchen. If someone got in, there should be a sign somewhere. So far, he hadn't found anything.

"Just getting a beer and shooting the shit for a bit. Your eyes are red from staring at that screen anyway." He probably wasn't wrong. Everytime Aiden blinked, his eyelids felt like sandpaper, scratching his eyeballs to hell and back. Rich walked into the room and around to Aiden's side of the desk, planting one ass cheek on the corner while folding his arms. "Look, saving the universe one bit at a time can wait. You need a break, my friend. Save your work and come give your eyes a rest. We'll have a couple of cold beers and talk about whatever."

"Whatever" generally meant girls. Aiden had gotten pretty used to bullshitting his way through those conversations, but they most certainly weren't his favorite. He could appreciate the beauty in a woman, but he'd never found himself drooling over one. Not like he did over…. No, he wasn't going there. He really needed to set this crush aside. It was making his life harder than it needed to be.

Finally, Aiden nodded to his friend and stood to stretch. His eyes really did need a rest and maybe talking about girls would be what he needed to kick a new idea out of his brain. He went over to the couch in his office and grabbed his wallet before coming back to Rich.

"Don't know why you grabbed that thing, I'm buying."

It was always the same deal with the two men. Rich insisted he was buying, Aiden insisted he wasn't. Every once in a while, Aiden managed to be faster and actually pay the bill before Rich did, but not much. More often than not, Rich snuck in like a ninja, throwing out dollars like karate chops.

Aiden leaned over and closed all his screens down as he answered, "you bought last time. This time's on me."

Both men straightened to their full height and headed out of the office, arguing over who was picking up the tab. Aiden was determined to win this time. Rich had paid last time and he'd paid four times prior to that, as well.

"So she'd been holding a candle for the bartender the entire time." Was it wrong that Aiden found himself nodding along while simultaneously hoping the story was over? "She'd convinced all these guys that asked her out to take her to Flannigan's hoping to make the guy behind the bar jealous." Rich's laughter bounced off the walls of the Hell Hole, echoing in the quiet of the mostly empty bar. It seemed particularly loud when his was the only laughter echoing.

"That's some fucked up shit." Ham, the club's lawyer and bartender, muttered as he wiped down the bar for the hundredth time in the fifteen minutes Aiden and Rich had been sitting there. The bartop was as clean as it could get. Sure it was scarred and scuffed and had seen better days, but it was as clean as a whistle. Aiden didn't have to ask what had Ham worried. He knew. It had only been a week since Ham and his Little girl had been kidnapped and held hostage. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that Ham didn't like leaving Jane alone to tend the bar.

"How's Jane doing after everything?" Rich asked, as if he'd read Aiden's mind and plucked out the next question.

"She's a trooper, but we all knew that already."

They did know. No one made it through two battles with breast cancer unless they were a trooper. Somehow, Jane had not only done so but had come out of her second fight with a sunny disposition and an innocence that would awe any person and completely blew the minds of those who knew her story.

Aiden loved Jane deeply. She'd been around the MC as long as anyone could remember. She was a good friend to have at your back and was the only person in Lilton who knew one of his secrets. But a large part of Aiden envied his friend and her ability to be who she was, openly and without reservation. Aiden had been hiding at least one side of himself for so long, he wasn't sure he even remembered what it was like to be openly and authentically himself. Had he ever been able to?

He took another drink of his beer and allowed Rich and Ham to talk between themselves for a while. He took that moment to self-reflect. He needed to head out of town soon. He'd need some time to relax but he couldn't go until things settled here and he figured out who was helping the bad guys.

Rich turned back to Aiden, and he realized he'd missed something. Aiden raised his brow in question. It was a move he'd learned from his MC brothers and it served him well in moments like this one. Rich, realizing he'd missed the question, asked again. "How's the hunt going? Find anything useful yet?"

Ham finally stopped his wiping and focused completely on Aiden. Aiden hated having all eyes on him. It made him feel squirmy and uncomfortable. He'd much rather they send an email. "That's a good question. I'd really like to know how that ass-wipe managed to get close enough to touch my woman," Ham said, giving Aiden a pointed look that suggested he was impatient to get revenge. Aiden couldn't blame him. It had to be hard knowing the person who set them up was still out there.

"That would interest me as well," a familiar voice said from behind Aiden, causing him to almost choke on his beer.

When Rocky came into view, it took a moment for Aiden to stop staring at the silver fox. It always seemed to be that way. They joined the club around the same time but Rocky had friends in the club and hadn't been considered a new guy.

Even back then, Aiden had been hard pressed to keep his eyes off the older man. Rocky's sad hazel eyes had drawn Aiden from the very first moment. He wasn't sure what happened before Rocky came to Lilton, but whatever it was had left a deep wound that Aiden found himself wanting to heal. Beyond that was the fact that Rocky was a genuinely good guy and hot as all hell. Aiden could watch that tall drink of water all day long.

Aiden checked to be sure he wasn't drooling and that the bulge in his pants wasn't obvious. Hiding his attraction for Rocky D'Angelo was getting harder with time. Aiden had always assumed it would get easier but it most certainly hadn't.Trying to bring his heart rate down, he took a deep breath before finally answering the question.

"I honestly don't know how he got the info. I've been running system checks, but I haven't found anything. I've checked the sensitive system and haven't been able to even confirm information was exfiltrated." Aiden realized he'd begun peeling the label from his bottle, a tell that showed his nerves and pissed him off. He didn't need to be nervous –he knew what he was doing. He knew the information had to have been exfiltrated somehow, so why couldn't he find it? He carefully smoothed the label back down on his bottle and continued, "All access controls are functioning and in place, the logs in syslog all check out, firewall access logs are all accounted for and nothing outgoing, at least that I can find, has gone anywhere it isn't supposed to. I still need to go through my laptop and phone but so far, I'm not finding any evidence of someone getting into my system. Either they're a ghost or no one has hacked it."

"That doesn't make sense, though. How else would they know?"

Ham had a very valid question because, while Aiden still needed to check his mobile systems, he was fairly sure the leak wasn't a hole in his firewall, so who could have gotten information he had specifically only told five men?

"We'll figure it out. In the meantime," Rocky stated. "I was coming out here to let y'all know that Blade wants a meeting. Tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."

Aiden inwardly groaned. He'd be repeating himself in the morning and he wasn't a fan of repeating himself. If there was a meeting happening in the morning and he was going to have to give the four-one-one again, he'd best get busy on his mobile systems. At least then he'd be giving new information along with the old.

He wanted to go into that meeting confident that his system hadn't failed his brothers. He was fairly confident it hadn't, but he wanted certainty. He didn't think he'd ever forgive himself if he'd been the reason the only family he had ever known was suffering so much.

He reached for his wallet and, for once, beat Rich to pay, tossing a fifty on the bar top, well over the price of four beers.

"Put that asshole's on my bill. If he drinks up the fifty, let me know later and I'll make sure there's a tip."

"Fuck you, Pup. You ain't tipping me. If there's anything left after Richy Rich here finishes, I'll get you the change." Ham's words made Aiden's eyes roll. He should have known Ham wouldn't take his money. That was okay, though, he'd just slip a little extra into Ham's account later, when Ham wasn't expecting it.