Chapter 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

brAXTON

" H e said what, again?" I ask. It's clear she's bothered by Carter's visit, and it honestly makes my stomach giddy at the idea she has no lingering feelings for the man.

"He said he was sorry and wanted to make everything that happened up to me. I'm not a fool, Brax. He wants back into my dad's good graces. The media has skewered him lately. Especially since someone leaked the affair to the tabloids. I don't doubt for a second it wasn't Dad who did it."

I mull over all she's said as my fingers skitter across the keys of my keypad. We'd gone from hearing her moan in pleasure to her calling right back after Kylo removed Carter from her doorway.

Good thing he'd given her his number. "Well, from now on, you'll only have members you have contact with. He got past Kylo somehow. I don't like that, Aella. Fuck, I just want you to come home."

"I know. I want to come home. I can be undercover, still, right?" Her voice is pleading but full of exhaustion. I feel guilty that she's going through so much for us on top of all she already has going on in her personal life.

Part of me wants to find Carter and make him disappear, but then again, we don't do that. We kill with purpose, not for our ends. Unfortunately.

"No, Bambi. We need to do it how Miles wants to do it."

She grumbles something incoherent that makes me smile. "Who put him in charge, anyhow?"

"Kylo is outside your door until Sully relieves him. Go get some sleep."

She yawns as if my suggestion had reminded her how tired she is.

"Talk to me until I fall asleep," she whispers, and I hear rustling as she turns in bed.

"Did you shower?" I ask.

She chuckles. "Well, that's a conversation starter. Yes, Daddy, I showered."

I stifle a low growl from escaping her teasing. "Keep it up, and that's what you'll call me from here on out."

"As if," she says, and I can tell she's fading.

"Goodnight, Bambi. Sweet dreams."

She murmurs something inaudible, and that's when I hear it. The little sigh she lets loose before she gives over to dreamland every night, and I close my eyes and pretend she's here with me a little longer, keeping the line occupied while I listen to her breathing even out.

It gives me something. I've been missing a semblance of peace since she left to go undercover for us.

I cut the call and then looked at her spot. I wish she were lying there now. I sigh and return to the screens, diving back into my research into the Jackals. I've looked into them as deeply as possible and finally found something.

Once the printer is done spitting out my evidence, I march upstairs and go out to the clubhouse, where the bass is thumping and voices of drunken revelry filter through the still night.

Miles is yelling at Lutz about a football game, and I shake my head as I approach.

Once we've made eye contact, one nod in his direction has him following me to his office in the back. The door barely mutes the party out as he closes it.

"What's up?" he asks, a laugh dying as he plops into his chair. His feet bang on the top of the desk as he puts them up and crosses his legs at the ankles, drinking a long pull from his beer.

He'd left my room right after watching Aella and myself on FaceTime. I've yet to tell him what happened afterward, though I thought Kylo would've.

"I think I found something on Vito. Well, in his entire organization. I think they're running drugs. But I can't find the connection."

He sits forward, sputtering his beer nearly out of his mouth as he pulls his feet off the desk. Some random papers go with them and drift to the floor. "Excuse me?"

It's not rare for a club to have their hands in something dark, but in these parts, it is. We've never known the Jackals to be a part of the drug community, not as far as we knew, anyway. But then again, club business is sacred, so it's not like they'd be splaying their business on the front of the Portland Gazette.

"What did you find?" he asks, and I hand over the off-shore accounts I'd found in Vito's name, showing the strange transfers in and out.

"They could move money around. What makes you think it's drugs?"

"Something about the way it's the same days of each month. The fifth and the twentieth. Like clockwork. He's working for someone, and that's when he's getting paid. Then, he's funneling money to his accounts and his men, and it looks like he's paying them massive sums, too. Something illegal and high-risk is going on with them. I guarantee it."

"You said you can't find the connect?" he asks absently, looking through the paperwork, his beer forgotten as he sobers up.

I shake my head, sigh, and sit back in my chair. "No. And trust me, I tried. It's got to be someone massive. Someone with enough pull to create those off-shore accounts for Vito to work through."

Miles nods along with my words as he looks up towards me. He eyes me, brows raised. "There's something else."

I lick my lips. "Carter showed up at Aella's apartment and got past Kylo."

Miles stands, and his beer knocks over, contents fizzing as it spreads across the floor. "Is she alright? Why didn't he text me?"

I shrug. "He told me, and I stationed him outside her room until Sully swaps out in the morning. But Cater's trying to weasel his way back into her life. I have a feeling he's going to become a problem, Miles. I don't know how, but I know it."

Miles knows and trusts my gut enough to take me seriously, and he sits back down. His face turns as severe and cold as stone. "We'll handle it. Fuck, I just want her home."

I laugh. "I told her the same fucking thing. She fell asleep while I was on the phone. She's safe, and she's resting. But I'm worried that the factory will burn her out. Only one day, and she sounds exhausted."

"She's tough as nails. She'll be fine."

"I didn't say she wouldn't be fine. I said I was worried about how she would come out of this. You know, if he killed our mother, is it wise to put the one girl we both care about right in his path?"

Miles scrubs his face. "She's his daughter, Brax. He won't hurt her."

"Men like that let nothing impede staying on top, and you know it."

He closes his eyes. "If we decide it's too much for her, we'll pull her. But give her a chance. It was her idea, and I know she wants to succeed. Let her try."

I nod in agreement reluctantly.

I stand.

All I can think about is the moment we three shared before all this. When I heard him behind me grunting his release as I did. While I know it's stupid, my feelings for him are as ever-present as they are for Aella.

"Hey, it's early. Let's go to Zeke's, huh? Grab a couple of beers, and show face so no one gets any ideas about moving into our territory. We've been occupied lately. We have shown little face in town," Miles says.

I turn to say no but realize I could really use a fucking beer and nod instead. "Yeah, let's. I'll get dressed."

He doesn't hide his shock at my agreement, but he gives me a beaming smile, and it makes my stomach do the twisting shit I hate.

"Okay, I'll meet you outside. I'll see if some of the other idiots want to come."

It's ten p.m. before we get to Zeke's Place, and it's packed. There's only a table for us because people clear out of it when they see us arrive. Lutz has already found a groupie to hang onto as he drinks himself stupid. Blaze shakes his head and sips his water.

We'd brought the truck tonight, recruiting Blaze as the designated driver to get us all back home in one piece.

Before I know it, I'm plastered, and the room is spinning.

My fingers hover over Aella's contact, itching to text her something inappropriate and rouse her from her slumber, but I pocket my phone before I can do anything stupid.

Lutz is telling a dirty joke as the room suddenly falls silent. My head flies up, some of the whiskey thrumming in my veins seeming to clear out as adrenaline rushes through.

"You don't belong in here," Zeke calls out over the jukebox music that still blasts through the bar, even if every person inside had silenced when the broad motherfucker stepped one boot inside the door.

"Yeah? Well, you all go to places you don't belong lately," the man replies.

I stand, and I look over to find Miles gone. Lutz's eyes shift towards the bathroom, and I nod once.

"And where is it you think we've been, hm?" I ask, sliding out of the booth and stepping towards the man. He's got a leather jacket on with a Jackal signet on the breast, and I know it'll have a matching one on the back.

"Fucking girls that don't belong to you, hacking into accounts you don't own, and riding through the streets of a city you don't rule, and that's just for starters."

I laugh, and it pisses him off even more. "And where are you right now? You don't fucking belong here. I suggest you head on out."

Other members of the Cobras stand off their respective seats, some pulling weapons.

He looks around, taking in his situation but still staying rooted to the floor. "I only came to relay a message. Keep your eyes and noses where they belong, and you'll have no further Jackal problems. Think you all can manage that?"

I snarl, coming to a stop in front of him.

He's as round as he is tall, but I'm taller. I look down at him and smirk. "I think we'll mind our business and what we need to do for the good of our people, and you all can do the same. That's what I think."

He shoves me backward, and that's when all hell breaks loose. My arm swings around, connecting with his face as blood spills out of his nose and hits the floor. My men move to get me away from him as my eyes connect with Miles.

His eyes widen in fear as he sees something I don't.

But in a flash, I feel it.

A blade sinks through my stomach, pain rippling through me like a severe storm. When the Jackal piece of shit pulls his knife back, making for the door, I crumple to the ground.

"Brax!" Miles shouts, trying to get to me through the crowd.

The last thing I hear is Miles shout for someone to call an ambulance as I hear three shots ring out. The Jackal who delivered his message had done his job, and Vito didn't expect him to come home in one piece.

He won't.