teased with a hiccup, “because I thought you'd want me to have a tramp stamp."
"Nothing about you is a tramp, Indy—"
"I'm no innocent, Cruz," she said, her tone slightly sorrowful, the gold in her eyes disappearing with her shame.
"What you are, is perfect. For me." And just like she had earlier, I sealed it with a kiss and shut her up, stole her breath, and erased any negativity she might have from her mind.
At least for the moment.
But I had a lifetime to work on that, a lifetime to make her see herself as the queen she was.
My queen.
The Old Lady I'd never thought I'd have.
The future I wasn't sure I deserved in the shape of a woman I knew was too good for me, but I was a Sinner, and the last thing we were, was fools. I’d take her, claim her as mine, and make sure she didn’t regret it for as long as we both lived…
Rex
Two weeks later
I cracked my knuckles as I watched a team of ten of my brothers head for the city.
Link led the way, behind him was Nyx—they were the only show of force from the council. In all honesty, I didn't like sending them off, even though this was just a standard run. A very late, standard run.
They’d pick up the haul from one of the O'Donnellys’ many warehouses, before taking it up to Canada for those fuckers, the Rabid Wolves’ MC, to take across the border to Montréal.
I was just feeling protective. And I didn't think that was too fucking crazy of me either.
My father was in a coma, his body torn to shreds by a bomb that we still could only ‘assume’ was planted by the Italians. Anything he'd learned about Mom’s death, and the circumstances behind it, were hidden in his memory banks as he healed.
It was crazy to think that he would have more answers than law enforcement, but surprise surprise, the Feds had come up blank. Even Cruz had. His mom was AWOL, nobody had seen her for weeks.
I had him trying her cell phone every damn day of the week, several times even, but she never answered.
In this world, my first thought was to think that she was dead, something that was most likely, but killing a Fed came with repercussions, and I knew few people who wouldn't shit themselves over that.
With her missing, though, any lead was gone. Apparently she had information about Mom too, and with her out of the fucking picture as well, I was at a loss.
I had enemies in need of killing, people who needed to pay for what they’d done to my family, both by blood and MC, but I didn't have the wherewithal to find out what I needed to know.
Maverick was no fucking use right now, and though it was hard to keep my patience with him, I tried. Normally I'd have been understanding, but the idiot had gone into the clubhouse when it was unstable, and while Lodestar was hard at work, she was at a diminished capacity too.
With both my computer geniuses up shit creek—one with concussion headaches that had her sleeping a lot of the day away and a broken leg that limited her freedom more than she was used to and made her a grumpy bitch, and the other so entrenched in his amnesia that he didn't even realize he wasn't fresh out of the sandbox—again, my hands were tied.
I'd thought I'd known frustration. Banging my head against a brick wall was par for the course in my line of work. And when you were in love with a woman who made an ass look complacent, frustration was normal.
But this was killing me. I believed the Famiglia was behind the bombing, but we weren’t animals.
Storm had asked Cruz for a weapon to retaliate against them, but not only had he refused, I would never have allowed any kind of attack to take place without knowing full well who was behind the clubhouse’s destruction.
I liked to think that we were a better class of one-percenter, but it was only common sense. You didn't bait a bear when said goddamn bear was in a cave.
I wasn't about to attack somebody who hadn't attacked us first.
We were already battered, I didn't need us annihilated.
With my hog lost to the blast, as well as many of my brothers', we were just fortunate we had Link's workshop to help with our transport issues.
Sixty percent of the guys on the