I don’t know if he knows how comforting and at ease it makes me for him to hold me like this right now, especially in front of his father. It makes his claim to me that much more real.
“No one’s going to hurt you.” I hear Vince’s father and a sense of calm moves through my body. I dare to take a look at Vince’s father. “I promise you, we have no intentions of hurting you.”
“I told you you’re mine, didn’t I?” Vince asks me. I nod my head against Vince’s shoulder and try to stop my nerves from getting the better of me.
“No one touches what’s mine.”
Vince
“You wanna pick some stuff out or something?” I push the laptop to Elle across the table. Pops left after having a private conversation with me about the shipments. I have a small list of names I need to handle to get shit back on the up and up on that front. They’ve got to know it’s coming though, since Javier made sure to take care of his end as soon as he found out who was stealing from him. Their partners getting murdered is a good sign that we’re coming for them. The Locos Diablos MC is gonna be short a few members real fucking soon. They're an offshoot of Shadows MC, essentially their rejects. They’re fucking stupid to think they’d start a war between the familia and the cartel by stealing from us.
And then there’s the issue of Elle’s mother, Sandra Hawthorne. She’s got to be dealt with, but I don’t feel like handling that issue right now.
“You’re letting me go online? What if I emailed someone?” she asks with disbelief. Leave it to her to give me a reason that I shouldn’t let her go online. She’s questioning everything she’s doing, which is good, but I want her to get comfortable. I want her to just act natural, like how she was when I took her for the first time. That moment in time is what I want every day.
“Don’t. I’m going to be right here. Just pick out what you need.” She reaches for the laptop and slowly opens it.
“I could just get some things from my house,” she offers.
“Your mother already tried reporting you missing. You can’t leave.” I’m short with her, but it's for a good reason. All she has to do is listen to what I tell her and everything will be fine.
“What?” she asks, looking at me with her eyes opened wide.
“Rule one, sweetheart.” She opens and then closes her mouth. I can tell she’s going to have a hard time with that one. It can’t hurt to let her know what’s going on with her mother though. I’m gonna have her give her mother a call sometime soon, but right now it’s too soon. “We have a guy on the inside, a police officer. Luckily he’s the one that got the call.”
“I’m surprised my mom gave a shit.” Her voice turns sad and her eyes focus back on the laptop. I don’t like it.
Apparently someone saw Elle with me and went to her mom's place to try and question her about me. Sandra didn’t say shit to the police, which is good. It means my sweetheart really didn’t remember anything that happened at the bistro until she came to my parents' house yesterday. It didn’t piss me off that Sandra tried to file a missing person’s report. But the fact that she attempted to make a will for my sweetheart today really fucking pisses me off.
“I don’t understand why you put up with that shit.” I’m not going to keep my mouth shut anymore. If she’s going to be mine, her mother’s going to have to back off and get her shit straightened out. I can tell this is going to be a fight, but I don’t want it to be one.
“And what’d she do that got you so pissed off, huh? I mean on the night I met you. You were all bent out of shape.” Elle doesn't have to tell me though, because I already know what she did. I got the report from Tony. It has everything on my girl. And there’s a ton of shit there. A ton of debt, to be specific. I know her mother took it out, too. She tried to file for loans a few times with just Elle’s name on the paperwork. Fucking bitch. I had to call Dom to have his guys transfer money