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“What do we know about the dead girls?” I started bluntly. “They’re showing up all around our properties, and it’s making us look bad. Soon the community, and maybe even the sheriff’s office, is gonna start suspecting we’re doing some shady shit, and then the heat on us is going to increase, and life is gonna go back to being way more difficult than it needs.”
There was tension among the MC and in the town, as if we all somehow knew this wasn’t the end of the streak of dead girls showing up, which meant we needed to get to the bottom of it sooner rather than later. The last girl had been found almost two weeks ago, and since then we were on tenterhooks waiting to see if more bodies turned up. We’d upped the security on all our businesses and were running as tight a ship as we could, but I still had an awful feeling the worst was yet to come.
Slate nodded and blew out a long breath before he spoke. “The good news is that we have IDs on all three girls, emphasis on girls since each of them was underage.”
A collective groan of disgust went up around the room. We were bikers, we were rotten sons of bitches, but we didn’t fuck with jailbait, not ever.
“If that’s the good news, what the fuck is the bad news?” Rocky asked.
He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “The bad news is that they were all last seen outside Dirty Rotten Kings nightclub, but otherwise there’s no link to the MC.”
“That is damn good news.” Rebel, our treasurer, said with a nod. “Do we know who they came with or if they were ever inside the club?”
“No proof of that yet. But it’s no coincidence they were found at our club. That was a message.”
“How can you be so sure?” Rocky leaned forward, dark brows arched curiously.
“Because there are better places to dump a body, for starters.” Slate looked around at all the other brothers, who nodded their agreement. “Places that would have taken longer for the bodies to be discovered, at least long enough there would be no evidence to track down to anyone. Someone wanted them found.”
Shit, he made a good point. The problem was that the MC had plenty of enemies, some more contentious than others, which made it hard to pinpoint who it could be. “Anything else on the dead girls, Slate?”
“Not yet. All of them were reported missing months ago, and none of them are from Nevada, never mind Vegas.”
Rocky nodded. “We should think about sharing this info with Sheriff Cross, maybe it’ll garner us some goodwill and he’ll get off our asses.”
“That’s a good idea,” I agreed. “And maybe he’ll believe we didn’t have shit to do with it. But we keep digging into who did this and why.”
I was also still no closer to figuring out what Stacy was into than we were a couple of weeks ago, and that was becoming a problem for me. The longer Ellie went without answers, the harder it would be for her to let me in given her trust issues. I know it was a longshot expecting the MC to find her sister—or at least find out what happened when the cops couldn’t. But I couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt, I remembered dismissing Stacy’s concerns as paranoia, but what if it wasn’t paranoia? The one good thing was that Ellie hadn’t received any notes or gifts while she’d been at mine—which suggested that either her stalker didn’t know where she was, or he was scared off.
“When do we get to meet Diesel Junior?” Maverick pulled me back from my thoughts and flashed an amused grin at the havoc he’d wreaked.
“Hell yeah, I’d like to meet the little fucker!” Hawk said. “Sorry, you know what I mean.”
I laughed. “I’ll bring him by soon.” But this was the perfect segue into the other topic of conversation. “Which brings me to my next order of business. Stacy.”
“Is she causing trouble?”
“No. “She’s been missing for nearly four years, and Leo’s been with his aunt,” I said, then launched into the whole messy tale of Stacy’s disappearance. Obviously, Slate knew all about her, but I’d asked him to keep things on the downlow. “I’m not sure what the fuck happened to her, the cops think she freaked and decided she couldn’t deal with being a mom. I guess they thought she was just some biker skank. I remembered her telling me that she was worried she was being watched, but I dismissed it.” I paused, I was not proud of how I acted back then, but Stacy was always a bit flaky. That’s partly why I’d broken things off with her. “But I know that Ellie doesn’t believe that she would have ever left her kid, he was only six months old at the time. And Leo deserves to have his mother, so I need your help.”
The table fell silent. I held my breath because this was the first time I’d ever asked for a personal favor not directly related to the MC. These guys were loyal, they were my brothers, but being in this position was scary as fuck.
Slate was the first to speak. “Whatever you need, man.”
“Fucking right,” Rocky added. “Just say the word.” He glared at every brother around the table. “Anybody else?”
My lips twitched. “You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”
“We’re all in,” Maverick said, his tone firm, leaving no room for anyone to argue or opt out.
“Thanks, brothers. Also, if it does turn out that someone was after Stacy and Leo and Ellie aren’t safe, I need to know and I need to know who they’re in danger from.”
“She’s not safe in your house,” Rocky asked. “Maybe you should move her to your bedroom. If you haven’t already.” He wiggled his eyebrows, making the rest of the brothers laugh out loud.
“It all makes sense now, I thought it weird that you’d suddenly gotten yourself a woman.” Hawk grinned, nodding slowly.
“Church is over,” I grunted, not angry, just annoyed that I wasn’t as slick with my motives as I thought.
Most of the brothers dispersed into the bustle of the bar area, a few of them making grabs at a gaggle of club bunnies in denim booty shorts walking past, and the sound of laughing men increased as Tess slapped a fistful of beers onto the counter.
