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“You need to pull her out then,” I growled, throwing my hands in the air.
Optimus made me wait until this morning before he would give me any details about what went down last night with Rose. All he’d told me, before ordering me back to bed, was that she was okay.
I was tempted to ring her myself, but Jayla had started fussing again in her sleep, and since Op had confirmed that Rose was all right, I decided to focus on the little girl who needed me the most right now.
Now, after a restless night and early morning, I was attempting to get some caffeine into my system so I would calm down and not rip my best friend’s head off in my over-tired state.
“Will you fucking let me explain?” Op snapped, glaring at me from his seat at the head of the table.
He’d called church to fill everyone in. While the situation in Arkansas didn’t directly affected the club or us, we had offered our support, and Rose was technically one of ours.
Mine, if we’re being specific, but I would let my brothers know that later if they didn’t already.
Long story short, if they end up floating in shit creek, wewillbe the paddles.
“As I said. Rose explained that a picture was snapped of her during her routine. He’s loaded it into the search engine, which has brought up other photos of Rose. Obviously, the DePalmas are one of the most well-known Mafia families in the United States. When Marco was killed in his prison cell recently, the press was all over that shit.”
My stomach churned. “How did they get that kind of information and pictures of her? It’s not like it was plastered everywhere. Anthony keeps his family issues locked down tight.”
He slid me a piece of paper that had several printed pictures of Rose with Rico—Anthony’s youngest son—and also her and Anthony himself. Some were close up and clear, her face the main focus.
Wrench spoke up, his eyes were locked onto his computer screen as he typed away. “These were taken several months ago. People wondering who the new woman was. Some suspected an illegitimate child, others that she was a new girlfriend. Someone finally confirmed who she was last week after Marco passed. Could have been a leak in the ranks, I’m not sure.”
“So he knows who she is, but not her connection with us?” Anxiety filled me, my heart heaving in my chest.
Why the fuck had I let her leave?
Reclining in his chair, Leo hooked his hands behind his head casually. “Even if he did, what they would hear is stories of how she deceived us and joined her father in trying to bring the club down. There’s nothing that would make them even suspect she would be working with us or another MC.”
Op nodded in agreement. “Just as a precaution, we’ve got Wrench attempting to pull everything humanly possible off the net that would somehow connect us with Satan’s Sanctuary. Your birth certificate with your mom’s name on it, baby pictures that could have somehow been floating around, info about your dad and their marriage.”
Wrench bobbed his head but his fingers never stopped. I knew he was doing everything he could to make sure that Rose was safe, and I thanked the universe silently that he was one of my brothers.
We hadn’t spoken much since I’d walked in on him and Sugar right in this room. I’d hoped that they would do the right thing and tell Optimus about what was going on, but I knew that they hadn’t. I wasn’t the only one who knew about it, there were others who’d noticed the buzz between the two of them. I had no idea why Op hadn’t picked up on it yet. Maybe he just trusted that if there were something, that the man who was meant to be his family would own up to his shit.
If it weren’t for the fact that all this crap was going down with Rose and my mom, I probably would have told him myself. But right now, my focus was making sure all my brothers had their heads screwed on tightly. So that if anything happened, we were prepared.
“So what’s the next step?” My leg bounced under the table in anticipation.
“She’s meeting with Edge again tonight. That will tell us whether we have our way in or not. Rose needs to gain his trust, assure him that they are friends. When we get a location we can start to make a plan.” Optimus seemed confident. But that was his job. A leader had to be strong even in the midst of chaos. The second the captain lost his head, the ship would go down, crew and passengers with it.
I knew he was watching me carefully, maybe gauging my reaction to all of this. It was so cliché to say, but my brother knew me better than I knew myself.
In my head I was already out the door, ready to climb on my bike and hightail it to West Memphis.
“She’sfine,” Op said slowly like he was trying to communicate with a foreigner. Or maybe he just thought I was stupid and he needed to dumb it down for me. I snorted, pretending not to be impressed by the fact he knew exactly what I was thinking. It was almost comical. Op and I were usually such a perfect team because he was usually the one that got angry and I was the chilled out one who told him when to pull his head in.
Seems our roles had switched.
Couldn’t say it was a bad thing.
I needed someone right now to help me to focus because currently all I could see was Rose getting hurt and me living in hell for letting her walk away. Even though I knew now that the spark I’d felt between us those few months ago was still there, that there was still a chance I could have her and that we could make something amazing, there was still a part of me that wanted to wait.
I wondered if I could trust someone who had so easily deceived me.
Part of me screamed that it wasn’t her fault, the other part determined to hold strong to its grudge.
But was that all this was? Was I just being stubborn because I had failed to see that there was more going on in her life than she had let show? If I was as good at reading people as I thought, shouldn’t I have spotted the signs?
