AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She turns to look at me, and I can see the tears in her eyes. I can tell she’s waiting for me to react like Clint. She’s waiting for me to degrade her and tell her how worthless she is. But I’m not him, and I never will be.
I pull her into my arms,“It’s okay. You went through some messed up shit, amour. I can’t fault you for clearing your mind of everything.”
“You’re only saying that because you don’t know what I did. Once you find out, you’ll take those words back.”
“Hey,” I hold her face to keep her eyes on mine,“no, I won’t. You were hurt. What mattered at the time was your healing. You can tell me, no matter what it is.” I give her a soft kiss, and when I pull back, she closes her eyes and nods.
“Okay,” she takes a deep breath,“I looked into Sonya. How she acted, especially toward you, made me examine the cases she worked on. She’s worked so many, and before recently, I thought she was an amazing agent, and I would reach out to her when needed. How much of this is my fault, Nate? I asked her for help. I reached out. I—”
“—You’re getting off track, amour. Nothing is your fault, but I need to know why you thought to look into Sonya.”
“Right. You’re right. Anyways, I went through so many files that I got to the point of severely doubting myself, but then I found one file that turned into numerous others—all foster kids. Every single one of them was reported missing. They were all from Wyman or around Wyman. Every set of foster parents said the kids were runaways or problems. I crossed the files for those kids; none had issues listed before. Yet every single case was closed and dismissed as a runaway, never to be looked at again.”
“What does that all mean?”
“Sonya signed off on the cases to be closed and documented that the kids were gone and couldn’t be found. Instead of leaving the case open for all agencies to be able to see in case the kid shows up, she closed them. I don’t know why and don’t know who for, but I think she was helping steal these kids.”
I wipe the tears from her face and bring her close to my body. I am beyond pissed, but I don’t want Audrina to think it is because of her. I want to scream and go shoot the bitch that tried to take my kids. I can’t do that, though. We don’t kill women. We don’t harm them or children. It’s the club’s law. One that never has, and will never, be broken. Well, okay, minus the one time with Cowboy and Steffie.
“Amour, do you have the files?” I ask, and she nods her head against my chest.“I’m going to need them. I don’t know what I can do, but I will do something, I promise.”
“Nate, she tried to take ou-your kids. She was doing everything she could to get them.”
I’m elated by her near slip, but I can’t do a damn thing about it right now. I have to get this information to the guys, and we have to find this bitch.
“I know, I know. But I’m not going to let her. I promise.”
She gave me everything I needed, and I kissed her quickly.“The kids are with El. I have to call church. Go to El’s, and I’ll come to get you when I’m done, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers, tears falling from her eyes.“I’m sorry, Nate. I should have told you.”
“No. Don’t do that to yourself. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong. We’ll get this handled.”
Kissing her forehead, I turn and head out the door. I get my bike and have it up to top speed the moment I can, heading toward the club. We’re getting one step closer to beating these motherfuckers. I can feel it, but until I stop this bitch, my kids aren’t safe.
She’s about to learn the hard way that she messed with the wrong fucking father.
***
Armed with all the new information from Audrina and the USB holding all the files, I return to the ranch. I need to get to Prez’s house. As much as I want to drive to Copper and Ellie’s house, I need to keep the Prez in the loop. As his Enforcer, I know the proper channels; this is the way to go.
I am left to overthink on the ride to the house. Thinking about every move Sonya made while in my place, the micro analysis of everything, and my answer to every question. It made more sense than before. I knew I wasn’t just seeing things. She is the leak, and she needs to be dealt with properly. It would take a lot to change my mind about that fact as she was taking innocent children and feeding them to a ring of predators that were doing god knows what to them.
“You just left here, and you’re back in record time. That’s never good.” Cowboy meets me at the bottom of his steps. I couldn’t even say anything. I nodded my head and held up the USB.“Let’s go to my office. The girls don’t need to see what’s on there.”
We spent the next fifteen minutes in silence, printing and reviewing all the files. The kids’names, ages, and when they went missing. He sent a bulletin to Copper and Knuckles to head back to church and meet us in his office. Copper joined us faster as he was just over at the big house, but by the time Knuckles walked in, we had papers spread out all over, trying to find as many other connections between everyone. The only one we have thus far is Sonya.
“Uhm, guys,” Knuckles starts, his eyes scanning the flurry of paper over every available surface.“Did you bring the files or—”
“Cowboy printed everything. We tried to organize them as they came out, but then we wanted to learn faster. So, we started to try and categorize everything.” Copper explained, not looking up from his sheet.
“You know I have a projector and software to do this. It can even put multiple copies in multiple categories. Like age, race, location, and date of disappearance. Less messy, more control,andless chance of losing something that could be seen as useful.” Knuckles leans on the doorway, refusing to step in.
All three of us stop, and for the first time since this started, we look around and realize the chaos we have created. Cowboy rolls his eyes and nods for us to follow him out of the office. He removes the drive and hands it to Knuckles.
It only took Knuckles a matter of minutes to set up the projector and have everything showing on the wall. We broke them all down into the categories we talked about, but when we got to the age, I felt my heart sink, and it showed me how broken this system is.
“How can someone…how can the police close a file on a five-year-old runaway? On an eight-year-old runaway? They are just babies. They don’t know how to survive on their own! How can you close this off without it weighing on your conscience?” I spat out, looking at the number of files that were in the under-ten categories. Thinking of Dillon and if it was him, I think about how he just wanted to be loved and appreciated. I think about how easily he could be manipulated if they had the chance. They almostdidhave a chance.
