AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So, you were in foster care with Athena?” Stoney speaks up, looking directly at me. “Do you know why she was put in the system?”
“You won’t get answers from Brass,” Lucifer answers for me. “I know this because I know Athena. She didn’t talk about her past. Still doesn’t. Not if she can help it. When she does, it’s stories she makes up, putting the truth with fiction to tell Jesse.”
“Fuck,” Stoney grumbles and steps back. “This whole situation is fucked up.”
“Yeah, it is,” Twister agrees and looks to Lucifer. “She was using the strip club to make herself a target.”
“Like I said earlier. Normally, Athena uses a disguise to conceal her true identity, but she got word about this organization,” Lucifer explains.
“What changed? Why not keep her identity hidden?” This is what I don’t get, and I knew earlier listening to Lucifer talk that he was keeping something back. “What haven’t you shared?”
Everyone turns their attention toward Lucifer and waits.
Nodding, Lucifer smirks. “You’re intuitive, I like that,” he says and leans against the wall behind him. “What no one knows, and I mean this will not go any further than those of us here right now, is that the organization she’s looking into are the very ones her mother sold her to when she was no more than five.”
“If she was sold to a sex ring, how did she end up in foster care?” Stoney asks.
“Now that is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Lucifer smirks. “You see, there’s something not even Athena knows. And that is, her biological father saved her one night. He knew right off that she was his, but he didn’t keep her with him. Instead, he put her in the system to protect her. He called in a marker he had with me and asked that I always keep an eye on her. I have throughout the years, then when she ran away, I found her, brought her home with me, and adopted her as my own.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
This whole ordeal is a clusterfuck.
“Motherfucker,” Horse snarls, punching the wall. “Croc knew about her.”
“Croc was a smart man and knew he couldn’t take her in. Not after he found out that bitch Lizbeth sold her. He knew they’d be searching for her. It’s why she ended up in a new area and put in the system.”
I can understand Lucifer’s reasoning, and damnit, I want to punch him for it.
“So, we’re supposed to just let her keep using herself as bait? Allow her to put herself out there.”
“Those men already know who she is by now. It’s why they had no problem trying to kidnap her.”
I look to Lucifer and then to the others.
“Meaning she’s made herself the target, and we now have to play the hand already dealt,” Twister grumbles, rubbing a hand over his face in frustration. “Damnit.”
“We’ve no choice but to work through this if we want to catch the motherfuckers,” Horse adds.
“Bullshit,” I snarl and look to Lucifer, but he speaks up before I say anything more.
“You want to know who Athena became. How about you ask her. . .work with her . . . keep her from getting herself killed. She’s got that boy that she loves more than anything and she named him after the two of us. Because we mean something to her. So, prove her right in being the man she’s always claimed you to be. Protect her at the same time let her be who she needs to be.”
I watch him closely and then remember something Athena said to me. Cursing, I shake my head and stalk back toward where I’d left her, only to find her and Jesse both gone.
Fuck me. I’m going to strangle her when I find her again.
CHAPTER13
BRASS
When I get my hands on Athena, I’m going to spank her ass red.
“She did warn you, I’m sure,” Reap states in that matter-of-fact tone he seems to have.
I shoot him a glare and let out a ragged breath. “Where the fuck would she go?”
“To her apartment,” he answers, looking over my shoulder to the others. “When it comes to Athena, if you don’t have eyes on her, she’ll disappear in a heartbeat. So will Jesse. Guess you can say they’re both trained well in the art of shadows.”
