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Vance mirrors my smirk. “Good to see you. You do look well.”
“Are we really doing this right now? Let’s cut to the chase.”
Vance chuckles. “Alright.” He raises his hand and gestures to the guy on his right. He steps forward and pulls a file out of his suit jacket. Blade chuckles quietly next to me, but in this space, it echoes and causes everyone in the room to glance at him. “Something funny?” Vance quirks a brow.
“I can pull things out of my jacket too. Want to see? We can compare tricks,” he says with mirth in his eyes.
I sigh and glance back at Vance. “Ignore him.”
Vance’s eyes sparkle with something I don’t quite catch before he returns his attention to the man next to him. “Read it.”
“This is the file we have from someone who works closely with us. We are here to discuss it. If at the end of the evening we still feel what this file says is true, we will be taking Axe with us, and anyone who steps in our way will receive a bullet between the eyes.”
Blade tenses slightly next to me, but I keep my relaxed posture and offer a curt nod.
He continues speaking while opening the file. “Our source—”
“You can say Benjamin. We know who’s behind this.” I have to force myself not to clench my fist. I very much want to turn around and punch Blade in the face. He needs to be quiet and let me handle this.
Luckily, they seem to ignore what he said and continue. “Our source has given us information about his missing wife, Presley Ann Wyatts. She ran away five months ago, and he’s been looking for her since. He found her when he was contacted by a hospital here where she had been taken to after being brutally beaten while pregnant. Her baby did not survive. He tried getting her to come home, but she seemed stuck here for some reason. He monitored her and showed us pictures of her with Axe. It was the only other man she had been around before her attack. We have photos of him coming and going from her apartment and her at his place of work.
“We looked into things further, and the attack at her home had been ruled as a crime of passion. Whoever did this was able to walk right into her home or she let them in. Everything has led back to Axe. We gave this information to our source, and he asked us to retrieve Axe and take him to a certain location. That he would then take care of him and then be able to get his wife to come home so they could grieve the loss of their baby together.”
“Vance, I will try to say this with the most respect I can muster for you. You are wrong. Not just wrong, but blind. I assume Benjamin helps you get out of any kind of law trouble? That he is your lawyer? His family has been helping you out for years?” I spit. As much as I try to keep the anger from my voice I know it bleeds through as my fists clench tightly at my sides.
He sighs, “Yes. His parents worked with mine. What’s the point? He is a trusted ally.”
“Did you know that he also helps cops? That he assists them and helps them get away with horrendous crimes?” I fire back. “That when he cheated on his wife, she left his pathetic ass and moved here? He found her. We don’t know exactly when or how, but when he did, he tied her to a chair in her apartment and beat her. Then he stabbed her three times in her stomach and killed his own child all because he didn’t get his way.”
Vance eyes us as he takes in everything I’m saying. The man on his left that didn’t just give us all the information steps forward and whispers in Vance’s ear. Vance nods once, and the guy leaves the room, stepping outside.
“I would like to speak with Presley myself.”
Fuck that. “No. She is struggling to keep herself afloat after everything. She is in no condition to speak with you and have to relive that night.”
Vance frowns and runs a hand down his suit jacket. “I am being very kind here. This is taking up my time, and I am potentially ruining a relationship with someone who has been helping my family for the last decade. But I am willing to listen because I have respect for you. But I will stop listening if you are going to prevent me from speaking to her. So either you get her here now, or we can do this my way and I can just take Axe myself.”
I don’t speak as I stare him down, making sure I keep my face completely blank. After a few minutes, I say, “You may speak with her. But it’ll be tomorrow, not tonight.”
Vance glances around the room before nodding once. “Rage, if I do not see you with Axe and Presley at 11 a.m. sharp back here, then I will destroy your precious club and simply be done with you. I do not like wasting my time.” With that, he walks out without a backwards glance.
We all stay put and wait for him to leave before everyone comes back around. “That went better than I thought it would,” Blade comments.
“It almost went too easy,” Stone muses, and I look at him.
I thought the same thing. Too easy. That was much easier than it should have been. Something is off.
Benjamin
“Fuck!”IbellowasI throw the phone across the dingy motel room, watching as the piece of shit burner busts into a bunch of pieces that scatter across the floor.
I heard through the grapevine that Vance and a bunch of his men were coming into Jacksonville. Vance hasn’t been around this area in years, so I knew I needed to figure out what he was doing. He wouldn’t have come for me; he always sends his men to do his work for him.
I luckily have a friend on his close security team that was able to leave me on the phone in his pocket so I could hear this meeting for myself. They’re trying to turn Vance against me, but there is no way in hell he’ll believe them. He will meet with Presley and see the weak, pathetic girl she is as she shakes with anxiety and assume that she is there against her will. She won’t be strong enough to stand face to face with Vance.
If there is anything I can count on, it’s Presley royally screwing this up for them. My weak and fragile little doll will be signing their death warrants.
I smirk at that thought and slowly start to relax again.
