Page 236 of Bad for Me

I drift into a deep sleep, surrounded by the men who own me, body, heart, and soul.

14

COLIN

Exhaustion,stress, and frustration are a bad mix. Even after a night like tonight, I can’t sleep due to the thoughts churning through my brain. Despite months of digging around and searching, we couldn’t pin down why The Skulls are going after Wisteria. What are they looking for? Who’s the mole? It drives me up a fucking wall that we can’t keep her safe—even on a secure compound.

If I’m awake, I may as well check on our security team and the perimeter of the compound. Cain and I interrogated every single person on staff that night while Jude was getting patched up, and we still don’t know who let The Skulls in.

On my walk to the bathroom, I step on something sharp, and pain slices through the sole of my foot. I hop up, and frown when I see Wisteria’s charm bracelet on the floor. The big sun charm is cracked, and I see a shiny metal object glinting in the dark. After picking apart the rest of the charm, I realize it’s a micro flash drive.

Running on pure adrenaline and gut instinct, I plug it into Jude’s laptop in his office, and my stomach bottoms out. There are pages and pages of documents detailing shipments back to the mid 2000’s…right around the time Crystal married Father Mannix.

The drive includes dozens of pictures of deals, shipments, and merchandise too. There’s enough evidence here to blow our cover and destroy us.

There’s a file for someone named Greg Altman—an agent that was posing as a member of The Skulls. He must have been Crystal’s and Norma’s contact. The last thing I see is the kicker, though. It’s a phone number, with no name or contact connected to it.

This is way too much information. Were Wisteria’s mom and aunt in on this? Did the plant in The Skulls aim to take out two gangs at once? Is he even still there?

I wake up the others and catch them up, showing them everything on Jude’s laptop.

“If the phone is still active, we can locate it,” Cain runs to his room, where his computer rig is set up.

“If we find them, we should give them the flash drive,” Wisteria deadpans.

“What?” Jude and I reply, in varying levels of confusion.

“We doctor the information on the drive so they don’t have anything concrete, and give them false shipment details, so they use the pattern to ambush us. Then we take them out.”

“Offense as a defense. I like it,” I comment.

“That may not solve the issue long term,” Jude muses, “But it’s a good start.”

Cain comes back, armed and ready to roll. “It’s coming from the far side of the farm, near the corn fields. Get ready, we can catch them off guard this late at night.”

I help Wisteria put a holster and vest on and give her a quick lesson on gun safety. “Please promise me you won’t shoot unless necessary. I don’t want that on your conscience, okay?”

“I won’t shoot unless I have to,” she promises.

We follow Cain out the back door, through the farm on foot. As soon as we get close, we take cover behind a tractor.

“Mason Judd’s home,” Jude seethes. “How much do you want to bet that Mandy and her father are the moles?”

“She was such a bitch to me when we were kids. And she practically stalked you, Jude,” Wisteria laments.

“You don’t even know the half of it.” Jude leaves it at that.

Cain breaks the door down with a swift kick. Jude grabs Mason, who’s sleeping on the couch in the living room, and ties him to a kitchen chair with zip ties from his pocket. Mandy and her mother run down in their pajamas when they hear Mason shouting.

“Don’t fuck around and waste my time,” Jude growls, shoving the butt of a hun under Mason’s chin. “How do you contact The Skulls?”

The wife cries while his daughter’s face goes white. She doesn’t seem nearly as upset as her mother, or surprised. She looks plain guilty, caught red-handed.

Mason’s face turns red, and he stutters his denial. “I-I-I would never do that to you, Father Jude.”

“I will end you, your wife, and your pathetic excuse for a daughter and feel zero remorse, Judd. Don’t make me.” Jude cocks the trigger with a cool, unbothered expression on his face. He truly doesn’t care if he ends their lives today. Mason pisses himself in fear.

“Some guy named Greg!” Mandy screams. “After Norma left he paid Dad and I to give him information.”

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