Page 2 of Wizard

“Dammit,” he muttered. “We’ll have to put a tail on both of them after their meeting.”

“Already on it,” I assured him as I worked through the little information we’d gained from Jeff and his associate. It wasn’t much, but I had produced results with less. “Sent a text to Prez, and he’s sending Ink and Shadow to go with you.”

Both men were club enforcers and knew how to stay out of sight. Shadow had picked up his skills as a former thief, and Ink had ties to the southern mafia, who’d given him many skills that came in very handy.

“Kevlar and Cross are comin’ to guard your woman,” I added. Kevlar was our sergeant at arms, and Cross was our captain. They were both big guys who were exceptionally talented with weapons and had backgrounds in mixed martial arts.

“Great,” he replied. “Tell Ink and Shadow to meet me at the library at eleven thirty.”

“Got it.”

During the time leading up to the meeting, I continued pursuing information about anyone and anything that might have been connected to Jeff and the people he worked with and for. When I dug up some new financial documents, I sent them to our treasurer, Ace, to do some forensic accounting magic.

The man was brilliant with money and kept the MC accounts more than flush. However, he’d been given his road name because of his gambling. He was a fucking ace and rarely lost. He’d cleaned out several patches while he’d been a prospect. It wasn’t an addiction, though—he knew when to stop, and he wasn’t reckless. Which only contributed to his lethal talent with the cards. He was very, very good.

Something was off about the businesses, but we hadn’t yet figured out exactly what it was. Then some clues began to take shape as we realized that several of the shell companies were more likely to be owned by a woman. Since we’d recently discovered that women were not the only targets of this group, it made sense that the boss, Gene, would have a female among the higher-ups.

But when Jeff’s meeting was over, we had brothers on his tail and on the associates he’d met with.

To our shock, it turned out that the person in charge spelled their name J-E-A-N, rather than G-E-N-E. The boss was a motherfucking woman.

This new insight into the ring gave me a fuck of a lot more to work with and a new player to assess. I told the boys to give me twenty-four hours—give or take a few hours—to put together everything I could find with all the information I’d already gathered.

Jean turned out to be a highly intelligent woman. And a rich, spoiled, high society bitch who was as cold as ice and meticulously careful. She had daddy and mommy issues and a clear dissatisfaction with the silver spoon she’d been born with in her mouth. So she took advantage of people—not because she needed their money but because she could.

When I had what I needed, I conferred with Ace, then we called a meeting.

King, Blaze, Ace, Ink, Shadow, Kevlar, Cross, and I were all in King’s office when Echo arrived. We were sitting at the conference table to the right of the door, and he grabbed one of the other chairs and sat down, ending any conversations happening around him.

“Wizard?” King prompted.

I pushed a folder in each of their directions, then leaned back in my chair and tapped the keyboard of my laptop, where I had all of the same information pulled up in front of me. “That’s pretty much everything we know about this group,” I said, beginning the briefing. “There’s also a chart for the hierarchy and an info sheet on each of the key players.”

I walked them through everything, with Ace jumping in from time to time while mulling it all over in my head. From the thoughtful expressions on everyone’s faces, I had a feeling we were all digesting the information and forming ideas about where to go from here.

When I finished, they asked several questions before we began to brainstorm. Suggestions were tossed out randomly while some of us analyzed the data more thoroughly and worked the problem from every angle we could see, attempting to come up with a plausible solution.

“Hold up,” Shadow murmured, staring at one of the sheets of paper in his hand. “Jean has been married six times?”

I nodded. “Younger men. No prenup.” Honestly, from everything I’d learned about her, I was a little surprised that they were all still alive. Jean definitely seemed like the Black Widow type.

“She was already filthy rich when she started this shit?” Kevlar blurted, tossing his folder on the table with a disgusted huff.

“Yup,” I replied, with a pop on the P.

“She does it for the thrill then,” Shadow surmised.

“Fair assumption,” King agreed, his gaze locked on Shadow. “You think it would work?”

“Would what work?” Ink asked, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of them.

“Maybe,” Echo grunted. “Only if there is a compelling reason for her to get back in the game.”

I stopped typing and frowned as I tried to puzzle out the cryptic conversation.

“The fuck are you threenottalking about?” snapped Blaze, voicing my thoughts.

Shadow scratched his chin, then set down his folder and tapped his finger on it. “If we want to take down the entire organization, we have to get Jean. Not just the underlings because she’ll just hire new ones.”

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