Page 49 of Traitor

Somebody owed me an explanation before I went on a fucking rampage.

I stared at my laptop screen and then back down at the notebook on my kitchen table. My conversation with Grey had gone nowhere. He was certain that it couldn’t have been any of his guys because he could account for every single club officer during the time period in question.

I’d made my own list of everyone that knew about Lauren’s plan to draw out the mole and had been cross-referencing names with locations for the last five hours.

On top of that, another model had gone missing in the Denver area. And she just so happened to be Katya’s friend, Christine Stevens. I knew that it was no coincidence that she disappeared six months to the day since Katya was rescued.

I switched screens and began poring over anything that looked like a connection between the two cases. Katya and Christine were both models and had mutual female friends, but that’s where the similarities ended. Outside of work events, they rarely spent time together.

I tapped my pen against the pad of paper and tried to recreate the timeline of events that led to Katya being taken. The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department was focusing their efforts on tracking down Landon Scott. Since I knew where that trail was going to lead, I was focused on finding something—anything—that would tie the two cases together.

When I reached a dead end, I flipped back over to Lauren’s case. If the club officers were accounted for, then maybe one of them opened their mouth to a club whore or ol’ lady.

Something was off about the whole fucking thing. If the Sons were that concerned with Lauren, why hadn’t they attempted something before now?

The guttural roar of a motorcycle outside had me pulling my gun and heading toward the front door.

“Come and get me, motherfuckers,” I growled while checking my mag and sliding it back in. The noise from the straight pipes was thunderous, rattling the window panes like heavy bass from a speaker.

I threw open the front door and sauntered out, my fury fueling each step. The rider threw off his helmet, while his passenger sat stock-still.

“Mike, it’s me. Torch.” He waved his hands and I lowered my weapon.

“Who’d you bring with you?” I called out.

The passenger pulled their helmet off to reveal long red hair. “Me, Tex. Thanks for the ride, Torch,” Lauren said as she patted his arm.

He nodded and took off down the dirt road, casting her in a red glow from his brake lights. She tucked the helmet underneath her arm and tentatively approached me. “You gonna put the gun away?”

I holstered it and gestured toward the porch swing. She had on a leather jacket, looking every bit the part of a biker’s ol’ lady. It made me feel sick. When she met me, she’d been a virgin with her life semi-together. I felt responsible for the shift.

“Nice jacket,” I offered as she sat down.

“Thanks—it was my mom’s.” She shrugged out of it and kicked off her cowboy boots before she began rocking back and forth in the swing.

I leaned against the front railing and watched her curiously. “Are we gonna talk about why you’re here at,” I checked my watch, “eleven-thirty at night?”

Lauren lifted her feet up until just her toes were resting against the wood before dropping her heels back down. “I need you.” She lowered her eyes back down to the porch. “I tried to move on with Jimmy. Elizabeth said that I should have sex with someone else, but I couldn’t do it. Shit, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that last part.”

Elizabeth was going to get an earful the next time I saw her.

I let out a bitter laugh. “You tried to take advice from someone who nearly died from her own affair?”

Lauren scowled at the patio. “Be nice. I just—I—I still love you, okay?” She looked up at me sadly. “Loving you hurts me, but I don’t know how to stop. And I hate myself for it.”

Just twist that knife in my chest, Darlin’.

With a deep breath, I cleared my thoughts. No more cases involving missing models. No more shady MCs firebombing cars like the goddamned Taliban.

Just Lauren.

It had always been just Lauren.

Her voice broke as she whispered again, “I need you. I just need to feel safe and I’ve only ever had that with you.”

If I were to die right now, with her words ringing in my ears, then I’d die a completely happy man.

I crossed the porch and scooped her up into my arms. She didn’t argue, just held on tightly to me as I carried her inside and upstairs. A tear slipped free from the corner of her eye as I laid her back on the bed and I pressed my lips to it.

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