Page 73 of Sinning for Santa

I guess change rooms don’t have a small screen between them to speak through like this does.

My men fill the pews as I stand before them like I’m the fucking preacher, and I suppose in a way I am. I’m the leader in this town, and they look to me for direction. I just preach a little differently than most.

“Okay, as you know, my visit in the city didn’t quite go as planned, and some fucker sent unskilled men to kill me.” I start, my eyes travelling over my men, all their eyes trained on me. “The man who wants me dead calls himself Mr V, and because I saved Miss Summers, he’s decided to make her his new target, since apparently I killed someone dear to him.”

Dragging my gaze from my men, I start pacing slowly, my hands behind my back as I frown in thought. “He blackmailed those two men to take me out, using their families’ safety to force their hands.” I glance back up at my team. “Do we have an update on their families?”

“Yes.” Miles clears his throat as he stands warily. “I sent Lenny’s team to check on the families.”

The way his eyes drop to the floor as he speaks tells me everything I need to know, but we all need to hear the words. We all need the seriousness of this situation to sink in.

“They were all dead. Looks like they had been for a while.”

Gritting my teeth, I take a deep inhale to remain fucking calm before I speak. “Then Mr V had no intention of letting my two attackers live anyway.”

This knowledge changes everything. It means he’s unlikely to negotiate. It means that his threat against Jaxcen is realand if he had found her when he went to her apartment, he would have killed her.

“How many were killed?” I snap, and Miles rushes out.

“Two women and five children in total.”

My men shift on the pews as their anger becomes unhidable.

“We need to slaughter this fucker.” Finn growls as Miles slumps back down on the pew next to him, and my other men grunt in agreement.

“It’s clear the danger to Miss Summers is real. We have her phone and laptop, but since we have no idea who Mr V is, I’m worried he’ll dig up information on Jaxcen’s family.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, knowing I have to tell her. I can’t keep it from her anymore.

“Want me to liaise with Riggs? Maybe his team can help get covert protection on her family.” Lenny suggests and I nod. “Yeah, do that. I’ll deal with my cousins.”

They’ll want to know everything, and I guess I should stop being a prick and tell them since an attack on me is basically an attack on the whole Marx dynasty.

“Do we have anything on Mr V?” I ask, and Dom stands, nodding.

“The partial number plate is still processing, but we were able to hack into CCTV to retrace the path the Honda took, but we lost it when it travelled west, out of the city.”

“Towards Ballarat?” I ask and Dom nods.

“That general direction.”

“Could this be Bikie related?” Finn asks, and I frown, considering that.

“Not that I’m aware of, but just in case, reach out to Ringo and see if the Southern Sadists know anything.”

Finn nods. “Will do.”

“Do we have anything else on this fucker?” I snap, and when no one responds, I dismiss them.

“Let’s double perimeter security until this is over.” I order and turn my sights to Dom, “You and Finn stay behind and talk to me about Miss Summers.”

My men leave, not fucking about as Dom opens up a laptop and passes it to me.

“There’s nothing amiss with Miss Summers, other than the way her family and fiancé treat her. This seems to be her personal laptop, so there’s no real work on here. I did find some stories she’d written and a few other files saved in a setup folder not normally found in the system folder.”

My brows hitch as I look at the screen to understand what Dom is referring to.

“The system folder is generally left alone by users, as it contains all the background files, so by her saving things there, she didn’t want them to be found by someone casually looking through her personal files,” Dom explains, and I click on the folder to see a few word documents, some PDFs and half a dozen pictures.

Fuck. As each picture transforms into its personalised thumbnail, I can clearly see these pictures are of my little mouse, wearing next to nothing, in provocative positions.

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