Page 30 of Chasing Simone

“Not yet.” I wink just to ruffle her feathers some more. She’s so damn sexy when she gets angry.

Simone throws her hands in the air. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re beautiful. Bold. Sexy. Intelligent—”

“Bossy. Overly opinionated,” Punk adds as he waltzes into the tech room to plant his ass in the chair next to my computer station. He snaps his fingers as he suddenly recalls something. “Oh, and obstinate.”

A year later, and these two still give each other shit. There have been periods of peace between them, but they always revert back to bickering.

“Very stubborn,” I agree. “But fuck you for being a dick to my woman.”

“I’m not your woman!”

The entire tech room laughs at Simone like she just told the funniest joke. She can deny it until she’s blue in the face, but the whole MC knows she’s mine. She only needs to admit it to herself. Once she does, she’ll be sitting pretty as my queen at my side, where I’ll spoil her rotten like she deserves.

“Look, I get you trying to protect what’s yours,” Gauge intervenes.

“I’m right here!” Simone yells, her face turning red with rage. “Don’t talk about me like I’m a piece of property.”

Gauge ignores her outburst. “Believe me, brother, I understand your concern. But Trent isn’t coming to the club. He won’t be anywhere near Simone.”

My head falls back as I close my eyes. “I made Simone head auditor on the assignment.”

Gauge groans, pulling out his cell to fire off a text. “Atlas is going to flip when he hears this.”

Punk breaks out into a fit of giggles. “That fucking blows. Glad I’m not you.”

Undeterred, I shrug. “If we don’t back out, then Simone doesn’t work the case.”

Simone’s head whips to me faster than a bullet from a gun. “You’ve got to be joking if you think I’m backing out of the chance to smear Trent and Cynthia’s names through the mud for not catching this pilfering operation happening right under their noses. Don’t you dare threaten to remove me from this mission.”

“It could be therapeutic for her,” Gauge agrees.

“Help her move forward,” Ziggy, my tech assistant and MC brother, adds.

“Again with you buffoons talking about me like I’m not here!” Simone shouts to the room.

Punk cups his ear, straining. “Did you hear something? Sounded like a blow horn.”

Ziggy laughs. “Really? I thought it was Charlie Brown’s teacher talking.”

Simone glowers at my brothers. “I hate you all.”

“Enough, children,” Atlas orders in a deep voice as he enters the tech room. “The lot of you squawk as loud as my boys.”

Prez looks tired but still alert enough to beat all our asses if he’s so inclined. His baby twin boys have been a handful. With Jo pregnant with another set of twins, he’s been doing everything he can to make her pregnancy easier, even doing the nightly feedings. Hence, his foul mood.

“Nobody better be teasing my sister-in-law. Last thing I need is blowback from Jo because you guys were a bucket of assholes. Chase? Simone? My office—now.”

Great.It’s like being told to go to the school principal. This will not go in my favor.

I follow Simone into Atlas’s personal office, ready to plead my case.

Atlas shuts the door before speaking. “What the hell were you thinking assigning Simone to this case? And without consulting me or Gauge first?”

I grimace, realizing I overstepped. This is Atlas’s security company, and his club. He runs this ship as tight as he did when he was a captain in the navy. But even he consults with me, Gauge, and Punk before making heavy calls. I should’ve run this by him first. Atlas has pretty much let me operate my tech team the way I see fit. He wouldn’t object to having Simone assist on the case. However, he would have vetoed that suggestion, knowing her ex would be active in our investigation.

“I admit, I fucked up. With your permission, I’d like to recant my invitation for Simone to join the team on this assignment.”

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