Page 86 of Marked for Obsession

All three men had found their one true love. A soulmate to share their lives with. To growoldwith.

The funny part was, not a single one of those things used to matter to him. Before Poppy, Jax had resigned himself to a life of solitude. He’d been perfectly content having sex for sex’s sake, and always without even the tiniest of strings.

But now…

Jax thought about the woman who was currently upstairs in his shower, and damn if he didn’t find himself thinking of an entirelifetimeof strings.

It was crazy, he knew. Insane, more like it. But being with Poppy had changed something inside him. Something big. And the biggest shocker of all?

He liked it.

Minutes passed, and Jax was still thinking about Poppy and all the things he wanted to do with—and to—her when a low ding sounded from his computer.

Pulling himself out of his own head, he glanced at the screen, which showed the exact same information as one of the computers he’d cloned last week. The night he’d left Ivan at his place to watch over Poppy, he’d broken into the two businesses that lined the alley where she’d seen the two men and the body.

One was a temp agency, the other a small printing firm.

The program he’d installed in those businesses’ main computers during his little B&E session allowed him to see exactly the same things as their users, and in real time. As of this morning, neither business had produced anything useful.

But now, the file that had just been added to the computer belonging to the manager of the temp agency caught his attention. It didn’t have an official name. Only numbers.

But as he studied those numbers closer, Jax realized they made up Poppy’s date of birth.

10041990.

October fourth, nineteen-ninety.

Jax clicked open the file, his stomach dropping from what he saw.

There were pictures. So many pictures. Mostly of Poppy alone, but some also showed him and her together.

The ones showing them both had been taken as they’d entered and left the police precinct the day she’d met with Dr. Garcia. There were also pictures of the two of them walking in and out of the FBI building shortly after.

Nausea filled his gut to think about some asshole following her like a goddamn stalker.

Not that he should be surprised. Declan’s and Noah’s units had already identified the four men from the SUVs as heavy hitters for the Mons Leones. But that was an assumed connection from the start.

This file, however, was proof that whoever was using the computer at the temp agency right this second was somehow involved in the attacks on Poppy. Directly, indirectly…Jax didn’t give a flying fuck which.

He just prayed they were still there when Declan and his partner arrived on scene.

Picking up his own encrypted cell from the desk, Jax slid his thumb across the screen and quickly put in a call to Dec. It rang once. Twice. And on the third time…

“Your ears burning?”

It took Jax a second to realize Declan had apparently been talking about him to…someone. “Why? You got something for me?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

About fucking time.“You gonna share sometime today, or…”

“I was just about to call you. We got Dylan Moore.”

Jax frowned. “Moore?” Then his memory struck. “The guy Poppy said was there the night of Santoro’s murder?”

“Detective Dylan Moore, yeah,” Declan confirmed. “Got him dead to rights.”

“How?”

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