It was funny how everyone thought they knew what was best for him. He was beginning to resent it.
“I can’t believe he beat her.” Her pained whisper struck deep. “If I’d known, I would have gotten her out. I would have—”
He cut her off. “Don’t go there.” He’d already been down that rabbit hole. “You want something to do? Talk to her. Get her to tell you what happened. See if she needs to talk to someone about it. Be her friend.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
It wasn’t his place to say. “Just talk to her,” he repeated.
“Did he . . . rape her?” she whispered.
There was a reason Lucy was the club’s lawyer. Not only was she intuitive, but she had street smarts. Like a chameleon, she changed to fit her environment. One minute she was arguing law and the next, she was whooping Arson’s ass in darts. He wasn’t surprised she’d figured it out. “Answer me,” she tearfully commanded.
So not to break Sage’s confidence, he carefully considered his words. “The fucker beat the shit out of her and threatened to kill Petal. He’s part of a drug cartel. You do the math.”
Her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes bulging in shock as she hinged forward and let out a painful groan. After a few deep breaths, she straightened back up and gave him a contemplative look. “He’s not going to let this lie, is he?”
“Nope.”
“Are we going on lockdown?”
“Not yet, but my guess is it’s coming.”
“Damnit. I have a job, important clients, I can’t keep doing this shit.”
Ax smiled at her. “That’s what you get for marrying an asshole biker, sweetheart.”
She let out a half-laugh, half-huff. “No kidding. Alrighty then, on that note, I’m going to the store.”
“Here.” He handed her a credit card. “Anything they need.”
Lucy smiled. “I knew you had a heart.”
“Yeah, yeah. Grab a cake while you’re at it.”
“Sorry, sugar, that’s your gig,” she replied before disappearing out the door.
Gut twisting, he lowered his elbows to his knees and scrubbed his hands through his hair. Tomorrow was the bonfire. He’d invited Emma because he wanted her to finally meet his family. Now, he wasn’t sure what he wanted. No, that wasn’t fair. Just because Sage was back didn’t mean things had changed. Fuck, who was he kidding? Sage being back changed everything.
He found Sage and Petal outside Steele’s office.
“I was just about to take them down,” Steele said.
“I’ve got them.”
Steele smirked. Ax gave him the middle finger. Fucker.
“Wait ‘til you see what LuLu did with the downstairs,” Ax told Sage and Petal. “I especially like Steele’s new throw pillows.”
“Ha-Ha,” Steele mocked. Ax and Sage both laughed.
When LuLu discovered she was pregnant, she didn’t go into a nesting phase, she went into a redecorating phase. Steele presented it to the club as a “Luciana would like to clean the place up” kind of thing. The vote was unanimous because, well, the place was kind of a dump. The next thing they knew, decorators were in their space deciding color patterns, walls were being torn down, carpet was being torn out, and they were being gassed out by toxic-smelling paint fumes. Some of it Ax liked and some he didn’t. He hated the new living room but he dug what she’d done with the basement. The basement housed the control room, an old wine cellar left over from The Cave’s days as a hotel, and four bedrooms. Only two of the bedrooms were occupied, one by Steele and the other by their control-room operator, Grover. When LuLu caught wind that there were two unoccupied rooms, she morphed into Susie Homemaker. This led to the basement overhaul, which included new carpet, more lighting, and two new guest suites.
Ax led them into one of the two suites and smiled when Sage began oohing and aahing. He had to admit, LuLu had done a good job.
Petal ran off to find Grover while Sage checked out the bathroom.
“Wow, this is amazing. I had no idea this was even down here.”
Pulling her to his side, he wrapped his arm around her. “Grizz used it for storage. Steele was too lazy to clean it out. You wouldn’t believe how much shit was piled into this one room.
Sage laughed. “How much does Steele hate this?”
He chuckled. “A fuck of a lot.” Her head dropped to his shoulder and he caught a whiff of her shampoo. His cock stirred in his pants. Touching her felt good. Too good. Time to go. He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then took a step back and started for the door. “Lucy will be back shortly with some things for you. Get some rest and we’ll talk later.”
He’d barely opened the door when Petal came barreling through it. “Mommy, I got to ride on Uncle Grover’s wheelchair!”
“That’s great, baby. Are you ready for a bath?”
Petal ran to Ax and he picked her up. “Are you leaving?”
“I am, but I’ll see you later.”
“Promise?”
The anxious look on her face made his chest ache. “I promise. Now, give me a hug.”
A few minutes later, he entered Steele’s office.
“A fucking cartel,” Steele hissed. He was pissed. Ax took a seat and listened to him rant. “I had Martin look into him. How the hell could he have missed something that fucking huge?”
Martin came courtesy of Ax’s cousin and Steele’s brother, Carver. Carver was a cop. Until recently, he’d been on the outs with the club, but after saving LuLu’s life, he was back in the fold. If Carver said Martin was the best in the business, then he should know. The fact that Martin didn’t dig up the dirt on Carlos meant one of two things: either he didn’t look hard enough or there wasn’t anything to find. Ax’s gut said it was the former. He told Steele what he was thinking.
“Is it just me, or is it a big fucking coincidence that Carlos ensnared Sage right around the time the shit hit the fan here at the club?” Steele asked.
Ax hadn’t thought of that. “You think the two are connected?”
“I wouldn’t rule it out.”
He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. If it’s about drugs, then why Sage? Why take her to Mexico?”
Steele shrugged. “I don’t know; to piss us off? To show us that he can get to us? Maybe I’m reaching, but if there’s a connection between the two, we need to find it.”
Ax didn’t disagree. Better to reach and be wrong, than to get blindsided again. “Are we going into lockdown?” A part of him thought they should.
“Not yet. I want Martin to dig deeper into Diez and Herrera. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”
Ax yawned. “I’m going home for a few hours, and then I have to finish a bike. I’ll check in later.”
He was almost to the door when Steele said, “Emma’s a good girl. She’s been good for you, but she’s not Sage. I know this has to be hard on you. As much as I hate to say it, she can’t compete. If you’re any kind of a man, you won’t make her.”
He left without responding, but that didn’t mean he didn’t get Steele’s message. He got it loud and clear. He just didn’t know if he agreed with it. One thing was for sure, if Carlos thought he could waltz in and take Sage and Petal back, he had another thing coming.