The four of us sit on the wooden floor in the living room before Cian rocks forward.
“Marie? I’ve met her once, and she just doesn’t seem like the type to settle down with a nomadic motorcycle club,” he says, blowing out a breath. “How serious is this?”
“It’s complicated,” I grumble. “We’re working our way into her good graces. Hence, the house.”
“A house may impress someone else, but Marie isn’t one of those people,” Cian says. “Are you just all going to retire or something? Lore, you’re the president. That can’t possibly happen.”
“You’re right, I’m not stepping down,” our president says. “We’ll do our best not to shit where we sleep, and keep our business outside of Minneapolis. Marie wants to be independent, while it’s killing me to watch her work back to back twelve hour shifts.”
“That’s the thing. Why the fuck isn’t she being paid unemployment if she was fired?” I ask. “Something isn’t right there. I need to get into the Chicago records to figure out what’s going on.”
“Why don’t you pretend to be the unemployment office and send her money,” Cian suggests. Our jaws drop while he shrugs. “It’s no fun being a criminal if you can’t take certain liberties for the people you care about.”
“You’re not wrong,” I murmur. “I bet unemployment pay is low, huh?”
“It’s about two hundred dollars,” Cian says. “How long has she been unemployed?”
“God, it’s been almost three weeks,” Wilder confirms. “They should have started paying it, right?”
“Let me look,” I say, getting up to grab my computer. I connect it to my hot spot once I turn it on and begin to hack into Marie’s bank records. She still has a Chicago bank account, and it’s sitting at five dollars without any deposits in weeks. “Those fuckers. Her last deposit from her work doesn’t make sense based on when they fired her. She should have had at least a week’s pay deposited from the hospital.”
“Check the unemployment records?” Cian suggests.
Making a noise under my breath, I begin to follow the money, something I’m very good at.
“Shit,” I say. “They marked her file as closed and stated that it’s because she quit.”
“If she walked out in a blaze of glory, she would have said so,” Wilder says. “Marie was pissed off about being fired when we talked about it with her at breakfast.”
We touched on what had happened in Chicago, and she told us the story. She was pretty tight lipped about the fall out though. Now I can see why. Marie has absolutely no money and is freaking the fuck out.
That’s why she’s working so many hours.
“Let’s see if this will help,” I murmur, setting up a bank transfer to her account.
I make sure that it looks like the unemployment office, and then I hack into the hospital and steal exactly what they’d need to pay her for a week of wages. It takes a little bit of research, but I grin as I deposit that into her account as well, masking it as the hospital paying her.
“Done,” I say. “She’s got about two grand in there now. It’ll at least go toward getting her car out of the mechanic.”
“The three of you are such idiots,” Cian says. “Are you seriously considering allowing her to scrape by? If you know where her car is, just pay the bill.”
“She tased me for suggesting it,” I tell him. “Marie doesn’t play about her independence.”
“No, you offered to buy her a new car,” Lore corrects me. “There’s a big difference between the two.”
“I’m sure there’s some kind of hazard in her car,” I groan. “I’d rather drive her everywhere on the back of my bike than have her behind the wheel of that rust bucket.”
“Pick your battles wisely,” Cian chuckles. “If you keep your noses clean in my city, I have no reason to keep you out. Try not to brawl too much with her brother. He’s a fucking hot head.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say, rubbing my ribs. Lore’s gaze moves to the spot, and I know he’ll be asking to see my bruises. I gave as good as I got, it’s fine. “I was planning to call you tomorrow. I’m sure you hear that often, but…”
“I believe you,” Cian says, glancing at the time. “Since I’m stuck here for a while, why don’t I get a tour?”
“Seriously?” Lore asks.
Cian climbs to his feet with a nod. “My parents are attached to Evan, and this wasn’t a scheduled visit. God forbid my mother can’t go out to breakfast when it was in the date book,” he says, smirking.
I can respect a man who takes his parents' interests to heart. Too bad mine are dead.
