I don’t bother calling Cahir; I’ll wait until I’m with Copper to do that. When did I start thinking of him as Copper rather than Cooper? I need to be careful not to slip up, especially now that I’m front and centre of the organisation.
Oh, I know that Alan Chivers is just a mouthpiece; I need to find out who’s pulling his strings. Now that I have increased access, I’ll follow the money. That’s where they always slip up—the money trail. There are only so many ways to hide it, and once I give Silas the information he needs, he can discover who is bankrolling this operation.
I hope they all burn in hell.
CHAPTER 16
COPPER
Bella zooms into my work parking lot. I know instantly that something is wrong. Wiping my hands on a rag, I call out to the guys.
“My girl’s here. I’m taking lunch.”
I don’t wait for them to reply as I stride towards her car and open the door.
“What’s happened?” I demand as soon as I see the look on her face.
Bella shakes her head, placing her index finger against her lips. “Nothing’s happened,” she says with an overly bright smile. “I missed you and wanted to see if we could do lunch.”
I catch on immediately. She hasn’t had a chance to check her car for trackers and bugs.
Playing along, I reply, “I missed you, too, baby. Come on, we can walk to the sandwich shop on the corner.”
Helping her out, I notice that she leaves everything but her phone in the car. We walk silently to my bike, and I grab the scanner before we walk down the road, chatting about nothing.
When we reach the corner, we duck into an alleyway, and I run the scanner over her to check she’s clean. Shoving the scanner into my pocket, I wrap her in my arms and cup the nape of her neck, massaging the tense muscles.
“What happened?”
“They killed John, the guy whose ledgers contained the coordinates for the MC op last weekend. The brothers did the job on Friday, and he was murdered on Saturday. These guys retaliate fast.”
“Fuck,” I mutter, pressing my lips to the top of her head. “What else?”
“They’ve given me all his accounts,” she whispers.
I know that’s not the only reason she’s upset. Something else has happened. “Did they threaten you?”
She shakes her head against my chest, still not looking at me. I know my woman, and when she’s closed off like this, I know that whatever they’ve threatened her with is serious. “Who did they threaten, Spice? Do we need to let our families know so they can go somewhere safe?”
“No.” Bella lifts her head from my chest and looks at me. The anger in her eyes makes me feel sorry for whoever upset her because my woman is a force to be reckoned with. “They threatened you.”
This is the woman who thinks she struggles with emotions. The same woman now breathing fire because someone has dared to threaten my life. And I bet she’d be the same if that threat was aimed at any of her family.
She does feel. She does care. Deeply. So deeply that she doesn’t know how to handle her emotions in situations like this, and compartmentalises them until she can.
I run my fingers through her hair to calm her down. When she’s breathing easier, I cup her face with my palms, tilting it towards me.
“We knew this was a possibility, Spice,” I remind her.
She glares at me. “I know, but that doesn’t mean I like it. It makes me feral. I’ve been imagining all the ways I can kill that little worm for even daring to threaten you.”
I chuckle and press my lips to hers. When she relaxes against me, I pull away. “I love that you want to kill for me, Bee. We need to let Cahir know that things have escalated. They need to find another way to collect information for now. We can’t have the organisation looking for a mole until you have something substantial on the big players.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, moving away and taking my hand. “Let’s grab some lunch. Then we’ll call them. I’m not sure what information I’ll find in the new ledgers. Fingers crossed, it’s enough to close them down.”
That’s what we do. We take our lunch to the park near where I work and call Cahir, filling him in on John’s death and Bee’s increased workload.
“Remember, Bella, gather information only when it’s safe to do so. I know you, and you’re angry right now. You need to contain that anger before you do something rash and get hurt,” Cahir orders.
