“We are aware the man in charge of running the sex trafficking ring for The Bulls is dead, but we were wondering if you knew anything that might help.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Saint and Galen sharing a troubled look. Lo sits up straighter. Her sharp expression tells me she knows exactly who I’m talking about. “Why would you think I’d know anything?” she asks, being extremely guarded.
Setting my drink down, I take her hands in mine. “Let’s cut the bullshit. You’re my friend. I trust you with my life, and I hope you’d say the same.”
“Goes without saying,” Lo immediately replies.
“Then you know whatever is shared here will be kept strictly between all of us. We will never breathe a word of this to anyone else. You can trust us. I promise you.”
Lo’s husbands all turn as one, as if it was coordinated, and stare at Ares.
For once, Ares doesn’t scowl or give them any of his usual passive-aggressive bullshit. “I understand your hesitation when it comes to me,” he says. “I know I have deserved it, but everything I have done has been for my sister. It’s all been about finding Lilianna.”
“That’s why you asked for a list of Sainthood members last time,” Lo says, remembering our conversation in the study at the party.
Ares nods. “Marwan wouldn’t organize a visit for me with Ruben in prison until I jumped through a bunch of fucking hoops.”
“It was The Bulls who set up the ambush at the warehouse?” Saint surmises, arching a brow.
“It was their idea, but The Sainthood knew. They were lying in wait for us,” Ares explains.
“That whole situation was orchestrated by higher-ups,” I supply. “Both were pawns who were always going to be taken out.”
Silence descends as we all contemplate the things we know and can’t say. I know Lo is mixed up in some shit, possibly with VERO, if my assumptions about her friend are correct, and I know she knows we are mixed up in something too. I wish we could trade secrets, but it’s too risky. We are already risking enough even having this conversation.
Lo and Theo have some kind of silent communication before she turns her attention back to me. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything you can tell us about Luke McKenzie. We have been told you were the one who killed him, and we’d like to know why.” Our guess is it’s something connected to sex trafficking because Lo and the guys were pivotal in smashing a massive sex trafficking ring orchestrated by The Sainthood, and The Bulls were their rivals, so it doesn’t take much to connect the dots.
“How the fuck do you know that?” Saint stands, looking agitated as he cracks his knuckles.
“My father told us,” Jase confirms. “He has powerful connections, and he’s helping us to trace Lili.”
Lo looks seriously shell-shocked as her gaze bounces between her husbands before swinging back around to me. “No one is supposed to know about that! The evidence was buried.”
I shift uncomfortably on my seat, locking eyes with Jase.
Jase clears his throat. “There is a lot we would like to say but can’t. My father is part of a very powerful organization. They are all-seeing and all-knowing. I don’t know how it went down with McKenzie, but you have nothing to fear. There is no interest in you. This is us purely trying to find out how involved that prick was and whether he is the one who took Ares’s little sister.”
“You even asking us this places Lo in danger,” Galen says, standing. “We’re leaving.” He drills Lo with a deadly look.
Lo rolls her eyes. “Sit your ass down and stop overreacting. Ash and the guys would not put me, or any of us, in harm’s way. I don’t see how answering their question makes any difference.”
Lo’s husbands trade worried expressions, but ultimately, they don’t fight her.
It’s totally clear who wears the pants in their relationship!
“This is probably not what you want to hear,” Lo says, squeezing my hands. “But I didn’t know Luke McKenzie.”
“None of us did,” Caz adds.
“We were on a job to burn a meth lab belonging to The Bulls, and he was there,” Lo says. “He was taking potshots at us as we were leaving, and I ended up killing him accidentally.”
“We had no dealings with the prick up to that point. We didn’t even know who he was.” Saint glances at Ares. “I’m sorry, man, but we have no information on what he was up to or the trafficking he was involved in.”
“Well, shit.” Jase scrubs a hand across his smooth jawline before taking a swig of his beer.
Ares’s shoulders slump in defeat, and I get up, dropping into his lap and wrapping my arms around him. His head falls to my shoulder as he clings to me.
