I think I went in thinking I would see tits and ass everywhere, people drunk all over themselves, and drugs. This looked very much like a big group of friends that rode bikes, liked leather, chrome, and being together. Duncan was being pulled from person to person, giving handshakes and massive slaps on the back. Jokes were thrown out about dropping soap, and laughter from the group rose above the beat of the music.
“He’ll be a minute. Want to come to the meeting room, so we can talk where it’s quiet?” She turned to Zodiac who was watching everything go down while sticking close to his woman. “Is that okay, Babe?”
Zodiac gave her a quick kiss and smiled. “Technically, it’s club business, so yeah, Babe. Go have your meeting.”
She repeated herself again when I didn’t immediately follow her. “Wanna go where it’s quiet?” I turned at Tess’s voice and offered her a smile before nodding.
She noticed my curious gaze as I watched all the men together. I was hesitant to go since Scorpio was still hanging out in the room I was all too familiar with.
“Last time Duncan and I were here, I was slapping cuffs around his wrists,” I said absentmindedly, not realizing I said the words out loud.
Tess frowned. “Scorpio’s a good guy, Deputy Rooker. His father would be proud of the man he’s become.”
“You knew his father?”
“Yeah… ” She opened an unfamiliar door that led to a room that most women probably never saw the inside of. “Way back when. I lost touch with everyone when I left town a million years ago.”
“Why’d you leave?” I took a seat beside her, the large table had fourteen chairs, and habit had me taking the one with my back to the wall.
“I thought Zodiac had cheated on me, but I was wrong. I came back about six months ago, and the truth eventually came out.” She twirled the wedding ring around her finger and her eyes misted a bit. “I wasted a lot of time I could have had with Ulrich and Aries, fighting what I knew in my soul to be true.” She wiped a lone tear that slid down her cheek. “Don’t do what I did, Deputy. Don’t waste time because time is one thing you can never get back. Leave the past in the past and look forward.”
“Why are you telling me this?” My stomach clenched and I wondered if I wasn’t hiding my desire for Duncan as well as I thought. Fuck. Well, then again, the man just kissed the hell out of me and I’m sure my panties were still damp from that interlude.
She shrugged. “In case you needed to hear it.”
“Needed to hear what?” Duncan walked into the room with Zodiac beside him and a guy that was as tall as a redwood tree. The way the man’s shoulders took up almost the whole doorway and he practically had to duck underneath the wood; I found to be kinda sexy, but not as sexy as I found Duncan.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, pulling my attention from the new guy. I didn’t know how to answer Duncan’s question without blushing. “Just making small talk.”
Tess hid a smile, and I rolled my eyes at her, shaking my head. She was smart and from what I knew of her, she was also very kind and loving. She took in the child of a woman that she barely knew. That had to say something about her and her husband. They were crazy about the little girl they’d adopted, and even gave her a piece of her mom by naming her Brooklyn, after her mom’s nickname at the club.
“Juliette, this is Archer. He’s going to sit in with us so we can bring him up to speed at the same time,” Zodiac said, introducing the mammoth hunk of beef sitting at the end of the table. I looked over at him again, briefly making eye contact. The silver of his hair glinted off the lights above and he grinned, making my ovaries simmer inside me. An irritated growl came from somewhere deep inside Duncan, and he sat forward, blocking my view of Archer.
Archer wasn’t fazed one bit. He leaned to the side, looking around Duncan to grin and give me a small wink. I couldn’t help myself, I smiled slightly, and shook my head, “Are there any of you that aren’t gigantic flirts?”
Zodiac shrugged. “I only flirt with my woman, but not going to lie–I flirt a lot.” I watched as he grinned at his wife, pulling their joined hands to his lips and placing a kiss on the back of her hand. The couple loved each other and didn’t care who saw. It reminded me of my parents and the love they had before dad died.
“Since Brooklyn has been gone, the lost and found at the club hasn’t been cleared out. We found a key on a keychain that had the Scorpio symbol on it.” Tess held up the key and placed it on the table in front of me getting down to business and the reason we were all here.
Picking up the key, I looked at the number etched into the hard metal. “Looks like a storage unit or a locker, 1313,” I read the numbers out loud.
“It’s a storage unit that was rented under the name McKenzie McAdams. We had no clue she even owned it. Brooklyn and I may have looked like we could be sisters, but she still had secrets she kept from all of us,” Tess informed me. “We’re assuming it might be an alias or something.”
I nodded. “That could be, or maybe a family friend? But that doesn’t really matter right now, what does matter is what was in it.”
“Baby stuff, a lot of her small personal items, and a folder containing some pretty shady information that we aren’t ready to give you right now, Juliette,” Duncan spoke up from the chair beside me. “I don’t want you to know too much when the guy from back east is sniffing around here.”
“I can take care of myself, Duncan,” I snapped, annoyed that most men looked at me and saw weakness. “Besides, that guy isn’t coming back.”
“Oh, baby, I know how strong you are. I just want to keep the rest of the information as under wraps as possible. Right now, I need your help, and I’m willing to show you the letter that Brooklyn wrote to me before she died. It proves that we were friends and that she was running from someone back east.”
Tess slid a folded piece of paper to me from across the table. I studied the faces around me before I picked it up, unfolded it, and read to myself silently the words of a desperate woman who knew her time was running short and that she couldn’t outrun whatever was chasing her forever.
I swallowed hard at the desperation in her letter, she was pleading for Duncan and the Celestial Sons to protect the girl. “Do y’all know where she is?”
“Yes, but we can’t check in on her until Brooklyn’s killer is behind bars and we are sure we won’t lead anyone to her.”
“Do you know who she was running from?” I gestured to the letter on the table.
