After five minutes she comes out and she looks refreshed. "I don't have any clothes so I just put these on. I can grab some at a store later."
"You look beautiful in anything, Lys. Come on, let's go and grab some breakfast." I open the door for her to leave, and we go downstairs.
When we walk into the kitchen most of my brothers are in there. Some with their old ladies and some on their own. "Come on Lys, grab some coffee and you can choose anything you want."
I can feel their eyes on us, but I don't care. When we sit at a table next to Prez and Winnie, Lyssa says, "Good morning, thank you for last night."
Prez turns to her. "I didn't know anything about it. The brothers went on their own." He's pissed. I know we didn't tell him but we didn't have a lot of time, we had to move and not wait for an order. She's family so we didn't need one, right?
"Prez, time was not on our side."
"I understand. But we are a brotherhood and we will always be a brotherhood."
"I get it, but we need to act immediately."
"Okay, so Lyssa, can you tell us anything about the situation so that we can work out how to stop this happening to other people."
She takes a deep breath. "So, six months ago I made a lot of money trading crypto. I didn't think it was a scam because I had been paid out a lot of money and it was sitting in my bank. I had no reason to believe it was a scam. Until the day I wanted to do my last trade. Stupidly I told him about it being my last trade for a while as I wanted to do things with my money."
"What happened then?" Prez asks.
"I put some more money into it, more than I usually would. But my rate of return was amazing and the odds were that I was going to win more back. That had been the pattern over the previous six months. I had withdrawn money to my bank and then I put it back into the trading. My cash had grown exponentially. It was easy money, and I was good at it. Or so I thought. Turns out I was money laundering for the mafia. I didn't have a clue. So when I told them that I wanted to withdraw my money and stop trading for a while, they lost their shit. They thought I was going to take the couple of million that I had in my bank and run. Leaving them with a lot less than planned. So with the last trade, they made it difficult for me. They told me the market wasn't so good. That there were taxes to pay on the mills that were in the bank as well as the latest payment that I wanted to take. Before I knew it, they had wipedout everything in my bank. Not just the money that I had built up from trading crypto, but all my savings and every single penny that I had. They must have hacked my bank account, it’s the only way, I never gave them my bank details."
She looks at me, and I can see tears in her eyes. "They took everything from me. I couldn't pay my bills, my rent, nothing and it just got too much. They called me yesterday and told me that I could go back to the lifestyle that I had if I wanted to continue laundering their money, but there was a price."
"What was that, Lyssa? What did they say to you?" I squeeze her shoulder to give her the strength she needs.
"They told me that if I didn't do this for them, they were sending someone over to kill me and then they were going to find every member of my family and kill them. They were going to tell the cops I had been money laundering and get me arrested. They have a lot of cops in their pockets. I couldn't let anything happen to Brady, or you Tank, or any of you." She looks at me, Spider and then Prez. "So, I decided to take the easy way out. I didn't want to go to jail. I didn't want them to hurt you guys. I didn't want them to hurt me, so it seemed like the only thing I could do."
"Lys," Spider says as he gets on his knees in front of her. He pulls her into his chest as she sobs. "You should have come to us. You know what we do. We don't care who is after you. We dont' care who the fuck they are. If someone hurts one of our own, or does them dirty, then every goddamn motherfucker in this brotherhood will be out for blood. You are family, sis. You're our family."
I hate seeing her sobbing, especially in Spider's arms. I just want to take her, put her on my lap and hug her tight until she calms down. Then I'd continue hugging her until she knows that we love her. All of us.
Prez stands and paces the room. "I don't know anything about crypto trading. We have Maverick who is the tech guy. Let's get him in here to see if he knows anything about that. Mav is the best, Lyssa. If he knows about it then he can trace that money and have it back in your account in no time."
"No." She stands, pushing Spider away. "I don't want the money."
"Not even the money they stole off you? That was yours and you worked hard for it." Prez touches her arm. "You deserve something for what they've put you through."
"I don't know. I don't want any trouble. They are probably looking for me as they had asked for my response yesterday. Join them or go to prison. So what if I was going to take the easy way out.?"
"Nothing was easy about what we saw last night, Lys." I can't stand here and watch her debunk herself. "What you were going to do took guts. It took strength from deep within and you need to feed off that energy right now. You need to rise above what they were doing to you. That is not going to happen again. Think about your future. You have us, we are here for you and you will never get to that state again without talking to one of us. It doesn't have to be Spider. It doesn't have to be me." Although I would like it to be. "It could be Prez or even one of the old ladies. We are here and we will stand with you and for you."
"Jeez Tank, maybe we need to change your road name to Preacher or something." Prez laughs and everyone else joins in, including Lys and that makes me smile. I raise my middle finger and say, "Sit on that and swivel."
Lys laughs harder, and it breaks the tension in the room.
Just at that time, Mav walks into the room.
Prez moves toward the door. "Right everyone out, let Maverick talk to Lyssa and find out what's been going on." Everyone moves except me and Spider.
"I'll stay, Tank," Spider says and I look over at Lyssa, she smiles at me.
"I'll be fine, Tank. Thanks for being there for me last night."
I nod my head and leave the room. I wanted nothing better than to stay there for her. I think I need to clear my head.
Following my brothers into the kitchen, I watch them grab a cup of coffee. It's too early for a beer, but you can bet your dollar that they will be drinking beers in an hour or so.
