* * *
“So, I was going back over the paperwork you guys gave me when I woke up this morning,” I said, setting my mug of coffee down onto the table in front of me, “and I came across something that I think answers our questions.”
“What the fuck is this?”
“Why the hell is she here?”
“Uh, miss, we’re having a church meeting. You need to go.”
“Do you have information for us?” Axe asked.
I peeked up at him. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“She stays, then,” Dante said.
“Since when?”
“Can it, Blaze,” Mav said.
The man shot up from his seat. “She’s caused us enough shit, don’t you think?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Axe said flatly.
“He’s got a point,” a man with disheveled hair and pocked skin on his face said. “She pops up from out of nowhere, and all of a sudden, she’s weighing in and running things? It’s been disrespectful around here for a while, but this is our crew. Our turf. Our bounty. Our job. She’s got no place in it.”
“Unless she’s got information we can use,” Axe said curtly.
The guys fell silent as I dropped my gaze to the manilla folder I still clutched in my hands. I hadn’t realized that my presence had stirred things up this way between all of them.
I regretted ever coming upstairs.
“Anytime now,” a man with mutton chops murmured. “I’m already getting tired of sitting here.”
Dante’s face turned to ice, and he stared the man down. “Wolf.”
But I simply held out my hand. “Mind if I use your cell phone, Wolf?”
The hairy-faced man looked around before he shuffled in his seat. “Yes, I mind.”
“Wolf,” Axe barked.
The predator of a man didn’t take his eyes off me. “Why my phone?”
I wiggled my fingertips. “Because you’re being such a good sport right now. Figured I’d reward you.”
“At least she’s got spunk,” someone muttered.
Wolf scoffed. “If she runs this shit into the ground and gets one of us killed—"
Axe snarled behind me. “Just do it, Wolf.”
And with a roll of his eyes, the man lifted his ass, pulled out his burner cell, unlocked it, and then tossed it to me.
“Good thing I got another one to use,” he grumbled.
“When I woke up this morning, the first thing that came to mind was that the answers on why my sister is doing this has to be in those documents Dante put together,” I said as I pulled up the internet.
“The very first thing?” Axe asked.
