“If you’re right…” Saint has re-entered both the room and the discussion. “And she just wanted to take Ace, where does her fucking connection to the MDMC come in?” He addresses his question while looking toward me.
It’s Bullseye who answers when I can’t. “The MDMC is using them to get revenge on us. It has to be.”
“Or…” I hesitate to offer an alternative suggestion. “She could have hired them. Ace loves his aunt, but he wouldn’thave willingly left Freak. She’d have needed help to execute a kidnapping.”
Bullseye tilts his head to one side and lines etch his forehead, as if considering my words. Then he asks, “But why the fuck would the MDMC help?”
Pippa takes her hands off the keyboard and swivels on her chair to face us. “I can’t believe you haven’t latched on to the most likely reason. You’re all focusing on Toni. Whether Toni wanted to play fond aunt or not, it might not have been her who instigated it. Rather than Toni getting the MDMC to kidnap him for her, I think she made it easy for them to take him.” She waits a beat, and with her head moving from side to side, she reminds us of two things. “I think the MDMC might be behind everything. Firstly, Ace is a fucking genius. He can hack into almost anything. And secondly, Griz would have known that from his time with the Kings.” Griz had been a prospect who’d infiltrated the Kings on behalf of the MDMC. It makes sense they’d know all about Ace and the shit that kid could do.
“Fuck!” Saint spins around and puts his hand through the wall.
“Jesus, how did we miss that?” Bullseye rants. “Could she have been working for the MDMC all along?”
Having dropped her second bombshell of the day, Pippa returns to tapping away at her keyboard and looking up at the information scrolling on a second screen. Now she informs us, well, Prez and the VP, I doubt I’m still supposed to be there, “I’m doing a double-check on Toni. I got her employment records, her credit score, and every damn thing I could find out about her.” She pauses, swings her chair around again, and faces Bullseye and her old man head-on. “I’ve just checked her dad to see whether he had any known affiliations. I’d originally left him alone after I’d confirmed he was dead.”
“What have you found?” Bullseye snaps.
“Not a damn fuckin’ thing. There’s nothing to show any connection between Toni and the MDMC.”
“Damn,” I breathe out. I hoped this would be easier. My interjection has brought Bullseye’s attention back to me. He narrows his eyes, and here it is, what I’ve been expecting.
“We can take it from here,” he states, but not unkindly. “Why don’t you take baby Jade out of here? I do appreciate everything you’ve done to help us find Ace, but there’s nothing you can do now.”
Of course, I don’t want to leave. I’m concerned about Ace and worried about Freak, but I’m not a member or even an old lady. I scramble to find an excuse as to why I should stay, but traitor that she is, Jade begins to wake, her face scrunches, and I know from experience, she’ll soon need feeding.
Pippa notices at the same time. She winces with sympathy, but she knows, as do I, that she’s more useful here than looking after her baby. As for me, I’ve said my piece. There’s nothing more I can do.
“I’ve pumped some milk,” she tells me gently. “Can you take her to our house? The bottles are in the fridge.”
For now, it’s the only way I can be useful. “Please let me know if there are any developments, and if there’s anything I can do.”
Bullseye’s phone rings, attracting their attention. Suspecting it’s Freak, I delay leaving, hoping they won’t notice I’m listening in.
“Nah, Freak. We’re still tracking. They’re still heading in the right direction if they’re going to meet up with the MDMC…” He breaks off, raises his brow toward his VP, who answers with a chin lift. Interpreting that, he tells Freak, “We’ve called all brothers in. They’re on standby, ready to roll as soon as we know a destination. Yeah, we were just asking that same fuckin’ question.” He sighs, and then his eyes land on me. He waves hishand in my direction. Taking the hint, I reluctantly leave. The door is closed behind me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
FREAK
I’m trying to reconcile my thoughts about the audaciousness of a club girl placing a fucking tracker on my son, and balance them against the realisation I owe her a huge fucking debt for committing what, under other circumstances, would be seen as an unforgivable crime. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d still be kicking my heels in Flagstaff without a clue where Ace was heading.
She’d obviously seen something in Toni that I had missed. I don’t know who I hate worse right now, myself for being blindsided by a conniving cunt, or Trixie for not minding her place. There’s also a niggling voice in the back of my mind that asks why I hadn’t listened to her concerns when I’d had the time? Why had I been so quick to dismiss her and assume it was jealousy? Like I’m God’s fucking gift to women, right? My arrogance might prove my undoing.
“Did Trix say why she had her suspicions?” I ask through gritted teeth.
Saint answers me, his voice grim even through the phone. “Don’t shoot the fuckin’ messenger, okay? I’m just repeatingwhat Trixie said. In summary, while Toni thought the world of your son, she wasn’t so enamoured of you. The affection she showed you was all an act just to get close to Ace.”
“What the fuck does she know about it? Toni liked me well enough. And she was all fuckin’ in. A woman’s body doesn’t fuckin’ lie. It might have taken a while to get her into my bed, but hell, she was a fuckin’ wildcat when she got there. And she fuckin’ enjoyed it.”
There’s a strangled cough, a pause, then, “Trixie suggested she faked it.”
“She wasn’t faking,” I snarl. How could she have deceived me? She’d been into it as much as I had. Hadn’t she? Nah, even the thought is fucking bullshit.
Bullseye takes over.“Despite what you want to believe, it seems like she was playing you from the start.”
Leaving how she performed in bed to one side, this, given recent events, I can’t deny. I’d have found her and Ace having fun together in Flagstaff if she’d been straight with me. But she hadn’t. She’d been pretending all along. Unless the neighbour was lying, and I can think of no reason for that, Toni wasn’t coerced to leave her house.
“Just tell me what you’re thinking.” I breathe out.
