Page 36 of Coveted By Cupid

Atlas eyes Oaks before returning his attention to me. “Does Vanessa know she’s your ole lady?”

“She will soon enough,” I say honestly, not giving a shit how territorial my claim on her after one day may appear to others. “It’s the most ironclad way to keep other fuckers away from her and keep her safe.”

Atlas nods, not the slightest bit fazed by me meeting and claiming a woman in the same day. “Very well. As long as you and your crew don’t cause any issues for this woman or our turf, we’ll get along fine.”

“Good to know,” I say, raising my whiskey glass to Atlas. “To camaraderie between our clubs. Cin, cin.”

Atlas clinks his glass against mine, downing his drink. He sits back in his seat, relaxed in our company with all the bullshit set aside. “Your bar is great. Reminds me of our local back in Fort Collins, but more industrial. My wife would like the style—Josephine is an architectural engineer.”

“Your wife? You’re married?” It’s hard to believe the guy in front of me could land a bride with how intimidating he looks most of the time. He doesn’t exactly scream family man at first glance.

“Yes, and with kids,” he adds with a prideful tone, showing me a picture of his family on his phone. “This is my wife and twin boys.”

The man smiling back at me with his beautiful family in the picture is a night and day difference from the hardened man sitting in front of me. It’s funny how we change for the ones we love.

“Twins must be a lot of work,” Oaks says, shaking his head as if he couldn’t fathom raising multiple kids at once.

“Try two sets of twins. Atlas is going to have his hands full,” Gauge adds, snickering into his drink.

I gawk. “Two sets of twins? Holy shit.”

Atlas chuckles under his breath, taking his cell back to look at the image of his family once more before pocketing his phone. “We’ll manage. She’s due any day now.”

I shake my head, laughing at myself. “Here I was thinking one kid would be fine, and you’re growing an army.”

Again, Oaks chokes on his beer, coughing and sputtering. “What fucking Twilight Zone did I walk into? A kid, Cupid? You just met the woman—today.”

I roll my eyes at my VP. “Were you not busting my balls this morning, insisting I find a woman?”

“To fuck,” Oaks clarifies, his voice sounding alarmed, “not wife up and family plan with. Geez. How do you know she’s the one after a single day?”

Before I can answer, Gauge says, “When you know, you know.”

Atlas nods, agreeing and acting like he knows far too well what I’m experiencing with Vanessa before they change the subject back to the Rockies baseball game highlights on the television, complaining about the umpire’s calls during the seventh inning.

The conversation flows and the drinks go down easily, our crews meshing well. Considering how our first encounter went earlier today, we seem to get along great.

“I know the situation we found ourselves in today was not cool, but are we good now?” I ask Atlas, wanting to bed any lingering differences.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Atlas says, like it’s water under the bridge. “Sorry if we came on strong. We don’t trust outsiders, especially with recent events happening on our turf. I’m sure you’ve heard about the students being abducted from our city around the campus.”

“I have,” I say grimly. “Seven students since January. One is bad enough, but seven is a damn epidemic.”

“It is,” Atlas says, agreeing, his tone flat. “I hate to ask it, but I wouldn’t be doing my due diligence without enquiring what your club is affiliated with.”

“Not that,” I say tersely, offended he asked but understanding why he did at the same time. “What’s happening has nothing to do with me or my crew. Human trafficking goes against our creed.”

Atlas nods, his face hardening again. “It’s a damn nightmare for those young women and their families. And those are the ones we know of. Don’t think for a second that traffickers stick to the same demographic of victims. The students are women, but traffickers will target men and children as well. We’ve been checking in with our unhoused community, making sure they’re aware of what’s happening in the city and to stay extra vigilant. They are an easy minority population to target. Unfortunately, when one of the unhoused goes missing, it’s often not reported, or not taken seriously by local police. They would rather assume they’ve moved on to another city than to invest resources into tracking them down. The same goes for immigrants coming here to find a better life than the one they left behind. If they’re here illegally, their disappearances often go unreported by family who fear the authorities. It’s all to the benefit of the culprits and the detriment of the victims.”

“Damn,” I mutter, realizing the situation is more problematic than I realized. “I didn’t know it went that deep within a community.”

“Abducting adults is horrendous—don’t get me wrong. But children…” Atlas says nothing for a moment, his jaw ticking. “There are families who sell their kids—babies even—into these trafficking rings. Being a mercenary MC specializing in people recovery, we see the aftermath. It makes us look like saints for killing the predators quickly.”

Children? My stomach turns sour, and I push away my drink, unable to stomach it with the vile revelation Atlas shared.

The bar has grown quiet around us, aside from the music from the surround-sound speakers. Our crews move in, listening to the horrors happening right up the highway from us. Everyone senses the tension rising. Not between us, but with the concept there are monsters lurking the streets, searching for victims to profit off of.

“You don’t suppose these traffickers are plucking people from Loveland, too, do you?” Ruger, our Sergeant at Arms, asks in a tight voice and looking like he’s ready to go to war.