Page 35 of Lash’s Love

“Hey Sophie, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine, excited. Glad we finally got a lead!”

“Well we are too! We want to put an end to these assholes as well as the Baranov family that’s helping them. Even though the Russians might be more of a challenge. So how about we introduce you to everybody who has been working on this little case with us. I put together this team for exactly what we have needed and honestly Nyx had found one of the men before now, but we have been keeping an eye on him.”

We walk over to the conference table and I sit down next to Nyx. My training has mostly been just Alessia and her so I have not met the whole group of assassins and I would love to someday meet them.

“Alright so lets do some quick introductions, how long do you think you have before your husband notices you are missing?” Alessia asks me.

“It could be awhile, I told him I was working late and then going out with friends. So unless someone gets in touch with him, he isn’t expecting me home for some time.”

“Alright, well that is perfect. After we walk through our plan we are going to head out and pick up our new friend and see what we can get out of him. So let’s start with the introductions. Right here we have Ana Petrov, she goes by Viper. She is kind of our enforcer, she goes on high threat extractions and she is great at dominance interrogation.She’s combat trained. She is good at physically cornering targets, immobilizing them and delivering fear without touching their pain points.” She points to a woman with jet-black hair that is tied in a tight braid. She has ice blue eyes and pale skin. She is lean, coiled with muscle. “Next we have Marcella Voss or Raven as she likes to be called. She is our tracker, our infiltrator, our psychological destabilizer. When we located evidence that the SAA of Acid MC had been hanging out in a bar a few towns over in Ridgemend we sent her over there to work as a bartender to see what we could figure out. Turns out all the council brothers have split up so that they can’t all be tracked at once. However, we think that they probably all know where to locate each other. Acid has been hard to find because for whatever reason the Baranov family thinks that he is some big deal that will help them take over this part of the country after they take out your family. Now we are just spitballing with that information because we haven’t obviously picked anybody up yet.

Now this is Lidia Alvarez or as she is called Wren. She is our psychological interrogator and emotional profiler. We call her the Whisperer; she is best known for psychological interrogation, emotional leverage and breaking loyalty without violence. Basically we have her here and she is going to break this asshole when we get him. Next we have Tara O’Neill, called Echo, she is one of our tech intel persons, she is a psychological trapper and an evidence interrogator. She is the Shadow Listener she is best known for evidence based manipulation, cornering targets with the truth they didn’t know she had. Next we have Harper Quinn, or Anchor, she is the captor, transport and containment and or dealmaker. She is our handler, she is best with large scale containment, logistical traps and forced compliance. Then of course you know Fiadh Donnelly, Nyx. Our Phantom, who is perfect for disappearing people.”

Nyx smiles at me and then takes over where Alessia stopped, “So now that we have those introductions done, we have a solid plan to capture Darrel ‘Snip’ Travis. Don’t ask me about his name, but since Raven got a shitload of information about his life from him confiding in his bartender, we know a lot about him personally. We can find him at the bar, he usually is there every night of the week. We will get him and bring him back here to one of our interrogation cells. We will let Viper and Wren go at him once we get him here, unless someone else feels that they can get him to talk.. You will observe for now. This can be included in part of your training. We will keep him here for as long as it takes until we figure out all we can get from him. If he breaks that is, but we will definitely not be sharing anything with your dear MC brothers. This is our case now. This guy we found, I’ve had to, along with Echo, set up roadblocks so they haven’t been able to uncover anything we don’t want them to. I admit he is really great at his job that it has been a challenge keeping him away from the information we have. But we have been doing it. So we should head out so that we can get where we need to go, grab him and get back here before your husband or your brothers realize you are not home or at work. Our objective is to end the Russians that are selling women and children. Your club’s objective is to just destroy the MC. We want to take care of the whole thing, so keeping them out of it is going to work to our benefit. So unless something changes, it is just us taking out this fucking ring.”

With all that said we headed out to get this guy Snip. Hoping that we could find out what he knew and get started on taking down this group of nasty human beings that the club started to take down. I personally feel like these women are going to do more helping me bring justice to my family than the brothers ever could. I love them all, they are family, but really months of searching, even though the Sirens made everything more difficult for them, they don’t have any leads. Hell, these women are the ones that found my kids and gave the information to the club. Without them I think I may have fallen apart more and honestly, who knows where Dallas and Dash would be if they hadn’t stepped in. If I hadn’t made that call to my Aunt Seraphina to find out the group of women that are rumored to bring down men and families that try to hurt women and children. My children might have been sold to people unknown.

The pickup of this Acid MC brother was easy, easier than I thought it would be. It was so interesting to watch these girls in their natural habitat. Doing their job, I’d love to become a Siren, but we all know that Toby would throw a fit. So I’ve settled for training and just knowing how to do everything. Maybe I could convince him to let me work with them, but in a more discreet manner, where I do not have to go out and can help them from the office. It would probably be best for me that way since I have children to worry about and so many other things that need me. I will protect myself so I can be around for my children and take down the man who is trying to hurt my family. I feel like doing this with this group of people is going to give me a sense of accomplishment and honestly, I want to do this for myself. I want to destroy the person that has taken so much from me and continues to try to take more from me. I want to be a part of something bigger in this world that I live in. I want to make more of my life and help destroy people who think that it is okay to do these horrible things to both women and children. Even for some men, the world we live in is already so messy, I just want to make sure that I can do my part. Not only for the club, but for other parts of this world. We grabbed this nasty man from the bar who apparently thought Raven and him were going to be fucking behind the bar. Instead he was greeted with a bunch of badass bitches taking him down and basically throwing him into our van to head back to the warehouse.

When we finally got back to the warehouse and threw him in the interrogation room he was still unconscious from the sedative that we gave him. So now we are just waiting for him to wake up so he can answer questions for us. Hopefully leading us to his brothers and anyone else that is trying to take the club down, as well as the Baranov family.

“I think they noticed you were missing.” Nyx said as she calls me to come see their security screens. I look and sure enough my husband and most of my fucking brothers are walking up to the warehouse doors.

“Fantastic.”

“I’ll go intercept them before they try to force their way in here.” Nyx says as she gets up and heads to the front of the building to the main door.

I watch from the screen as she opens the door with fake smiles and sweet innocence. From the looks of it they are not having her sweet innocent act and looks like the demand to come in. Alessia steps up behind Nyx and looks at them all and they engage in some short conversation before she nods her head and leads everyone inside the building. It doesn’t take long before they are all walking in the door to the main computer room and Toby makes eye contact with me.

“Yeah, this looks like fucking dinner and drinks Sophie. What the fuck!” He says to me as he makes his way to me. “You had me fucking worried something happened to you. Why the hell are you lying and keeping secrets from me like this? This is not who we are. You don’t do this. You can talk to me about anything and you know that! Then to have your detail called off, that was dangerous, those fucking assholes who took your mom are still out there and you know it! I nearly had a heart attack when Terror told me that you were not at the parlor and left without that late appointment you told me you had. So not only are their secrets between us, Sophie, you are now lying to me? I know the club fucked up and I’ve been trying so hard to mend that for us, but you can’t keep lying and keeping things from me when it involves your safety and well-being. I cannot handle if anything happens to you. The kids cannot lose both of their parents because that will be what happens if anything happens to you.”

“No I can’t talk to you about everything Toby, you’ve hidden shit from me and lied to protect your brothers before so don’t sit here and say lying and keeping secrets isn’t who we are. I’ve kept this to myself because it is my business and we cannot have this conversation here. We can talk when we get home. I’m not going to argue with you in front of my brothers and these women.”

“Sophie, you grew up in the club and you know how it is. We also changed all that, I did that for you! For our relationship!”

“Yeah and now the tables have turned and you don’t like it, well I’m so sorry. I’ve been doing something for myself. Something to try and get my strength back. My voice! The thing that was taken from me, my safety, my sanity, my ability to protect my family. I needed this and I didn’t want you to tell me that I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to try and interfere. I didn’t think you’d understand because you constantly think I need to be protected. I needed to feel like I could protect myself. I felt helpless when those people came and took me from our home and cut our babies out of me. I don’t want anything like that to happen again.” Tears started building in my eyes as the words came out of my mouth. Memories and everything that has happened is catching up with me in a way I haven’t dealt with yet.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lash

“Baby, please don’t cry. Listen, I understand all of this. I would’ve understood if you talked to me about it. I know that sometimes I am all ‘alpha male’ as you like to tell me. I just want to protect you. You are my heart and soul. When you were taken, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to survive it. I can’t be without you. Fuck, Sophie, I would’ve even helped you train. You didn’t need to go out and find yourself some badass assassins to train you.”

“Hey! I mean I appreciate you saying we are badass, but she also needed some friends outside of the club. She’s been struggling with the club. You all know this. She was looking for help outside of the club that she felt trust in. I do think it is good for her to have women who do the things we do in her corner as well. Her whole life has been about how men are to take care of her and protect her. We have helped her see that she is stronger than she knows and that she can do all the things all you men can do, if not, more. I swear she is one smart and fierce woman. ” Alessia says to us.

I bow my head to my chest and I want to lose my shit right now. I know that she is struggling with trusting us. Even though the club didn’t know about this Acid MC being related to them, but her dad knew that, we did know a lot of what was going on. It was kept away from all the ol’ ladies and kids because that was what we did, we protected our own from all the fucked up shit our world brings. We might be a different kind of club that doesn’t actually need the illegal bullshit, but we keep going because that is who we are and the relationships that we have made over the years. We’ve always tried to protect our loved ones from this life and not share any ‘club business’ because we didn’t want our women and children to be in something so dark and messy. But we changed that and now we can let the ol’ ladies in on club business as long as it is something we are comfortable with our women knowing. Sophie has been through so much and so much has been taken from her, more than I could understand because of these people.

I step closer to my beautiful wife and pull her into my arms, resting my chin on her head.

“Baby, I want you to get everything you can and if learning from these women helps you get something you need then I am all for it. I want that for you, I just don’t want anything to happen to you. So please just be open with me and tell me what you are doing. No more sneaking around or sneaking out, we work together. It has always been us against everything. I know things have happened that have made us lose our way, but please, try and help me get us back where we need to be.” I then lean down so I can place my forehead on hers, “Plus right now, we really haven’t been careful and you might be pregnant. I know you haven’t had a period. I don’t want this pregnancy if you are pregnant to be as challenging as the last one.” I say quietly so no one around can hear me.

“I swear you can’t just let me have a break from all the babies can you?” She whispers back and I chuckle. Then I lean away and look around the room at the men and women watching us and obviously feeling like they are intruding on some kind of moment we are having

Terror steps forward and looks at Sophie, “We want you to lean on us too, not just people outside of the club. I know we’ve let you down in so many ways with secrets that have been kept, but we want to change that. You are our sister and it is our job to protect you and all those kids of yours even though you definitely are overdoing it I mean, when is enough enough with all the babies guys.” Everybody laughs and I look at my wife who is looking at her big brother with tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I just have a lot to work on. I love you all so much. You’ll always be my family, but I needed someone who understood me right at this moment. I’ve got so much anger and frustration. I’m trying to not be angry with everyone, but it’s hard. You’ll have to give me time and understand that for the time being I’m going to lean on my new friends here. They’ve been helping me and it’s been like getting pieces of myself back. Pieces I need to feel whole and to help me grow and feel like the woman I was before. I am not some fragile little bitch who is going to sit around and wait for her knights in shining armor to rescue her. So I will be more open and honest if you guys are. I do not need to know everything going on, but things that are important to our family, I want to know those things.”