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Her anger hung in the air, pressing down on the room uncomfortably before it just shut off. It was a trait we shared, the packing away of emotions so we could handle the task at hand. The skill was a blessing. Some would say it was a curse as well, but you’d have to live long enough to finally face the damage.

My feet shuffled uncomfortably, not ready to inform her of how long her fucked-up frenemy had been selling women.

“Looks like he’s been doing it for months. He’s trying to get the attention of the Circle. Nasty bunch of assholes, let me tell ya,” Caleb commented, beating me to it. We locked eyes, and I swore I saw understanding in those green orbs. He told her so I wouldn’t have to. His attention was short-lived, then it swiveled back to Gunner. He’d been watching him ever since he’d stepped into the space. Caleb’s body language might be locked up tight, but I’d been around him long enough to pick up on tells. He didn’t trust the MC member.

I added to his statement. “Mario will never get it. He’s got too many eyes from law enforcement agencies looking at him, but no one’s been able to pin him for shit.” A dry chuckle left my lips. Fucking FBI didn’t do shit, and so fucking many of them were in bed with criminals. Their hands were just as dirty as ours. More so even since they were supposed to stand for justice. Justice was a farce and better off doled out by your own hand. At least when dirty agents were involved. “If only they would be willing to break a few rules, he would’ve been taken care of months ago. I mean, look at all the shit I found.”

Caleb walked over as I fanned my arm out over the piles and piles of paperwork on Mario and his little gang of scum. The table hid how his hand brushed the side of my thigh as he made his way toward my ass. Ryan and Gunner were too distracted by how he plucked the photo out of the biker’s grasp to notice how he slapped my ass. He timed his comment perfectly so that the rumble of his voice concealed the sound of his palm striking my ass. It was soft for Caleb, only hard enough to give a delicious taste of what his hands could do.

“They would never do that. Citizens would freak out if they thought government agencies were spying on them.” He laughed at the irony.

For the first time since the two arrived, Kenji piped up. We’d decided before they arrived that it would be better if they all stayed low-key. Caleb clearly hadn’t included himself in that restriction, but Kenji and Niko were doing their best to sink into the background.

Until now. “Snowden tried to tell them, and look what happened to him. People don’t want to know how trackable and hackable their shit is. Buncha sheep.”

He wasn’t wrong. I regularly pulled information normal people thought was tucked safely behind their passwords. It was always the name of their first child and their birth year. Their security was so flimsy that even a government employee would be able to hack in.

“It’s why we end up cleaning up this kinda shit,” Caleb said, studying Gunner like a puzzle he was trying to solve. Now I was positive I wasn’t the only one whose sketchy shit is happening here meter was going off. But this was Ryan’s man, and I wasn’t going to interfere with whatever was happening. She was capable enough to take care of herself.

Her explosion kicked me out of my thoughts. “Fuck the police or the FBI or whoever the fuck it is who’s failing at their job.” Gunner seemed to flinch at her words, and Caleb zeroed in on the movement like a hawk. Ryan was so upset that she didn’t see the suspicious glances at her man. Or maybe she assumed the uneasy expressions on our faces were for an entirely different reason.

“I’m going to kill Mario since they won’t. Where is he now? And where the fuck is Sergio in all of this? Why set up the deal with the Skeletons of Society to let all this other shit go down?” she asked, throwing her hands up in frustration while Gunner inspected more of the photographs. He consumed them greedily, his eyes bouncing from one glossy photo to another, reminding me of a kid in a candy shop lusting over the candies he wouldn’t be allowed to take home.

Why was he so interested in the older evidence?

CHAPTER 36

CALEB

AN ARMS DEALER AND A SKETCHY DUDE WALK INTO A ROOM…

I was skeptical when Scar first claimed to be Cain. It was evident she was lethal. I’d known that from the first time we met. When she shoved the barrel of a gun against my junk and threatened to pull the trigger, her hand was steady. Not a single nervous tremor ran through her when she’d crouched at my feet, peering up at me through thick black lashes. Glacial eyes had consumed me as she bossed me around. Then she disappeared. Tied me up, leaped out a window, and let the city welcome her into her crowded streets.

I was hooked from that very moment.

Niko wasn’t the only one who’d become obsessed with her, it was just that my obsession began as hate, a fight against the overwhelming need to fall into her embrace.

Now we stood in her safe house in Tucson, giving over information to the arms dealer for Los Muertos and her sketchy man, whom I was convinced was lying about who he really was. His posture was too tight, and he was too much of a gentleman to be a one-percenter. Ryan probably hadn’t noticed because of what a shithead Mario was. The Gunner guy was probably a welcomed change.

Scar went over all the information with us before these two arrived. As soon as it was clear Ryan’s favor was intertwined with what was happening in our city, she showed us all she’d dug up. Her capabilities were impressive. She’d really taught herself to be a one-woman show.

The noose around my heart loosened when she did things that proved how capable she was. I needed that reassurance. What happened with Jessica haunted my thoughts and kept me from caring for another woman.

Then Scar came crashing in, constantly proving she didn’t need protection.

My attention moved back to Gunner, not wanting to think too much about the growing feelings I was having for Scar.

Something about him felt so familiar.

I roved over his face again, taking in green eyes that matched my own and his impressive mustache.

If he didn’t have that, he’d almost look like…

Ice flooded my veins as the pieces clicked together. I did know who this fucker was, and he wasn’t a biker. Or he hadn’t been when he was in New York making his rounds in the Irish fight rings.

He wasn’t looking at me at the moment. He was too consumed by what was on the table, information he hadn’t been able to get his greedy hands on because he was shackled by rules, unlike my wife.

I jolted at that thought, my hand tightening where it rested on Scar’s ass cheek. That was the first time that I’d thought of the word wife. I’d said it, mainly to needle her, but that…that admission hadn’t been said aloud.