Bess
I drove up to The Wolf Den and felt my heart pounding in my chest. I would have to get over the schoolgirl bullshit if I was going to face Sawyer.
It had been weeks since he had dumped me on my ass. It was a little humiliating showing up here and needing his help. I reminded myself why I was doing this.
If the law was not going to get the Russians away from my girls, then I would find someone who could, the Great Wolves M.C.
I knew they wanted the Russians out of Grand City and I was going help them however I could.
Sawyer was the weapon I needed and the lover I still wanted. I swallowed my pride and parked. A sign on the front of The Wolf Den said, “Closed for Remodeling.”
The door was locked so I banged on it. I was not being polite or trying to get a date. I was trying to recruit a leather-clad army.
To my surprise, Victor opened the door.
I had met Victor that night that started so fun and ended so horribly. A flash of a man drenched in blood standing over Victor was one I would never forget.
“You look better than the last time I saw you.” He was much thinner and paler but for a man who took a bullet or three in the abdomen just a few weeks ago, he looked spectacular.
“Thank you, Miss Geary.”
“Bess.”
“Is Sawyer here?”
“I’ll take you to him.” I followed Victor in and took a look as I passed the main area of the club. Dusty was there working.
“Hi, Bess. Good to see you.” I waved and smiled. She was hard at work. I wondered what her story was.
I focused the story in front of me, though.
Victor knocked on Sawyer’s office door. A flash of us nearly making love on the desk threatened to start my meeting off with a blush. I pushed the memory back and fixed my gaze.
Sawyer was at his desk and looked up at me. I swore his breath caught when he saw me. Or maybe I only wished it did.
“Bess.”
“Sawyer.” Victor had left me there and we were alone.
“What are you doing here?” His face hardened and any hopes I had of him taking me in his arms when he saw me were dashed. He really did not want me around.
Fine, that’s not why I was here anyway.
“I need your help.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, but I want the Russians to go away and I’ve tried to do that with the police and failed.”
“It’s not safe for you to be involved in things here at the M.C.”
“I saw Georgie’s car outside Alexis’s group home.” That got his attention.
“Where is she?”
“She’s at my office, I’m trying to place her somewhere safer.”
“Tell me where she ends up. I’m going to add that location to our security route.”
“Thank you. So how do we get them?”
“We?”
“Sawyer you don’t want me anymore. I get it. It was some bullshit fling to you. Great. Congratulations, you got me good. I’m over it. Can you get past that long enough to help me help these girls?”
He had winced when I said he did not want me. I was annoying the hell out of him apparently. I didn’t care. I wanted to know he was going to take down the Bratva.
“Bess there’s a connection to how they’re getting the girls. That’s what I need you to help with.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I think there’s a link. How are they finding the girls?” When Sawyer said it, my conversation replayed with Alexis, with Cassidy, with Norm.
Norm.
“Shit. Oh my god.”
“What?”
“I have to get to my office.”
“I’ll go with you.” I was shorter than Sawyer by quite a bit, but my legs were going so fast, I knew he was jogging to keep up with my stride.
Something was piecing together in my head and I needed to be in the office. That is where the missing piece was hiding.
Sawyer followed me on his bike back to the office. It was late but I was not surprised to find Cassidy and Alexis still there.
“Sawyer!” Both Cassidy and Alexis greeted him with a hug.
“What’s up boss?” Cassidy said.
“I think I’ve got to puzzle something together fast. It has to do with you, Alexis. You told me you weren’t a runaway, so why did her family think you were?”
“Got me.”
“Alexis, it’s going to be a long night and I think you’re going to wind up at my house when we’re done. Can you chill here in Cassidy’s cube, read maybe?”
“Sure. I am old enough to escape the Russian mob by myself but not hear whatever it is you’re talking about. Yep, makes sense.” Sawyer chuckled at that one. Alexis was not to be messed with. Neither was I.
I did not need her worrying about any more adult stuff for a while. She needed the adults in her life, namely me, Sawyer and Cassidy, to come through for her.
“Yes, you have it exactly.”
“Fine.” She pulled the book out and curled up in Cassidy’s office chair.
“Is it just us three in the department?” I asked Cassidy.
“Oh yeah, everyone else is long gone.”
“Good, let’s go to my office.”
We pulled up a list of our missing.
Kirstin and DeAndra were at the top and the most recent.
There were more. I pulled up surrounding counties. Runaway, Runaway.
“What’s the pattern,” Sawyer said.
“They all are runaways. But here’s the thing, I know DeAndra was not planning to run off. I know it. Her foster parents believe it but that was just not where her head was. I’d bet my life on it.” Cassidy said.
“Alexis said she didn’t run away either.”
“So then there’s your first run away, Kirstin,” Sawyer said.
“How did her foster parents determine she ran off?” Cassidy said.
“Shit, Holy fucking shit.”
“Yeah?” Sawyer said.
It dawned on me what they had in common. Norm Northcut.
I looked at Cassidy.
“Norm.”
“What about Norm,” Cassidy asked.
“Who’s Norm?”
“That guy with the little pot belly here, he’s the common denominator.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, how the hell?” Cassidy said.
“He’s the only one that had access to all our run away files; he’s the one who told the foster families and us they were runaways. He’s been framing all these cases so no one would come looking.” I said but could hardly believe it.
“But Alexis is from Flint. How is he connected to that?” Sawyer asked.
“Norm Northcut is my lead in connecting with every county in the state. He does the paperwork, he interacts with placement families.”
“He’s in a position to acquire inventory. He has to be searching for a specific case.” Sawyer’s words were dark and scary. Inventory.
We looked at the girls we knew about and there were some common threads. All were 12 or 13, skinny, no siblings, and each of their files was marked runaway.
“What if none of these girls were runaways?” I said it and instantly I had a sick feeling in my stomach.
“Cassidy, can you step out a minute?” Sawyer said and she gave him a questioning look.
I did not know what he had in mind but I followed his lead.
“Check on Alexis maybe?” I chimed in. I had a sense that where Sawyer and I were headed, we did not want a trail.
“I’m in this, you don’t have to protect me,” she said.
“Cassidy I strongly suspect I’m going to have to break some rules. I very much understand that I could be fired for it. I will not let you be fired for anything I do. You are at the beginning of this career and have a lot of good to do yet. Plus if I am fired, I want to know you are still here. The kids need someone like you and me to protect them.”
The reality of what I might do next was thick in the air between us. Cassidy took it in. Then she nodded.
“I trust you and Sawyer. I know you will do what is right for the kids. Good luck.”
Cassidy stepped out and Sawyer looked at me.
“Can you open Norm’s personnel file,” Sawyer asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to need a few things and sharing them if he’s not the guy, probably means you’re violating nine kinds of government rules.”
“We’re trying to save these girls. I don’t give a damn anymore about the rules.”
“That’s my girl; you’re an outlaw just like me.” I got a little thrill when Sawyer said it. Damnit. It was the first time he had shown any of the old Sawyer to me. He had been hard and distant since I had barged into his office at The Wolf Den.
I opened the personnel file and pulled up Norm’s information.
“Here it is. What do you need?”
Sawyer was on his phone.
“Hi, Raleigh. Yeah, one more project. Do you have their payroll? Okay, what do you need, Social Security number?”
I gave Sawyer the number. He relayed it to the person on the other end of the phone.
“And then internet signatures. Can you tell by that?”
He paused and I looked at Norm’s file again. He had been in the department as long as I had. At almost every turn, he applied for the same promotions that I had. At every instance, I had moved ahead and he had stayed one step behind.
I still could not believe he would be the one putting these kids at risk.
“Okay, my friend Raleigh is checking for us. If they’re paying your Norm Northcut, she’ll find it.”
“How?”
“Raleigh is a hacker and she’s more familiar with the Bratva, especially how they operate in Michigan than anyone on the planet.”
“Okay then so how long?”
“She’s going to call in an hour.”
The more I thought of it, the more I knew it had to be true. There was an insider, under my nose, helping, profiting, and putting these girls at risk. I started to shake.
“What is it?” Sawyer came around to my side of the desk. I felt dizzy as if I might faint, or throw up, or kill someone myself.
“It’s my fault. This is my fault. If Norm did this, it’s my fault for not seeing it.” I was overcome. Sawyer kneeled down in front of me.
“No, no it’s not. Not in any way. If there is a rat in your office, we are getting him out now. This is not your fault. You’re fixing it not causing it.” I felt tears stream down my face.
I did not want to melt down in front of Sawyer but that was exactly what was happening. Sawyer lifted me off the chair and into his arms.
“Shh. Shhh.” Sawyer’s lips found mine. I felt an electric current from my lips to the center of my body.
It was an accelerant. I wanted to devour him, I was on fire. He matched my intense need. I had spent a lifetime without him. Then I found him and lost him again. I could not take it. My body and his were supposed to be close, my soul and his.
I felt his hands roam up and down my back to my breasts. I could not get close enough. We were speeding toward something and for a brief moment, I did not care that I would be the one to crash into the wall. I knew it was true. I could not guard my feelings with him anymore.
“Stop, no,” I said. It came out as a whisper.
Sawyer put his forehead to mine. We both were breathing heavy, flushed, close to ripping each other’s close off, or heads off in a fight. Every emotion I had bubbled over and I struggled to contain it.
In my office in the middle of a crisis, I was ready to give myself over to an outlaw who had stolen my heart and soul. I had to know. Was this sex to him? A challenge? Had he moved on as easily as it seemed? I didn’t deserve that.
“I’m going to put it out there Sawyer McCall. I love you.”
Sawyer put his hands on both sides of my head. He paused.
He did not love me. He had already gotten rid of me once and here I was, ready to let him do it again. I had to tell him. At least, I had said it.
“I shouldn’t have said that I know. I’m in the midst of humiliating myself here.” I pulled back a step but he held me close. His non-answer was killing me. I had been a fool.
“I knew I wanted you the moment I saw you. I love you the moment you smiled at me over that plate of lasagna. I would have died for you from then on and it was really more of a smirk and probably the pasta talking.” I cry slash snort combination escaped my lips and I punched him with both fists on his shoulders.
“Why did you push me away?”
“When those bullets sprayed in my club the idea that you were there, that I could lose you to something like that, I couldn’t take it.”
Sawyer squeezed his eyes shut as if to block out something he saw that I was not.
“Sawyer, I need you to promise me not to do that again.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to be together now and I need to rely on that. I didn’t know I did but I do.”
“I’m about to lead the M.C. into some dark places. Violent work. I cannot take it if any of that spills on to you. I thought we might be done with that at the M.C. but there is always going to be violence. Danger.”
“I don’t care. We’re going to be together and you’re going to shut up about it.”
He laughed. It was a start.
“Always the boss.”
“Look who’s talking.”
Sawyer’s phone buzzed. I stepped back and put myself back together. My life included a lot of clothes rearranging when Sawyer was near me.
I listened as Sawyer took the call.
“You’re sure? Thank you. It’s a big help. I promise not to bother you for at least 24 hours. Tell Mace thank you for sharing your brilliant brain with me.”
I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“There is a quite lot of money going into your Norm’s bank account from sources Raleigh can trace from what she knows of the Russian accounts.”
I felt sick. My mission was to find every single file he touched, every girl he put at risk.
I looked at Sawyer.
“Whatever we need to do to stop them, I’m in. Whatever you’ve got planned for the M.C...”
“We’re going to fake out Norm Northcut.” I had no idea what he meant and didn’t care. I would do anything to stop him.