I’d scour the earth starting a riot of epic proportions if these were my sons, brothers, nephews and uncles. And that is primarily what I’m not able to comprehend. Shifters are close with their families, their clan, pride or whatever would’ve taken notice and informed the proper authorities of their missing member. Going to my humidifier, I pull out one of my cigars. Sitting behind my desk, I prop my feet up on top of it and lean back in my chair. All of the reasons for this are whirling around, causing me to become even more confused as they begin to penetrate. Hopefully, Pops, Jake, Kane, Bolt, Decoder and I can talk this out and come up with a viable conclusion. Because this is seriously grating on my nerves. All of the unanswered scenarios and possibilities are endlessly causing me to go stir crazy.
Knocking first, Bolt and Kane open the door and come inside. “You look like shit, Blaze,” Bolt states. “Didn’t sleep?”
“Sure the fuck didn’t,” I respond, knowing if I look anything like what I feel, his observations are correct.
“It seems as if that’s going around,” Kane states, lifting the biggest coffee mug I’ve ever seen and drinking out of it. I’m not sure that it’s coffee however, I’ve never personally witnessed him at the coffee pot. Either way, it’s none of my business and I like to keep my nose out of my men’s personal lives, unless it interferes with the club. I pride myself in always being there for my men, but never messing around with their ways of coping and managing themselves. I hate assholes who try to nose their way into mine, so I’d never do that to them.
“Pops is on his way in with Jake,” I announce. “He called last night asking permission to enter our territory and compound. I’m assuming it means he needs more information or has some of his own to share with us.”
“Let’s hope for the latter,” Kane supplies. “We gave him enough information to lead him to the same conclusions we came up with. Let’s just hope he has more at his disposal and was able to find these sons-of-bitches.”
“I called Chief Anderson this morning as well. He’s looking into other missing persons reports to see if there’s some individuals that haven’t been connected to our own missing people. There’s got to be a connection somewhere; something that made them targets. We need to dig and find more. Something’s not sitting right in my gut.”
“And that’s the question of the hour,” a man voices as he walks in the door with Pops.
“Jake?” I ask, sticking my hand out to shake his.
“The one and only,” he reciprocates and shakes my hand firmly. “I’ve heard a lot about you from your dad.”
“Wish I could say the same about you,” I retort, looking over in my Pops’ direction. He shakes his head at me, then turns back to the room.
“If the timing was right, you’d have already met me. I’ve just wrapped up an undercover operation that I’d been invested in for four years. I couldn’t come and make introductions before now. Surely, you understand that.” Jake intently holds my gaze without releasing my hand.
“Surely,” I mock, still thinking that I should’ve at least known and been privy to his existence in the first damn place. How am I expected to lead my men to the best of my abilities if I’m not aware of our allies in order to be able to use all the disposable resources I can? After all, that’s what a good, dependable leader does.
“Can we stop with the whole whose dick is bigger than whose and figure this shit out already?” Kane admonishes the two of us. I already know whose is bigger… mine. Jake looks away from our gaze and nods his head in Kane’s direction. “Good, I’m ready to put a motherfucking hurting on these fuckers and get these men and women home to their families.”
“We can all agree on that one,” Pops asserts. “Some of them have been missing for several months now, there’s no telling what kind of mental and physical trauma they’ve sustained.”
“May I have a seat?” Jake asks, pointing at a chair in the corner of the room. It has a small side table that I’m assuming he wants to use to set his bag on.
“Make yourself at home, Jake.” I go for politeness, because my feelings have no merit when it comes to sharing important information. Everyone’s right, the only thing that matters is getting all of these people home and the assholes eliminated and shut down. We need to indict these people for war crimes, because that’s exactly what they’ve done. I will lobby this until I take my last, deathbed breath. I will never stop, never give up, until I’ve been granted this.
“Decoder gave me some pretty impressive breadcrumbs to follow. I’ve been able to trace it to the same individuals as he was able to. Here’s the issue, the council will come back swinging. They covet all of their members; they’ll never believe Anston is capable of such outlandish behavior. We need to basically catch him in the act if we want them on our side,” Jake informs us. “It’s not impossible, but it’s going to be difficult. From what I’ve been able to decipher, he’s not hands on with any of the men and women. The only trace we can tie him to is that of financial backing.”
“So, we need to catch him in the act, but how? He’s too smart to be caught off guard,” Kane says as he leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees. He’s running his hands over his head, his forehead wrinkling as he concentrates on his imposing thoughts.
“Pops,” Bolt states, “we’ll have to use him and his friendship with Anston. If anyone can get him to break, it’d be Pops.”
“Pops is retired, we can’t ask him to place himself in danger for the
