Page 90 of Serpentine
“No, Bambi. We need to do it how Miles wants to do it.”
She grumbles something incoherent that makes me smile. “Who put him in charge, anyhow?”
“Kylo is outside your door until Sully relieves him. Go get some sleep.”
She yawns as if my suggestion had reminded her how tired she is.
“Talk to me until I fall asleep,” she whispers, and I hear rustling as she turns in bed.
“Did you shower?” I ask.
She chuckles. “Well, that’s a conversation starter. Yes, Daddy, I showered.”
I stifle a low growl from escaping her teasing. “Keep it up, and that’s what you’ll call me from here on out.”
“As if,” she says, and I can tell she’s fading.
“Goodnight, Bambi. Sweet dreams.”
She murmurs something inaudible, and that’s when I hear it. The little sigh she lets loose before she gives over to dreamland every night, and I close my eyes and pretend she’s here with me a little longer, keeping the line occupied while I listen to her breathing even out.
It gives me something. I’ve been missing a semblance of peace since she left to go undercover for us.
I cut the call and then looked at her spot. I wish she were lying there now. I sigh and return to the screens, diving back into my research into the Jackals. I’ve looked into them as deeply as possible and finally found something.
Once the printer is done spitting out my evidence, I march upstairs and go out to the clubhouse, where the bass is thumping and voices of drunken revelry filter through the still night.
Miles is yelling at Lutz about a football game, and I shake my head as I approach.
Once we’ve made eye contact, one nod in his direction has him following me to his office in the back. The door barely mutes the party out as he closes it.
“What’s up?” he asks, a laugh dying as he plops into his chair. His feet bang on the top of the desk as he puts them up and crosses his legs at the ankles, drinking a long pull from his beer.
He’d left my room right after watching Aella and myself on FaceTime. I’ve yet to tell him what happened afterward, though I thought Kylo would’ve.
“I think I found something on Vito. Well, in his entire organization. I think they’re running drugs. But I can’t find the connection.”
He sits forward, sputtering his beer nearly out of his mouth as he pulls his feet off the desk. Some random papers go with them and drift to the floor. “Excuse me?”
It’s not rare for a club to have their hands in something dark, but in these parts, it is. We’ve never known the Jackals to be a part of the drug community, not as far as we knew, anyway. But then again, club business is sacred, so it’s not like they’d be splaying their business on the front of the Portland Gazette.
“What did you find?” he asks, and I hand over the off-shore accounts I’d found in Vito’s name, showing the strange transfers in and out.
“They could move money around. What makes you think it’s drugs?”
“Something about the way it’s the same days of each month. The fifth and the twentieth. Like clockwork. He’s working for someone, and that’s when he’s getting paid. Then, he’s funneling money to his accounts and his men, and it looks like he’s paying them massive sums, too. Something illegal and high-risk is going on with them. I guarantee it.”
“You said you can’t find the connect?” he asks absently, looking through the paperwork, his beer forgotten as he sobers up.
I shake my head, sigh, and sit back in my chair. “No. And trust me, I tried. It’s got to be someone massive. Someone with enough pull to create those off-shore accounts for Vito to work through.”
Miles nods along with my words as he looks up towards me. He eyes me, brows raised. “There’s something else.”
I lick my lips. “Carter showed up at Aella’s apartment and got past Kylo.”
Miles stands, and his beer knocks over, contents fizzing as it spreads across the floor. “Is she alright? Why didn’t he text me?”
I shrug. “He told me, and I stationed him outside her room until Sully swaps out in the morning. But Cater’s trying to weasel his way back into her life. I have a feeling he’s going to become a problem, Miles. I don’t know how, but I know it.”