Ignoring her shrink and her mother, she dialed her editor’s number—the one person she didn’t mind hearing from—and waited for the call to connect.
“How’s my favorite pap?”
Annette rolled her eyes. Bobby Moon was the only guy who could ever get away with calling her that. Hell was going to freeze over the day she sold shit to the tabloids about wannabe stars or out and out celebrities.
“You’re the only man who gets away with insulting me, Bobby-Ray,” she told him sweetly.
“There’s that ice I missed,” he teased.
“Well, hell, Bobby, if I’d known that, I’d have sent you some all the way from Iraq.”
“You couldn’t have sent some rays of sunshine my way? Damn, Annette, I always knew you were a bitch.”
She snorted. “You’re all heart.” But hell, she liked him for it. He’d spent time in various war zones, so he knew exactly what she was going through, and still he treated her like the Annette of old. It was wonderful to garner such a reaction from him. Being treated like a mine that was about to explode grew more than wearing. It was shit for her esteem too.
“That’s me. My Momma used to say I had the biggest heart this side of Houston.”
“I’m sure she didn’t.” She’d met Angela Moon. Bobby-Ray got his hound nose from her. Any stories that needed whiffing out, the Moons had been the ones to find them for the last sixty years in the Houston area. “Anyway, why would you want more sun? This is Houston, Bobby. It’s not exactly cold here.”
“No, but it’s been a bitch with all the rain. That flooding was a nightmare.”
“Fuck off. You loved it. All those juicy headlines about the emergency services being under par. We do get the Internet over there, you know. I kept myself updated. Well, I kept my beady eye on things anyway.”
“Why, Annette Vogel, I’m impressed.”
“Impressed enough to give me a raise?”
A hoot made that idea dissolve immediately. “Sugar, you’re as high as I can slot you without going to the board.”
“Then maybe you should do that, Bobby. You know I’m worth it,” she cajoled.
“Sugar, you will be if you get that traffickers editorial to me.”
“I’m trying.” Her reply was more abrupt than she’d have liked but hell, she was trying. There was no other way to put it. After that one weird call ten days ago, she’d pitched her idea for an editorial series to Bobby and then got to work. With the little information her caller had given her, she’d gone on the hunt, but she could only do so much with what she had. As it was, she had details—many, many details—but nothing concrete. Nothing that would pin the bastards down.
And bastards they were.
She’d come across plenty of scum in her life, in various shapes, sizes, and colors, but these shits were the lowest of the low, in her opinion. Human traffickers—she couldn’t wait to write the series of exposes on the fuckers.
“Is that why you’re calling?” she whined. “You just want to know how close I am to sending something your way? Bobby, I thought you cared!”
“Sugar, I do care, but I have bosses too. They’re itching for this story. You shouldn’t have pitched it so damn well.”
“Look, I can’t force the sons of bitches to go on another haul. I mean, what does the board want from me? To encourage them to steal women from freakin’ Mexico?”
“I don’t even want to suggest that idea because one of the psychopaths up on the fortieth floor might bite.”
Though she felt like crossing her eyes at that remark, she couldn’t because she knew it was true. Christ, why were there so many bastards roaming around the planet? Not all of them roamed the streets. A lot wore two thousand dollar suits and worked for some of the biggest companies going.
She sighed. “Look, I can only do so much.”
“I know, sugar, I know. I didn’t call just about that, I swear. I wanted to see how you’re doing too.”
“I was only teasing, Bobby. I know you give a damn, don’t worry.” Her tone was as serious as his had been. From mocking to somber…that was usually how it went when the pair of them got together.
They both knew how to take it too far, but as they shared similar pasts and similar traumas, there was an ease between them she knew she’d have with too few people for the rest of her life.
They were survivors in a war they hadn’t fought, but being witnesses, having to watch as the most depraved acts were happening, was as traumatic to the mind as anything. Truth was, when she was over there, she’d coped. It was only now, when life was getting back to some semblance of normality, that she realized what she’d seen and was having to assimilate everything.
“Annette? You’ve gone quiet on me.”
She blew out a breath. “Not really. I just don’t have much left to say.”
“I know, sugar, I know. It’s how it is at first. Are you still talking to the shrink?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I had to miss the last session, and the amount of missed calls on my phone is my punishment apparently.”
“Why did you miss it? That stuff is important to your recovery.”
“I know it is, and I’m trying to make room for it, but I got a lead for the expose.”
“Shit.”
She chuckled, because she knew what that profanity meant. “Yeah. I know.”
“How in the hell am I supposed to come out of this conversation without looking like a total hypocrite?”
“Don’t bother. If you can’t be a hypocrite among friends, who can you be one with?”
A snicker sounded down the line. “True, but I can empathize with your need to see that lead through. But try to schedule these things around your appointments with the shrink, huh?”
“I’ll do my best, Bobby,” she told him, rolling her eyes.
“You never let on what the lead was.”
“No, I didn’t, did I?”
“Annette don’t tease!”
“I’m not teasing. You know I don’t talk about leads—not until they’re down on paper and in black and white before your very eyes.”
He huffed. “I want to know!”
Her lips twitched. “I’ll give you a clue.”
“God help me, I’m pathetic enough to bite,” he said, sounding eager and disgusted with himself at the same time.
“What’s the rarest thing on the planet?”
She could almost hear the cogs churning in his head. “Narrow it down.”
“What popped up in World War Two?” Her caller had told her of his lineage as proof of his willingness to provide her with information. She’d snapped up the news like a Doberman would a sirloin.
“What’s rare and popped up during World War Two?” A heavy pause ensued. “No. Fucking. Way.”
The first words to come out of his mouth had her chuckling. “Yes. Fucking. Way.”
“Shifters?” Bobby’s voice was almost a squeak and then it lowered at least an octave. “What kind?”
“Bears.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. I know. That’s how I felt.”
“This is more than front page news, Annette. Hell, the human trafficking shit alone has headliner written all over it. But throw in shifters too? Hot damn, I’m without words.”
“A first from Bobby-Ray Moon,” she teased, but she spoke the truth. If there was one thing Bobby knew, it was words—how to write them and how to speak them. There was a reason he had a Pulitzer. And with this article, though it was intended to bring a halt to the disgusting bastards and the business that was raking in a goddamn fortune for them, she figured she was on her way to earning that award too.
“Why are shifters involved? Are they a part of the racket?”
“No. As far as I’m aware, they’re trying to stop the traffickers too.” She hedged her words here. A part of her felt certain the caller was a whistle blower, but she didn’t feel like spoiling Bobby’s fun.
“Are you being serious?”
&nb
sp; “Deadly.”
“I think I might cry.”
Annette snorted. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”
“I’m not. Traffickers and the shifters trying to stop them… this is going to be a lifeline for our readership figures. Annette, we need this story.”
“Yeah, I know we do, but I can’t push it. It’s going as fast as it’s going to go. You know that, Bobby. Why force it?”
“How can I not? This is groundbreaking. You know shifters rarely crop up in the news.”
“Yeah, they’re the world’s best kept secret.” Her remark had her rolling her eyes. “I never see what all the fuss is about.” Well, she did but hell, she had a reputation to protect. She didn’t want Bobby-Ray teasing her about having a predilection for shifters. He’d never let her live it down.
“That’s because you’re not a romantic. Thank Christ the rest of the world is.”
“They live in secret for a reason. We should just leave them the hell alone.”
“Well, we do, for the most part. But when a nice, big, fat juicy story comes along and they’re involved… It would be churlish not to report it, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re all heart.” She grunted. “I’ll talk to you later, Bobby. You know me, once I have the story underway, you’ll be the first to hear of it.”
“Don’t be a stranger, Annette. And make sure you talk to your shrink about rescheduling. They don’t give up. Believe me, I know.”
She chuckled. “I will. Take care, Bobby.”
“You too, sugar. You’re the one out on the road. I’m only behind a desk.”
“And yet you somehow manage to make more mischief.”
He laughed. “’Bye, sugar.”
They disconnected the call, and she was left staring at the chaos on her desk. Somehow, she had to amalgamate it all together to form a piece of the story, which she’d ultimately turn into a series.
Sometimes, she wondered how she did it. With the bare bones, she had to make a full-bodied creation. Writing was the only thing she’d ever wanted to do, but it could and did drive her crazy.
At the moment, crazy was the exact opposite of what she needed, but it was all she knew how to do.
Annette knew changes were coming her way, and she’d have some big decisions to make soon. While a part of her dreaded it, another part embraced it.
Life in a war zone had changed her in more ways than one. Her passion had always been the written word, and while that hadn’t completely disappeared, it had lessened to a degree. Now, she got more of a kick out of the investigating, the researching—finding the story and seeing it through. In a way, she knew it was time to stop reporting and to start working on the great American novel she’d always planned on writing.
The time was coming, but this was going to be her last project. The next one was going to be a book. She didn’t know what it was going to be about, but hell, that rarely stopped her.
She hadn’t known what her next series would be, and somehow this story had popped up.
Fate made the decisions for her, and she just went along for the ride. With the way her head was, that felt like the safest option. Of course, after what she’d seen, safe was a relative concept.
Chapter Three
Mars shined up his baby with the ease of someone who knew his machine. He was intending on going to the woods later on and shifting. He needed to do something because otherwise his unease would make him trigger happy—never good, especially when they were going on the road tomorrow.
Thankfully, it was one of their regular trips for a nice stockpile of weed and had nothing to do with the trafficking.
Jackson had made more noises about the trafficking becoming one of their major new lines, and Mars had had confirmation that contacting the journalist had been the best thing he could do to save the MC.
Cub had died six months ago, in a gunfight between his MC, the Nomads, and one of their rivals—the Serpents. The Snakes had been trying to slip their way into one of their regular business transactions, trying to undercut them… Cub had been greatly pissed off by this, and the MC had waded into the fray.
Shifters didn’t die easily. And human weapons didn’t often do them much damage unless, ironically enough, they were shifted. As a bear, guns could rob them of their lives, but not when they were in their human skin. When Cub had died, Jackson, the second-in-command at the time, had taken over as Prez, and Mars, the next in the power chain, had slotted into that position. Jackson should have held a vote, a kind of informal election, to maintain his seat, but he hadn’t. No one had said anything because they were all cut up about Cub passing so many years ahead of his time, but Mars remembered. And he knew others did too.
Jackson’s dislike of following MC rules as well as Clan rules was starting to grate on Mars. And the weird-as-fuck way Cub had died was starting to raise questions in Mars’s mind.
Jackson wasn’t willing to put his role as Prez on the line for a vote… which meant the job was more important to him than he was letting on.
Bears weren’t power hungry. It wasn’t their way. They were solitary beasts, preferring their own company to that of a gathering. The MC was unusual because it was founded by members who’d been displaced from a family clan and needed a new family to claim them. Some people were nomads—hence the MC’s name—but others like Mundo weren’t exiled and instead had made the lifestyle decision to be a part of the gang. Power wasn’t their bag, but Jackson’s taste for being Prez had started disconcerting Mars, and when he was disconcerted he wasn’t a happy bunny.
The notion had him gritting his teeth and rubbing down a little too hard on one of his mirrors.
A holler rang out around the forecourt. “Mars!”
He looked up and saw Kilo was standing by the door to the clubhouse. Mars tilted his head in question. “What?”
“Need you over here. Club business.”
Grunting, Mars dropped the special cloth he’d been using to wipe Ursa down and strode across the courtyard to the doorway. “What’s up?”
“Fight between the bunnies.”
“You shitting me?” he spat, disgusted. “Why the fuck are you involving me? Leave them to their cat fight.”
“Can’t. It’s that bitch, Ruby. You know Jackson likes her. She started a fight with Pippa.”
“Fuck. Where’s Jackson? Can’t he handle his own whore?”
Kiko shook his head. “He’s not here. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered you.”
Pissed off, Mars slammed past Kiko and headed into the bar. The instant he saw the two club whores bitch-slapping one another, he let off a roar that was pure, fucked-off bear. As it was let loose, it ricocheted around the bar with the power of his shifter magic. The two bitches immediately froze in place, fear holding them where anger couldn’t.
“What the hell is going on in here?” he snarled, striding deeper into the bar. He looked at Ruby, Jackson’s favorite, and grabbed her by the chin. Hissing when he saw the rivets torn from one cheek, he snapped, “No fighting. A basic tenet of the MC if you want to whore here. How hard is that to fucking understand?”
Growl (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 0) Page 2
