“I’m sorry too. I could have been a little more forthcoming with you before all this happened. But, B, I didn’t want you to know he was there. We had such a good time and it was such a turning point, I don’t want it tarnished. That might be selfish of me, but I’m selfish when it comes to you.”
“I’m selfish when it comes to you too.” She understood exactly why he did it, but it still felt dirty now.
“We’re gonna get through this,” he told her, kissing her softly on the lips.
She knew they would, but she wondered if they would all still be alive when all was said and done. Gripping his cut, she pulled him as close to her as she could get him. A feeling was taking root in her stomach, one that was foreboding and made her want to hold him that much closer to her. No matter what happened, she would never let him go.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bianca sat on the couch, her legs in Jagger’s lap. She studied while he flipped through files on an iPad he had pulled out of his bag. She asked quietly what he was doing, but he had only grunted and indicated he was looking for something that tied everything together. She made the decision to just let him come to her when he was ready. As she got a little bit more comfortable, the two of them heard footsteps coming up the stairs outside and a knock at the door.
“You stay here,” Jagger told her as he stood up, pulling a gun from behind his back. He made sure one was in the chamber and walked over to the door, slightly pulling the curtain back.
She stiffened, not sure who was on the other side of that door. It made her nervous not to know just what the fuck was going on. This had never been the life that she lived, but she knew that with Jagger here this would be her life from now on, and she took that for what it was.
“It’s the guys,” he told her, putting the safety back on the gun and opening the door.
“Sorry to just show up,” Meredith apologized as she pushed past Liam and Tyler.
“It’s okay,” Bianca assured her. “What’s going on?”
“C’mon, Mama,” Liam called down the stairs from where he stood then turned back to Bianca. “Denise is with me, she said she’s sick of everyone else getting to know you while she doesn’t. She bitched until I agreed that she could come along,” he explained, holding the door open for the woman in his life.
“Hey.” Bianca waved, a little shy at the fact the president’s lady was in her modest apartment.
“Damn,” she breathed heavily. “Those steps are killer when you’re carrying some extra weight. No wonder you’re so skinny.”
“Anyway,” Tyler cut her off. “We’re actually here for a reason other than to disrupt your night. Meredith got a call from an old contact at the bank.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Jagger asked, confused as to where this was going.
Meredith had a seat on the couch and clasped her hands together. “There was a lot of talking around what’s going on, but I think I understand what my contact was trying to tell me. It involves Raymond Tucker and the Vojnik. I figured you guys would be interested.”
“If I can get this asshole out of my life, I don’t care what we have to do. Tell me,” Bianca told her, running her hand through her hair. She was anxious, hoping that this would be the answer to what needed to be done to rid them of this person who threatened them all.
“Keep in mind,” Meredith cautioned, “I don’t know any of this for sure. This is just me reading between the lines and my contact talking around in circles so that they won’t get in trouble, but it makes sense.”
“Well c’mon,” Jagger encouraged as he had a seat next to Bianca and slung an arm over her shoulder.
“What I think is going on here—and I really need a look at those pictures y’all took at his house—is I think he’s laundering money.”
“For who and how?” Liam asked, his brain not putting together what she was getting at either.
“Have Rooster run some of those serial numbers on the money y’all found. I almost guarantee you that he’ll get a hit from some of the bank robberies that have been going on in the area. I think that Raymond is definitely skimming off the school board, but what he’s doing is replacing clean money with the money from the robberies. Who’s going to look at the school board’s petty cash fund?”
“But wouldn’t that be a lot of money? A petty cash fund would have that?” Jagger questioned.
“I would have to get the financials, but all the banks are hit first thing in the morning. There’s not a lot of money in those tills then. They haven’t received big bills. What they have at that time is smaller bills to make change with. So it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that they could be using him. He would have access to at least a portion of that cash.”
“That does make sense,” Bianca interjected. “When I go to the bank in the afternoon before work and I deposit my tips, they are always appreciative because they have big bills. People have made their business deposits and bought change for the next few days. First thing in the morning they probably have a lot of smaller bills. Ya know, to break those hundreds or to help make that change. I think Meredith is on to something.”
Denise had sat quietly during all of this. “I know when I worked with Roni they would sometimes send the shift supervisor to get change. That was midafternoon, so I do think they’re right.”
“Okay, so saying he is doing this. What’s he getting out of it?” Tyler asked.
Bianca couldn’t help but look at him, he made her apartment look so small. He made Meredith, who sat next to him, look so small. She really hoped that after all this was over their dreams would come true. She could be excited for them then.
“Money, but he doesn’t have the risk,” Jagger said. “He’s not stealing the money from the bank, he’s just touching it. As long as no one else knows he’s doing it, it’s pretty low risk for him. Dino and his boys are probably paying him a tidy little profit to keep it flowing. He doesn’t even have to fudge the school board records. He only has to do that if he’s getting greedy and actually taking some of that money, but as far as his extra activities, I’m sure he’s making plenty to keep those up.”
“What about the white van that’s been coming past here?” Bianca asked.
Liam interrupted this time. “I don’t think that’s about you. I think that’s about us.”
“It’s just a coincidence?”
“Yeah, I really do think so. The white van is only dealing with Dino, and Dino is all about trying to figure out if we’re serious or not. The white van started when Jagger started spending time here, right?”
She thought back and nodded. “Yeah, the first time I remember anything about it was when Jagger got into that wreck.”
“So, I really do think that’s for us, not you. You’re just caught in the middle of the situation and it has nothing to do with you.”
“Now here’s another question,” Denise said, scooting up to get comfortable where she sat beside Liam. “How do we prove it?”
Liam ran a hand through his hair. “That’s going to be the difficult part. I called Rooster and explained to him the information that Meredith received. He’s working on getting a search warrant for Raymond’s house, but I did give him the pictures that the boys took. They just aren’t admissible for anything. He’s thinking along the same lines we are. We just have to catch Money Bags with the proof and then get him to squeal on Dino.”
“Do you really think he’s going to do that?” Bianca asked. It all seemed too simple, too convenient. Maybe it was the truth, but it still made her nervous. She wasn’t sure how he would react.
Tyler shrugged. “You never know how someone is going to react once they’ve been backed into a corner. His back is about to hit a wall and most people would rather bite the hand that feeds them than admit they’ve done something wrong. It’ll all depend on how much of a coward he is.”
A couple hours later, Bianca and Jagger lay in her bed. His arms wrapped tightly around her waist
, and he rested his head against hers.
“Are you scared?” he asked softly.
“I’m worried,” she answered honestly. “He’s a principal with access to all those children. What if we confront him and he does something to them? What if he does something to Drew and Mandy because of who they are?”
“If he does, he knows he’s a marked man.”
“That’s the thing, I don’t think he does.” She turned so that they faced each other. “Everything he’s done so far screams that he thinks he’s above the law, that he’s above consequences of his actions. He’s never been caught before, so I don’t think he believes he can get caught.”
“You can’t let this worry you,” Jagger soothed, pushing her hair back from her face. “He’s a bad man who will do whatever he has to do to get what he wants. That’s not your fault.”
“It is when we deliberately goad him into doing something.”
“All we’re doing is making him admit to his misdeeds. If it wasn’t us, it would be someone else.”
They lay there in silence for long minutes. “Are you worried?” she finally asked.
“About you, I am,” he whispered.
A small smile played on her lips. “Why? I can take care of myself, you know that right.”
His muscular arms tightened around her. “You’re my weakness. You’re what someone could use against me, and I’ve not done a very good job of hiding that. If someone wanted to get to me, all they would have to do is hurt you. Money Bags knows that, Rooster knows that, Dino knows that. You are the one thing that someone could take away from me that would absolutely break my spirit and turn my life upside down.”
“You can’t think like that.” She ran her hand down his neck, playing with the blanket he had pulled tightly around their bodies.
“I can’t not think like that,” he admitted. “The past few days it’s been running through my head like a movie. What would I do if something happened to you?”
“I would fight,” she promised. “I have you to come home to. I have you to live for. Hell, I have friends now—something I never really had before you came into my life.”
Jagger put his hands on her neck and forced her eyes to meet his. “If it comes down to you having to fight, promise me that you’ll be safe. Promise me that you know I’ll come for you. I’ll do everything in this world to get to you. Know that I’ll come to you—no matter what.”
“I have no doubt about that, Jagger. I know if something were to happen, you would be kicking the ass of anyone that stood between you and me.”
“That’s the damn truth.” He leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. “You’re dangerous for me, but I can’t seem to live without you.”
“I can’t seem to live without you either.”
“What are we gonna do about that?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Guess we’ll just have to keep livin’ in sin,” she grinned, turning so that her back rested against his bare chest.
“If I have to live in sin, there’s nobody I’d rather live with than with you.”
Jagger listened for what felt like hours, waiting for her breathing to level out. When it finally did and he knew she was asleep, he tightened his arms around her and held her even closer to his body. He knew just how hard he would fight to keep Bianca if someone was trying to take her away. There was no doubt in his mind that Raymond Tucker would fight just as hard, he would be just as dangerous. Knowing that he had to send her into the mouth of the beast until they could prove exactly what this man was doing would end up giving him an ulcer, and for the first time in a long time, he was giving this to God. He had to believe that she would be kept safe. No matter what.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jagger awoke the next morning to his phone ringing incessantly. The first time he reached over and shut it off. In seconds it rang again.
“I think someone is really tryin’ to get in touch with you,” Bianca grumbled, putting her head under her pillow.
It wasn’t his pre-pay so Jagger knew it wasn’t Liam or one of the other members of the club. “Somebody better be fuckin’ dead. It’s 5 a.m.,” he growled into the phone.
“Sorry, but I figured you would want to hear this.”
Jagger recognized Rooster’s voice, and just like that he was awake and sitting up, his mind working on all cylinders. “Talk to me.”
“I took my suspicions to my superiors yesterday. With what evidence we had—I embellished where yours came from slightly—they issued a search warrant for Raymond Tucker’s house and his office at the school. We are executing that search warrant today. I’m giving you a personal heads up. I’ve also called Liam.”
Jagger reached over and shook Bianca awake. “Are you teaching today?” he asked her.
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I’m shadowing today, not teaching. This is the last part of what I need to do to get my degree. I have to do it for a while, but I start that today.”
“Motherfucker,” he swore. “When are you doing it?” he asked Rooster.
“We’re executing it ASAP, but that’s not to say school won’t be in session. We’re hoping to get to him before he gets there,” Rooster explained.
This had bad fucking idea written all over it. “Seriously? You can’t call school off until you get all that taken care of?”
“It’s a mutual effort between state, local, and federal agencies. You have to remember this includes a bank robbery. We have to deal with the feds.”
That’s exactly what none of them wanted. The feds getting involved with something that included a motorcycle gang. “Dude, you’re killin’ me.”
“Just do me a favor, keep Bianca out of there if you can. I have a bad feeling about Tucker.”
He gripped his phone tightly when he really wanted to throw it across the room. “You don’t seem to understand anything about that woman. She is not gonna listen to me.”
“Well, I’ve done what I can,” Rooster told him. “I’ll be in touch.”
It made Jagger feel better to throw the phone against the mattress. “This reeks of bullshit.” He stood and pulled his clothes on.
“What the hell is goin’ on?” Bianca asked, sitting up and watching him.
“They are serving a search warrant on Money Bags today. Is there any way that you can postpone today?”
He knew from the look on her face that he should have asked God to change the color of the sky. Her face screwed up and she opened her mouth, getting a good breath to tell him all about himself. “If you’re gonna yell at me, just please don’t do it,” he told her. “Now isn’t the time.”
“What do you want me to do, Jagger?”
“I don’t know.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know anything about this. There’s no telling how this guy is going to react, and there’s no telling when they’re going to do this. There are too many variables here that can’t be controlled.
She sat next to him and cupped his hands in hers. “This is one of those times when you have to trust me. You have to let me decide what’s best for me. You can’t keep me safe all the time.”
“But I want to.” He swallowed roughly.
“I know,” she whispered, running her hands over his stubble covered cheeks. “But you can’t, babe. Life is messy, it’s not controlled, it’s not the same thing every day, and we don’t all have a crystal ball. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”
He took a deep breath and let his head fall. “I know, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna have an ulcer worrying about you today.”
As Bianca approached the school, she felt the beginnings of an ulcer in her own stomach. There had been calls into the local radio station asking why police were at the school. So far, no one had called any school events off, they just made noises about a possible threat and that the police were there for an extra precaution.
“Yeah right,” she muttered as she turned the radio off.
What she wouldn’t ha
ve given to stay in bed with Jagger on this day, to even have him come to school with her. While she had put on a brave face, she had in reality been scared to death. Men like Raymond Tucker came a dime a dozen in the business of strip clubs, and she’d seen more than one go a little crazy. It wasn’t pretty when it happened, and she could bet that someone threatening his cash flow would be the one thing that would send him over the edge. Not for the first time, she wished she knew how to operate a gun. She made a mental note to ask Jagger about it when this day was over.
Pulling into the parking lot of the school, she saw a couple of police cruisers and vans, but nothing really out of the ordinary. They were keeping it pretty well under wraps. No one could tell exactly what the police were looking for by just seeing the presence at the school. Gathering her courage, she walked through the front doors, her chin held high.
“How’s it going?” she asked Stacey as she walked into the office, nodding a hello at Rooster who stood outside the office door.
Stacey glanced around, her face pale. “I have no idea what’s going on here, but I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, I’m not that big of a fan myself,” Bianca admitted.
“What was Mr. Tucker into?” she whispered as she handed Bianca her badge.
Truthfully she answered. “I have no idea. With him, I have a feeling it could be anything.” Just because she had her ideas didn’t mean she had proof on any of it. That wouldn’t come until Rooster completed his investigation.
“Well anyway,” Stacey sighed. “You’ll be with Mrs. Harris’ class today.”
“Okay, does she have a class first thing?”
“She does, but they are sweeping her classroom right now, so she’s got the kids meeting in the library. I think you’ll do fine just going in there with her. Too bad for you that today had to be crazy like this, huh?” Stacey tried to make light of what was going on.
Losing Control (Heaven Hill Series) Page 17
