“What was it you heard?” Luca demanded.
Frannie shook her head. “If he finds out I told you, he wouldn’t stop looking for me until he found me and then he would kill me.”
Luca gripped her upper arms and hauled her toward him, He didn’t care if he hurt her or not at this point. “I don’t care about that or you. I care about Bella and what happens to her. What did you hear about Peterson?”
Frannie flinched. “I heard he was going to sell her.” She barely could whisper the words.
Luca was stunned by what he heard her say. That was something he never would have thought about. “Are you sure about this?” he growled.
Frannie nodded slowly. “I heard him on the phone. He didn’t know I was listening. He was talking to someone he called Mr. Chou. He said they would get a lot of money for her as she was barely six years old. I knew then I didn’t have any choice. I had to get her to a safe place, a place he couldn’t get to her.” Then her demeanor changed. “You have to keep her safe and away from him. Please promise me he won’t get her? I don’t care what happens to me but you have to keep Bella safe!”
Luca threw her away from him. “It’s too little too late for you to care about that. Of course, I’ll keep her safe. She’s my daughter.”
“What about me?” Frannie asked.
Luca scoffed. “What about you? You made your bed and now, you have to lay in it. You got away from him once, you can do it again.”
Frannie began to sob. “He’s gonna kill me. Don’t you care even a little about that?”
Luca stared at her for a moment then shook his head. “You are a grown woman. Big enough to make your own decisions and big enough to take the consequences of those decisions. Like I said before you made your own bed, now you deal with it.” He glanced over at Grace and asked, “Are you ready to leave now?”
Grace nodded, then fished something out of her pocket.
Frannie sniffled and asked, “Can you at least give me some money to get out of town?”
Luca reached in his pocket and pulled out whatever cash he had and threw it on the floor beside her. “Get somewhere safe and stay there until this is over. You’re right if he finds you, he will kill you. He knows Bella is my kid now, so he knows she’s got the club’s protection. Now he’s after the MC. He’s already got his dirty hands on Aiden and he isn’t gonna stop until he gets us all. You opened up a can of worms here. I just hope we can bring him down before he destroys us all.”
“Here.” Grace said, giving Frannie a business card. “David Hernon will help get you somewhere safe. He’s a colleague of mine who specializes in helping battered women disappear.”
Frannie tentatively took the card and nodded to Grace, then sniffled again and grabbed up the money on the floor. She got to her knees and looked up at him. “I don’t know if it means anything but he left a jacket at my house one day and I saw a letter inside the pocket. When I looked at it the name on the letter was sent to a Sam Mitchim. I didn’t read the letter because he came back for the jacket so I had to stuff it back in the pocket and I didn’t think about it again.”
Luca frowned at her. He’d heard the name Mitchim before but he couldn’t place where he’d heard it. He nodded. “Get out of town and stay away from here. You’ve got the chance to do something with your life but it’s up to you.”
Frannie got to her feet and stared at them for a moment. “Will you tell Bella that I love her?”
Luca glared at her. Then without saying anything, he turned and walked out of the room.
Grace was right behind him and when they got outside, she reached for his hand.
Luca tightened his grip and pulled her along behind him.
When they got to her vehicle, he held out his hand for the keys.
She handed them over without a word and got in the passenger seat. She didn’t say anything as they sped out of town.
On the way back to Santa Fe, Luca turned off the road and pulled into a wooded area. They sat in silence for a moment. Then Luca turned to her and said, “I need you to give me something to take away the taste of that woman.”
“Like what?” Grace asked quietly.
“Like a kiss. I need you to blow me away with a kiss.”
Grace swallowed hard. Since she’d met this man, she wondered what kissing him would be like. The moment she’d seen him, she felt the attraction between them. That feeling had only grown in the last few weeks. Now she was getting her chance to find out and she didn’t know if she could do it or not. He was basically asking her to use her wiles to wipe out the memory of another woman. She shivered at the thought. Then taking the bull by the horns she leaned over to his side of the vehicle and brushed her lips on his.
Instant desire flooded through her body and she gasped. As her lips parted, his mouth covered hers and he deepened the kiss. The world tilted off course and all she could feel was wave after wave of pleasure.
She felt him pull her closer and when she felt his arms, hugging her closer nothing had ever felt so right. The skirt she was wearing rode high on her thighs and the higher it went the more she felt the cool air.
She could feel the wetness between her legs, slight at first but as the kiss they shared went deeper, the wetter she became. When she settled on his lap, she could feel the hardness of his cock. Moaning, she rubbed his hardness with her hot pussy.
Gasping, she felt his cock growing under her. She began to undulate her hips, mimicking the act itself. She heard Luca groan echoing her own moans. His hands clamped down on her hips and he brought her down harder on his crotch.
Luca broke the kiss to whisper, “I need you. Need to fuck you so bad.”
Grace groaned and sank her teeth to a place on his neck. Biting down gently she murmured, “I need you too.”
Luca’s hands went to his jeans and within seconds, his pants were open and shoved down to free his rather large cock. He lifted his hips just enough to shove his jeans down to free himself and without saying a word he pushed her underwear to one side and plunged deep inside her moist, hot pussy.
He hissed and covered her mouth with his hand absorbing her scream as soon as it left her mouth at his invasion. Breaking away from her lips he whispered, “Sorry I can’t do slow and gentle this time. I need you too much.”
“I never asked for slow and gentle anyway. Please don’t stop.” She whimpered in his ear. “Don’t stop.”
Luca surged back into her warm wetness, going deeper with each thrust. They didn’t have the room to stretch out but he made the best he could in cramped quarters. Once they started, there was never any doubt about the ending. He couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted too and right now, he didn’t want too.
Grace moaned and slammed down harder and he thrust higher and higher. He filled her up completely, almost to the point of pain but they didn’t slow down at all. Nothing else mattered but the chase of the ever elusive orgasm. When Luca’s hands slipped between them and his fingers brushed over her clit Grace felt herself explode. She cried out his name and ground down against him.
Luca followed her over the edge and they both felt his cock swell and explode inside her. His cum painted her walls and flooded her pussy with his seed. It wasn’t until his cum began leaking out of her that Grace finally moved.
She leaned down and rested her forehead against his. Taking several deep breaths, she finally felt her heartbeat slowing down. When she could move again, she tried to move off his lap but Luca wouldn’t let her go. His hands clamped down on her hips and he kept her there.
“I don’t want you to move,” he whispered.
Grace sighed, “I don’t want to move either but we have to go. Bella will be out of school soon.”
Luca groaned as he removed his hands and lifted her off him.
She straightened her clothing and sat down in her seat. She glanced over at him and watched as he put himself together.
When he finished he stared out the window at the woods around them. He looked like a
man with a lot on his mind.
Grace cocked her head to one side and asked, “What are you thinking about so hard?”
He turned his head in her direction. He was frowning. “I think I might have just realized who the man we know as Adam Peterson really is.” He paused then added, “And if he is who I think he is, we’re in a lot of trouble and Bella isn’t safe.”
She caught her breath and raising a hand to her mouth she asked, “Just who do you think he is? And why isn’t Bella safe?”
“C’mon, we got to go.” Luca started the car and whipping the car around they left in a cloud of dust.
Chapter Fifteen
They raced toward Santa Fe and Luca threw his phone at her. “I need you to call Bowie and get him over to Bella’s school and pick her up. Tell him to get her back to the clubhouse and we’ll meet them there.”
Grace did as he said and moments later, she dared to ask. “So who is this guy? And what is it you think he’s going to do to Bella?”
Luca took a second to look at her before he swung his head back to the road they were racing down. They had twenty minutes before they were home and that’s where he needed to be right now. “Do you remember when Frannie said the envelope in Peterson’s pocket was addressed to Sam Mitchim?”
Grace nodded.
Luca blew out a harsh breath. “I’ve heard that name before. When I was in prison. About three months into my sentence, a new man came in. He was a big, black dude that nobody messed with. He had a bad attitude and took it out on anyone who didn’t get out of the way fast enough. He found me three days after he got there. Let’s just say it was an encounter neither of us would forget. I ended up in the infirmary for a week and he went to solitary for thirty days and then was transferred out. I heard through the prison grapevine that he went to another prison and took out his attitude on the wrong guy there. He ended up dead a month later.” He paused as he slowed down the vehicle. They were nearing Santa Fe and Peterson’s reach. He wasn’t going to get caught in a speeding trap now. There was too much at stake.
“What was this guy’s name?” Grace asked, trying to keep all the threads together.
“His name was Will Farmer, but that’s not what is so troubling,” replied. “Just before I passed out from blood loss, he gave me a message. He said I made a powerful enemy when I killed Adam Peterson’s kid. He said someone sent him in to take me out. He gave me the name John Mitchim. He told me they wouldn’t stop coming after me until I was put in the ground. That was the Lobo’s way.” Shaking his head he said, “I never put it together until now. I knew that old man from somewhere.”
“What old man?” Grace enquired.
“When you gave us that information the other day out tech guy was able to do a proper search. He found an old photo of two men. One of those men was a very young Adam Peterson A.K.A. Sam Mitchim. The other man was John “Roughneck” Mitchim, the original founder of Los Lobos. I just couldn’t put his name to the photograph before today.”
“Who or what is Los Lobos?”
“Los Lobos is an MC that my club went to war with while I was in prison. The Steel Veins took out the parent chapter of the MC. We thought they were done for but all this time they’ve been gathering for a rematch.” Luca reasoned out. “Bowie needs to know this information so we can get ready for them to strike.”
Grace frowned as she thought about what she’d just learned. “What will your club do?” she asked nervously.
“We need to make sure what Frannie told us today is true first of all,” he explained. “Then we have to find Peterson’s connection to the human trafficking ring. In the meantime we’ll probably go on lock down so Peterson can’t get to our families while we’re getting ready.”
“Getting ready?” she asked. “Ready for what?”
Luca glanced at her then turned his eyes to the road. “Ready for a war. We don’t want it but we aren’t going to run either.”
Grace swallowed hard. She turned around in her seat and stared out the window. She knew if there was war in Santa Fe, too many innocent people could and would be killed. She shivered as she thought about Bella possibly being one of those caught in the cross fire. Bella or Luca. She couldn’t even think about losing either of them.
She turned her head and whispered, “How can you protect Bella against that?”
Luca stared at the road in front of him. “They’ll have to get through me and every member of the MC to get to her. If they come for her, we’ll stand up against them. They take one of us down we’ll take three of them down.” He shrugged. “That’s just the way these things go.”
Grace stared at him for a moment then turned her head and stared at the passing scenery. He spoke of death and killing like it wasn’t anything special. That bothered her a lot. She couldn’t imagine taking another person’s life under any conditions.
Luca saw her expression and reached out for her hand. Rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand he told her, “We aren’t looking for any trouble here. Understand that. We don’t want this war but we aren’t running from either. We will stand to protect our home and families, hell we’ll even protect the people of our city, even if they don’t appreciate having us around. This is our home too.”
As they pulled into the compound, Luca saw the mini van parked at the front door.
Bowie stood there waiting for them and as soon as he saw them get out of the car, he came toward Luca. “What in the Sam hell is going on? Why did you have me pick up Bella at school?”
“Is she ok?” Luca asked anxiously.
Bowie nodded. “She’s fine, Sunshine has her busy in the kitchen. Now tell me what’s going on?”
Luca nodded. “We need Mike to verify something and then I’ll tell you what I found out today.”
Luca led the way to Mike’s room. Knocking on the door briefly, he pushed it open. Mike turned to see who was there and frowned when he saw Grace with his President and Luca. Despite the time she spent with Luca, the club was still slow to trust Grace. Mike turned to Luca and asked, “What’s up, brother?”
“Did you have any luck with that photo you found the other day?” Luca asked.
Mike shrugged and glanced at Grace again.
“Ignore her.” Luca glared at him. He leaned toward Mike’s chair. “Can you run the name John Mitchim.? Or maybe Sam Mitchim?”
“Mitchim?” Bowie called out astonished. “Are you sure?”
Luca turned his head and nodded at his President. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He straightened his body and turned to face Bowie. “Shortly after I went inside, a man came in to kill me. He gave me the name John Mitchim as the one who put the hit out on me. I barely survived the attempt and he got transferred to another prison. He was murdered inside and I didn’t put it together until today.” He paused and nodded toward Grace. “We found Frannie today. I know why my daughter doesn’t speak and why she’s afraid of Adam Peterson. Frannie also had info for us about Peterson. She found a letter in his jacket pocket addressed to Sam Mitchim. As soon as I heard that name, I knew who Peterson was.”
“Fucking hell!” Bowie looked pale now
“Hey, you know a guy named Mr. Chou?” Luca asked him.
“Fuck a duck.” Bowie whispered. “Only by reputation.” Bowie knew that name. Mr. Chou. He was a multi-millionaire the feds couldn’t touch even through everyone knew he was rotten to the core. Vin Chou hid behind a dozen very expensive attorneys who masked his empire from the rest of the world. They did their job so well, the police couldn’t even give Chou a traffic ticket.
“Damn,” Mike muttered under his breath capturing everyone’s interest.
Bowie and Luca crowded around his chair while Grace came forward to stand beside Luca. All of them were looking at the info Mike found on the internet. John “Roughneck” Mitchim was the founder and a major player in the Los Lobos MC. For many years, he was President of the Carlsbad chapter and ran his chapter with an iron fist, and was very much feared in his territory. He had three so
ns, Sam, Gavin and Treyson. Gavin was a president of his own chapter a few towns over and Treyson was his enforcer. No one had heard from Sam in almost twenty five years. Everyone thought Sam was dead but no one could prove it.
Long thought dead, John Mitchim surprised everyone by showing up with the new Lobos national Pres, Bones, at the showdown with the Steel Veins at Remy’s old headquarters. After that bloody fight, Roughneck was finally confirmed dead. He might not have escaped that nightmare but everyone in that room knew if there was a final showdown coming to Santa Fe, his sons wouldn’t miss it this time. They’d be right there on the front lines when the two MCs came to battle.
“The son of the Lobos Founder…” Mike spoke softly. “Peterson is hiding one hell of a secret, isn’t he?”
“Yeah and if he knows we know who he really is, he’ll do everything in his power including calling in a family reunion to shut us up. He wants that Governor’s chair too badly to stop now.” Bowie acknowledged gravely.
“And if he gets it, he’ll use the members of the Lobos as his own secret army,” Luca said the words out loud.
“Oh, my god…” Grace whispered.
“We need to bring Aiden in for protection.” Luca turned to Bowie. “I won’t let him become a victim of the late Roughneck’s revenge. He blamed me for Cody’s death right up till the end. I’m betting his sons aren’t the forgiving type. That whole family is an eye for an eye kind of tribe.”
Bowie nodded. “We need to gather the families together for lockdown.”
Luca nodded to Grace. “I want club protection for Grace as well.”
“Why?” Bowie asked as he crossed his huge arms over his chest and glared at Luca.
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