Page 36 of Archer (Dirty Misfits MC 3)
“He’s not upset with you,” I murmured. “I promise.”
She sighed and kissed my cheek. “Trust me, I know. It’s got to be hard for you guys to stomach.”
Finn leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Good God, this is actually happening.”
Tanner slid his hand through his hair. “Since we know the drop-off is happening in a few days, it would be really easy to figure out which dock they’re coming into. And, you know, if we could catch Chops at the docks—”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if he’d be that stupid.”
Finn shrugged. “He was stupid enough to show up at that club and actually walk in the back.”
Twenty points to Finn. “So, I guess the question is: do we want to stake out the dock for more evidence? Or do we want to try and intercept those girls?”
Brooks came back to the table and eased himself into his chair. “Why can’t we do both?”
Porter sat back down in his chair as well. “It’s true. We can go and stake the place out to find Chops, but we can also be prepared to save as many of those women as possible. I mean, it’s what we do, right?”
And as all of the guys nodded their heads at the table, I kissed the top of Josie’s head.
“You did fantastic work,” I murmured into her hair.
Then, she turned her head upright so I gazed into her eyes from an upside-down perched state. “It’s your turn to be careful, all right? Don’t go getting hurt on me trying to be the big man.”
I grinned. “I make no promises.”
Her face grew serious. “You will if you want to get laid again.”
All of the guys barked with laughter as I kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll be as safe as I can be, and I promise to make it back to you. How’s that?”
And when she smiled, the entire world ceased to exist. “Perfect.”
Sixteen
Josie
As the guys talked about things they could do to set-up this stake-out operation, I sat in awe of all of them. It was as if they had named themselves unintentional champions of the weak and battered, and it only made me love them more. It was insane, how quickly my opinion of the guys had changed in such a short amount of time. But I no longer saw them as the rough-and-tumble, give-no-shits, cares-about-no-one-but-themselves kind of crew.
I saw them kind of like Santa Cruz’s guardian angels.
Which was why it was so important to me that we figure out what the fuck was going on. I mean, if tonight was any indication of how these men treated American strippers, then I could only assume how they’d treat women they trafficked over from another fucking country. The idea made me sick. Those men probably saw women as disposable. As pawns to be used in a big ol’ man’s game of chess.
And they probably had no remorse if one of them got beaten or killed.
“I will go back tomorrow night and get as much information as I can,” I said.
The guys all stopped talking before Brooks spoke up. “That won’t be necessary. We have what we need.”
I shook my head. “We could have so much more, though. They haven’t changed anything in those back hallways. All of the improvements have been at face value.”
Archer held me closely. “It’s okay, we can take it from here.”
Porter held his hand up. “Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean, face value?”
Archer grumbled. “Shut up, man. She’s done her job.”
Porter shot him a look. “Let the woman speak. You might not like what she has to say, but that doesn’t mean we’re on your side with this.”
Tanner nodded. “Yeah, she more than proved herself tonight. Give her some room to talk.”
Archer stiffened against me as I kept talking. “What I mean is, all of the locks and shit on those back office doors? None of them have been changed. And guess who has an administrative key to them?”
Brooks balked. “You’re kidding?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I obtained one from the previous owners a little while ago because they wanted me to take over payroll to make sure everyone was getting the money they deserved. They had been struggling with temporary dancers and shit skimming off the top of things they had no business skimming, and the owners wanted a fresh set of eyes on things.”
Brooks nodded slowly. “And you think you can get into these back rooms?”
Archer held up his hand. “We don’t even know if they’re using those rooms. For all we know, they’ve been emptied and the contents are somewhere different.”
But I shook my head. “Those are the only office spaces in the entire building. They have to be using them.”
He continued to argue with me, though. “For all we know, they haven’t even been touched. These guys don’t seem like book-keeping fellows to me.”
