Page 109 of Taken In Trade
The least Hawk could have done would be to let me bond her first.
The fucker.
Her eyes soften, and I must have said the right thing because she wraps her hand around the back of my neck, pulling me down until our mouths meet.
My towel has been barely hanging on by a thread, and it falls open as I grind her into the mattress, kissing the fuck out of her. At some point, I should likely tell her the old wives’ tale about what her scent means. I have no way of knowing if it’s true, but I think it’ll make her smile.
God, how I wish I had time to start the morning right—also known as buried balls deep inside my wife. Unfortunately, we have a lot to get done before our claiming ceremony tonight.
I pull back from the kiss before I can torture my cock any further. “I hate to cut this short when things are just getting interesting, but we need to fill Hawk and Magnum in on what the tech team found. Our claiming ceremony is tonight. Do youhave a dress and whatever lingerie you’d like to wear for the ceremony itself, or do we need to fit in a shopping trip?”
“I don’t want to go shopping. I’ll figure something out,” she says, blinking up at me from behind her dark lashes. “Shit. Now I’m nervous.”
“I will do everything in my power to protect your modesty,” I assure her. “But you know we’re going to have to put on a damn good show.”
“I couldn’t give a shit less about the ceremony. I’ll fuck your brains out,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m nervous about what the tech guys found.”
I nod, brushing her hair back from her face. “It’s not pretty, but we’re going to put an end to all of that.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Vanessa
Moretti repeatedly asks if I’d like to skip the discussion about what Magnum found, but I want to participate. At the very least, I want to know what we’re dealing with. He hasn’t outright told me what Grigoryan is involved in, but it has to be bad. Just based on his history with women, I have a feeling it’s really ugly.
Magnum smiles, letting me lean against his good shoulder while we sit side by side on the sofa in the sitting room of the pack bedroom.
Hawk paces the floor bare.
Moretti leans against the wall with his arms crossed as he fills us in on what happened while he was gone.
“There wasn’t much of interest in the pictures, and most of what was on the flash drive will take time to decode—there are several years’ worth of financial records, shipping invoices, and client details,” Moretti says. “None of it had any blatant red flags, but that’s the kind of information that will unravel over time. When it does, it will tell us who else in Boston was involved in Grigoryan’s business.”
“Not to sound stupid, but what business?” I ask, really needing him to just lay it out there.
None of the Boston families have their noses completely clean, but most of them have cleaned up their acts compared to what went down in the old days.
The O’Connors run guns.
Wilder Pierce has the fight rings.
My family does a little bit of everything, but mostly they’re deep into Boston’s illegal gambling activities.
Moretti isn’t perfect, either. I’m just not sure what he does besides allowing drugs to be run through his clubs.
“Human trafficking,” Moretti says, studying my face.
I suck in a sharp breath, shaking my head. I don’t know why I’m shocked. I had a bad feeling that was going to be it, but guessing about something and having verified proof are two very different things.
And I almost ended up married to that scumbag.
“Does my father know?” I blurt out before I even have a chance to think through whether I really want to know. “What about my brothers?”
“I have no verification about that one way or another, so I would rather not speculate,” Moretti says. “I will say, I chose not to invite your family to the meeting I had with the other family heads, simply because my gut told me not to. However, that’s not proof, Vanessa. And even if the worst-case scenario were true, I don’t believe Vance and Victor know about how far Grigoryan has fallen.”
Basically, that means he thinks my fatherisin on Grigoryan’s business, but my brothersmightbe innocent…at least for now.
My stomach aches, and I bring a hand to rub the churning pain away.
