Page 31 of Possessive Bodyguard Summer

That wasn't my story to tell.

But I gave him enough information that he could do some deeper digging.

By the time I finished, the only sound on the other end of the phone was the steady clicking of Sloane's keyboard.

"Sloane."

"Hold on."

I clenched my jaw and waited.

A few seconds later, the typing stopped. "Okay." The tone of his voice had changed.

"What?"

"Devil's Ridge isn't some local weekend warrior club."

"I know."

"No, Clay. You know what she told you. I'm talking about what I'm finding."

If Sloane thought he’d found out more than what I already knew then we were in trouble. I was familiar enough with Devil’s Ridge because a buddy of mine had run into some trouble with them not all that long ago when he was out west helping out an old Army buddy of his.”

“Well. Go on.”

"President is Kael Mercer. Thirty-two years old. Took over leadership about six years ago. Club has been around longerthan that. Founded in 1967. Looks like their VP is Cross Mercer, Kael's younger brother.”

"Criminal history?"

"Nothing that sticks."

I scoffed. "Of course not."

Guys like Mercer weren’t usually the ones with records. Sometimes they didn’t get their hands dirty at all. They had an entire army of men who would do it for them. Laundry lists of witnesses who suddenly went quiet, and patterns you learned to recognize if you’d spent long enough watching predators operate without consequence. It also explained why nothing came back related to Monroe.

“A few arrests tied to fights and weapons charges, but nothing that ever went anywhere. A lot of rumors. A lot of people who suddenly decide they didn’t want to testify."

That tracked.

“What about the repair shop?”

"Registered as a legitimate business. Multiple locations. Profitable on paper. If Monroe is right about the money laundering, he's good at hiding it."

I glanced upstairs where she was hopefully sleeping.

"She said he got aggressive before she left."

The silence that followed was enough to tell me Sloane understood exactly what I wasn't saying. "Did he put his hands on her?"

"She didn't say."

“But…”

“I got the impression that he wanted to or would have if she stuck around.”

“Clay,” his voice carried a warning.

“I know.”