Her eyes began to sparkle and I groaned. “I’m trying to make it right and you’re crying.”

A soft giggle escaped her lips. “You’ve made it so much better than right, Op. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably bring this up later down the track, just to keep you humble—it’s what women do. But I’m here now, with you. That’s all that matters.”

I released her hands and pushed my fingers through her hair. “Fuck! What the hell was I thinking before?”

“There’s one thing you could do for me,” she said daintily, looking up at me through those beautiful long lashes.

“Name it, it’s fucking yours.” I was determined to make this woman happy, no matter what the cost.

“Fuck me.” I watched her lips move and form the words and fuck if it wasn’t the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

“Fuck yeah, baby.”

“Where are we going?” I grumbled as Optimus pulled me down the hallway.

“Church.”

I signed. “So why couldn’t I just lay in bed and wait for you?”

“Because today, you’re joining me.”

I dug my heels in, pulling him to a stop. “You’re what now? Is that even allowed?”

“News flash, Blackbird. I’m the fucking president. And I say for today, it’s allowed.” He rolled his eyes as I continued to stare at him. Women weren’t allowed in church—ever. “We’re gonna be fucking late.”

I let him continue to drag me down the hall, through the main room and inside the double doors that contained the room where they held their meetings. All the patched brothers were there. They all looked at me, but none of them seemed surprised. I assumed Optimus had already run this by them. Optimus sat at the head of the table in a large king’s chair, pulling me into his lap and adjusting me till I was comfortable before he banged the gavel on the large wooden table.

His voice boomed in the small room. “Obviously, shit has gone down and we need to start catching up because we’re missing something fucking huge here.” I was always captivated by the way that Optimus held himself in front of his brothers. The way they looked at him like a king. He was their leader and every single one of these men respected that. “Blizzard, you want to start?”

Blizzard nodded. “So our boy from the gym is a part of the DEA. Says he’s been following the DePalma’s which lead him here to us.”

The room grumbled, the obvious distaste for a member of law enforcement apparent.

“So now we have not just the Mafia on our ass but the cops too?” Slider groaned.

“There’s more to it than that,” I felt myself say before covering my mouth. I didn’t know what the protocol was for me being allowed to speak. I shot Op an apologetic look, but he just stared at me curiously.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s claiming he knew my parents,” I said quietly, ignoring the murmurs from the room and keeping my eyes connected with my man.

“How?” Blizzard asked from just to Op’s left. He leaned forward, eager to hear my explanation.

I told them what he’d said, about how he told me my father was a member of the DEA, about the club being responsible for my parents’ death.

“Not possible,” Wrench said immediately when I’d finished. The other members all nodded. I knew these men. I had no doubt that they were not directly responsible. But the thought had occurred to me that he hadn’t meant this club, in particular, but rather another chapter.

“How exactly did he think he knew this? If they had any sort of proof, someone would have been arrested for it a long time ago,” Blizzard stated, opening the folder that he had sitting in front of him and flipping through the pages.

I shrugged. “He said the evidence didn’t lie.”

The room chuckled.

“I love how they say that, like they haven’t ever planted shit themselves in order to bring some big criminal down,” Leo said, shaking his head with a smile.

“Always thought this was strange,” Blizzard muttered as he pulled a single page and placed it on the table. “Your parents’ names were never listed on your foster records. All it said was that your mom and dad were deceased. Chelsea Weston, five-years-old, no known address, no other family. Nothing came up when we tried to look up your parents. It’s like they didn’t exist.”

“My parents weren’t married.”

Blizzard frowned. “They weren’t married?”

I shook my head. “I have my mom’s name. Not my dad’s. I remember asking why, they said it sounded prettier. I was happy, that was good enough for me.”

“Fuck me, it’s true,” Op muttered.

Wrench started tapping away at his computer. “You remember your dad’s name?” he asked as he continued to type.

“David. I don’t know his last name. Or I don’t remember them telling me.” I sighed and Optimus squeezed me a little tighter. It had been a long time since I’d had to have such an in-depth conversation about my parents. My chest was beginning to ache.

“David Blackwell, DEA-deceased 1998.” My hand went straight to my mouth as I listened to Wrench read aloud his search findings. “Nothing saying he has a daughter.”

“It wouldn’t,” Blizzard said looking over at me. “They hid her, so whoever killed the parents wouldn’t be able to find her.”

I stared at him in shock, my mind struggling to find a way around what I was hearing. “You mean to tell me, there were possibly people out there, people who could have taken me in and cared about me? But the fucking government decided to put me into the system just so they could hide me?”

“It was a smart choice really,” Leo said, looking at me with sad eyes. “Kids get lost in the system. Shuttled from foster home to foster home. They go missing? Nobody cares.”

“What the fuck happened to shit like witness protection?” I was angry, I wanted to yell and scream. What if there are people out there? Family, friends, people that could have raised me. But instead, they threw me into the system, hoping for the best but expecting the worst—the worst being that I would just disappear.

“What I want to know is why they think it was the MC? What do they have that constitutes evidence, but that isn’t enough to bring the club down?” Wrench asked curiously as he seemed to get lost in his computer screen, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

I curled in closer to Optimus and he tucked his face into my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Blackbird.”

“Think they’re setting us up?” Slide asked curiously.

“Definite possibility,” Blizzard agreed. “But who? The DEA or whoever killed them?”

Optimus cleared his throat. “Leo, give Kit a call and see if you can talk to Oz. See if he knows anything about a hit on a DEA agent, and whether anyone was locked up that year? Anything that might be helpful. If anyone is gonna, know it’s gonna be him. The old bastard is like a fucking elephant, he never forgets.”

Leo nodded, pulling out his phone as he exited the room.

“Let’s take a break, try to gather some more info before we sit down again and hash it out.” Optimus banged his gavel on the table and tapped me on the butt twice, telling me he wanted me to stand.

The boys all dispersed, but Blizzard followed us as Op took my hand and led me toward the dining room. We filled our plates with breakfast and took a seat at a table.

“What’s your view man? To me, this is one big clusterfuck.” Optimus asked Blizz as he took a seat next to us.

I tried to concentrate on my food and getting something in my stomach. But with all this information swirling around in my head I was finding it hard to force anything down.

Blizzard stabbed at his food. “It’s gotta be the DEA, I don’t know how else to explain it. How else would someone be able to edit court documents and prison details then wipe them like that? It doesn’t make sense.”