I could give her that so I nodded.

“Right, what we need to do isn’t gonna be easy,” Tyra declared.

She was right.

Meddling in the affairs of the brothers was tricky business. If those affairs were dangerous and they were dealing with them the way they felt they had to, it was a no go.

But if Logan was banking his rage, I knew his brothers were too. That was what they did. What one felt, the others reciprocated. What one endured, the others endured with him.

And when vengeance was earned, the others were there to mete it.

And I worried that Valenzuela knew just that.

“Millie, are you sure you’re in a place you can be in on this?” Lanie asked.

I leveled my gaze on her.

“Just consider living twenty years without Hop, then getting him back. No matter what happened to you in the meantime, would you ever allow yourself to be in a place where you might lose him again?”

“No,” she answered quietly.

“No,” I repeated firmly. “So, yes, I’m in a place where I can be in on this.”

“Okay, then,” Tyra butted in, and I looked to her to see her looking at Elvira. “I think our best bet it to start with Hawk.”

“Hawk ain’t gonna let us wade in on this either,” Elvira replied. “Valenzuela don’t like me much after I did that undercover shit with his business. Hawk’s also in his line of sight. He gets wind we’re wadin’ in in whatever way we could do that, he’ll shut us down to the point I wouldn’t put it past his ass to kidnap all of ours and lock us down in one of his safe houses.”

Every time he was mentioned, Hawk Delgado got more and more interesting.

“I don’t mean asking for his help, Vira. I mean finding a way to find out what’s going on,” Tyra said. “If we try to get anything from our men, they’ll figure it out.”

“You think Hawk keeps files on shit like this?” Elvira asked.

“I think you can find out if he does or if he doesn’t,” Tyra answered.

Suddenly, Elvira grinned. “You’d think right.”

Tyra sat back in her chair. “We’ll start with that. It may not come to anything but the more information we have, the better. In the meantime,” she looked to Lanie and me, “work your men. Go cautious. Be smart. And I’m not talking about pumping them for information. I’m talking about making sure they get what they’d be leaving behind if something disastrous happened.”

“I think they already know that, Ty-Ty,” Lanie noted, and Tyra looked to her.

“I know they do. Just make sure they don’t forget,” she replied.

“I get you all. I get you’re freaked,” Elvira put in. “Valenzuela is a threat. But Chaos has never gone stupid. Do you honestly think this guy is gonna get the better of the brotherhood?”

“A man took me,” Tyra reminded her, “and Tack walked through a hail of gunfire to get to me.” She lifted a hand and indicated me. “Valenzuela took Millie. Do I think Chaos would do anything stupid?” She shook her head. “Do I fear that emotion, which is all that guides the Club, love, trust, family, protection, brotherhood, could cloud things when they’re up against an insane but worthy opponent? Yes.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Elvira mumbled, visibly mulling that over in her head before she agreed. “I hear you. I’ll see what I can get on where they are.”

My eyes drifted back out the window.

“Millie?” Tyra called.

I looked back to her.

She tipped her head to the side. “Honey, you sure you’re good?”

I wanted to believe that Chaos had one last battle to win before they were clean and free forever and they were going to win that battle.

But Benito Valenzuela was a man who would go after what he wanted in a way he wouldn’t be stopped.

Unless he was stopped.

And as crazy as he was, that was a black mark I didn’t want on any of their souls.

“Tack’ll protect you, High, all the brothers,” Tyra said when I didn’t reply. “I hope you know that. What we’re doing, it’s just helping him accomplish that.”

“Logan followed a dark path,” I told them. They all looked at each other and from the way they did, I guessed they knew a bit about that path so I didn’t need to get into that and kept going. “It was because of me even if it wasn’t. I don’t want him on that path again, because of me, even when it isn’t.”

“Keep ’im off it, then,” Elvira declared. “Man’s gettin’ more than his fair share of blowjobs, gonna have his mind on his woman’s mouth, not on some motherfucker with a screw loose.”

A giggle erupted from me because that was the truth.

They laughed with me, theirs I could hear filled with relief that I was laughing at all.

And with that, I decided we were done. Not because I didn’t like spending time with them, but because I didn’t want to think about this anymore.

Not to mention, I had to go oversee some Christmas decorations being put up in an office suite.

“I gotta go,” I said, pushing up from the couch.

They all moved. I put on my coat, grabbed my bag, got hugs and another prompt from Elvira to think about talking with someone to get the tools to deal with what happened.

I took off with a heavy heart, wishing in all that was promising with Zadie coming around before I got kidnapped that we were still on that trajectory of a life of budding happiness that would bloom to carefree.

I knew it wouldn’t always be a trip through the tulips.

But the quick taste of having just that that weekend with the girls was sublime.

Hence, I got where Logan’s rage was coming from. I got it was about Valenzuela taking me, what happened, what I saw.

It was also that he took that away from all of us.

I just hoped we could get it back.

All of us.

Intact.

Elvira

The door closed behind Millie at Tyra’s office and Elvira looked to her girls at the desk.

“We all know you bitches can’t wade into this,” she stated.

Lanie and Tyra didn’t say anything but Elvira knew they knew. They were doing what they thought they had to do for Millie right now. But they knew their men would lose their minds if their women gave a hint of interfering.

“I’m callin’ in Shirleen,” she declared.

She didn’t expect an argument.

She didn’t get one.

“Agreed,” Tyra replied.

Elvira didn’t delay. She dug in her purse and pulled out her phone.

There was one person on this earth outside Millie and the members of the Chaos brotherhood who would stop at nothing to keep Logan “High” Judd clean, free, and alive.

So Elvira called her.

She didn’t expect Shirleen would decline her invitation.

She was right.

Millie

The next afternoon, I was sitting at my desk in my studio, my eyes to my computer screen, my fingers entering figures for a budget that would deliver a doable bar mitzvah for a kid whose parents wanted me to pull out all the stops but they didn’t exactly have the funds to pull that off when my door opened.

Speck, my protector for the day, stuck his head in and stated, “He’s good.”

Then he pulled his head out and a large black man so beautiful, I completely forgot how to breathe, walked in, smiling at me.

As he continued to walk in, my head tipped farther and farther back until he stopped at the other side of my desk.

At that point, my mouth was hanging open.

I did not care.

I knew this man was used to women making fools of themselves at the sight of him.

And anyway, I still hadn’t regained bodily function.

“Millie, it’s good to meet you,” his deep, smooth voice said. “I’m Elvira’s man, Malik.”

Ho...

Lee...

Shit.

No wonder she wanted her ball and chain on him.

“I... uh... I...” I swiftly got up and shoved my hand his way. “Malik, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you.”

He took my hand and smiled at me again.