Iris is already dressed and ready to go for the day by the time I wake up at nine. She wears a white flowy summer dress, keeping it simple, but it looks so fucking good. I roll over to my back and my arm comes up to lay over my forehead.
I stare at her as she moves around the room, packing her purse for her Dallas outing with Carter. She sends me a smile and runs toward me, flopping on the bed with a sweet smile. She cuddles into my side, and my heart practically beats out of my chest, a sense of warmth filling me.
"Hi, sweet boy."
She presses a kiss on my cheek.
"Hi, flower."
I wrap an around her waist and pull her toward me.
"I'm meeting my brother at a coffee shop down the block in like fifteen minutes. I don't know what we're doing after that, but I'll be out and about with him."
"I think I just have meetings with these guys all day, so I'll be here if you need anything. And just call me too. They won't mind."
"I shouldn't need anything, but I will, promise."
I lay a kiss on her forehead, and she stands up out of the bed, grabbing her purse.
"I hope you get everything Alpha sent you here for," Iris says while lacing up her Vans.
"Thank you. Wanna ride to the coffee shop?"
"No, I'm good. I want to walk, and you need to get ready for the day."
It makes me slightly nervous that she's going by herself, but I real my protectiveness back in. I know where she's headed, we are in Devil's Rose territory, she's meeting her brother, the walk is five minutes away, and she has self-defense tools at her disposal.
But it could be something other than that. I take a deep breath and wave her to, still in bed, while she leaves. She must meet someone out in the hallway because I can hear her voice drift as she walks away from the door.
I get out of bed, take a shower, and get clothes on. Then, I head to the store right next to headquarters and grab something premade to eat because I'm too lazy to cook anything, and I'm not all that hungry.
I get a text from Iris saying that she's with Carter and a selfie that only shows her eyes which eases the tension in my chest. Five minutes to ten, I knock on Guardian's office door to find him and a couple of other official members already in the room.
I introduce myself to Anarchy and Bolt who I come to find are the lead computer specialists of this chapter of the MC. I should probably know more about the different chapters, but it's also not really my problem either. I don't deal with them unless it's something like this.
I've barely had to have actual communication with these guys; that's more of a president's job.
"Your girl doing okay this morning?" Guardian asks me, "I saw that she left an hour ago and want to make sure that everything's alright."
"Oh, she's fine," I address nonchalantly, "her brother lives in Dallas, so they are spending the day together. They just wanted to meet up earlier than later because they don't get to see each other often."
Guardian nods his head, clearly relaxing.
Anarchy turns a computer in my direction, and I can tell that he's ready to get down to business.
"Alpha called us a bit ago about any information that we could gather on Maximilliano," Anarchy starts, "We know that you've had some confrontation with him before. Also, that your chapter is going to be the one taking him down."
"Hopefully," I joke back, but Anarchy doesn't crack a smile.
Tough crowd.
"We did some outside looking," Bolt picks it up, "trying to see if we could take it to the bigger picture if that makes sense."
"So, looking at business out of Westmoor and Grove Heights. Has he had any influence outside?"
"Surprisingly no," Guardian answers, "he keeps his business tight and where you guys are. Almost as if he's working off what Claws established."
"Piggybacking off her success really," Bolt adds.
"I guess he would be no one without her then. But she's dead. I was there when it happened," I reply, curious to see where they are doing with this.
"But not all of the business entanglings were destroyed with her death. As you know, a lot were and y'all continued even months after to try to wipe her influence out, but that doesn't mean everything was gone," Anarchy announces.
"So the money that she had and the connections that she had, all went to Max. But he hasn't used any of it?" I question.
"I mean, he has. Money and connection wise. He could expand and move his operations, but he's not. That's what we don't know. What we do know though is that your chapter has enough evidence to go after this guy."
Now, that's what I'm interested in.
"What did you find?"
"Importation and exportation of drugs, gun running, prostitution, and fraud. Lots of fraud," Bolt declares.
"Great, now we won't get arrested when we go after him. The police will probably help now. Can you send the information over?"
"Well, that's sort of why you're here. We've had people tracking our information, so we had to completely reboot our system," Bolt sighs.
"You guys were hacked. By Max or someone else?"
"We aren't sure yet, but to protect the information we had for you, we had to print everything. It's in boxes, like four of them," Bolt continues.
"Oh, I understand. Do you guys need help with your situation?"
"No, we have good leads on it. We just have a couple more things to figure out, and we'll be good to go," Guardian butts in.
I nod my head, keeping myself out of their business.
"Let's just keep the boxes where they are for right now, and I can load them when we leave tomorrow morning."
All three of them nod their heads in agreement and allow me to step out of the room to update Alpha. My heart beats hard as I click his name on my phone.
Fuck, this is my step forward. I want this phone call to go well. I want my bringing home the boxes to go well. I want Alpha to be proud of me. He answers after the first ring.
"Updates?" he asks immediately.
"Yes. I'm not going to say much because they may be having a security issue around here, and I don't want sensitive information to be heard. However, we've got him."
"Good. Proud of you, Slasher."
I clear my throat, taking a releasing breath.
"I did good?"
"Very fucking good. What do you want when you get back?"
"For this who thing to be over."
"That we can do," he chuckles, and I hear Persephone and their children in the background.
"I'll let you get back to your family," I say.
"Thank you for going there, Slasher. I'm very grateful."
"Thanks for trusting me."
He hangs up the phone, and I feel a sense of relief. He was right when he confronted me a few days ago. I didn't know what I wanted, and I was feeling like I was torturing myself to stay here. This was always my parents' life, but now I feel like I can officially say that it's mine too.
It took me some time to get there probably more than it should have, but I feel different about it now. I do what I do to protect people, not harm them. I can't save everyone, but I will save all that I can, even those that are under the influence of shit people.
For the next few hours, I get to know the other members of this chapter of Devil's Rose, but I soon get tired of having to be entertaining. How Iris can do this for men I don't understand. I know it's a different kind of entertainment, but it is draining all the same.
I hear my phone ring and pick it up to see that Iris is calling me.
"Slasher, I'm heading back to our room. If you want to join me."
I hang up the phone without a word, saying goodbye to the members, and head to our bedroom. There she is, her white dress flowing as she walks toward the door."
"Iris," I grumble harshly.
"Slasher," she reponses, turning to see me, "you hung up on me."
I walk toward her, laying my hands on her hips. I press her against the wall and breathe her in. She smiles as I lay kisses on her jaw and push my already hard cock into her lower stomach.