Inmate of the Month (Souls Chapel Revenants MC 7)

The night was nice and all, but we would still have fuckin’ bugs to deal with.

Oh well.

I’d deal with the fallout of those bugs tomorrow.

Tonight, I could practically hear the excitement in my girl’s voice.

I hadn’t walked up the walk to see her quite yet, but I could hear her. And what I heard had my heart fuckin’ happy.

She was singing. Or trying to, anyway.

Whatever she was doing, she was good, and I needed a minute or two to regroup.

Today had been shit.

Like total and complete shit.

I didn’t even want to get into it.

The kid screaming in my arms sounded about how I felt.

“You got a live one,” Lynn drawled as I walked toward where I could see the guys gathered around the fire pit in the back.

I grinned. “Beckham says he’s teething. I’m hanging on to his hollerin’ little self until his daddy gets back from the main house.”

Lynn nodded, his eyes taking me in with a softness I barely recognized.

Hiro placed his face against my neck and started to do the crying thing into my neck instead of my ear, and I was grateful as I started to rub his back, not bothering to bounce around since I’d seen how well that worked for Beckham.

“How’d today go?” Lynn asked.

I grimaced.

“Shit,” I grumbled. “We didn’t find whatever it was that you had us there lookin’ for, but we did find something somewhat suspicious. That’s what Hunt and Trouper are doing right now. Looking through surveillance.”

The thought of someplace being hidden, a place where men and women took young girls and boys to do disgusting things to them in secret made me sick to my stomach.

Even worse, we know it’s there somewhere, yet we can’t find where.

It’s like a solid weight in my stomach lending to my current state of unease.

Hiro’s wailing turned to those heartbreaking little sniffles with a cry in between breaths, and I switched direction on his back rubbing, going up and down now instead of in circles.

My entire hand spanned Hiro’s back.

I wanted one of these.

I’d wanted a child since I’d first seen Hiro, and he’d given me the idea.

But now that I had Catori, I really wanted one. One with her long black hair, perfectly bronzed skin, and pouty little lips.

Hell, I shouldn’t be thinking that about a woman that I knew for all of two weeks, yet the thought was there anyway.

Just as the thought appeared, two very drunk women made their way out of the house, and the man at my side, Bruno, cleared his throat. “We should probably keep them away from the fire.”

I agreed.

“Laric, you’re home!” Catori called.

Hiro, who’d apparently fallen asleep in the last five minutes I’d been contemplating life, woke up with a loud cry, causing Catori to throw her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry!”

I shrugged and started up with the circles again.

Luckily, Hiro proved resilient.

He fell back toward my shoulder and buried his face in the opposite side of my neck, his fat, chubby little arm curling around my throat in an infant chokehold.

“S’okay,” I said with a wink.

Her face softened, but she proved once again just how drunk she was by saying, “I want me one of those!”

“Funny,” Lynn drawled, amusement in his tone. “When Laric first met Hiro, he said the same exact thing. Maybe you can help him get one.”

Catori’s eyes lit up, and the fire that was illuminating the night sky danced in her wide eyes.

Harlow snorted, elbowing her friend. “All you have to say is ‘I want a baby’ and Catori would fall on her back and…”

Catori slapped her hand over Harlow’s mouth while she berated her friend for being so ‘graphic’.

“There are two types of people in the world,” I said to the man at my side.

Bruno looked at me with confusion on his face.

“What?” he asked.

“Watch.” I jerked my chin toward the ladies. “Hey, ladies. How was your night?”

Both drunk women turned to me.

Harlow, grinning widely, turned to me. “I met my husband tonight.”

Bruno snorted.

“What about you, Cat?” I called, teasing lightly.

Cat turned to me, her face showing a sheen of sweat. “I had the best French fries ever.”

Trouper showed up five minutes later with a look of glee in his eyes.

“I think that I found it,” he said as he gestured toward a shot on his phone. “I spotted it on the…” He paused when he saw Hiro passed out in my arms, still sniffling. “He okay?”

I nodded. “Fine. Beckham said that he was teething. So, I took him because she looked like she could use the break.”

Trouper nodded, then turned back to Lynn who’d walked closer upon his arrival. “Anyway, I think I found it. There was something really weird about a copse of trees when I was in the air. I couldn’t figure out why it looked so odd. Until I got closer and saw that the majority of the trees were situated in a way to hide a building from sight. From the air.”