Losing Control (28 page)

“Money, but he doesn’t have the risk,” Jagger said. “He’s not stealing the money from the bank, he’s just touching it. As long as no one else knows he’s doing it, it’s pretty low risk for him. Dino and his boys are probably paying him a tidy little profit to keep it flowing. He doesn’t even have to fudge the school board records. He only has to do that if he’s getting greedy and actually taking some of that money, but as far as his extra activities, I’m sure he’s making plenty to keep those up.”

“What about the white van that’s been coming past here?” Bianca asked.

Liam interrupted this time. “I don’t think that’s about you. I think that’s about us.”

“It’s just a coincidence?”

“Yeah, I really do think so. The white van is only dealing with Dino, and Dino is all about trying to figure out if we’re serious or not. The white van started when Jagger started spending time here, right?”

She thought back and nodded. “Yeah, the first time I remember anything about it was when Jagger got into that wreck.”

“So, I really do think that’s for us, not you. You’re just caught in the middle of the situation and it has nothing to do with you.”

“Now here’s another question,” Denise said, scooting up to get comfortable where she sat beside Liam. “How do we prove it?”

Liam ran a hand through his hair. “That’s going to be the difficult part. I called Rooster and explained to him the information that Meredith received. He’s working on getting a search warrant for Raymond’s house, but I did give him the pictures that the boys took. They just aren’t admissible for anything. He’s thinking along the same lines we are. We just have to catch Money Bags with the proof and then get him to squeal on Dino.”

“Do you really think he’s going to do that?” Bianca asked. It all seemed too simple, too convenient. Maybe it was the truth, but it still made her nervous. She wasn’t sure how he would react.

Tyler shrugged. “You never know how someone is going to react once they’ve been backed into a corner. His back is about to hit a wall and most people would rather bite the hand that feeds them than admit they’ve done something wrong. It’ll all depend on how much of a coward he is.”

A couple hours later, Bianca and Jagger lay in her bed. His arms wrapped tightly around her waist, and he rested his head against hers.

“Are you scared?” he asked softly.

“I’m worried,” she answered honestly. “He’s a principal with access to all those children. What if we confront him and he does something to them? What if he does something to Drew and Mandy because of who they are?”

“If he does, he knows he’s a marked man.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t think he does.” She turned so that they faced each other. “Everything he’s done so far screams that he thinks he’s above the law, that he’s above consequences of his actions. He’s never been caught before, so I don’t think he believes he can get caught.”

“You can’t let this worry you,” Jagger soothed, pushing her hair back from her face. “He’s a bad man who will do whatever he has to do to get what he wants. That’s not your fault.”

“It is when we deliberately goad him into doing something.”

“All we’re doing is making him admit to his misdeeds. If it wasn’t us, it would be someone else.”

They lay there in silence for long minutes. “Are you worried?” she finally asked.

“About you, I am,” he whispered.

A small smile played on her lips. “Why? I can take care of myself, you know that right.”

His muscular arms tightened around her. “You’re my weakness. You’re what someone could use against me, and I’ve not done a very good job of hiding that. If someone wanted to get to me, all they would have to do is hurt you. Money Bags knows that, Rooster knows that, Dino knows that. You are the one thing that someone could take away from me that would absolutely break my spirit and turn my life upside down.”

“You can’t think like that.” She ran her hand down his neck, playing with the blanket he had pulled tightly around their bodies.

“I can’t not think like that,” he admitted. “The past few days it’s been running through my head like a movie. What would I do if something happened to you?”

“I would fight,” she promised. “I have you to come home to. I have you to live for. Hell, I have friends now—something I never really had before you came into my life.”

Jagger put his hands on her neck and forced her eyes to meet his. “If it comes down to you having to fight, promise me that you’ll be safe. Promise me that you know I’ll come for you. I’ll do everything in this world to get to you. Know that I’ll come to you—no matter what.”

“I have no doubt about that, Jagger. I know if something were to happen, you would be kicking the ass of anyone that stood between you and me.”

“That’s the damn truth.” He leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. “You’re dangerous for me, but I can’t seem to live without you.”

“I can’t seem to live without you either.”

“What are we gonna do about that?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Guess we’ll just have to keep livin’ in sin,” she grinned, turning so that her back rested against his bare chest.

“If I have to live in sin, there’s nobody I’d rather live with than with you.”

Jagger listened for what felt like hours, waiting for her breathing to level out. When it finally did and he knew she was asleep, he tightened his arms around her and held her even closer to his body. He knew just how hard he would fight to keep Bianca if someone was trying to take her away. There was no doubt in his mind that Raymond Tucker would fight just as hard, he would be just as dangerous. Knowing that he had to send her into the mouth of the beast until they could prove exactly what this man was doing would end up giving him an ulcer, and for the first time in a long time, he was giving this to God. He had to believe that she would be kept safe. No matter what.

Chapter Thirty-Four

J
agger awoke the next morning to his phone ringing incessantly. The first time he reached over and shut it off. In seconds it rang again.

“I think someone is really tryin’ to get in touch with you,” Bianca grumbled, putting her head under her pillow.

It wasn’t his pre-pay so Jagger knew it wasn’t Liam or one of the other members of the club. “Somebody better be fuckin’ dead. It’s 5 a.m.,” he growled into the phone.

“Sorry, but I figured you would want to hear this.”

Jagger recognized Rooster’s voice, and just like that he was awake and sitting up, his mind working on all cylinders. “Talk to me.”

“I took my suspicions to my superiors yesterday. With what evidence we had—I embellished where yours came from slightly—they issued a search warrant for Raymond Tucker’s house and his office at the school. We are executing that search warrant today. I’m giving you a personal heads up. I’ve also called Liam.”

Jagger reached over and shook Bianca awake. “Are you teaching today?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I’m shadowing today, not teaching. This is the last part of what I need to do to get my degree. I have to do it for a while, but I start that today.”

“Motherfucker,” he swore. “When are you doing it?” he asked Rooster.

“We’re executing it ASAP, but that’s not to say school won’t be in session. We’re hoping to get to him before he gets there,” Rooster explained.

This had bad fucking idea written all over it. “Seriously? You can’t call school off until you get all that taken care of?”

“It’s a mutual effort between state, local, and federal agencies. You have to remember this includes a bank robbery. We have to deal with the feds.”

That’s exactly what none of them wanted. The feds getting involved with something that included a motorcycle gang. “Dude, you’re killin’ me.”

“Just do me a favor, keep Bianca out of there if you can. I have a bad feeling about Tucker.”

He gripped his phone tightly when he really wanted to throw it across the room. “You don’t seem to understand anything about that woman. She is not gonna listen to me.”

“Well, I’ve done what I can,” Rooster told him. “I’ll be in touch.”

It made Jagger feel better to throw the phone against the mattress. “This reeks of bullshit.” He stood and pulled his clothes on.

“What the hell is goin’ on?” Bianca asked, sitting up and watching him.

“They are serving a search warrant on Money Bags today. Is there any way that you can postpone today?”

He knew from the look on her face that he should have asked God to change the color of the sky. Her face screwed up and she opened her mouth, getting a good breath to tell him all about himself. “If you’re gonna yell at me, just please don’t do it,” he told her. “Now isn’t the time.”

“What do you want me to do, Jagger?”

“I don’t know.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know anything about this. There’s no telling how this guy is going to react, and there’s no telling when they’re going to do this. There are too many variables here that can’t be controlled.

She sat next to him and cupped his hands in hers. “This is one of those times when you have to trust me. You have to let me decide what’s best for me. You can’t keep me safe all the time.”

“But I want to.” He swallowed roughly.

“I know,” she whispered, running her hands over his stubble covered cheeks. “But you can’t, babe. Life is messy, it’s not controlled, it’s not the same thing every day, and we don’t all have a crystal ball. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”

He took a deep breath and let his head fall. “I know, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna have an ulcer worrying about you today.”

As Bianca approached the school, she felt the beginnings of an ulcer in her own stomach. There had been calls into the local radio station asking why police were at the school. So far, no one had called any school events off, they just made noises about a possible threat and that the police were there for an extra precaution.

“Yeah right,” she muttered as she turned the radio off.

What she wouldn’t have given to stay in bed with Jagger on this day, to even have him come to school with her. While she had put on a brave face, she had in reality been scared to death. Men like Raymond Tucker came a dime a dozen in the business of strip clubs, and she’d seen more than one go a little crazy. It wasn’t pretty when it happened, and she could bet that someone threatening his cash flow would be the one thing that would send him over the edge. Not for the first time, she wished she knew how to operate a gun. She made a mental note to ask Jagger about it when this day was over.