Page 7 of Axel (Belles & Bratva Beasts #2)

CHAPTER FOUR

RUBY

Axel’s future queen?

What the hell does that mean?

My mind races with a hundred questions while I sit at my desk, typing away. To my colleagues, I’m using my earbuds to listen to a witness statement. When really?

I might have bugged Axel’s office.

Just a little.

You know … as part of my stalking-the-stalker revenge.

I saved for a month to buy a high-quality WiFi audio bug, which I planted under Axel’s desk. Every week, I sneak in and recharge it so I can use the app on my phone to listen to live audio or recordings triggered by the voice-activated technology.

I thought it would be exciting. You know—eat your heart out every CSI show.

But mostly, it’s mind-numbing. All I hear are Axel’s conversations with his clients, and I skip those. Or I hear him clicking and typing. Or flipping pages in his trial binders. Or doing God knows what while Tchaikovsky lulls from the speakers on his desktop. It’s the cure for insomnia .

But when some random man disappears into Axel’s office, I start listening.

Who wouldn’t?

They’re usually hot, tall, jacked AF, and hiding ink under their collars. They might as well walk in with a name badge stuck to their black jacket that reads:

HELLO, my name is…

Michael the Mobster

Yep, there’s some mafia shit going on.

Axel and his men often talk about a job, a mission, or intel, and they have way too much style, ink, and money to be in the FBI.

That’s also how I know “Michael Cummings, Esquire” is Axel’s pseudonym. I heard his friend, Nash, use Axel’s real name in their umpteenth fight about “kings claiming queens.”

Though I have no idea what Axel’s last name is or why they talk like they’re British royalty, circa King Henry VIII.

But it’s also how I know Nick is Axel’s brother, and I love Nick and Zar too much to let them know that I spied on them.

They wouldn’t understand—all’s fair in The Stalker Wars.

I figured out the mafia thing months ago when Sire Rutledge came in for a “meeting.” He’s Charleston’s hip pastor of a popular non-denominational church and like a God in this town with more ink than Axel.

But damn, they have similar blue eyes. They must be brothers who always talk about “The Queen.”

She must be their mafia queen.

But I don’t know who she is.

Though I do know that hot daddy Nash is not Axel’s blood brother, but he is a dad. He has a daughter named Alena, who’s apparently marrying Loch, another of Axel’s brothers.

Yeah, I know.

I keep a journal on this with diagrams and question marks.

Because with each juicy meeting I listen to for more dirt on my boss, I only get more questions.

To be fair, I’ve never actually heard anyone say “mafia,” but then again … do they? If you were a mobster, you wouldn’t go around referring to yourself as such. Then, you’re not an organized criminal; you’re just a dumbass loudmouth who breaks the law.

But I have had one question answered. I want to be a private investigator. I was born for this. But I don’t have the ten thousand dollars this state requires for a surety bond to get my PI license.

So, I settle on investigating my boss.

And due to my snooping, my heart breaks for Nick and Zar. I didn’t hate Axel when I could hear how mad he was about someone extorting his brother for being gay and in the NFL.

It makes me even more determined to help them, too. I’ve already gone online to confirm that the LLC was formed in Georgia, where anonymous owners are allowed.

So now I need to find someone I can persuade in the Georgia Secretary of State’s office that they deserve one thousand dollars for giving me the name of who owns “Blue Ridge Mountain Escapes, LLC.”

It made me hug Nick and Zar tighter when they left because I will find out. I’ll help them.

An hour later, I tell Helen I’m going home and say it loud enough for Axel and Charleston to hear. Then, I take my time, walking back to The Mercier, where my car is parked. More like my reliable hunk of bolts on wheels, but it gets me over the bridge to home and back.

And its rear-view mirror works just fine. I spot Axel’s black Jaguar following me, five cars behind.

I park outside my modest two-bedroom apartment in West Ashley and swing the front door open. “Hey!”

“In here,” Rose answers, so I poke my head into my little sister’s bedroom and find her grading essays on her laptop.

“So, no hot date tonight?”

“Yeah, right,” she scoffs.

“So, then…?” I chew my lip.

“Fine,” she rolls her eyes, “but the next time you go sneaking around a sex club, I’m going with you.”

“I’m not sneaking, I’m spying .”

“Does your pussy know that? Because sometimes, Inspector Gadget comes home with real men and not a toy.”

“That was over six months ago.”

“He’s going to bust you, you know.”

“Not if you sit by the window and look like me.” I wink. “As usual, he’s waiting outside and will have no idea.”

She slams her laptop closed. Rose works her ass off as a middle school English teacher. She’s allowed to have no patience. “Why is this Michael-aka-Axel dude so obsessed with you?”

I shrug. “He likes the chase. That’s all. I guess to him, I’m a glorified secretary that he thinks he owns, even after hours, and I hate him for it.”

“Uh-huh.” Rose tosses me a suspicious look. “You hate it when a hot-as-fuck, smart, and wealthy man chases your ass around? Yeah, rough life.”

“It’s annoying.” We have this spat every week. “He’s a rich asshole who gets custom suits on King Street and orders Beluga caviar with his afternoon tea while I shop at thrift stores and bring PB and Js on Wonder bread for lunch. He gets off being rich and smart, and me being poor and?—”

“Um,” she raises her hand like a student, “Ms. Bitch, please. Feel free to jump off the sexy, boujee boss train and let me ride him instead.”

“Be my guest.”

She laughs. “You’d lose your shit. You two are OTP, and you know it.”

I scrunch my face. Rose teaches me all the slang from her students, but it changes on the daily.

“You’re a One. True. Pair,” she translates. “So stop running and let him catch you.”

“Hell no. Stalking him back is way too much fun.”

“Fun?” She raises a brow. “Or just another way of hating him so you won’t fall for him?”

“Okay, Freud. Put down the ink blots. I don’t see our father or stepfather in every other man.”

Her face softens. “I do. And the more I work through it like Scarlett did, and like Cherry is, too, the more I heal … and so should you.”

Cherry is our youngest sister, and she suffered the worst. After our dad bailed on us, my mom remarried the stepfather from hell.

He was a predator, so Scarlett was our protector, I was our investigator, Rose was our nurturer, but Cherry was his victim.

We used every trick to escape him, and it worked for a year until one afternoon, while my mom was at work, Scarlett caught him molesting Cherry.

She almost killed him with an iron skillet.

So, yeah, we have legitimate trust issues.

“Come on, Rosé,” I tempt with her nickname. “Just tonight. It’ll be the last time I follow Axel to the club. I promise.”

“There’s a bull somewhere missing his shit.” She throws a pillow at me. “But fine. Go get dressed in your slutty cowgirl disguise, and I’ll play Ruby for the night. Again. ”

“Eeek.” I clap. “Thank you!”

“You owe me, you delulu, stalking bitch!”

I shout down the narrow hallway to my bedroom. “I don’t understand slang.”

“Yes, you do!” she shouts back.

I am not delusional when I sneak out the back door and leave Rose sitting in the living room, watching the flatscreen with her long, red hair in a ponytail, her back facing the window to the lot where Axel is parked outside.

But I am impatient when I hide on the side of my apartment building because it takes him twenty minutes to leave. That’s when I wait two more before I jump in my jalopy and follow him.

Almost every Saturday night, Axel follows me home, like he’s curious if I’m on a date. Which I’m not, and once he leaves, thinking Rose is me, I sneak out and stalk him back.

Imagine my delight when I followed him to the sex club in the old naval yard. Of course, I knew the place. I’m a member. But so is my sister and Luca and their polycule of friends, and again … lines … and me not crossing them. I hadn’t been back in over a year.

Besides, I’ve been content with Zar and Nick’s beach parties. A few times, I’ve hooked up with some bi players, always two, never just one, or hearts get broken—theirs, not mine.

But even that was months ago.

Those last two Rose mentioned? I picked them up at the club the first time I followed Axel there, and we went back to my apartment.

They were hot, and I’d finally scored the holy grail of dicks; a big pierced one.

But I didn’t join them. Oddly, it didn’t feel right.

I just watched them while all I could think about … was Axel ?

It surprised me.

And scared me.

The thought of Axel aroused me more than those men sharing one hot and beautiful coupling.

Rose is right. I have a problem. The more I work through my past, the more I see my lonely future, and the only thing that’s been keeping me company lately are thoughts about how much I hate Axel.

Oh, and how beautiful he is, too.

Yes, Your Honor, I admit it—the man is clitmusic. I swear mine literally vibrates like a tuning fork in his presence.

“I.D. and phone.” The mammoth security guard in the vestibule of the sex club follows procedures. I flash my credentials, surrender my phone, and get patted down by a woman before entering.

When I do, I scan the room, and it’s unusually dark tonight. Only gold sconces and globe lights glow as music and moans fill the smoky, sandalwood-scented air.

Through the haze, I spot Axel at the bar. He’s with his friend Nash and talking to some hulking guy covered in ink, too. I recognize him. He’s a bouncer at Delta’s, the sex store.