“We do now. Call came in earlier. Beth and her three girls. The husband-slash-stepdad has been financially abusive and controlling, but she thinks it’s trickling down to her oldest now.”

I gritted my teeth. The fact it happened at all, let alone so frequently. The fact women needed to call motherfuckers like us just to get away from it.

The fuckin’ fact it involved goddamn children.

I took a swig from my beer bottle. It was that or sidearm the thing across the room. If I thought it was bad hearing about it, it was nothing compared to them living it. Co-opting their trauma and being a little bitch about it wouldn’t accomplish a damn thing.

“When?” Scythe asked. He had a soft spot for kids. We all did, but his ran deeper.

As did the scars he’d gotten when he was a kid himself.

“Two Thursdays from now. He mostly works from home but takes the T into the city every other Thursday and stays till after ten. She doesn’t want him making a scene in front of the girls. She’ll call off work and keep the kids outta school and daycare to be there waiting for us.”

Glitch clicked away at his iPad. “I’m gonna spend that time digging so we’re not going in blind.”

“She say where they wanna land?” Lash asked.

Judge shook his head. “Husband came home before she could, but she said she’ll call back Monday.”

I hoped she was one of the ones who did. Often—far too fuckin’ often—they didn’t. It was out of our hands, but we still felt helpless.

The lingering question of what happened would keep us up at night if we let it.

Till we knew where they were headed, we couldn’t do much. Judge doled out the generic assignments that applied to most extractions, like preparing the van and filling it with assembled boxes.

He moved on to our MayCo work for the upcoming weeks before the meeting ended. We all streamed out to the main room, Judge going in search of O while Glitch hauled ass for the door.

“You hanging out, Hollywood? Need to know if I gotta dust off your bourbon since you haven’t been around.” As the newest patched brother, Haze was used to being on bar duty from his prospect days.

I thumped him on the back in something harder than a friendly pat but softer than a punch.

Not softer by much, but still.

“Didn’t ya hear, newbie? Gonna have a full clubhouse tonight, including a few new prospects Scythe and Jury wanna bring in. You’re not bartending. It’s your turn to chill with some bunnies and run those bastards to the ground.”

Haze worked to play it cool, but his poker face was shit. Not that mine was any better as of late. We could all take a lesson from Mac.