Chibs heard the message hit his prepaid cell. He shifted just enough to pick it up, careful not to disturb Aoife, still asleep against his chest. He flipped it open and read the text. "Dude, shit just got real. Be here on time in the am." Despite the serious nature of the message, Chibs barked a little laugh. He'd mocked Juicey for using the phrase "shit just got real" when the mohawked man was still a prospect. Now they both used it on each other when things heated up for the MC.

Aoife opened her eyes halfway and tilted her head up. "Everything all right, Filip?"

Chibs caressed her hair and put a light note in his voice. "Just club stuff. Juice wanted to remind me that we have an early morning meeting. Things might be busy the next few days, but nothing you need to worry about, my lovely lass." He kissed her on the temple.

He woke up, not the high-pitched sound of Aoife's alarm, but to the fluttering of his abdominal muscles in response to Aoife kissing her way down his stomach and then even lower. His eyelids flickered open just long enough to see her freckled face and bright blue eyes, and then her mouth descended once more. "God, lass," he groaned, and he felt her chuckle through him as a vibrating hum. "You're fucking wonderful." He wanted to keep his eyes open and watch her, but the pleasure she was giving him made him close his eyes and throw his head back. He finally gathered all his strength and spoke in a hoarse whisper, "Stop, love." Her confused eyes met his. "What you're doing is fucking fantastic, but I want to have you again this morning. Might be a few days before I can again."

As he slid between her thighs just a few minutes later, Aoife reached up and caressed his scarred cheeks. "You're smiling so wide I can barely even see your scars," she whispered.

"I'm waking up to you, a chuisle." Chibs said simply, and then he kissed her while he pushed inside her. The faintest traces of dawn were painting the sky and falling on his beautiful lass' skin as she moved under him. The streets were silent save for the occasional rattle of a passing car, and only the earliest of birds were singing. He'd forgotten the delicious sensation of making love in the early morning, still dreamy from sleep. He was the luckiest damn bastard in the world.

Chibs had already stowed the muffins in the saddlebag and given Aoife a passionate farewell kiss. He swung his leg over the bike and realized she had stepped off the porch. "Here." She put the key in his hand and closed his leather-covered fingers over it. "You can come over any time you like."

Chibs raised his sunglasses onto his forehead and gave her a searching look. "You sure, lass?"

"You worry about waking me up all the time. This way I don't have to get up to answer the door." Aoife smiled shyly. "By my estimation, that means I get to wake up to you in my bed more often." God, his lass was hot when she looked up at him through her lashes like that. Chibs leaned over and gave her a scorching kiss.

"I wouldn't expect me tonight, love. But I'll come back as soon as I can. I can't get enough of my sexy Irish lass."

"Just let me know you're safe. That's all I ask. Tá grá agam duit."

"Tá grá agam duit," Chibs whispered onto her lips.

Chibs emerged from the shower to a scrawled note laying on top of his cut. "Got something for you. Juice," he read to himself under his breath. Tossing a t-shirt on and pulling his jeans over his hips, Chibs positioned his sunglasses and walked down the dorm hallway. He knocked on Juice's door, noticing the music was a lot lower today.

"Come in!" Juice yelled back. "Hey, Chibsy, you mind shutting the door?" Juice was sitting on his bed wearing only a Samcro t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. He had a keyboard on his lap. The giant tv hanging on the opposite wall was acting as his monitor. "Have a seat-" Juice looked around the room, covered in dirty laundry. "Um, why don't you sit down on the bed," he suggested, scooting over to make room.

"You got something for me, Juicey?"

"Ok, here's what we've got," Juice said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "Aoife's attacker was this man." A photo popped up on the screen. "Sean MacAuley. UK citizenship, last know address was in Londonderry. He was here legally. Arrived in Boston about six weeks before he attacked Aoife. I'm plotting his route across the country using credit card and rental card receipts that were still in his wallet."

"You got his wallet?" Chibs was impressed.

"I got everything," Juice bragged, gesturing at a pile of items on the night stand that included a wallet and a passport. "The property room at the morgue had a security issue yesterday," he explained slyly. He showed Chibs the beginning of the path that Sean had followed. He must have left Ireland within days of Aoife's departure, but clearly he hadn't known exactly where she'd gone.

"So, what's his connection to Aoife? Any connection to her family? She had a boyfriend named Finnbar who worked for the family business. He might be connected." The normally laconic Chibs peppered Juice with questions, trying to dig deeper.

"Dude, Chibsy, I'm trying to work here. Do some of your own damn research." Juice passed the keyboard over to the Scotsman and grabbed the laptop.

"I don't know what I'm doing, Juicey."

"Type in fucking www-dot-wikipedia-dot-org and start looking for information. Didn't you say there was a family business or some shit? That kind of shit is on Wikipedia."

Chibs started typing. He racked his brain. He was pretty sure that the family business involved books and used the family name. He had typed every variation of McIntyre and book that he could come up with and found only junk. He was muttering and cursing to himself. Juice had gone back to his work. "I can't find shit, Juicey! Fuck. McIntyre's her fucking married name. The business would be under her birth name."

"Did you say you met her aunt?" Juice suggested, not even looking up from what he was doing.

Chibs looked at the younger man in amazement. "Some days you're fucking brilliant, kid, I don't care what Tig says." The Scotsman dialed information for the hospice phone number, and in a matter of minutes his call was ringing through to Rois' room. He hadn't needed Rois' surname. As soon as he mentioned her first name, the receptionist had known whom he meant.

"Aye?" He heard Rois' voice on the phone.

"Aunt Rois? This is Filip Telford –"

"Aoife's lad! How're you, my boy?'

"Not bad. I have a bit of a strange question. What was Aoife's last name before she married?"

Rois didn't say anything for a full, tense minute. "Now why in the hell would you need to know that?"

Chibs weighed his options and decided on complete disclosure. "I'm checking up on the man who attacked Aoife in the coffee shop. I want to see if he has any connections to her old boyfriend, but I don't know where to start."

"You're a good lad for my girl. The name you're looking for is Skerrett. You bring Aoife out here again soon."

"I'll do that, Aunt Rois. I'll bring you a bottle, too."

"I knew I liked you, Filip. Give Aoife my love." She rang off.

Chibs bent over the keyboard. "Here it is – Skerrett's Booksellers. Shit, I remember Skerrett's. There was one in Belfast. I took Kerrianne there as a special treat when she was young. She loved the children's section." He felt tears burn in his eyes. In his head, Kerrianne was still that little girl with a mop of curls and a shy smile for her Da. But he knew she was a teenager now, turning into a beautiful woman like her mother, and he had missed all those years. He briefly wondered if Jimmy had ever crossed paths with Aoife's family, and then he had to shut those thoughts down. They didn't do him any good. He had failed utterly to protect his wife and daughter; he wouldn't allow such failure again with Aoife. "Business dates to the late 19th century, shops all over the republic and the north, with the main office in Galway and a secondary office and a major warehouse in Derry. That's worth a pretty penny." Worth even more if they were involved in some sort of smuggling for the Real IRA, Chibs thought. "There's the acting director, Declan Donnelly. That's Aoife's cousin. He scrolled down further. "Mary, mother of Christ," he cursed. "I think we know why Aoife is so intimidated by Tig. This is her bastard ex."

Juice looked up and his fingers stopped typing. "Shit." The man in the photo was cleaner cut than the Samcro Sergeant at Arms and wearing a tailored pinstriped suit, but his curly dark hair and cold eyes were almost an exact match.

"Finnbar Kilbey," Chibs read the photo caption. "Acting Director, Logistics." Chibs continued absorbing all the information he could about Skerrett's Booksellers while Juice continued his hacking.

"Done and done," Juice announced trimphantly. "He's on the next bus to Skeeter."

Chibs raised an eyebrow. "I don't know shit about computers but I know Charming PD doesn't do things like that electronically."

Juice gave him a shit-eating grin. "You're right. But the paperwork just printed out at the network printer, and Skeeter just got a voicemail from a morgue clerk demanding to know why he hadn't picked up the body." Juice stopped typing and looked over at Chibs, who was looking at a map of Skerrett's Bookseller locations in Ireland. "Why did you want me to get rid of the body and keep him from being IDed?"

Chibs looked over at Juice, praying he was kidding, but the frown on his mohawked friend's face was genuine. "Because it might take whoever sent him longer to figure out he's failed if he just disappears. And if we're really lucky, he might not have told anyone where Aoife is. Did you find a cell phone?"

"No, he didn't have one on him."

"Hotel room?"

"He'd checked out of the hotel in Lodi early the morning of the attack. He doesn't seem to have checked into a new one." Chibs frowned. The man had been here six weeks. He had to have clothes and a shaving case, something more than what was in his pockets. Then it came to him.

"Where did he rent his last car?"

Juice tapped a few buttons. "Vegas. He was changing cars every few days."

"That's a seven or eight hour drive. Shit, Juice, was the rental car ever returned?"

Before Juice could answer, there were two sharp raps on the door and Tig yelled, "Turn off the video games and put some pants on! Just because you're not going on this doesn't mean you don't have to be on watch back here!" Tig's footsteps continued down the hall.

Chibs checked the time on his cell phone. "Shit, I gotta get ready, Juicey. Look, if we find that rental car, we probably find everything else this bastard had with him, including his phone. Can you check that for me?"

"Sure. I'll have time to kill while I'm waiting for you guys to get back. You still want me to keep this to myself?"

Chibs shared a long look with Juice. "Aye, brother. Until I know what we're dealing with."

a chuisle - "pulse," an endearment

Tá grá agam duit – I love you.