by A. M. Myers
“Hey, Ali,” I call and Ali glances up from her phone. “Hang out with my girl for a bit, will ya?”
She nods. “Of course.”
Izzy gives me a smile and a wink as she walks away from me and I can’t take my eyes off of her until she and Ali disappear into the living room around the corner. Once they’re gone, I turn to the war room and step inside, closing the door behind me before slipping into my chair. Glancing down at the end of the table, opposite Storm, I notice Streak isn’t here yet and lean back in my chair, my mind instantly going back to the story I heard twenty minutes ago.
There are so many similarities between our story thus far and her parents that it’s no wonder it took her so long to tell me about the pregnancy. I can only imagine that she thought the worst when she found out she was pregnant and when you add in the fact that she’s never even experienced a healthy, normal relationship, I can’t blame her for what she did. She probably thought she was reliving history and I’m sure it scared the hell out of her. Not that I ever really did blame her but it kills me that she thought I wouldn’t be happy about her pregnancy. What’s even worse is the possibility that she was scared I would react the same way her father did and resent her for getting pregnant.
I grew up with a man just like that and I would never treat her the way her father did. I also can’t help noticing that her story sounds an awful lot like my parents. My mom and dad didn’t get married because they were pregnant with me but that didn’t really seem to matter all that much. The man who raised me has always been a miserable bastard and will continue to be one until the day he dies so I can relate to that part of her story a little too well.
The door to the war room opens and Streak rushes in with his laptop in his hand and Storm scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Nice of you to join us, Streak.”
He holds up his middle finger. “Fuck off. I got caught up with something.”
“Yeah?” Jumper asks. “Does this something have long dark hair and…”
“Don’t you dare finish that fucking sentence,” Kodiak warns and Jumper grins as he leans back in his chair, loving the chaos he’s started. I roll my eyes and pound my fist on the table.
“Can we get on with this, please? I realize y’all don’t have a personal stake in this but some of us do,” I snap, my gaze flicking around the room. Most of the older guys nod in agreement and Jumper has the decency to look thoroughly chastised so I’ll fucking take it. I can’t bring myself to care about hurting anyone’s feelings when there is so much at stake.
“Right,” Streak says, plugging a cord into his laptop so we can see his screen up on the wall behind him. About two hours after we got the photo of the second guy to Streak, he had identified him as Gio Rossi out of Chicago and had an address for us. Storm immediately added Rooster and Smith to stakeout detail three days ago but so far we haven’t gotten anything else and it’s driving me fucking crazy. “So, I went through the burner phone Smoke brought me and I did find some commonly called numbers but they are also burners so I can’t tell you who they belong to but I can tell you which cell phone towers they pinged off of.”
He pulls up a map with a section circled in red and I lean forward, my eyes widening as someone lets out a whistle behind me.
“That’s an expensive neighborhood.”
Someone else scoffs. “No fucking shit. Places around there go for a couple million, at least.”
“It’s all fucking mansions and gated communities,” Gear says, studying the map on the wall and I nod. He’s right. The area Streak has circled on the map has some of the flashiest homes in the city, grand mansions that cost more money than I’ll probably ever see in my life but I’m not sure how that helps us.
“Yep,” Streak says, nodding as he pulls up a house listing that makes my stomach sink. It’s a mission style home but calling it a home is honestly an insult to this monstrosity. It sits on twelve acres of wooded land that looks like something you’d see on MTV and it could have been yours for the low, low price of fourteen million. “I can’t confirm that this is where the calls are originating but this place was purchased nine months ago after being on the market for over a year through a shell company that I can’t get any information on. That’s right around the same time Gio and Luca got to town so it’s a safe bet that our big boss man got here around that time, too.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Nix says, shaking his head as Streak flicks through some of the listing photos, showing off spacious rooms with tall soaring ceilings and gleaming white marble floors. The kitchen alone is the size of the entire second floor of my house and large, ostentatious pillars are everywhere I look. For fuck’s sake, there’s even a massage room. Streak clicks to the next photo. It’s an aerial view of the whole house and it’s even more massive than I first thought.
“What’s the square footage on this thing?” Storm asks and I glance back at him. He studies the photos with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face.
“Just over twenty-five thousand.”
I clear my throat and he glances over at me. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing, man. Just want to have all the information and I guess I’m a little concerned about how we’d go about getting into this place if it turns out that our guy is living there.”
He’s right.
I turn back to the photo and stare at it as a chill rushes through me because we are so out of our element that it isn’t funny. We help women escape their shitty boyfriends and abusive husbands, not this shit.
“Anything else?” Storm asks and Streak shakes his head.
“No, not right now but I’ll keep digging and we’ll find out who is running the show. Seeing where the calls are being made from, I’m more convinced than ever that Izzy stumbled onto something bigger than we ever even imagined.”
“Fucking clearly,” I hiss, trying to figure out what the hell all of this means. After confronting Luca the other day, I had been feeling better about this whole situation but Streak is right. If the person running this show is wealthy enough to snap up one of the houses in that neighborhood, this is a much bigger operation than we originally thought. It also means that we’re in a world of shit and I don’t know how the hell I’m going to keep Izzy safe.
“We’ll get this figured out, Smoke,” Storm assures me and I nod, unable to rip my eyes away from the map. “In the meantime, everyone, be extra vigilant. We have to assume whoever is running this thing knows Izzy is with us and if his operation is as big as we think it is, he knows a hell of a lot more about us than we know about him.”
Jesus.
Wasn’t he just trying to be reassuring to me and now he’s spelling out all my worst fucking fears about this whole goddamn mess?
Storm slams the gavel on the table, dismissing us but I stay in my seat as I stare up at the map, my mind spinning. I don’t want to jump to conclusions or entertain the worst-case scenario but I can’t help it. There is a part of me that is fighting the urge to pack up all of our shit and just disappear with Izzy for a while but it wouldn’t solve anything. Running would only delay this problem for another day. Once everyone else has cleared out, I stand and follow them. Gear, Jumper, and Ink are setting up a keg by the bar when I walk out of the war room and stop, arching a brow as I glance over at Chance. He shrugs.
“They wanted to have a party.”
“Yeah,” I say, turning toward the stairs. “’Cause we have so much to fucking celebrate, right? I’m not sticking around for that.”
“Oh, come on,” Jumper calls out and I shake my head as I scan the room. Izzy isn’t anywhere to be seen so I turn toward the stairs just as Ali reaches the bottom. She sighs when she sees me.
“She’s exhausted.”
I nod. “I take it she told you what happened?”
“She did,” she says before a soft smile stretches across her face. “I know it was hard for her but you’re the first person besides Carly and me that she’s ever
told that story to so it’s progress. But I kind of knew you’d push her out of her comfort zone.”
“Oh, so you’ve been playing matchmaker this whole time, huh?” I ask with a grin and she tilts her head from side to side as she scrunches her nose.
“A little bit but you knocked her up all on your own.”
Laughing, I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Good to know.”
“Why don’t you stay and hang out for a while so she can get some sleep before you take her back to your place? She literally just passed out.”
I glance past her toward the stairs, warring with myself for a moment before sighing and nodding my head.
“Yeah, all right. I could use a fucking drink anyway.”
She snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Hey,” I say as we turn toward the room where Marley and Moose are setting up the sound system. “Tell me what you know about this Conner fucker…”
“Oh, gladly,” she answers, her smile full of malice as she pulls out her phone and unlocks it before opening a whole folder of screenshots and photos dating back years.
“Shit.” I laugh, looking up at her. “You might be better than Streak.”
She laughs, holding her phone out to me. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”
“Noted,” I answer, reaching for it but before I can grab it, my own phone rings. I sigh, pulling it out of my pocket. Smith’s name flashes on the screen and I take a step away from Ali, indicating that I need a minute as I accept the call and put the phone to my ear.
“Please tell me you got something for me, brother.”
“I do but you’re not going to like it.”
“Just say it,” I shoot back, throwing myself into one of the chairs in the dining room. My knee bounces erratically and my stomach churns.
It’s going to be bad.
I know it is so I just need him to say it.
Finally, he sighs. “It’s Dominic King, Smoke. Gio and Luca are working for Dominic King.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Isabelle
“I hate you.”
The words are acid on my tongue because in spite of everything I’ve discovered, everything he’s done to me, I can’t actually bring myself to hold anything but love in my heart for the boy standing in front of me. I won’t let him know that though. Let him live the rest of his life thinking that I despise him, that I think he’s the worst kind of monster for betraying me like this. And he is but I still love him.
How fucked is that though?
He grins back at me.
The anger I felt a moment ago was nothing, absolutely insignificant compared to the rage burning through me now, so hot that it feels like it’s going to incinerate me from the inside out. The photos she sent me flick through my mind, bringing on another wave of pain as my vision blurs with the tears that I refuse to let fall. He doesn’t get to own my pain, not after everything he’s done.
“You think I fucking care, Izzy?” he shoots back, a cocky grin on his face that hurts more than the cheating and the lying. He stands from his chair and takes slow, calculated steps toward me. “Do you know how long I’ve been getting away with this shit? Since the beginning. It’s actually fucking astonishing how clueless and trusting you are. My friends would dare me to flirt with other girls when you were in the next room or make out with some random chick and you never even knew. It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking sad.”
“I hate you, asshole.”
He laughs and pins me back against the wall, reaching up and dragging the backs of his fingers down my cheeks. “I bet you wish you hated me but if I wanted to, I could still pull you and we both know it. You’re weak, Iz, but you were a fun little toy to play with for the past few years.”
I shove him, trying to put space between us as my heart thrashes in my ears. “You fucking son of a bitch.”
“Don’t put your hands on me, you little cunt,” he snarls, shoving me back into the wall and pinning my body to it with his as he wraps a hand around my neck. My heart jumps into my throat and my eyes widen as I look up at him. “And remember one more thing, you’re nothing more than a convenient, easy fuck and that’s all you’re ever going to be.”
Fighting back tears, I force myself to meet his gaze. “Why marry me if that’s how you really felt?”
“It was the only way to win the game,” he answers with a shrug. “The guys all put a lot of money on this bet, saying I couldn’t convince you to run off to Vegas and marry me before we started college. Then, when they realized that I was close to talking you into it, they added the caveat that we actually had to go through with it and there was no way I was going to lose.”
Opening my eyes, I suck in a stuttered breath and wipe the tears from my cheeks as I sit in the chair next to the large window, staring up at the stars from one of the guest bedrooms in the clubhouse. After another fortifying breath, I try to shove the memory from my mind but it’s a stubborn little bitch and refuses to stop tormenting me. The thing is, I do feel better after baring my soul to Diego earlier. I might be all up in my feels right now but this particular memory would have had me sobbing on my shower floor like a sad music video a few months ago and now, I’m only shedding a few tears as I relive the moment that changed me forever so that’s something, I guess.
Sighing, I lean my head back against the chair, mesmerized by the night sky as a sense of calm washes over me. The stars are so much more visible out here than they are in the city. I’ve lost count of how many nights Diego and I have sat out on the porch, looking up at them and talking about nothing and everything all at the same time. I don’t know why but those are some of my favorite memories since I started staying with him and it hurts to think that it all might be coming to an end soon. Glancing down, I press a hand to the top of my belly and sigh.
I’m thirty-two weeks along now which means this little man will be making his entrance into the world soon and nothing feels settled. Things between Diego and me are as complicated as they’ve ever been, especially since I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to give this thing between us a real chance, and I’m still being hunted down by an asshole hell bent on killing me. That isn’t the life I want my son to be born into but the longer it takes to catch Luca and do whatever needs to be done to remove the threat from my life, the more I’m accepting that I may not get a choice in the matter. It’s terrifying to think of what might happen if the baby comes and Luca is still coming after me but no matter what, I won’t let any harm come to my son.
The door to the room swings open, jerking me out of my thoughts, and I look up as Diego fills the doorway, blocking out the light from the hallway as he scans the room. His gaze lands on the bed first before flicking around toward the window and when he finds me in the chair, the tension drains from his shoulder.
“You okay?” I ask and he nods, his lips pressed into a thin line as he strides across the room and sinks into the chair across from me. Arching a brow, I watch him. His knee bounces like crazy in front of me, betraying the calm front he’s putting on.
“I’m fine.” He nods, in agreement with himself, but when he meets my eyes, it’s clear that he’s lying. Brown eyes that are usually filled with warmth, laughter, or fire are tortured now, filled with an agony that makes my stomach ache.
“What’s going on, Diego?”
He stills, shaking his head as he leans back in his chair. “Nothing. How are you feeling? Did you get any sleep?”
I glance back at the bed, ignoring the blatant lie as I toy with the necklace he gave me before our date. “No.”
“Ali said you were passed out.”
“Yeah…” I answer, turning back to him as a guilty smile tugs at my lips. “She was being annoying and constantly hovering over me so I pretended to be asleep until she left. I just needed some time alone to sort my shit out.”
“And did you? Sort your shit out?” he asks and I turn back to the window, watching the trees sway against the ni
ght sky for a moment before glancing back to him.
“I think so. Or, at least, as much as I can at the moment.”
He nods. “I want to talk about all that later but I need you to come down to the war room right now.”
“The war room?” I ask, my eyes widening. The war room is reserved for club members only and not even old ladies are permitted in there. His lips press into a thin line again and he nods.
“We got some info from Smith and we need to talk.”
He stands and holds his hand out to me, prompting me to rise from my own chair. Questions swirl through my mind as I watch him but the hard set of his jaw makes me think he has no intention of telling me anything until we get downstairs. What the hell is going on that has him so on edge? There hasn’t been a peep out of Luca since Diego went over to his apartment and scared the life out of him a week ago. I guess maybe I’ve been a little complacent in thinking that he might have backed off after being confronted by the guys but now, as he laces his fingers through mine, it feels like the past eight days have just been the calm before the storm. With my hand in his, he leads me out of the room and as we start down the stairs, I can’t take my eyes off him. His shoulders are impossibly tight and there is an anguish on his face when he lets the mask fall that honestly scares the hell out of me.
The clubhouse is in chaos.
And I don’t mean the kind where things are on fire and everyone is running around screaming and ripping things off the wall in their panic but as soon as we step onto the main floor, it feels like I walked into a war zone. I’m being suffocated by the tension radiating off of every single person in the room and there isn’t a smile on a single face in the room. Ali looks up from her seat in the dining room, gasping and jumping up when she sees me. My entire body jerks to a halt as she rushes over and wraps her arms around me.
