by April Lust
He got home feeling worse than he had before because now he was also tired and his muscles were started to get stiff and sore. Nothing left to do with this day but crawl into bed and hope it was better in the morning.
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Jace woke up and stared at the curtains, where the sunlight made the black and gray stripes lighter and faded. He felt sore, but it was a good sore. He’d worked hard yesterday.
His mind jumped right to Isabella and he forced the thought away. He wasn’t going to ruin his day first thing. He’d put off thinking of her as long as possible. Today, he had the meeting with his club, and he had a pickup to do. First thing, he’d need a shower to wake up.
He threw back the covers and got out of bed to stretch. The soreness rippled through his legs, then his arms as he bent and reached. The hot water of the shower felt like heaven and he stood there longer than he normally did, letting it wash away everything he didn’t want to carry around today.
He pulled on jeans and a clean shirt from his closet. He turned to leave his room, and there she was. Sudden and vivid in his mind. He’d tried to ignore her too long. Isabella’s face, smiling and happy in the store window. He shook his head to clear it. But it was too late. The rock settled back into his stomach. He breathed deeply, trying to breathe out the dread.
In his kitchen, he made coffee, extra strong. He pulled a protein bar from his pantry and stared blankly out the window as he ate it. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out, hoping that it was Isabella. But it was Aaron, telling him the meeting was set for later today.
He left the house, mainly for something to do so he wasn’t sitting around trying not to think of Isabella. He had to focus. He did need to scout some locations. If they were going to take out Lionel and his guys, they’d need a solid place to put the bodies afterward. Maybe his guys had found a good spot, but it wouldn’t hurt to check himself. It’d give him something to do.
What was the best way for this to go down? It was easiest just to shoot them, but there was one good reason not to go that route. The traceability. If the bullet was found, it could potentially be linked back to him if he wasn’t careful. He was good with a knife, though, and he’d have a gun as a backup if things were too complicated. He could always dig out the bullet, he guessed.
They’d have to track Lionel’s movement for a few days. He wanted to get him as alone as possible. No reason to involve a bunch of extra guys from Lionel’s club or his own. And the other guys who’d attacked him could wait until later. Really, he just wanted Lionel. The Pansy Twisters would crumble without him. They were barely a club as it was. Little organization, little heart. Once they took out Lionel, Jace would inspect every remaining member, choose who he’d recruit and either kick the rest to the curb or take them out, depending upon whether or not they’d attacked him or had any other strike against them. How many could he add to his numbers? Two or three at least. Maybe not too many more, only because most of them were useless. But a few new guys would be cool.
He pulled up to a spot where the road fell away on one side. There was a guardrail, leading him to believe whatever was over the edge was far down. He parked and walked around to see. Below was just rocks and grass. Too exposed. He got back on his bike and drove off.
He still had a little while until the meeting, so he kept driving. A few more spots, a few more options and that’d be good. That way, if something went wrong when it all went down, they’d have a backup.
There was a large cement pipe at the bottom of an overpass, near the river. This might be a good spot. He didn’t want to walk down there and leave his shoe prints, so he stopped on the overpass to see what could be seen from the road. Not too much. Only part of the cement pipe. One end was completely obscured from the street, and the end that could be seen was only visible from far away. If anyone saw, they would be far enough away to get little detail of anything. This was a good spot. The water would wash away evidence, though they’d need to be cautious of the mud. Too easy to leave behind perfect shoe prints. But other than that, it was a good spot. Perfect backup if the guys already had a better place for the drop.
He glanced at his phone. Every time he did, he wished there’d be a message from Isabella. He went to his pictures and looked at the one photo he had of her. One he’d taken without either her or Sara knowing. While they were making breakfast, Sara and her mom were looking at one of Sara’s stuffed animals and he’d caught a shot of Isabella smiling at the bunny while Sara held it up proudly. It was a cute picture and he’d looked at it too many times. He put his phone away. The battery was already getting low and if she did call, he didn’t want it to run out mid-conversation. He thought of calling her or texting her, but reminded himself he’d decided to leave her alone. To get over her for good. He wouldn’t go back to the mental place he was in yesterday. He couldn’t survive there in that awful, lonely, cold place, missing her and wanting her like that. Feeling like he wasn’t good enough. He was more than good enough for some awesome lady out there; he just needed to find her.
It was time to start heading back to his house, also the Crimson Hawks headquarters. The guys would probably be there already. He liked to come in later. It made him feel more in control somehow. He still needed to gather his thoughts and make a note of everything he wanted to cover with them. Mostly, it was the plan for Lionel and his club. But he made a mental list of a few other little things to discuss.
As he rode, Jace tried to take note of his surroundings. He looked at the trees and the cars around him, felt the warm sun on his body as its heat seeped through his jacket and jeans. He still needed a new Hawks jacket to replace his damaged one. He’d need to order that today. He hated riding around without it.
The sun glinted off his deep gray bike, the light tinted by his helmet’s face shield. He wished he could feel the wind on his face, but he was going so fast the wind would make his eyes water, so he kept the shield down. He inhaled and smelled the flowers and plants around him. Connecting with nature usually made him feel better, but it wasn’t something he could manage to do easily. There was always so much going on that it was difficult to take time to just sit in the grass and watch the world go by. But maybe he needed that. Maybe tonight, after the guys left, he’d lay out in his backyard under the stars and stare for a while. Maybe work out some of these feelings about Isabella.
He looked ahead at the road and noticed the air seemed thicker than normal. It was too late in the day to be fog, and it was also too high in the air and too restricted to one spot. Not fog. Smoke. And the thing that made him speed up was that it was in the direction of his house.
Those asses wouldn’t go that far, would they? No one had called him or messaged him. His phone was in his pocket and he would have felt it vibrate. Maybe it was okay. Maybe it was just a house nearby and his place was fine.
He turned onto his street and saw that the smoke was thick and filling the air quickly. He could see his house. And from its roof poured white streams of smoke. It was his house on fire. Lionel and his gang had struck again.
Chapter Eight
Isabella stared across the store, in somewhat of a daze. She’d been thinking far too much lately and had spent a lot of time tangling her thoughts and feelings together in a messy ball that was proving difficult to unravel. She didn’t know what to think or feel about Jace anymore. The only thing she knew was that none of it felt good.
She’d treated him badly. He’d done nothing wrong. He hadn’t acted out against her in any way. He hadn’t acted anything like Craig in any way, really. She was judging him, like he’d said. She heard the MC leader part and had changed everything she knew about him. In fact, she’d completely erased everything she knew about him and saw only Craig and his meanness and his criminal activity and his violence.
But Jace had been kind. He’d had nothing but patient with Sara. He’d been a perfect house guest when she was helping him recuperate after his injuries. He’d even paid for the things he’d damaged
as he said he would, which she hadn’t really counted on at all. But when she opened her mail yesterday and saw the envelope of cash, she’d been floored. It was far more than he needed to give her to pay for the damages, and it was like he was saying he wanted to make up for it all somehow. The money probably came from an illegal source. She knew this. But so had all of Craig’s money and she and Sara had lived on that for years, so why not take this money now when she so badly needed it?
Not that the towels and everything needed to be replaced, but the car needed new brakes and Sara was growing out of her clothes. The car insurance was also going to be due soon and she hadn’t known how she was going to pay for it. Well, she did now. This money was a big help. And it proved that he kept his word. After their fight, she’d thought she’d never hear from him again. She thought she’d ruined things between them by turning cold like that and saying horrible things to him. But maybe he wasn’t so mad after all. Maybe he didn’t hate her.
And then there were the flowers. Highly mysterious. She’d walked out to her car after work yesterday and seen a bunch of bright flowers sitting on her car’s roof. They had no note or anything. Just sat there, innocent and curious. They were gorgeous. Were they from Jace? It wasn’t like she had a secret admirer that she knew of, and she’d wasn’t so delusional to think guys really did that anyway. There was no one else in her life who would give her flowers. There were only two possibilities. They were from Jace. Or they were from someone malicious.
She almost hadn’t wanted to pick them up. Her mind went wild. After having a gun pressed to her head, who knew what these flowers might mean? They could be poisoned for all she knew. She might put them in her car and drive home as the poison filled the air and killed her. The main thing that helped her avoid believing that theory was that they had been sitting outside. If something was airborne, it would surely have evaporated or dissipated by now. She was also aware that she was thinking in a slightly paranoid fashion. Which was only heightened by the fact that her first thought upon seeing them was that Craig had found them and brought her flowers to torture her.
She had no reason to think Craig had found them or was even trying to look for them. She figured that as long as she wasn’t trying to get him to pay child support, he had no reason to complain. But she still wondered. She’d been his for so long and she’d taken his child away. If for nothing else than the control factor, wouldn’t he come to find them? Just to show his dominance over her and to prove she couldn’t leave him? Wouldn’t he need to save face in front of his MC? Or maybe he’d told them he kicked her out. That’d be fine with her. She wished that she could contact one of the wives she’d been somewhat friends with. Just to see what Craig’s emotional state was and what he was saying about the whole thing. But that was far too dangerous. She’d never take that chance.
After a few minutes of thinking, she’d shaken out the flowers a bit, decided not to sniff them just in case, and set them on her passenger seat, near the window. Then she put the window down when she got inside.
Maybe she was paranoid, but better safe than sorry. And lately, with the strange man who luckily hadn’t shown up at the shop again, and then the frightening attack, she didn’t think there was such a thing as paranoia for someone in her case.
In fact, she was quite fearful of going home. She’d even put a kitchen knife in her car. Though she had no idea how she’d keep Sara from seeing it. She was still grateful that she’d had no idea what happened with the gunman. All Sara needed was to see Mommy with a gun against her head. But somehow, she’d been spared. The poor kid had enough to deal with after being hit by her father twice, watching her mother be hit so many times, and all the yelling he’d done. All he did was yell. And then they’d up and left one day in the middle of the night. If Sara turned out anything close to normal, Isabella would be relieved.
When she’d gotten home, she looked around frantically. She’d sat in her car so long, waiting and watching, that Sara had asked what was wrong. Isabella got out of the car and made Sara stay in her seat. She checked around the building and made sure no one suspicious was around. She gripped the knife tight in her hand and when she got Sara out of her seat, tucked the knife into her pocket. She kept her hand on the knife’s handle as they walked in the building.
When they were inside, she locked the door and the deadbolt and moved the couch in front of the door again. She put the knife on the counter in the kitchen, back far enough that Sara couldn’t reach it, but that she could grab it fast. She took another knife into her bedroom and put it under her pillow. She really needed to get a gun. She went through every room in the apartment, making sure the windows were secure.
“Mommy, why is our couch always there now?” Sara pointed and tilted her head to the side.
“I just thought it gives us more room that way.”
“Can we move the TV and table, too? Then we’d have lots of room!”
“Let’s just leave it like this for a while, okay?”
“Okay.” Sara plopped down on the couch and picked up her animals to play.
Isabella couldn’t decide what to do with herself. She’d put the flowers in a drinking glass that would have to double as a vase since she didn’t own one. At first, she set them on the kitchen counter, but that felt too close to Sara, so just in case, she moved them to her bedroom and put them by the window. They looked nice there and she made herself think they were from Jace every time she looked at them. At least that made her feel good. Thinking they could be from Craig made her want to throw up.
She felt unsettled and unsafe. She wished she could call Jace and have him come over for a while. She’d felt safe when he was there. And that had made her feel even worse. She’d called him sobbing so late at night and he’d dropped everything to run to her. He had protected her through the night, like he’d said. And he’d made her feel like nothing could hurt them. But now, without his protection, anything could.
She missed him. Which didn’t make much sense because she hadn’t known him that long, but she did. She wanted to call him or see him. Wanted to find out about the flowers and the money. She’d tucked the envelope behind her dresser, where she hoped no one would find it if her place was broken into. She’d have to take it to the bank in the morning to deposit it so it was safe and she could pay bills with it. Maybe she would use some of it to buy that gun finally. And to get some shooting lessons.
But what to do about Jace? She didn’t know where he lived, but she had his number. She could call or text him. But if he was really as mad as he’d seemed, maybe that wouldn’t be good. She still wasn’t sure what his breaking point was, though everyone had to have one. That point where no matter what, you had to hit something or break something or hurt someone. It was just a matter of finding out—or hopefully never finding out—what his was. If she called him or texted, that’d be safe enough, right? He wouldn’t be there in person. The worst he could do was yell, which would be bad enough, but she wouldn’t feel physically threatened by only yelling.
And she couldn’t leave things as they were. It would haunt her forever if she did. She had to apologize and tell him she was wrong about him. She knew that. Had known it even as she was saying it, but still couldn’t stop herself. She wished she’d found out he was an MC leader some other way than when he was in her house having breakfast after they’d spent the night together. It was too big of a shock after such a horrible incident with the gunman and then such a wonderful time with him. Too much up and down and she’d gone into her default mode. To be scared and see him as she saw the only other MC leader she knew, Craig. But he was no Craig. And she had to tell him that.
That night, she had gone into her bedroom and paced for a few minutes, thinking. She wanted to find out about the flowers and thank him for the money. Wanted to apologize and ask for forgiveness. She’d tell him she knew he wasn’t like that and hoped that he would still want to talk to her again. She practiced what she’d say several times. Then, with a racing hea
rt, she scrolled to his name.
But then she couldn’t do it. What if he did get mad? What if he did yell? He might need a day to cool off. The fight had only happened that morning, so maybe this was too soon. She’d set the phone back down and decided to wait. But that hadn’t stopped her from keeping the phone at her side in case he was the one to call or text first.
# # #
But he hadn’t. She hadn’t heard from him at all last night or at all today. Now her work day was almost over. There had been no strange flowers or envelopes today. Nothing that seemed like it could be from him.
