“That’s not a problem I normally have.”
Isaac laughs. “From where I stand, you look pretty damn good.”
My heart does that uncomfortable flutter thing, followed quickly by a snap of guilt and a massive reality check. He’s still married. I glare at him and Isaac returns my glare with smug self-satisfaction.
“What?” he says. “Just because you don’t believe me, doesn’t mean I’m not single.”
“You are not single,” I remind him. “Not until the papers are filed and I have some type of proof that the mother of your children won’t pop up.”
Isaac’s cheeks darken with appropriate humiliation. He clears his throats and continues instructing me about how exactly to remain stable on the back of his bike while he rides with me. He throws in a couple comments about how I nearly killedhim the first time with how tightly I squeezed his chest. He had better not be hoping for an apology for that.
We get on the back of his bike, after he still hasn’t told me exactly where we’re going. Isaac starts slowly, stark contrast to the painful experience of getting on the back of his bike the first time. He warns me before he makes each turn and by the time we get on the highway, I feel much more comfortable on the back of Isaac’s bike.
We ride around Cambridge and Somerville, down streets that I’m not familiar with until we veer off somewhere I truly don’t recognize and Isaac parks the bike in front of a small office with a business name in thick serif font on the awning that extends out front – Murray Real Estate Holdings LLC.
I recognize the name. I don’t know if they’re all from the same family, but there are multiple businesses owned by people with the last name Murray around here. Isaac parks next to a black Escalade.
“You aren’t just stretching your legs.”
I hand over the helmet.
“Nope.”
“Does your friend know what you’re doing?”
He grins. “I’m testing your loyalty.”
I don’t share Isaac’s sense of humor about the situation. I don’t know if he’s the most dangerous of the men in the club, honestly, and I’m not ready to find out by defying the boss’s wishes.
“What?” Isaac probes. “You don’t trust me?”
I want to trust him. He’s beautiful and his eyes are just… hypnotic. But I have to stay smart. Look after myself. Not let myself get swept up in my emotions again, ignoring all the red flags. Isaac patiently watches as I consider him.
“I don’t trustanyone right now.”
“Understood,” he says. “We’re visiting my coworker. Nothing for you to worry about.”
Nothing bothers him, not even my efforts to push him away. It’s a strange sense that he’s patient enough to wait for me – that I don’t have to rush if I don’t want to. Isaac will still be there.
Chapter Fifteen
Tylee
Iborrowed Scum’s bike this morning and told him that I was heading out for Dunkin’. That was about an hour ago. Women’s intuition never lies and I suddenly got the sense that my husband wasn’t just close by, but he was investigating that big biker bar attack that happened last night. It’s all over the news and all over my timeline with tons of conspiracy theories about who gassed the bar, what happened to the patrons, and the motives behind the entire thing.
The Boston Police Department is filled with compromised idiots, most of whom have a strong connection to the Murray family mobsters. I watched the story closely all night while Scum got drunk off his ass and gambled all the money he made in St. Louis away on the Patriots game. They won, which any idiot could have guessed considering their stats this season, but I don’t like Scum for his brain.
The longer I stalked the news about the bar attack, the more I sniffed out a possible connection to the Rebel Barbarians. The police statement had a shifty energy to it, and they offered up almost no details for a city that has cameras on every street corner. A distraction like this will make my familyless likely to get involved in my personal issues – at least that’s what I would hope.
I drove myself all the way to the place where I know the Murray family conducts their real estate business, the spot where my instincts told me to wait, and I would see Ethan eventually. He was the one I really wanted to see, because he’s more likely to take my side than Owen or Wyatt. It’s not like Ethan doesn’t have a coarse temper, it’s just that men with a temper are the easiest to manipulate. Anger is still an emotion, and it makes you just as vulnerable as anything else, something I am incredibly familiar with…
I almost get bored waiting and watching the building, but there’s a surprising amount of activity for a small office space on this side of town. Around five cars enter or leave the parking lot every hour, so it’s not a normal office space where you sit there and work all day, I guess. It’s cold enough that I wish I had brought some coffee or whiskey with me…
There’s a part of me that just wants to text my brother, but I don’t trust Ethan not to take screenshots and send them over to Wyatt. After about an hour of waiting outside the building, I nearly give up on my stupid idea that I might run into Ethan. I might be looking at mobsters walking in and out of the building, but there’s nobody I recognize so far.
I’m getting bored and Scum’s text messages are pissing me off. I like keeping him nervous, so I would hang out here just to let him know that I’m only with him because I want to be with him – I could leave at any minute. I also have a few texts from Selma getting on my nerves. I reply to Selma’s text messages first, keeping an eye out at the office building door.
By my count, there are over thirty people inside, and more coming and going every fifteen or twenty minutes. No bikers yet.