“Can you quit that?” I hiss, tapping on the sides of my pants for my Zyn’s. We don’t want to smoke out here and alert anyone to our scent.
“Sorry,” Christian mumbles. “Got Tylee this time.”
That explains his most recent furious series of camera clicks.
“Show me that.”
I have to work really hard not to snatch the camera out of his hands. Christian leans over, using those scratched up, tattooed fingers to work his device. I see the shock of red hair in the photo before I recognize the details of her features.Holy shit.
“What the fuck happened to her?” I mutter. It looks like somebody beat the shit out of my ex-wife. I wish I could say the sight of her brought me any type of pleasure or emotion at all. I got the divorce papers signed and a free pass to move on with my life. My only attachment to Tylee is the fact that I don’t want the kids to grow up motherless. I want some vain hope that one day she will grow the hell up and have a relationship with them.
Maybe we were right for each other when we were both kids, but now that we’re grown up… My stomach tightens in a knot. She shouldn’t be here when our kids are halfway across the country lying in someone else’s home. They should have their mother to care for them. As much as I want to hurt Tylee, maybe Wyatt is right that we are better off punishing her for what she’s done.
Christian and I take more pictures. We leave after the last biker goes home, taking turns sleeping on the ground in shifts.Christian is a good kid even if he dresses strangely like all the younger men his age. He’s still a Barbarian and like the rest of the Shaw boys, he enjoys a good game.
In the morning, he places a hundred dollar bet that taking their club house will be easy – that they’ll never see it coming. I shake his hands and agree to Christian’s terms, but I can’t say for sure that he’s right.
Things get quiet when you’re preparing for war. I wish that I had a promise I could leave with Gabby and the kids. Each of us takes multiple weapons and we review the plan like football players before the Super Bowl. The details of what happens aren’t exactly important, except to say that the Iron Frontier MC never saw our attack coming.
We learned a lot from the explosion that took out Harlan Shaw, my uncle, and the rest of the family. We’ve also learned a lot from waging wars of our own throughout the years. The club may have started as a ragtag bunch of veterans’ sons, but we held onto the truth that our fathers were preparing us for war, expecting it would come some day, even when we could never truly understand.
Everybody has something worth laying down their life for in the end. For me, it’s the kids and Gabby. Tylee lost the privilege of my protection when she walked into that snake’s nest and chose the other side. Our army for taking their clubhouse involves twenty of our members, almost everybody involved in the club who could afford to be here.
Judging from the pictures Christian Shaw took, there are about thirty members of the clubhouse at the meeting and around half of them brought their old ladies along – which includes Tylee Shaw. No kids, which makes our job easier, but we don’t know the status of the women. How much power dothey have within this group and did they all choose to be there the way Tylee did.
Southpaw threatened us within an inch of our lives – no killing women. Zeb asked what we ought to do if there were any accidents and that led to a near nuclear meltdown from Southpaw. He’s the boss, and I support his motives here, so I’ll do my very best not to take down any innocents with our weapons.
Late into the night, we spread out into our positions. Each of us hikes out to the spot on foot. We’ll leave with their rides, not ours. Gideon and Ruger Blackwood lead the sniper team which includes Zebulon Blackwood and Christian, who isn’t a bad shot even if he never served in the army. His flavor of gambling includes lots of sharpshooting, so he’s a solid makeshift sniper.
My ground team consists of Hollingsworth boys – Cody, Deacon, and a young Grayson Hollingsworth, hoping to prove himself and get patched in this summer. He doesn’t look like much of a natural fighter but he’s tall with red hair and plays football like several of his family members, so I arm him with a baseball bat on top of his weapons, giving him strict instructions to round up the women in the spot where we suspect the clubhouse has a windowless back bathroom – perfect for snorting coke and storing ten or so biker chicks.
The fight isn’t simple – but it’s bloody and long. I think about Gabby when I can afford to let myself think. Gideon and Zebulon killed the sentries. The bodies went down pretty quickly. Everything happened pretty quickly after that. Gunfire. Screaming.
Three men almost get away from us, but in the end we have twelve bodies lined up in the middle of their clubhouse floor. I have to count them all to see howmany we got and then we’ll have to take their patches and identify the bodies after that.
All I can think about as we work is my old lady at home.Property of Ghost.Gabrielle. There’s nothing she’ll have to worry about when I’m done here, but first the work has to get done.
Chapter Thirty-One
Gabby
Isaac has been gone for three weeks. I started my first week at Harvard, and I wish I could say I felt ready to be a business student. Everything about school feels awkward and uncomfortable after so many years outside of a classroom. I miss Isaac. I miss his kids. I also missed my period which feelsreallysoon. People don’t just get pregnant after one conveniently timed session in the bedroom. Well, I guess that’s technically exactly what happens, but I don’t want to think about Isaac knocking me up so soon when he could be dead.
He hasn’t texted or given any signs of life. I’m too busy with school to stalk or investigate him beyond what little information he gave me. Ethan and Amanda don’t know anything either, or if they do, they must have specific instructions not to tell me because I can’t get anything out of them. I just know the guy I love might be dead somewhere and his ex-wife could be anywhere in the world preparing herself to kill me.
Not exactly exciting prospects. I don’t look forward to another weekend alone, but when Friday comes around and I still see no signs of Isaac, I have to prepare for anotherweekend by myself. I text my sister Averie to see if she has any time for me and she tells me that she’s busy with a guy who she refers to by a code name. I asked her if she’s with a biker but like a typical older sister, she knows all of my business but acts like I’m an invasive disease if I ask her a single relevant question aboutherpersonal life.
I would be a lot less salty if I had other friends who really understood what it was like to miss Isaac and his kids – and to be thinking about the fact that I might have a little one of my own. Now that I started classes, I realize Harvard has lots of resources for moms that would help me to continue with my education, but that doesn’t mean I want to go through all of this on my own.
Why the hell did Isaac knock me up and walk out that door and when the hell does he plan on walking back through it? I tuck in for another lonely Friday night in Boston when I feel like my life should be so much more than just sitting around waiting for my biker boyfriend to come back. I’m just exhausted from school – too exhausted to go out and socialize at least – and I actually miss him.
Ever since Isaac, I haven’t thought about my ex. I’ve been so wrapped up in the experience of what it feels like to be properly cared for, to be in love with someone who makes love to me and makes me feel beautiful that my past just feels like something that happened to someone else. I don’t want to be left alone with my thoughts, my worries about school and now our worries about the future.
I put on one of my favorite comfort movies, a snowy wintery themed mid-00s classic, New In Town with Renee Zellweger. Most people know her as Bridget Jones, but there is something about the blustery cold Minnesota backdrop and the love story between her tightly laced girl boss character and the union rep that warms my heart. I’ve seen the movie dozensof times, so right during the first Christmas scene, I allow myself to drift off.
A loud bang sits me straight up on the couch.
I grab my phone, ready to run and slam down on the panic button.