Lilah
“Hey, you’re Saw’s old lady, aren’t you?” a guy downstairs asked me.
I wasn’t. At least, we hadn’t talked about it any, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from using it to strike up a conversation and get the help I needed. I had grown restless upstairs waiting for him to come back, and that was when I realized I had to return to work the next day. I needed to grab a few things from the house before morning. If being Cole’s “old lady” helped me convince one of his MC brothers to help me get the stuff I needed, then I was his old lady.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I told him. “Lilah,” I added, holding my hand out to him.
“Tate,” he said, taking my hand. “But they all call me Razor.” His dark eyes sparkled as he shook my hand, another one taken with my beauty.
“Razor, I need some help,” I told him. “I need someone to go to my house with me.”
“What’s up?” he asked, putting his pool stick across the table. He crossed his thin, muscular, tattooed arms. I could only imagine how he got the nickname Razor. There were scars all up and down his arms, wounds from old fights most likely.
“I’m staying here with Saw tonight, but I’ve got to go to work tomorrow, and I left all my work stuff at home. He’s gone to check on his tattoo shop because someone was trying to break into it earlier tonight. I can’t really wait for him to get back. He’s been gone a while, and I don’t know when he’ll be home,” I explained.
“Say no more. I will be glad to help you out. You wanna ride on my bike to get there?” he asked.
“No, my car’s here. I just need someone to come with me.”
He gave me a suspicious look and turned his head. “What do you mean you want someone to ride with you to your house? What’s wrong with your house?”
“I’m staying here because someone broke in the other night, and I’m worried somebody might show up while I’m there.”
“Oh, you think the break-in at Titan Ink and the break-in at your house are related,” he said as if it were a revelation to him that they even could have been connected.
“Yep, that’s it exactly. According to Saw, coincidences like that don’t just happen at random,” I said.
It was so weird calling him Saw around the guys in the MC. I was so used to calling him Cole, and he’d never corrected me, but it seemed like the guys preferred their nicknames, except for a couple of them. So, I had to deal with it as long as I was talking to them.
“I mean, he’s been in it a long time. He’d know,” Razor conceded.
“That’s what I’m thinking. So, are you down with helping me out?” I asked.
“Yeah, I can ride with you and watch your back. It could be exciting.”
“Good.”
The truth was I really needed to get out of the clubhouse for a few minutes and try to clear my head. I was worried that if the two break-ins were connected, Cole was going to be angry once he figured out that I’d brought trouble to his doorstep. I didn’t know what that meant for me. That was the problem.
Was he going to kick me out of the room when he got back? Was he going to storm in and accuse me of setting him up? What then? What if he did? I didn’t have anywhere to go. I didn’t have enough saved up to rent a hotel room for more than a few nights. I supposed I could have asked Jenna to let me crash on her couch, but I didn’t want to dump my crazy on her either.
What about my son? If he thought I set him up, was he going to give up on the search for Micah and Troy? Was I going to have to rely on the police to help me find my son? That wouldn’t have worked. I was going to need someone like Cole to help me navigate this new world I’d found myself in.
That was when I decided to go to the house and grab a few things for work. I didn’t actually need them before morning. I could have left a few minutes early to run by the house and pick them up in daylight – when I didn’t have to worry about anyone hiding at the house – but that didn’t give me an excuse to get out and get some fresh air. Thankfully I had a member of the MC with me to make sure I was safe.
“Which car is yours?” Razor asked as we walked outside.
No matter what time of year it was, the early morning air always felt the same. There was something sweet about it, something light. It was as if the weight of the night was preparing to be lifted off the world so that the sun could shine again. The air felt that way when we walked outside. There was an energy in those early morning hours that the rest of the day didn’t seem to have.
I pointed to my car, parked in the line of cars along the edge of the parking lot. He walked beside me all the way to it. The guys in the Steel Devils were definitely respectful of the women surrounding the MC. They believed in taking care of us, and I wasn’t mad at them for it. It was nice to be treated like I mattered for a change, and not just by one person, but by his friends and associates as well.
I never got that with Troy or his people.
I unlocked the driver side door, turning the key twice to unlock the rest of the car. We both opened our doors and slid in.
“Alright, where to?” Razor asked, eager to get moving. I figured he was probably more eager to try to find a fight than to actually help me, but if there was a fight, that was fine, too, as long as I grabbed what I needed and got out of there, allowing myself a few minutes away from the clubhouse while still coming back afterwards to where I was safest.
“You’ll see. I live on the outskirts of town,” I said as I pulled out of the parking space.
“Excellent.” He adjusted himself in the seat, getting more comfortable.
As we rode along, he pretended to enjoy the pop music playing on my radio. He bobbed his head and tapped his fingers distractedly on the door. I could tell he wasn’t really enjoying the music, but he was trying to play it off, so he wasn’t as bored.
“If you’d rather listen to something else, feel free to change the station,” I told him.
“You don’t mind?” he asked, reaching for the buttons on the face of my radio.
“No, go ahead,” I said dismissively.
I should have known what he was going to turn it to. A moment later, the car was filled with the sounds of the classic rock station. Guitars and drums filled the car, along with the loud vocals of whatever band they were playing. I wasn’t that familiar with the music the guys all probably preferred. I knew I’d have to get used to things like that if I expected to hang around longer with Cole.
“Now that’s good music,” Razor remarked, his tapping more determined as he followed the beat of the song.
Whatever you say.
We pulled up to the house, and my heart stopped when I saw it sitting in darkness. All of the lights inside were off. No one had been there since we’d rolled up on the front door opened. It looked abandoned like a memory of my home. It had never felt menacing or dangerous before, and a fresh wave of anger flowed through me at the people who did this to my home.
I pulled up the driveway and shut off the car, killing the engine and the lights.
“You want me to go in first?” Razor asked. Again, his voice sounded eager.
“If you don’t mind. Check to make sure there’s no one in there,” I said.
“Can I turn on the lights when I go in? It seems pretty dark.”
“Yes, please.”
“Alright, sounds like a plan.” He pulled out his phone and turned on his flashlight app, turning the camera flash on permanently so he could see in the dark.
“Oh, and we have to go around back because the front door is barred after being kicked in the other day,” I told him as we got out of the car.
“Alright, cool. Let’s go.”
We got out and closed the doors to the car. We both had our flashlights on and walked around the backside of the house. I marveled at how dark the house was as we made our way to the back door. I was surprised to see it still closed. I pulled out my keys and unlocked the door with the light of my phone.
“That’s all you,” I told Razor, holding out my hand for him to enter.
“Thanks. I’ll be back in a minute.” He walked in and reached on the wall for a light switch. The kitchen lights came on, revealing the empty, ransacked kitchen.
I realized that my house was more heartbreaking in the light than in the dark. At least in the dark, the damage and the mess was hidden from sight. With the lights on, everything was on display for me to see. My home was a disaster.
But it wasn’t just my home. It was my son’s home, too, and that had been wrecked. I had to take a deep breath to keep the thought from bringing back the tears.
I waited for Razor to come back through the door. The whole time he was inside, I watched as room after room became lit. Soon, every light on the inside was on, showing off how disastrous my home was. But they also showed that my house was empty and safe to enter.
“All clear,” Razor said, poking his head out the back door. “And your front door is still barred with the chair.”
“Good. Thank you, Razor.” I walked in, stepping past him to get into my kitchen.
“Watch your step though. It’s a mess. They really did a number on your place, man. I hope you guys figure out who it was. I’ll be happy to take care of them for you,” he said.
“That’s fine. I’m sure Saw will let you know if he needs your help. Would you mind following me back to my bedroom? All you have to do is stand outside the door while I grab a few clothes. I don’t want anyone sneaking up on me,” I said on my way out of the kitchen and into the rest of the house.
“No problem.”
I heard some unidentified debris under our feet crunch as we both walked down the hallway to my bedroom. He stopped at the door as I walked in.
I grabbed a suitcase and started filling it with work clothes. I knew I probably wasn’t going to get any sleep before leaving for work in the morning. It was so strange pulling items from what felt like my old life into my new one. It had only been two days since the last time I’d left work, but it felt like everything had changed in the last two days. Everything.
I was going to return to work after only two days for everyone else, but after a lifetime of change for me. It almost felt futile to keep pretending I was still part of that old life. That was the old me.