Lilah
“Alright, nothing? Thanks, brother. Yeah, let me know if anything pops up,” Cole said into his phone before hanging up. He rubbed his temples and took another sip of the coffee he’d made once we got to the clubhouse.
I knew he was doing everything he could to find Troy and Micah. I knew I should have been grateful, but there was part of me that couldn’t help being resentful that he’d hidden so much information from me before. We still hadn’t really talked about it. I figured he thought he was going to be able to make it all right again by helping me find them. Maybe he could have.
I didn’t have any other choice but to go along with him. There was no one else to call, no one else I knew who could help me. If there were anyone who knew how to handle situations like this, it would have been Cole or another member of the MC.
“What now?” I asked him. He hadn’t gone right back to his phone, so I wanted to make sure he didn’t lose his momentum.
“I might know someone else who can help us. He hasn’t logged back onto his computer, and if he has, he’s hidden it somehow,” he explained to me. “But I might know someone who can help us find him the old-fashioned way.”
“The ‘old-fashioned’ way sounds illegal,” I commented, not really protesting, just observing more than anything.
“It might be. I don’t know. All I know is we need to find your boy, and we’re running out of options. So, I know this guy who might be able to help us find him.”
“Who is he?”
“You don’t really need to know who he is. The less you know, the better,” he said, stepping close and running a hand through my hair. He leaned down and kissed me on my head, holding his lips to me for a long, tender moment before standing back up.
Dammit, why did he have to care so much? He was so loving, and I was sitting there questioning whether or not letting him help me was really a good idea. I had tried to overcome my doubts, but I didn’t feel the same way I had before. There didn’t seem to be an easy way to bounce back from the controlling behavior and the lying.
“You want to ride?” he asked.
“You’re taking me with you? But I thought you said that I didn’t need to know who this guy was?” I questioned him.
“You don’t. You won’t get his name, but he’s going to probably want to see the person he’s helping. There’s no real harm in that, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Come on.”
“Why don’t we take my car?” I asked on the way out of the clubhouse. “Do we have to take your motorcycle?”
“Do you know where we’re going?” he shot back over his shoulder.
“Okay, fine. Thought I’d offer,” I told him, catching up with him.
“I mean, if you don’t want to ride the bike, you don’t have to,” Cole said, handing me a helmet. “I can go alone, but he’ll still want to see you.”
I wondered why it mattered, but I felt like I was better off not knowing, just like he’d said before. There were probably a lot of things I didn’t need to know about in his life. I put on the helmet and left it at that.
I slid onto the bike and put my arms around his waist. It felt like it had been so long since I’d been on the back of his motorcycle, but it had only been a few days since the first ride he’d given me. I remembered how that first ride had felt a little scary, but exhilarating at the same time. The butterflies in my stomach were going crazy in anticipation of feeling those two emotions again.
The bike roared to life underneath me. I gripped him tighter, feeling his hard abs under my arms. He pulled away from the building and slowed down at the entrance to the parking lot for a brief moment before gunning it. I squeezed myself against him to hold on, terrified I was going to fall off if I didn’t hold on tight enough.
We road into downtown and cruised around for a while before he pulled down an alley next to a parking deck. He parked the bike against a low concrete wall and pulled off his helmet. I didn’t see anyone stopping to meet us or anywhere to go to meet someone. I hesitated before taking my helmet off and getting off the bike.
“Come on. It’s right around the corner,” he said. He held out his arm for me to walk with him.
I stayed just behind him as we walked up the alley a few feet to a space between the buildings. It didn’t offer enough room for cars to get down, just enough for people to walk through, enough for doors to open between the two buildings. It was one of the strangest things I’d seen, but I knew downtown held all kinds of secrets from the uninitiated.
“Hold on right there,” he said, holding his hand out to keep me from standing right in front of the door. He knocked out a code – two knocks, a pause, two more, a pause, and three to finish. I assumed that identified him for the people on the other side.
I heard something slide across the door. I imagined it was someone sliding open a slot in the door like they always did in the movies, so they could see who was standing there and verify it was actually Cole or another member of the MC. I couldn’t see from where I was standing.
A moment later, I heard all the locks slide through as the door was unbolted. Cole waved me back over to him as the door opened. I stepped to the side in time to see the door open out toward the alley. It was dark inside, but a large bald man was standing in the doorway.
He glanced at us, but he took a moment to look me up and down. He didn’t know me, and he was obviously sizing me up. His intimidating size and the hard expression on his face made me hope he wasn’t the person we were there to see.
“He’s in the back,” he told us, stepping aside to let us in.
Cole put a hand on the small of my back and pushed me ahead of him through the door. I looked around the room as we entered. A few people were sitting around at a small table playing cards. There were other rooms, leading back to a closed door, which I figured was where we were going. The door slammed shut behind us, and I jumped.
Cole chuckled. “It’s okay. We’re going all the way back,” he told me, guiding me with the hand on my back.
“Okay, why does he need to see me?” I finally asked, whispering. “Wouldn’t it be easier for me to keep an eye on the bike or hang out at the clubhouse while you handle this?”
“You want the truth?” he asked, and I knew right then that I really didn’t, but I persisted anyway. Maybe I was feeling low on repulsion and nightmare fuel, but I had to know.
“Yes, I want to know the truth,” I insisted.
“He’s more likely to help if I bring him someone nice to look at it.”
Okay, that wasn’t so bad by itself. But when the thin wooden door in the back opened, and we walked into the room to stand in front of the man we were going to meet, it got gross. His greasy hair was slicked back. He wore a dress shirt that was at least one size too small, possibly more by the way the buttons were hanging on for dear life. He held an unlit cigar in one of his fat hands, and he summoned me to step closer by wiggling his fat fingers.
“Saw, it’s good to see you, buddy,” he said in a voice as thick as molasses and sweet as honey.
“Well, you know I wouldn’t bother you if I didn’t need some help,” he told the man.
“What is it you need, sugar?” the fat man asked me, looking me up and down with a perverse hunger in his eyes. Guys looked at me lustfully more often than I cared to notice, but there was something disgusting in his eyes that made me cringe. I tried not to visibly recoil when his tongue snaked out and licked his lips.
I wondered what I’d done to Cole to deserve being subjected to this guy. Whatever it was, I was going to apologize for it as soon as we left this guy’s hideout.
“We’re trying to find her ex-husband, Troy Romero.”
“You’re Troy Romero’s ex?” the big guy asked. He laughed heartily, holding his belly. “What a small world it can be.”
“Great, you know where he is?” Cole asked. He stepped up and put an arm around my waist, reassuring me that he had me. I was safe.
“Not at the moment, but I can find him for you. Are you going to be at the clubhouse later this afternoon?”
“We can be if we need to be.”
“Alright, I’ll send my guys out to find him, and I’ll send a message to the clubhouse once we know.” When he had said this, he dropped the creepy, sweet tone and talked like it was all business.
“Thanks,” I said, figuring he probably wanted my gratitude as a reward. I hoped he didn’t expect me to express it any other way. I watched the movies. I knew there were guys out there who expected it. Hell, Cole had told me that he expected it, but that was different. I had wanted to give it to him.
“Anything for a girl as delicious as you,” the big guy said. He tilted his head toward the door, sending us back out.
Once the thin wooden door closed behind us, Cole grabbed my hand and picked up his pace. There was an urgency in his walk.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you when we get out,” he said, walking quickly for the door.
The bald doorman opened the metal door in the wall and let us out of the building. We walked outside and kept on toward the bike, where Cole finally let go of my hand.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“I want to get you out of here before he decides he wants more than a thank you.”
“If you’re worried about what he’ll want from me, why did you even bring me out here?”
“You need to know that I’m doing everything I can to get your son.”
“Okay, fine, I trust that you’re doing that, but at the same time, you may have just put me in danger by introducing me to that man. Could you have taken those guys if they’d decided to hold you down while he took whatever liberties he wanted with me?”
“I’m sure I could’ve managed,” he said, pulling his gun from behind his back.
“How many do you think you could have taken down before they overpowered you?” I held up my hand to keep him from answering. “You know what? I don’t care. Get me back to the clubhouse. I need a shower after that. I feel so disgusting right now.”
I wondered if he meant what he was saying – that he was trying to prove to me what he was willing to do to find and reunite me with Micah. I also wondered how in the hell he thought bringing me to see a creep like that was a good idea. I wanted to trust him, but he kept doing things that made it hard.
Part of me, the part that always gave people the benefit of the doubt, said it was all part of learning how to trust him because there were going to be times when his trust was going to be put in men like that – when no one else was available.
I put my helmet on and hopped on the bike behind him, hoping our next stop was the clubhouse like he’d told his sleazy friend back there.