She should have been the last person I confided in. She was still the woman who stole from my club.
"I feel like I don't know what I'm doing," I admitted, leaning my forearm on the glass wall, looking in her direction like I could see her, like we were having an intimate conversation.
"Maybe that's just because there is nothing to do," she said. "You got your people safe, right?"
"Yes."
"And you are prepared and on-guard."
"Yeah."
"That's all you can do until you have more to go on."
"I feel like we're sitting ducks."
"So is my club right now," she said, and there was comfort in the solidarity. "But we are trained and aware. That's all we have right now. As soon as some information trickles in, there will be plenty to do."
"True," I agreed. "We need to figure this shit out. We can't stay on lockdown indefinitely. We already practically had to kidnap my cousin to get her to come here. All the others have jobs and shit. They can't just abandon their lives.
"Well, so far, it seems like they're only targeting us. Actual members of the club. I know you don't want to take chances, but once your men are back home, I'm sure the ones who need to go back to work, can. Even if some of your men go with them."
"Yeah," I agreed, taking a deep breath.
"Just a couple more days," she assured me. "Did you find out anything else about them?"
"Not a fucking thing yet. Do you have any contacts in North Carolina?"
"Yeah, actually," she said, interest piqued. "I'll reach out. I mean, it's just a couple of retired bikers, but this would be big news to them. They'd have already asked around just because old-timers like to be know-it-alls about this shit."
"Good. Anything would be helpful."
"I will text you sometime before nine p.m. tomorrow. Depending on when I can catch one of them on the phone."
"If I'm free, I will find a quiet place to call you back. Less of a text trail," I explained.
"Right. Yeah. It would be weird to be texting my gynecologist all the time," she said, making a tired smile tug at my lips.
"Right," I agreed. "You need to get home."
"And you need to get some sleep."
"Text me when you're back."
Shit.
That sounded a fuck of a lot like something a man would say to his girlfriend, not a president to his rival, or even a guy to a chick he was fucking.
"I... okay," Danny agreed, likely picking up on how ridiculous the request was, given our situation.
With that, she hung up, and I stayed up in the glass room, watching the roof of the laundromat like I might see her leaving. I couldn't, of course, but I did hear her bike when it purred to life, then headed off in the direction of her part of town.
My stomach didn't un-knot, though, until I got a thumbs-up text from her a couple minutes later.
Then I got to spend the next few hours until one of my men showed up to relieve me wondering what the fuck was going on with me. Or, more specifically, with Danny and me.
It should have been nothing at all.
Short of that, simply two people in charge sharing pertinent information that might save both our clubs.
But then shit got physical.
It should have stopped there as well.
Yet there was no denying that I felt something else growing between us. Sure, maybe an argument could be made for us being able to relate to each other because of our similar positions in life. But wasn't that true of all relationships? You got together because of some sort of connection.
"Christ," I hissed as I dropped into bed, reaching for the bottle of aspirin on the nightstand since my knee and shoulder still pitched fits after long days.
I needed to stop thinking about her in conjunction with anything about relationships. We weren't in one. We never could be. Even if I wanted that. Which, obviously, I didn't. I wasn't a relationship guy. Even if I was, I could never settle down with a rival club's president.
And I liked my women soft, for fuck's sake.
There wasn't anything soft about Danny.
Well, maybe that wasn't fair either.
Because a completely hard person didn't climb on the top of a building to watch your club to hope to get a glance of you, so they knew they didn't have to worry about your well-being, did they?
Maybe there was some soft under all that hard.
Which would make cracking open that hard shell all the more rewarding.
For someone else.
Not me.
As I was drifting off to sleep, though, all I could think about was what was under the surface, what I'd yet to discover.
As it would turn out, I'd get a chance to see.
But not until after the worst happened for her.
Chapter Eleven
Danny
My contacts in North Carolina didn't have their phones connected anymore.