Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
ROWAN
B ear sat across from me in the cracked leather chair, the scent of oil and our now-cold coffees clinging to the air like regret. Scout was on Sadie duty, updating me every half hour. I hadn’t heard from him in a bit, but I had to trust he’d keep Sadie safe. Otherwise, I’d skin him alive myself.
Bear and I had been going over the details of what we’d uncovered the previous night, trading guesses over which Riders the Mayor had been working with. Iron, likely. Snake, too. He’d been around a little longer than me, hence his animosity towards me over being voted Vice President.
I had my suspicions about what went down back then.
But no-one had breathed a word about Watson or those properties.
Not until now. A few abandoned houses weren’t much to go on, but it was enough to keep itching at me.
And it was enough that Sadie’s mum might have lost her life over it.
Did the chief have any idea that someone had potentially murdered his wife over some fucking grass?
I hadn’t bought the car accident bullshit for a second. But what had I known at twenty? All I could think about back then was how I was finally going to ask Sadie out. I suppose not much had changed—she was still doing my fucking head in.
My phone vibrated on the desk, buzzing against the pile of papers, breaking the silence.
Bear glanced up from his own phone, raising an eyebrow like he thought I already knew who’d messaged me.
I was no fucking psychic. If I was, I might have been able to read Sadie’s mind and how she felt about the previous night when she’d broken down in my arms. She didn’t react to Logan’s messages in the way I’d imagined she would have, either. That calmness? Unnerving as hell.
But that was for another conversation, perhaps.
I snatched the phone up, my pulse spiking.
Unknown: If you want to know who torched the club bikes, meet me out at Hollow Creek Farm. Tonight 6 p.m. Come to the back entrance by the creek.
Just like that, the words locked me in place, strapping me to the seat with sheer force. Bear’s stare darkened, and he tilted his head. I ignored him, keeping my focus on the unknown number as I attempted to read between the lines.
Messages like this didn’t just fall in our laps. At least not in this line of work. Most of the time we had to pull teeth—literally—to get any answers worth their weight. It seemed too good to be true. And that meant it likely was.
Seconds passed, maybe minutes, the air buzzing with thick nothingness.
Bear cleared his throat, finally gaining my attention. “What is it?” Reluctantly, I reached over the desk and handed him the phone. His frown deepened as he dragged his teeth over his bottom lip. “Right,” he said, placing the phone back on the desk. “Smells funky. You want to bite? ”
I’d already been chewing too close to the bone. Sadie. Logan. The mayor. Now this.
I pushed to my feet, running a hand through my hair as I paced the small office space. “I don’t trust it. But what else have we got?” It was a lifeline, even though the rope was frayed and about to snap.
Bear let out a long breath, crossing his arms tighter over his chest. “Who do you think it is?”
“Could be anyone.” My voice betrayed my impatience as I tapped my fingers against my thighs.
Just when I thought we were getting somewhere with one thing, another load of shit decided to stink up the place.
“Maybe someone did see something that night.” I shrugged.
“Could have been too scared to say anything beforehand, especially if Snake and Nicky were the ones asking the questions.”
“If they were scared then, what’s changed now?” Bear watched me, unblinking.
He was gauging how far I was going to spiral over this. It was pretty fucking far, if I was being honest. But I had to appease Iron. If I didn’t so much as kick a rock in that direction, he’d have chewed off my arse quicker than it would have taken for me to blink.
I stopped for a second, considered his words, and then kept moving. “Don’t know. But if there’s a chance we finally get some answers, I have to take it.” I raked a hand down my face like I could somehow rub off the invisible dirt this town had stained me with.
It might have been a setup, a bad fucking joke, but the promise of knowing—it was like a drug, and I was already hooked.
Bear didn’t say anything, just nodded. He had my back no matter how close I was to losing my shit. The silence that followed was dense, almost too heavy to breathe .
Scout only broke it when he appeared at the door, breathing heavy. Jesus. Had he run the entire way here? What the fuck happened?
“VP?” He hovered, eyes wide as he bounced from foot to foot.
The way he stood there, like he was afraid to come any closer, had my heart pounding against my ribs.
I took a step towards him, forcing myself to stay steady. To stay fucking calm. “What the hell is it?”
Bear shifted in his seat, tension threading through him, mirroring my own. I stopped at the edge of the desk. Scout still hadn’t dropped whatever bomb he’d brought with him, and the waiting was practically burning its way through me.
Scout pressed a hand to his chest, struggling to suck in enough air to speak. His breath hitched as though he’d sprinted through hell just to reach me. He could’ve been dying. Didn’t care. I needed to know Sadie was safe.
With one last glance over his shoulder, he had enough sense to speak. “We have a problem.”
Was that it? Obviously, we had a goddamn problem. Did I have to shake it out of him?
“Get to the point, Scout.” My hands clenched into fists at my sides as I took another step forward, impatience clawing at me, ready to tear me apart if Scout didn’t spit it out fast enough.
But I didn’t have to wait for his response.
Sadie shoved past, ready to tear into me herself. Maybe part of me wanted her to—it was safer than having her hold me like she had the night before.
“You had Scout follow me? Are you serious right now, Rowan? After last night?” Her voice cut through me, her cheeks flushed.
Still, I couldn’t ignore the accusation in her tone. It was the kind that twisted my gut.
Bear’s gaze shot to me, a silent question written all over his face. I knew what he was asking—what the hell happened last night? I gave the slightest shake of my head and glared at Scout.
It was only a matter of time before he gave himself away. Still, I had hoped it wouldn’t have been on his very first assignment. What a circus this was turning out to be, and I was just the clown standing in the middle while everyone pointed fingers and laughed.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Your point?” The words came out flat, the need to fight with Sadie all but gone.
Any bonding we had done the previous night while she had cried into my shirt and stained it with her heartbreak, had shattered into oblivion. I was still trying to pull the shards from my skin at her outburst.
Sadie’s mouth dropped open as she stared at me.
Did she expect me to grovel? To fall on my knees and bleed for a woman who didn’t even know what I was trying to protect her from.
I wasn’t about to beg her to see my side of things.
Everything I was doing was to keep her safe, and I wasn’t in the business of apologising for trying to keep the people I loved alive.
Ungrateful. That’s the word that came to mind.
“My point,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, “is that I’m not a child.
I don’t need babysitting.” Her hair whipped around as she tossed a glance back at Scout—who looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
“Especially not by someone who looks like the human form of a golden retriever.” She lifted her shoulder in a half-shrug. “No offence, Jesse.”
Scout released a shaky breath, his cheeks flushing. “None taken,” he mumbled, while Bear’s laughter erupted, echoing off the walls and filling the room.
Sadie pinned him with a glare next, eyes narrowed. “Don’t even get me started on you, big guy.”
Bear clamped his mouth shut, rubbing his jaw like that would hide the smirk. “Noted.”
He didn’t fight back. He’d just let her put him in his place without argument. He easily had a foot on her and could have snapped her like a twig, yet the way he shrank under her glare made me question why I chose pussies for friends.
Even the kid, still lingering by the door, had fear in his eyes.
What the fuck was happening? Was I the only one unaffected by Sadie’s attitude? No, that wasn’t true, either. I’d just had plenty of practice hiding it.
I leaned on the edge of my desk, crossing my ankles as I pressed my hands flat against the top. “Pretty sure if it wasn’t for your stupid stunt the other night, we wouldn’t be in this position.”
Yep, I went there. I went there and didn’t look back.
“My stupid stunt?” Sadie scoffed. A breath passed between us. “You’re unbelievable. We wouldn’t be in this position if you hadn’t kissed me.” She threw the words at me like they were bullets.
They hit like bullets, too. Except they didn’t pass through. Just lodged deeper in the wounds she’d already left bleeding.
A warmth spread up my chest, my fingers wrapping around the edge of the desk. It was all I could do to ground myself in that moment, otherwise I was tempted to drag Sadie out of the room and punish her in private.
This time Scout let out a laugh he clearly didn’t mean to. I flicked my gaze towards him, and he held his hands up in surrender like the little shit he was. Talk about insubordinate arseholes .
I let out a slow breath and then turned my attention to the scowling woman standing in front of me.
“You put yourself in danger by doing everything I told you not to, Sadie. What would you have had me do? Let Snake wrap his slimy arms around you and devour you whole? If it wasn’t for me and my protection, you’d likely be dead by now with the way you’ve been digging into club business. ”