Chapter 35 – Isaac
Chapter Thirty-Five
Isaac
Missouri
Wyatt drags my ass to his dining room table at eight in the morning with a stiff announcement.
“We got her.”
He means Tylee. But judging by the look on his face, this isn’t all good news.
It could be the fact that he’s been up all night, but Wyatt doesn’t look happy at all.
His beard is overgrown and looks like he hasn’t groomed in a while.
The baseball cap on his head smells from where I’m sitting, and there are deep dark bags beneath his eyes.
No sign of Owen, which means he’s probably holding Tylee prisoner. They don’t get along as well as Wyatt and Tylee used to.
“Are my kids okay?”
“According to Oske, they’re safe.”
“I want to see them.”
I stand up, but Wyatt gestures back to the chair.
“Sit. They’re not here.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Oske and Brinley are doing their best.”
“Brinley? What the fuck does she have to do with this?” I haven’t heard that name in a while. She’s one of the Shaw girls who manages whichever gas station needs her the most along the highway. The only reason she’s not more trouble than Tylee is because she swings for the other team.
“She’s helping us, thanks to Oske.”
“What the fuck?”
“None of our business,” Wyatt says. “I got Tylee to agree to some mediation. Owen will bring her to the club house and I’m supposed to bring you to the club house. We talk with Oske and Brinley as mediators. Apparently.”
“I see. That explains a lot.”
“Yes. Oske has her hand in some trouble. But she’s on our side.”
Wyatt sounds confident, but I can’t trust the fate of my children’s lives to Oske without more information.
“Meaning?”
“She’s pissed that Tylee took your kids. She’s doing a good job of playing both sides, but this will go our way as long as you’re willing to take a little bullying.”
I can believe that there’s some type of moral thing going on there.
Oske might not have children of her own, but it’s a real thing that Indians are more spiritual and family-oriented.
I put up with Oske’s bullying for free. I don’t have any room to argue anymore.
Tylee’s holding our kids hostage and they need to know no matter what happens that I fought for them.
“I don’t care what I have to do as long as I can see my kids before the end of the week.”
“We just have to hope that Tylee doesn’t up the ante.”
“Meaning?”
Wyatt shrugs. “I don’t know who exactly has your kids, and that troubles me, Isaac. I can’t lie to you.”
“I’m not fucking thrilled about it either.”
“Who do you think she would trust?”
“Is it Selma?”
“No,” Wyatt says pensively, “I checked. I don’t mean to piss you off but… Could be someone she’s sleeping with.”
My throat tightens and a deep instinctive knowing rises in my gut. I quickly suppress the feeling, because I have no proof. She’s pissed at me because I want a divorce over the Damara thing. But she hasn’t been having an affair recently…
She changed.
“She’s not sleeping with anyone else.”
“Are you sure?” Wyatt asks gently. He rolls that stupid pair of green dice over the tops of his knuckles.
He knows something. Hot shame burns my face that I try not to let show.
It’s bad enough that Tylee cheats, she can’t even keep it a secret.
I stayed with her so our kids wouldn’t come from a broken home but all she ever does is throw shit my way.
This time I’ve had it. But I don’t have a good answer to Wyatt’s question.
“No. I’m not sure.”
“I’ve been wondering if it has something to do with the folks who attacked Zeb and Janelle.”
“Where did you folks land on that?”
I’ve been too preoccupied with my own shit to worry much about Zeb’s problems. He was an Army Ranger – he can handle himself.
“Those guys might still be a problem,” Wyatt explains.
“Bunch of guys, former disgraced DHS and cops… People like that. The only thing is, what are their motives? Do they want some kind of revenge on the people who kicked them out, or are they still after immigrants? Black people. That kind of thing.”
“Fuck if I know.”
Neither Wyatt’s expression nor posture have eased even slightly. There’s more he has to say about this and his poker face is as good as ever even without practice because I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“Tylee might be sleeping with one of them.”
“One of who?”
Bikers? Immigrants? Cops?
I meet Wyatt’s gaze, even if I wish I didn’t have to. But if he’s going to tell me that his sister, and my wife, is sleeping with another man, I want to look him directly in the eye and believe that it’s the truth.
“Biker. Guy who goes by the name of Scum.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“He’s the right hand to whoever the leader is but… Tamiya and Gideon haven’t turned up anything yet.”
Scum. The syllables turn around in my head and I wish I could say I felt a sick, twisting knife ripping at my guts.
I sure felt that way the first time. By the second time Tylee screwed up, I had learned that this was something wrong she had going on with her.
She didn’t understand loyalty because of the complicated situation with her dad and his marriages.
I tried to give her space to grow. To learn how to stop spreading her legs for every man who was nice to her.
Was it all a lie? Was she never really coerced those times but playing games with me…
It’s even more humiliating than ever to have this playing out in front of Wyatt Shaw. He has the decency not to mock me, but that’s only because he knows facing this shit head on is enough of an embarrassment.
“I’ll bring you to the meeting point,” Wyatt says. “Our goal here is simple. We get her to sign the divorce papers.”
“Understood.”
“There’s no coming back from this Isaac. Even if you wanted to take my sister back, I won’t let you.”
“I can’t let the kids grow up watching this shit.”
I hate who I’ve become with this woman and the scariest part is that this is who I’ve been my entire life.
Don’t think I’m capable of loving somebody else, which means I threw it all away on a woman who can’t possibly love me back.
The knot in my stomach gets so big that I think I’m going to explode.
And you have to shove shit deep when you’re a man. Especially in our line of work.
“That’s right,” Wyatt says patiently. He has nothing but patience for the bullshit situation I’ve found myself in. “The kids deserve better than this.”
“She’s never going to agree to share custody with me.”
“Tylee won’t have a choice,” Wyatt says bitterly. “If Anna pulled the shit she has, kidnapping the kids and disappearing across state lines, I would have spanked her ass raw and locked her up.”
“The problem I have is not my refusal to abuse Tylee.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Wyatt corrects me with an impatient tone as if he really had been abundantly clear. “Anna would never put me in the position to choose between violence and kindness.”
“Strong men can’t be pushed to hurt women.”
Wyatt glares at me as if he truly thinks of me as pig-headed and incapable of understanding the world. I’m too old to face Wyatt’s condescension, although I can understand why the predicament I’m in doesn’t exactly cause him to trust me.
“It’s not about that, Isaac. She’s never been good for you.”
“She’s your sister.”
“This world raised her. Women aren’t like us. They have different tools to survive. The ones Tylee felt she needed were cunning and manipulation.”
“She never needed that. She always had me to protect her.”
“I don’t know why she never felt that,” Wyatt says.
It’s hard for me not to feel like he’s blaming me.
Like I didn’t do enough for her. Pained silence hangs between us as I wrestle the childish urge to turn this into a major fight.
Wyatt wants to help. He wants to get my kids back.
I have to keep sight of that. He’s right, too.
I can’t go back to Tylee. For the first time in my life, I don’t want to. I’ll do the single dad thing if I must… But I can’t be with her anymore. I could tolerate her hurting me in the past, but I can’t stand watching her do this to the kids. I just can’t.