Chapter 24 Shade
SHADE
“Get rid of them,” I shout as Kai goes to answer the door.
“That’s my plan.”
Isla glances down the hallway nervously.
“Hey, Sunbeam, come over here,” I say, and Isla hurries to my side, as if given a reprieve from something she really didn’t want to do. As she kneels by my feet, I notice her toenails are painted a cute pink.
The deadbolt scrapes as Kai unlocks it, and then, cool night air and familiar voices drift in.
“Your neighborhood creep has terrible camera etiquette,” Wren says when they appear in the kitchen.
“Translation,” Catfish says dryly, “there’s no clear image of him on anything, and Wren’s pissed.”
“You guys want a drink?” Kai asks.
“As fun as that would be, we’re on our way home from Willa’s,” Catfish says.
Wren shakes their head. “I never want to braid hair ever again. Maddie just wants me to do it over and over and over.”
“You doing okay?” Catfish asks Isla. He’s wearing his cut, and Isla scootches a little closer to the armchair. Shows we’re making progress with her that she sees us as safety, even if she has nothing to be scared of when it comes to Catfish and Wren.
I reach for her fingers and squeeze them, and if Catfish notices, his face doesn’t reveal anything.
“I’m fine. Just a little freaked out,” Isla says.
“Don’t be,” he says. “Grudge, Wraith, and a couple of prospects are scouting outside. There’ll be at least two people on the street all night.”
I jerk my chin to the chairs. “Sit. Tell us what you know before Kai paces a hole in the floor.”
Kai stops walking back and forth and sits on the chair arm.
There is something very right about the three of us sitting so close, like we’re already a unit.
I know the man has got to be struggling.
Two seconds ago, he was moments away from getting in bed with me and Isla.
Now, he’s itching to fuck and is faced with being polite to our guests, instead.
But he’ll also want to know everything Wren and Catfish know.
Wren sits on the chair closest to me, then looks at Isla. “I pulled everything from all your cams since sundown.”
“You have access to my cameras?” Isla says.
Wren looks at me, and I wince. Yeah. I didn’t tell Isla I had access. Hope she doesn’t fucking hate me for it. “Might have remembered the password you set up for yours and gave it to Wren to help us look for patterns.”
Isla doesn’t say anything, but the way she purses her lips and folds her arms tells me she ain’t happy with this knowledge. I’ll talk to her about it when everyone is gone.
“I cleaned it up as much as I could, given I was at Willa’s. The night vision is decent, but unhelpful unless the person is somehow known well or has some instantly recognizable features. In this case, they never got close to the cameras, so it’s a bit of a blur.”
Kai leans over Wren’s shoulder, as do I.
Wren taps on a clip. The street outside our houses fills the screen in shades of green and gray. Trees, the empty road, Isla’s house, all take on the same monochrome appearance.
“There,” Wren says, dragging a finger along the timeline.
A shape ghosts into view. A bike. Rolling slow. No plate is visible. Full-face helmet. Dressed in all black.
Given the timing, it’s when we were in the bathroom.
My cock stirs at the thought of what we were doing in there instead of focusing on the video, but I push the impulse away. Maybe if I’d still been in bed, I would have heard something or seen something.
It’s a reminder about not getting so lost in a person that you lose your vigilance.
“Pause,” Kai says.
Wren freezes the frame. It’s a smear of motion and shadow and pixels that are all blurred to shit.
“I ran it through every filter I had at my fingertips at Willa’s. I got a couple more I can try at home. Ones that will attempt to sharpen and adjust contrast and exposure. But I doubt it’s gonna get much clearer than this.”
“Height gives us something, though,” Kai says. “Tall, not bulky.”
He stashes his bike off the road in the trees, then scurries to the rear of Isla’s house. There’s a five-minute gap between us getting into the house and the rider making their way back to the bike. Where he goes from there is anyone’s guess. “You think you could track him?” I ask Kai.
He shakes his head and I’ve learned to trust his gut. He seems to have an immediate sense of whether tracking is worth it.
“My guess is he’s long gone,” Kai says. “You know how it goes. When we were in Florida, I tracked that dealer who’d stolen fifty thousand bucks from Knox and our brothers there and found him within an hour. But when I was tracking Paltrow after…”
He looks to me and I remember what he told me. After he saved Paltrow’s sister, it was long days of stopping and starting and backtracking to find him. Even then, the trail went cold and it took him weeks to pick up another.
Isla nervously fidgets and Kai places his hand on her shoulder, out of sight of Catfish and Wren, who are both looking at the screen. I brush my hand over her hair, for a second, to reassure her that I’m here too.
“Guess the question is, who are they here for?” Catfish asks. “We know Isla’s uncle caused some shit. You had your windows graffitied, then smashed. Being run off the road. And now, this person, doing a ride by, but focusing on Isla’s house. Are they looking out for one of the two of you or Isla?”
I sit back in the chair. “What are the chances there are two unrelated things going on?”
Wren shrugs and looks to Isla. “Does your uncle have a bike?”
Isla shakes her head. “To the best of my knowledge, Kevin doesn’t, but my cousin Jacob does.”
“Could this be Jacob?” Wren asks.
Isla nods. “It could be. But I don’t know.”
Kai shakes his head. “When I spoke to Kevin, he said Jacob was in Cleveland for a job or something. We can verify, but I doubt it’s him.”
Isla looks at me. “There’s also…I don’t think he’s violent…but there’s someone at the vet’s who…”
My first thought is to climb out of the chair, grab a knife, and get ready to gut the person making her feel uncomfortable.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“Noah. He’s a vet. He’s asked me out a few times. I’ve said no. And, at first, I thought he kind of got it. But now…the last time he asked, he seemed upset I said no.”
Catfish studies Isla, for a second. “Upset like, I’m sad you said no? Or upset like, I’m gonna make you say yes one way or another?”
“The latter,” Isla says before biting on her lip. “I don’t think he was going to hurt me. Just kinda angry I’d embarrassed him.”
Wren points to the bike. “Could this be him?”
Isla wraps her arms around her chest. “Possibly. He has the same tall rangy build. But I…I don’t think he would do something like this.”
Kai rubs a hand across his face. “The truth is, it could be someone we know too. We had to go talk to Jinx this week, and it didn’t go well.
And Shade was knocked off his bike. There’s no reason for this Noah guy to do that.
But it could be someone like Jinx. He has the right build.
I don’t know all the bikes he’s got to know if this could be one of his, do you? ”
Catfish squints closer. “Wish we could see what the bike is in more detail. Doesn’t look like a heavy bike. It’s not a Harley.”
“It could be Jinx,” I say. “But let’s not rule Noah out. He could have been watching Isla before this, seen her coming and going from our place.”
“I’ve been looking out for Shade while Jackal’s been busy,” Isla says quickly after giving me a warning glare, like I just gave something important away.
The use of our road names throws me, for a second, but I understand why she felt the need to minimize the reason she’s here.
“It’s the start of a shortlist, though,” Wren says. “Jinx. Noah. Kevin. Jacob. I feel like this is something the club could get their arms around pretty quickly. Get eyes on them all. We could get trackers on all their vehicles or something, as a minimum.”
“I’ll come to the clubhouse in the morning and table it,” Kai says.
“We will,” I add. “After we’ve gone to tell Noah to leave her the fuck alone.”
Isla and Kai both look at me swiftly.
“You will not,” Isla says. “I’ll take care of it myself.”
I raise an eyebrow at that.
Kai chuckles. “You’ll get used to him being overbearing,” he mutters quietly, raising his eyes at me in a way that suggests I calm the fuck down. “And given you can barely stand, you won’t be going anywhere tomorrow.”
“So, you’ll come to the clubhouse, Jackal,” Catfish says. “I can tee up that meeting for you.”
“Appreciate it,” I say.
Wren glances at me, for a moment. “Honestly, I agree with Jackal. You look like you should just stay exactly where you are.”
I shake my head. “I got to get up at some point.”
“It doesn’t have to be tomorrow,” Kai says before turning back to Wren and Catfish. “Thanks for stopping by. Both of you.”
Catfish nods. “Isla, can I steal you for a minute?”
I glance up at her face, but she doesn’t reveal her true feelings.
If anything, she adopts some of her old club-girl body language.
She braces, pulling her shoulders back. Her chin tips up.
Her expression a little disdainful. And now that I’ve seen who she really is, I wonder why no one ever noticed how fake it had become.
“Sure.”
They step into the hallway, and though I can hear the soft murmur of their voices, I can’t make out what is being said. Just that Catfish’s tone is gentle, Isla’s is strained.
Wren pretends to fiddle with the tablet, but their ears are tilted that way too.
“Not sure what’s going on here with the two of you and Isla, and it’s none of my business,” Wren says. “But it might make sense for her to stay with you while we figure this out.”
“Yeah,” I say. I’m not about to let her out of my sight.
Catfish and Isla come back, a moment later. Her eyes are a little glossy, but her hands are steady. Catfish looks like someone kicked him in the gut.
“You okay?” Kai asks her.
She nods. “We, uh…talked. He asked why I left the club.”
Catfish rubs at the back of his neck. “Turns out, I’m not as observant as I thought. And Isla’s good at hiding when she’s scared.”
Isla gives a sad smile. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
He shakes his head. “Not your job to manage my ego. I hate the thought you were putting on a brave face for my benefit.”
Wren takes Catfish’s hand to reassure him. Then, they turn to Isla. “He was worried about you.”
Catfish and Isla look at each other, for a second. Then, something settles between the two of them.
I hate the fact I’m feeling jealous that she slept with Catfish already. Multiple times that I’m aware of. Plenty more that I’m not.
Feeling jealous is a new thing, but it’s wild how it’s not applied evenly. It’s odd that I can look at Kai and be okay with him touching Isla but feel ill at ease knowing Catfish has. Maybe it’s the additional layer of Isla’s experience, that no one noticed she was no longer consenting.
Maybe there’s a small part of me that wants to punch my friend’s face.
“We’re gonna head out,” Wren says. “We’re tied to your feeds. Anything moves out there, I’ll get an alert and call you guys. Keep your phones close.”
I think of Isla’s phone, still in the bathroom, and make a note to give it back to her.
“Tell Grudge we’re grateful for his support,” I say.
Catfish nods. “I’ll tell him. Best if the three of you stay inside tonight. At least, until daylight.”
When the door closes and the rumble of their truck fades, I slowly but surely stand and pull both Isla and Kai close. They move to me gently, knowing full well that a misplaced hand to my ribs will be agony.
The atmosphere feels different immediately.
Just the three of us feeling right in a way that amplifies what the two of us had.
“You’re staying here for a few days, Sunbeam,” I say.
She shakes her head. “It might be easier if I—”
“No,” I say.
“Nope,” Kai says at the same time.
“Fine.”
Kai catches my eye over her head, and I can see how fucking happy the man is that there’s someone else in the house. And that recognition doesn’t leave me feeling deserted like I thought it would.
“You saw the same thing we did,” I tell her. “Some asshole is hanging around here. We’re safer together.”
Isla’s jaw tightens. “I don’t want to be a burden. This is all complicated enough.”
Kai runs a hand down her hair. “What do you mean?”
“I want…well…us…the three of us to…” Her cheeks go pink, as if saying the three of us was too much of an acknowledgement for her to handle.
“Well, I don’t want it to seem like there’s an ulterior motive.
I don’t want the two of you to think I’m needy or hanging around here because I want on-site protection or a trophy biker. ”
“Or two,” I say.
Both Kai and Isla look at me.
“What?” Isla says.
“A trophy biker, or two.”
There’s a slightly stunned moment, and then, Isla covers her mouth before a chuckle escapes.
“Let’s get you upstairs, Bear,” Kai says, offering me his hand. “I want to get you comfortable.”
I know his gesture is well-meaning, and so very Kai that he cares.
But being looked after is starting to chafe a little.
I struggle to let Kai see me when I’m down, but it feels different letting Isla see this side of me so quickly.
“I can manage. I seem to recall Isla ran out barefoot to reach me. Maybe she needs help getting upstairs.”
There’s a moment of hesitation in Kai’s eyes, followed by a silent are you sure?
I nod. Yeah, Wild, I’m sure.
Kai uses the moment to dip his shoulder and hoist Isla over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. All that toffee-colored hair of hers falls over his ass. “In that case, we can carry on this conversation in bed.”
Isla squeals as he squeezes her ass.
She glances up at me, her neck at a funny angle, and I tilt my head so I can see her pretty face properly.
“Need you to tell me honestly if you want to come upstairs with us,” I say. “No pressure. No expectation. There’s a spare bed, if you’d prefer. But I know you’ve had a problem saying no. So be honest.”
“Is that really what you want?” she asks. “Me, in bed with the two of you.”
I nod. “Yeah. I want you where I can hear you breathe when I wake up. And I want to find out if this thing between us feels as good in our bed, under the covers, as it does everywhere else.”
She drops her head, then taps Kai’s ass. “Then, take me upstairs.”
Kai spins with her and brushes his lips over mine. “That was sweet, Bear. I know you don’t believe it, but you can be really romantic when you try.”
I chuckle at that. “Says the man with a woman over his shoulder.”
Kai glances over his shoulder to Isla and smiles. “Don’t deflect. I’ll be back down to grab you in a minute whether you like it or not.”
But I start walking behind the two of them anyway, because I don’t want to miss a minute of what this is fast becoming.
Everything.