Caught by Cole

Chapter 21

twenty-one

ISABELLE

At the library, I unpacked my backpack and sat down heavily.

I felt exhausted even though I’d slept most of the day yesterday.

I sipped the coffee I’d brought with me and watched other people studying, until someone flashed me the middle finger for being weird.

With a sigh, I opened my laptop. I had a few papers to make progress on and was running out of time to do it.

Everything felt muted somehow. I’d failed at my big idea of landing a real story and ended up getting heartbroken on the way.

Heartbroken by a guy who had women following his every step and wouldn’t miss my company for more than ten minutes. Well done, Isabelle.

A week had passed since the Chickadee Diner incident, and I still hadn’t gotten over it.

Thank God Cole would never know how much I’d pined for him this week.

I wasn’t sleeping well. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

I was like a lovesick puppy. It was humiliating.

I’d had relationships before, and been sad when they’d ended, but this was something else.

It was awful. Everything felt flat and empty.

My future yawned bleakly in front of me, a never-ending, parent-pleasing nightmare.

But I wasn’t brave enough to defy them. I was that limited.

One positive of the whole ordeal was that I’d told Rosie how vehement Cole was about stopping Finn from joining the MC.

She’d seemed comforted by my reassurances, even if she didn’t get why I believed him quite so much.

I turned my attention to my laptop and the latest tab I’d opened. I still had my info pages up on the Harbor Hounds from when I’d been trying to write the story. For some reason, I liked to see them. They made me feel closer to him.

But it was time to move on. I had to get a grip.

I started to click through the open tabs, closing down pages I didn’t need anymore.

In-depth searches on Cole, the MC, Finn Collins.

I shut them all one by one. I came to the last one, and the logo at the top caught my eye.

There was a little red number in front, the kind you got when you had missed messages.

I stared at it, a little lost as my brain struggled to figure out what it was.

It was a plain page, with a list of files displayed in the middle.

I could see from the time stamps that one of the files had just been uploaded a few hours before.

The logo was familiar, as was the page itself, now that I gave it a better look. When had I opened this page?

Then it hit me. The pen. The listening device I’d taken with me that first night at The Clutch.

I’d never been able to find that damn pen and just figured it was lost forever.

Apparently, it wasn’t lost, and it was working, somewhere inside The Clutch.

Had it fallen out my bag in that back room that Cole had locked me up in?

It was the only time the contents of my bag had scattered everywhere.

The device defaulted to voice activation mode to optimize battery life.

So, not only was it actually still working, but it had caught something.

Several new files had synced since I’d set it up.

Delete them. Don’t listen.

My internal voice knew best. Listening when I’d already decided not to write the story would be a mistake.

Besides, I had no way of knowing if it was work-related conversation.

Maybe it was just some couple hooking up in the back room.

Maybe it was Cole hooking up in the back room with Kiki. Ouch. Just the thought hurt.

But maybe it was good, I rationalized to myself. Maybe that would help me get over this ill-fated crush.

I double-clicked on one of the files, my morbid curiosity winning out.

Cole’s voice came over my headphones, deep and rough and delicious. I sank back in my chair, simply enjoying the sound of him talking about beer inventory with one of his men for a few minutes. Then the door slammed and the sound of heels filled the audio.

“Cole, are you avoiding me?” a female voice snapped, making me sit at attention. Kiki. Had something really happened between them already?

So, I did something horrible… and I listened.

I listened to the whole recording, because I was jealous, and the thought of another woman hitting on Cole was making my blood boil and paranoia rage through me.

The woman ran her mouth and Cole sent her away.

Silence followed as the sound of her heels faded, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Nothing to confirm that anything had happened between them.

I shouldn’t have felt relieved, but I did.

I double-clicked on the next file and heard one of Cole’s right-hand men, maybe Gage, speaking.

“Sorry to interrupt your little siesta, shipment’s locked in. Comin’ on Saturday. Same drop location as the time before.”

“Do you want the same crew on that, boss?” another man, his voice gravelly. Maddox.

“Can you run with half?” Cole asked. “The other half is out after the last dustup.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gage said. “The Lion already handled the grease, and the money is already in place. Should be a pretty easy operation.”

The Lion? Who were they talking about?

“Motherfucker doesn’t miss a thing,” Maddox muttered under his breath.

“The Lion?” the first guy asked. “Nope. He doesn’t. All we know is that he keeps the wheels turning, but he knows every move we make.”

“Long as he keeps up his end, then we hold up ours,” Cole said. “Don’t overthink it. Cargo comes in, we move it out. Clean and simple for us. It's better that way. We don’t have a choice here. It’s his way, or no way, and I’m not ready to go out like that.”

I stared at my screen, unseeing. Here it was, the proof I’d been looking for, incriminating words spoken by the MC President himself. The Harbor Hounds were involved in running guns. The time stamp put this conversation hours ago.

Delete it. Forget it, Isabelle.

Before I could listen to that inner voice, I noticed another file pop up, this one brand new. I clicked on it.

“Did you get the information about where it needed to go? Shit, Teddy, listen. If you can’t use my intel, what good are you? I told you where Bailey will be tonight, his fucking inner circle too. That’s gold. If you can’t work out how to make it happen, then you do have shit for brains.”

There was silence for a long moment. The person I heard seemed to be speaking to themselves, which could only mean that they were on the phone.

I was hearing one side of a conversation.

The man’s voice was unfamiliar. He sounded older, his deep voice gruff.

Teddy? Why did that name sound familiar?

The first night I’d gone to The Clutch filled my head.

The shoot-out, and the incongruously named leader of the rival MC. Teddy.

“Good. I got you the info you need. Let’s end this tonight. Bailey in the ground, I’ll be Pres, and Iron Vultures will control the supply chain. We’ve waited long enough—shit, I’ve gotta go.”

The recording stopped as the sound of a door swung shut. Whoever had been speaking had left the vicinity of the recording device.

My heart pounded. What the hell had I just heard? Someone in the Hounds was working with the other MC and that psycho Teddy? Were they setting Cole up?

“Bailey in the ground.”

There weren’t a lot of ways to interpret that phrase.

Panic made me clumsy as I reached for my phone and knocked it off the desk.

Cursing, I grabbed it as someone nearby shushed me loudly.

I stood up from the study carrel and started to shove my things into my backpack, while frantically searching for his number in my phone.

I hadn’t used it since he’d put it in that morning at his cabin. He hadn’t called me either. He’d probably already forgotten all about me, but that didn’t matter. I had to warn him.

I scrolled through my missed calls until I found it, and the label he’d put himself under.

Papa Bear.

My breath felt short as I dialed, leaving the library at the same time.

The line rang, and rang. No answer. Shit.

Of course, he wouldn’t answer. Why would he answer me, when I’d been so horrible just last week?

I tried again as I ran for my car. No answer.

Getting desperate, I hung up and called Marcus instead.

This time, it didn’t even ring. I was about to call Arianna, when I remembered that the Hellions and their fans were at an away game. They wouldn’t answer for hours.

I got into my car and googled the phone number for The Clutch. I pulled out as the line rang, and kept on ringing. No one answered. I gave a short scream of frustration and banged the steering wheel. Ok, I wasn’t going to get through. I needed to tell him face-to-face.

The drive through town had never taken so long.

I had just pulled onto the highway that led to The Clutch when a group of motorcycles passed me, going the opposite direction.

I whipped around, trying to make out who it was.

It was impossible, they were too fast, but there had been a sizable number of guys, easily over ten. That had to be them, right?

Luckily the road was quiet, and I was able to make a U-turn and start in the other direction.

Another bike passed me as I started driving that way.

A lone rider. This one I got to see much more clearly.

The bike wasn’t a heavy-duty motorcycle like Cole’s was.

The rider looked smaller as well. They weren’t wearing the same kind of cut that the rest were.

Finn?

I followed behind him as close as I dared to.