Jigsaw (Hell's Handlers MC 3)

Seriously? What’s the plan? Jig laughed a sound of disbelief. “What’s the plan? The plan is that you’re going to get that sweet ass back in your piece of shit car and drive straight to the clubhouse while we check this out.”

The sound that came from Izzy would have been hilarious if it wasn’t such a shitty situation. Part snort, part choke, and part laugh, she clapped her hands together one time then leaned forward until she was right in his face.

“Now, baby,” she said in a syrupy-sweet voice so un-Izzy, “you know how much I appreciate your love of my sweet ass, but you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m going to scurry home and bake you a fuckin’ pie like the little woman.” There wasn’t any sweetness to her tone anymore. Just the narrowed-eyed oh-hell-no look that usually got him hard. Not today.

Bake a pie? What the fuck was she talking about? Women’s minds where such a mess of twisted fuckery, he didn’t even try to decipher it.

“This is club business, Izzy. It’s not your place, and I’m not risking you getting involved in this deeper.” He couldn’t, wouldn’t lose another woman to violence. Why couldn’t she just give in?

“Guys, this is not the tim—”

“Shut up, Rocket,” Izzy snapped before turning back to Jig. “Not my place? You’re not risking me? I’m sorry? Is your brain getting clogged with residual old-world Southern gentlemen bullshit? Because here, in the year twenty eighteen, we actually let women make their own decisions.”

“You need a little reminder of what happens when you mouth off to me?” Jig practically growled at her.

The car fell deadly silent, and the look of betrayal on Izzy’s face was so profound Jig instantly knew he’d made a fatal mistake. “Fuck!” He slammed out of the car and into the freezing rain, not giving one single shit if he died of fucking hypothermia.

He needed her to be safe. Why couldn’t she understand that? If anything happened to her, it would destroy him. God damned woman was so infuriating.

Still, he’d fucked up royally. Just a few nights ago he’d promised her whatever went on between them was private. That whatever secret parts of herself she let only him have, he’d keep them secret.

Izzy didn’t trust for shit, yet she’d given some to him.

And he just threw it right back in her face.

She’d never trust him again. He knew it without a doubt.

SLACK-JAWED, IZZY stared after the man who stormed from the truck with her pride dragging behind him in tatters. How could he? She’d gone so out of character by letting him spank her, actually trusting him with a piece of herself she hadn’t given to another man ever. And he tossed that trust away as though it was nothing more than trash.

And ordering her to leave a fight? It was like he didn’t know her at all.

How many times did she need to learn the same lesson before it stuck? How many people were destined to disappoint and abandon her before she got a clue and stopped forming attachments? Because she was attached, very attached, despite her staunch resolve to remain distant.

It wasn’t the time to delve into it, but she feared she might even be in love with him. Her heart squeezed so painfully tears tickled the corners of her eyes. No, it couldn’t be love. She wouldn’t allow it.

“Izzy, with his past, Jig’s just overprotect—”

She looked Zach in the eye. “You think I can’t handle this?”

He gave her the respect of a straight answer. “I think you can handle any damn thing thrown your way. This isn’t about that. This is about Jig and his fear of—”

“No. It’s not. It’s about teenage girls who have been kidnapped. It has nothing to do with Jig or his fucked-up view of how women should act. What’s the plan? You going to bust in there and get these traumatized girls to come with you? You think they’re just gonna hop in the back of your truck and ride off with you? You’re all huge, intimidating bikers, and these girls have been abused and raped, probably repeatedly. They’re going to be fucking terrified and need a woman present.”

Zach’s sigh was heavy with frustration. “LJ’s on his way with a van. Rocket’s got a contact a few hours out of town. Chick who runs a shelter. She can take the girls. Get them sorted. Find the families of the ones who have them. Help the others get the support they need.”

“They’re not going to leave with a bunch of menacing men.” Was she the only rational one here?

“Can you shoot a gun?” Rocket asked from next to her.

“I was a single woman living alone in New Orleans, working alone at night sometimes with occasionally rough clientele. Yes, I can shoot a fucking gun. And I have one in my car.”