Chapter Nineteen
Zack
She had been avoiding me for almost three full days now. It was almost certain proof that what I’d said to her had hit close to home. It had to be, right? At least that was what I was hoping for, and the thought that I was right kept me going. It was really my only source of happiness because the Walter Black trail had gone cold.
I was riding my guys hard to try and find some leads, but the truth was I had done my own share of digging, and I’d come up blank. Which only proved that Godwin was deeply involved in this whole set up, and I was sure it was exactly that—a set up to lure me to my fall. It would be sweet revenge for Godwin after what had happened with his son and the former glory of his club. Which was not to say that he hadn’t still retained some of the mystique, but it was a much smaller club with a much smaller hold.
He had also lost a lot of money during the turf war, and he wasn’t likely to forget that easily either. But there was one thing that gave me some measure of comfort in all of this. It was clear that Godwin was weary of coming at us directly, out in the open. He was resorting to these backhanded methods, hoping to piss us off so badly that we came at him.
He was scared to be the first one to break the truce, and a part of me liked to think he was unsure about the turnout of another fight. Which was why he was being so shady about how he was approaching this. I wondered who this new guy Walter Black might really be. But in the end, I decided it didn’t matter. He was a threat to Mila, and I was going to make sure he could never come after her again.
Mila… I sighed inwardly every time I thought of her. She had barely even trained with me the last few days. The first day she had told me she was sick, and she hadn’t trained at all. The second day she had shown up only in the evening after spending most of the morning in her room. Then, she had trained only with Devon and Red, before retiring back to her room with a small plate of food. Then yesterday she had trained with me only for an hour, during which she didn’t say a word to me except to heed my instructions. Then she had run to Bones the moment he entered the training ring and didn’t look my way once.
I had given her the space she obviously needed, but part of me was confused. Maybe she wasn’t avoiding me because I had been right. Maybe she was avoiding me because I was so completely wrong that she didn’t want to encourage my beliefs by continuing to spend time with me.
I thought about going out tonight and getting laid by some random woman whose name I would never ask and whose face I would forget by tomorrow. But even the thought of sleeping with another woman at the moment made my stomach turn. It was the first time I’d ever experienced something like that, and it was alarming in and of itself.
“Hey, man,” Lonny said, walking into the living room. “We’re going for a ride today. You want to join?”
I paused, seriously considering it. “All of you?”
“Yeah.”
“Someone has to stay behind to make sure Mila is safe,” I pointed out.
“Red’s not coming with us, right?”
“Red’s not spending the night at the clubhouse at all,” I said. “In fact, he left a few minutes ago. He’s spending the night with his new girl.”
“Fuck, I forgot about Mila.”
I pursed my lips together; unfortunately, forgetting about Mila was not something I had managed to do since she walked into my life. Or to be more accurate, since I’d stormed her apartment and staged a fake kidnapping attempt with her brother.
“I can ask Devon to stay with her,” Lonny suggested.
“He wasn’t going to ride with you?” I asked.
“No, he was, but I figured it’s his sister, he wouldn’t mind staying behind after all.”
“Scratch that,” I said. “I’ll stay. I’m not in the mood to ride tonight anyway.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah, you guys go ahead.”
Lonny nodded and headed out. In fifteen minutes, I heard the revving of powerful engines and one by one, each motorbike took off, creating grating music that somehow managed to be soothing to my ears. Only a true motorbike lover would feel that way; I knew that much. When the boys had cleared the house, smoky silence descended, and I was aware that Mila and I were the only ones in the house anymore. And knowing the boys, we probably would be for a while.
A few minutes later, I saw Mila appear on the staircase. Her expression was searching, and I knew she had heard the collective sounds of the motorbikes leave.
She saw me, and I saw a veil go up across her face. She hesitated slightly, wondering whether she should come down or go back up to her room.
“Where is everyone?” she asked.
“Just left,” I replied. “On a ride.”
“Oh,” Mila nodded. “Red?”
“Left for the night.”