"Did your brothers manage to come up with anything?" I asked.
"They're working on it, but not yet. Arty is just one guy. It will take him a while to go through camera footage to hopefully find a full plate."
"I will write down some things for you," Belle declared.
"What? No. You don't have to do anything," I insisted, reaching out to touch her hair. "You've been through enough."
"I don't want to go through it again, so I do have to do it. I'm the only person who might have some insight into these guys. They were smart enough not to use names, but still. There are things I remember. And if they might help, I need to do it."
"Okay. But no pressure," I said, not liking the dark look in her eyes as she finished her food.
After that, she grabbed one of my notepads and went back into my room with it while McCoy and I cleaned up.
"I'm worried she's not ready to relive all of it," I admitted in a hushed voice as I handed McCoy one of the plates to dry.
"Babe, she's reliving it in her head all the time," he told me. "Trust me. That shit sticks with you. After you have time to process it, then it starts to ease up. Usually. It might actually help for her to get it all down on paper."
"Things happened, didn't they?" I asked, feeling bile rise up my throat as I turned to face him.
"Some things, yeah, but it isn't my place, babe," he said, shrugging.
My teeth clenched, sending shooting pains up my jaw.
"I've never considered myself a particularly violent person," I started, taking a slow, deep breath, "but I want to rip strips of their skin off until they can't take the pain anymore and die."
"That's pretty fucking dark," McCoy said, eyes dancing. "And I agree. Hate fuckers like that."
"Your club doesn't hurt women?"
"Never."
"Good," I said when, unexpectedly, my mind flashed back to the first time I visited the Henchmen clubhouse, to the naked women I'd seen in the back by the pool.
"What?" McCoy asked, making it clear just how easy to read I was.
"Nothing. I was just... there are a lot of naked women at your parties," I said, watching him closely for a reaction.
To that, he shrugged. "Yeah. Sometimes. But we don't make them do that. And we aren't going to complain about it if it happens either."
"That's fair," I decided. "Two of your men...brothers are in relationships, right?"
"Yeah. Huck is with Harmon and Che is with Saskia. If you're asking if bikers are loyal to their women, that's a loaded question that would be different from club to club. But our club and the other chapter, once they find their women, there is no more fucking around."
"Well, that's nice. The women, were they, you know, in this lifestyle too?"
"Not bikers, no. Harmon was—is—a streamer. Like she plays video games online and films it kind of thing. Sass used to be a street racer. Then a wheelman. But now she opened an auto parts store that specializes in shit for racing. So, I guess, in a way, Sass was in the lifestyle. Why?"
"I was just curious about what kind of women bikers like. And what sorts of women marry into that lifestyle, I guess. It seems like they'd never be able to take a deep breath."
"We have our moments," McCoy said. "You know, when shit is crazy and there are people trying to kill us, but there are long periods where shit is calm. Boring, even. Besides, way I figure it, you don't really control who you fall for."
"No, but you choose to be with them," I said.
"Dunno, babe. I've watched Huck and Che and Booker and West—"
"West?"
"Guy from the mother chapter. The one who wife'd up Huck's sister, Gus."
"Oh okay. Go ahead."
"I've watched them. And it doesn't seem like there was much of a choice for them. I mean, technically, yeah. But when they were apart for any reason? They were fucking miserable. I think if it is too miserable to be without someone, then there isn't a real choice, is there?"
"I never really thought about that," I admitted.
"Never had a bad break-up?" he asked.
"I, ha, well, I don't have a great dating record. Belle would say I have bad taste in men. Actually, no. It's more like I don't see through people's bullshit very well."
"I have the opposite problem," McCoy admitted, shaking his head. "I think the worst of people immediately. Figure they're all full of shit. Then have to learn to like or trust them."
"That sounds really not fun," I admitted, getting a snort out of him. "What did you think of me at first then, if you always think the worst?"
"I thought you were drugged," he reminded me. "And the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," he added, the words making my stomach clench hard. Because he said them. But also because he clearly meant them as well.
"So, you like less conventionally attractive women then?"
"What?"
"You said you always think the worst. Which means being pretty, in your eyes, is bad."
"Actually, Shy, I was letting you know that I see you."
"You see me," I repeated, not sure how he wanted me to take that.
"Yeah, I see you," he repeated, unhelpfully.
"I'm not sure what you mean by that," I admitted. "What do you see?" I added when he said nothing.
His gaze, gooey and unexpectedly intoxicating, made my heart flip-flop in my chest as his arm rose.
I swear time slowed down as I watched that hand make its way upward before it finally slid up over my shoulder to rest on the side of my neck.
A shiver moved through my insides as his thumb moved outward, sliding across the line of my jaw toward my chin then back again.
It was nothing.
A barely-there touch.
But I swear it ignited a wildfire in my system. It burned through me, scalding every inch of me, and leaving devastation in its wake when a knock at the door had us both springing apart as if we'd gotten caught doing something we shouldn't have.
And as McCoy moved away from me, leaving me to lean back against the counter because my damn legs felt weak, I realized that was exactly what happened.
We definitely should not have been looking at each other like that, touching like that.
Things were complicated enough. The last thing I needed was to be making heart-eyes at my damn bodyguard. A man I'd shot for God's sake. A man who was showing us kindness he didn't exactly owe us. If something happened with us, and it went south, what would that mean for my sister and me?
I mean, I had no idea what we would do if the Henchmen hadn't been willing to help us. Leaving town, I guess. But going where? Doing what? And would they come for us?
Actually, Shy, I was letting you know that I see you.
Ugh.
Even just repeating it in my head was giving me that fluttery feeling in my chest. Because it was clear now what he meant. He saw me. And he liked what he saw.
"Hey, Ayanna," McCoy said, snapping me out of my head to see the woman from the salon standing there wearing a black dress, and not looking happy about it since McCoy had told me she was a woman of bold fashion statements.