Coming out the service hadn’t been an easy adjustment for Ton. Their father had spent too many nights out at bars, and Reaper had lost count of the fights he had to get him out of. He never told Viper, not wanting him to worry about Ton. When he was old enough to join the service, Ton finally settled down enough to quit drinking, and he took a job that gave new meaning to his life.
Entering the service, Reaper had found his purpose in life. He took the skills he was taught and moved up the ranks just as quickly as Viper had, until he landed on the team that Viper commanded. They hadn’t butted heads then, because it had been Viper’s job to look out for his men, and Reaper’s job to follow his orders.
No, what had changed the dynamic of their relationship was when they started the club. He had presumed the fights were because Viper didn’t respect him and only saw him as a younger brother. Ginny’s viewpoint had him seeing the flip side of the coin. Had the problems with Viper been because both of them had such dominant personalities and only one could win, and not because they saw the other as stronger or weaker, older or younger?
Rolling to his other side, Reaper replayed memories of past arguments with new eyes. Did she have a point, or was Ginny getting into his mind? He’d been afraid of this exact thing happening. His emotions becoming chaotic, another scene flashed through his mind of the couple who pretended to be kidnapped—the people who duped him.
Clenching his hands by his sides, he grasped the sheets to keep himself on the bed instead of getting up to pace. He had locked the door of the bedroom, but he hadn’t barricaded it because he hadn’t wanted her to hear him moving the furniture around.
Reaching for the extra pillow beside his head, he pulled it over his eyes, trying to block the seam of light underneath the door. He kept imagining shadows moving from the other side. Hyper-aware of every sight and sound made it more difficult to sleep. He had tried every sleep aid to help him, except medication, which he refused to take. He was so tired, he felt it in his bones. What little sleep he did manage to get was sporadic and not certainly not deep.
Wearily, he dozed off, only to wake gasping for air, covered in a cold sweat. Sitting up on the side of the bed, he flicked the light on, seeing the two pillows in two different areas of the room and the blanket barely hanging onto the front of the bed.
Picking up his watch, he saw he’d been asleep for two and a half hours. Knowing he wouldn’t fall back to sleep, he went to his duffle bag to take out his computer. Making himself comfortable on the bed, he opened it, going to the file that Shade had sent him on Ginny.
Reading through the pages, he discovered she hadn’t had an easy life. Ginny’s mother had signed her parental rights over to her father when she was four years old, leaving her to be raised by her father, Freddy Coleman.
This was his second time reading the information, and he still raised an eyebrow at the number of children Freddy had fathered. At his death, he’d had ten children, and from the information given to him, he had been a good father, if not a little unconventional with the way he had raised them. Even with most of the children born from different mothers, he had managed to keep a good relationship with them. Why had it been so different with Ginny’s mother? As far as it was written on the report, Ginny had no contact with her once she signed her rights away.
Scrolling down farther, he reread where her sister, Leah, and her father had died in an accident when they were riding a four-wheeler. Not long after that, Ginny was removed from the care of her brothers to live in a foster home until she had graduated.
Skimming through her school records and the jobs she held once she was on her own showed she was a hard-working and reliable employee and was determined to make it without any help. Not like there was any help offered. Neither the Colemans nor her foster parents had displayed any interest in her welfare.
Reaper was rereading the report for that very reason. Why hadn’t her brothers tried to maintain a relationship with their sister? The Wests were her foster family, so it could have been they never developed a connection to Ginny, but why hadn’t her brothers, especially the older ones, tried to keep an eye out for her? Her brothers kept to the same isolated lifestyle they had before their father’s death. The only time they left their property was to work the menial jobs they held in town or to go to the store. From the reports, none of them had a girlfriend in the past or even currently. Reaper found that unbelievable, making a note to tell Shade to investigate further.
Scrolling down, Reaper continued reading about Ginny’s stalker. It hadn’t been her first. No, that dubious honor belonged to her first boss, Carter Dawkins. Old enough to be her grandfather, he had made a pest of himself when Ginny worked for him at his insurance office. He skimmed through Knox’s meticulous reports of the times he’d been called in as sheriff to cease Dawkins’ harassment of her. Ginny had only called once; the other calls had come from a cook at the diner, concerned with the way Dawkins was watching Ginny. Since the old fucker was now six feet under, Reaper knew he wasn’t the one currently making her life miserable.
Ginny’s friendships had been few in Treepoint. She developed a close relationship with Willa after she worked for her. Lucky, as her pastor, had been her school mentor when she was younger. Other than that, there were only casual friendships. Like her brothers, she never dated.
The fact he couldn’t get around was when she worked for The Last Riders, Ginny retained a professional relationship with the members. Reaper found it hard to believe that a young woman her age hadn’t developed a liking to one of the brothers, considering how many hours she spent at the club. If she had been with someone, she was either skilled at hiding or Shade hadn’t included it in the report, which could have been the case.
But Shade’s report was detailed, even going so far as making notations to the side, yet he hadn’t delved deeply into the confidential aspects that only someone close to Ginny would know. Shade probably hadn’t done so because it wouldn’t have a bearing on who was stalking her, and it didn’t, other than the fact Reaper’s curiosity was piqued.
After leaving Treepoint, she had moved to Queen City with Penni, Shade’s sister, going to work for Mouth2Mouth. From there, Shade’s probe into Ginny’s life came from Penni. Other than Penni, she had several friends, none of whom Penni described as close. She had found a roommate once the band quit touring. Gianna had been a friend of a friend who worked for Penni. Again, there was no reference to Ginny’s dating life.
Finishing Shade’s notes, he summarized by saying that, other than working, Ginny had led a reclusive life, only going out occasionally with the casual friendships she made in Queen City, or when she visited with Willa in Treepoint.
Rubbing his eyes, he closed the computer. There had been no interest in men anywhere in the research from her childhood to now, yet she told him she loved him. Why?
He wanted to dodge the question, but if he was going to identify the stalker, Reaper had to look in the unlikely spots to find what Shade and Rider had missed. Her stalker made himself known after Ginny sang for the first time at a nightclub; had the stalker, like him, felt the same connection, except Ginny was unaware of it? Or was she? He was going to have to ask, which was a conversation he didn’t want to have, as it would expose the connection he had felt.
Closing his eyes, he drifted off just as the sun was beginning to shine through the top of curtains, lightening the walls with a pale amber glow.