Instead, I was just like Trey. I was being deceived in Claire’s con.
I wondered if she was already looking into Outlaw Souls at that point. I wished that I had read that notebook closer. In the moment, I was too overcome to glean more than the general details. I barely remembered the names. The missing girl was Zoe and the boy was Hector, but I couldn’t recall their last names or their parents’ names.
According to Claire’s notes, they had gotten tangled up with bikers and then ran away. No word from them, but a lot of rumors flying around about drugs. Because that’s what bikers did, according to people. We dealt drugs and we ruined young kids’ lives.
I tried to remember how many pages of notes she had. There was a lot, but that was typical Claire. She was thorough. I snorted. I had to stop thinking about things like “typical Claire.” I didn’t know what was typical. I didn’t know anything about the real Claire.
Maybe she already had the case the night we slept together. At the time, I hadn’t thought Claire was being too aggressive. She was into me, just like I was into her, but she wasn’t pursuing me with relentless determination. She had just seen where the night had taken her.
How long had it taken her to master that degree of nuance and subtlety? How many men had she seduced? How often had she practiced her delicate dance? I had been right that first time to sneak out before morning. If only I had left and never looked back. I should have stuck to my initial instinct and let Claire Brennan fall from my mind.
Instead, I had reconsidered. I had thought it would be harmless to hang out with her again. And how serendipitous it had been when she texted me? It was my lucky day. I hadn’t even paused for a second to wonder why she was reaching out after two days of radio silence.
By that point, I was sure she was on the case against Outlaw Souls. I had been blind in the moment, but looking back it was so obvious. She had agreed to just hang out at her own home. It was quiet there. If we had gone out dancing again at a club, she would have had very little time to question me. If we had gone on a real date, that would have been too much hassle.
So Claire opted for the most efficient method of gleaning information. She didn’t even have to leave her own home. I went to her, and I talked and talked about everyone’s role and how our club operated.
I knew she couldn’t do anything with what I had given her because Outlaw Souls was as clean as they came, but the fact that the whole time, she had her ears pricked for any shady details was repulsive to me. I cringed as I remembered how I had blabbered on and on about how we got gigs, how new pledges were brought into the fold, and how Moves kept everyone in line.
I frowned at that. Of all the things I had said to Claire, that was the only thing that edged on the controversial. As enforcer, Moves had to operate in some gray areas. He never crossed the line as far as I was concerned, but I wasn’t sure Claire would see it like that.
If Claire was going to fixate on anyone in Outlaw Souls as the potential villain, it would be Moves. Which was total bullshit because he was at heart one of the best men I knew. It made me sick to my stomach that Claire would even suspect him of going after a sixteen-year-old girl.
The drug stuff was unfathomable as well. Moves only used violence to curtail drug dealing on our turf. He never left anyone with serious injuries. But then again, who knew if Claire saw it that way? She probably figured that Moves was beating up half of La Playa and dealing drugs to the other half while I fixed the books to make the money disappear.
I kicked the ground in frustration. I had to tell Moves and the others about this. We were going to have to look into what bikers were behind this, but I doubted we were going to have to look very far. This situation had Las Balas written all over it. Only people who didn’t understand biker culture and the differences between our clubs would mix us up.
My brothers needed to know what Las Balas was doing. Somehow we were going to have to curtail the drug dealing and possibly rescue a few teenagers. If those teenagers were even still within reach. It wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. My brothers would never cut me off, but they wouldn’t take it as no big deal that I had unwittingly brought a spy into our midst.
But first I had to continue replaying my past mistakes.
That night watching TV and talking had been the night things started to change for me. My feelings had started to grow. And the whole time she had just been waiting for me to fall asleep so she could jot down all her notes. Or had she? We hadn’t talked about Outlaw Souls the whole night. We talked about TV, food, our lives. A range of topics.
That just showed how good Claire was at a con. She never forced Outlaw Souls into conversation. She let me think that everything was natural. That it was natural for us to just fall asleep in each other’s arms. That it was natural for us to wake up and share breakfast and then just go for a ride.
First dates weren’t supposed to be like that. They weren’t supposed to last over twelve hours, and I wasn’t supposed to fall that hard for a girl on the first date. But Claire had manipulated the whole thing so I didn’t have a chance to stop and think. I should have tried to slow down, but instead I had surged ahead, positive that I had found someone special.
Then came the barbecue. That was the part that hurt the most. Thinking about how she had charmed all my brothers while the whole time searching for clues that weren’t there.
I paused at that. I was right. There hadn’t been any clues. Not even a hint of anything off about Outlaw Souls. If I knew one thing, it was that Claire wasn’t stupid. She had to have seen that Outlaw Souls wasn’t the type of club to dabble in criminal activity.
I thought back to this morning, as unpleasant as it was. I replayed the conversation. She had said something about Outlaw Souls. She had said theywerethe main suspects. She had said she knew they didn’t do anything.
But she could have been lying. She might have wanted to cover her ass and say whatever she had to in order to salvage a connection to me so she could continue her sleuthing. Then later, she had said she would keep investigating, but she hadn’t said she would keep investigating Outlaw Souls.
I growled in frustration. I couldn’t trust anything she said, but even now, I wanted to think that she no longer suspected us. I tried to remember the notes. She wouldn’t have lied in those notes. They had been detailed and precise and without bias, at least I could say that for Claire. She had written down a lot of no’s in regard to Outlaw Souls: no drug paraphernalia, no mention of drugs, no signs of addiction.
So maybe she had cleared Outlaw Souls, but that didn’t change the fact that she had been using me. I couldn’t think in detail about the night before. Each memory of how I had held her and slowly undressed her was like a knife to the gut. She had responded to my touch, had given back to me, but it had all been in the relentless pursuit of her investigation. Even if she no longer suspected the Outlaw Souls, she had only agreed to be with me because of her job. That tainted her actions.
Another line she had said this morning came back to me in startling clarity: “I wasn’t faking my feelings.” She had said that. She had also said that last night was real for her, but I had responded with anger and hatred.
“Lies,” I muttered. “She was lying.”
But I was no longer as certain. The self-righteous fury of the morning was beginning to trickle away. I was just sad now. I felt empty. I had lost something, and I was beginning to fear that I had even had anything to begin with. A small stupid part of myself hoped that maybe she had meant it. Maybe she hadn’t been faking.
I turned and got back on my bike. I couldn’t think like that. Outlaw Souls was the priority right now. I had to push my sadness to the side and go to my brothers. There was no going back and correcting my mistakes. I had to keep moving forward. And if that meant freezing my heart forever, then so be it.
I reminded myself that I had recovered from betrayal before, I could do it again.
