“She wouldn’t,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I wasn’t sure anymore. I’d thought I knew Indira, thought Iunderstood how her mind worked. Turned out I didn’t know shit.
“Dutch.” Holden appeared in the doorway, his expression carefully neutral. “We need to talk.”
“I’m busy.”
“Now,” he said, in the tone that meant he wasn’t asking.
I did a double-take. What the fuck? In all the years Holden had been my road captain, he’d never used that tone with me. Nobody talked to the prez like that, not even my most trusted brothers. But there was something in his eyes—a kind of grim determination that told me this wasn’t a normal conversation.
I followed him out to the main room, where most of the brothers were gathered around the bar. They all looked up when I walked in, and I didn’t like what I saw in their faces. Concern mixed with something that looked like pity. What a bunch of pussies.
“What?” I snapped.
“Sit down,” Holden said.
“I don’t want to sit down. I want to find my woman.”
That’s what we need to talk about.” Colt leaned forward in his chair, and I could see the judgment in his eyes. My VP. The patch had been his for two years now, ever since our previous VP took three bullets to the chest during a deal gone bad with the Wolves. Colt’s ice-cold demeanor and ability to make hard calls without flinching made him perfect for the role—exactly what the club needed after we lost Axe.
Of all my brothers, he was the least likely to understand what I was going through. He’d patched over from the Death’s Head MC in Texas several years ago after some bitch had fucked him over—cheated on him, cleaned out their bank account, and disappeared while he was on a club run. There’d been bad blood after that. Colt couldn’t shake the feeling that his brothers back in Texas knew more about what had happened with his wife thanthey were letting on. He’d never been able to settle after that, never trusted them the same way. That’s why he’d left Death’s Head and come to us—needed a fresh start where nobody knew his story, where he didn’t have to wonder which of his brothers had been fucking his old lady behind his back.
Ever since his divorce, he’d sworn off anything resembling a relationship. Sure, he used the club girls when he needed to get off, but he never looked at a woman seriously. Never let one get close enough to hurt him again.
“Brother, you’ve been at this for ten days. Maybe it’s time to consider that she doesn’t want to be found.”
Colt’s words hit me like a punch to the gut. My hands curled into fists at my sides, jaw clenching so hard my teeth ached. “She’s upset,” I said, hearing the edge in my own voice. “She needs time to cool off.”
“Ten days isn’t cooling off,” Handful said quietly. “Ten days is making a statement.”
“What the fuck would you know about it?” I turned on him, my temper flaring. “You’ve never kept a woman longer than a weekend. Grab a handful of tit, get your dick wet, then you’re out.”
Handful’s face flushed, but he didn’t back down. “I know enough to recognize when someone’s done with your shit.”
“She’s not done. She’s just—”
“She’s gone, Dutch.” This from Glitch, who’d followed us out of the tech room. “I’ve been tracking everything I can legally track, and some things I can’t. The packing, the cash—maybe that was gut reaction. But she’s not on emergency leave anymore—she’s approved for full remote work now. That’s planned.”
The room spun. I gripped the edge of the bar, knuckles white, chest so tight I couldn’t breathe. “What?”
I’d gone to her office immediately after watching the security footage. Her boss had told me she’d taken emergency leave for afamily crisis, didn’t know when she’d be back. I’d stood there in that corporate bullshit lobby, wanted to tear the place apart, but I’d kept my cool. Barely. Her coworkers had looked at me like I was some kind of animal—probably because I was wearing my cut.
“When did that change?” I demanded.
“According to her company’s HR system, she submitted the remote work request two days after she caught you with Crystal,” Glitch said carefully. “Called in sick Thursday morning, then filed for emergency leave citing a family crisis. They approved temporary remote work within hours. Then a few days later, she converted it to permanent remote status. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision, Dutch. She was planning her exit from the moment she walked in on you.”
“That’s...” I tried to make sense of it. “She was just buying time to think.”
“Or she was buying time to disappear,” Holden said gently. “Dutch, she didn’t just pack a bag and storm off. She extracted herself from her life here.”
She hadn’t planned to catch me with Crystal, but the moment she did, she’d started planning her exit strategy. While I was trying to figure out how to smooth things over, she was already gone.
“Even if she was upset,” I said, “she still wouldn’t just disappear. She’d want to talk it out first.”
“She did confront you,” Colt said, his voice hard. “And you rightly told her it wasn’t her business.”
Holden nodded, rapping his knuckles on the bar. “Hear, hear.”
Handful joined in. “Club business is club business.”
