My throat tightens and a deep instinctiveknowingrises in my gut. I quickly suppress the feeling, because I have no proof. She’s pissed at me because I want a divorce over the Damara thing. But she hasn’t been having an affair recently…
She changed.
“She’s not sleeping with anyone else.”
“Are you sure?” Wyatt asks gently. He rolls that stupid pair of green dice over the tops of his knuckles.He knows something.Hot shame burns my face that I try not to let show. It’s bad enough that Tylee cheats, she can’t even keep it a secret. I stayed with her so our kids wouldn’t come from a broken home but all she ever does is throw shit my way.
This time I’ve had it. But I don’t have a good answer to Wyatt’s question.
“No. I’m not sure.”
“I’ve been wondering if it has something to do with the folks who attacked Zeb and Janelle.”
“Where did you folks land on that?”
I’ve been too preoccupied with my own shit to worry much about Zeb’s problems. He was an Army Ranger – he can handle himself.
“Those guys might still be a problem,” Wyatt explains. “Bunch of guys, former disgraced DHS and cops… People like that. The only thing is, what are their motives? Do they want some kind of revenge on the people who kicked them out, or are they still after immigrants? Black people. That kind of thing.”
“Fuck if I know.”
Neither Wyatt’s expression nor posture have eased even slightly. There’s more he has to say about this and his poker face is as good as ever even without practice because I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“Tylee might be sleeping with one of them.”
“One of who?”
Bikers? Immigrants? Cops?
I meet Wyatt’s gaze, even if I wish I didn’t have to. But if he’s going to tell me that his sister, and my wife, is sleeping with another man, I want to look him directly in the eye and believe that it’s the truth.
“Biker. Guy who goes by the name of Scum.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“He’s the right hand to whoever the leader is but… Tamiya and Gideon haven’t turned up anything yet.”
Scum. The syllables turn around in my head and I wish I could say I felt a sick, twisting knife ripping at my guts. I sure felt that way the first time. By the second time Tylee screwed up, I had learned that this was something wrong she had going on with her. She didn’t understand loyalty because of the complicated situation with her dad and his marriages. I tried to give her space to grow. To learn how to stop spreading her legs for every man who was nice to her.
Was it all a lie? Was she never really coerced those times but playing games with me…
It’s even more humiliating than ever to have this playing out in front of Wyatt Shaw. He has the decency not to mock me, but that’s only because he knows facing this shit head on is enough of an embarrassment.
“I’ll bring you to the meeting point,” Wyatt says. “Our goal here is simple. We get her to sign the divorce papers.”
“Understood.”
“There’s no coming back from this Isaac. Even if you wanted to take my sister back, I won’t let you.”
“I can’t let the kids grow up watching this shit.”
I hate who I’ve become with this woman and the scariest part is that this is who I’ve been my entire life. Don’t think I’m capable of loving somebody else, which means I threw it all away on a woman who can’t possibly love me back.The knot in my stomach gets so big that I think I’m going to explode. And you have to shove shit deep when you’re a man. Especially in our line of work.
“That’s right,” Wyatt says patiently. He has nothing but patience for the bullshit situation I’ve found myself in. “The kids deserve better than this.”
“She’s never going to agree to share custody with me.”
“Tylee won’t have a choice,” Wyatt says bitterly. “If Anna pulled the shit she has, kidnapping the kids and disappearing across state lines, I would have spanked her ass raw and locked her up.”
