“I just keep thinking that there has to be some reason behind all of this. Then I ask myself if I’m being paranoid. It could have been random. Wrong place, wrong time type of thing. But what if it was her connection to me that got her snatched up?” And my connection to the club, but I didn’t need to say that.
“Yeah,” he said like he completely agreed. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as his gaze went distant. “But who would it be? We’re good with the Russians and the Irish. Don’t have any problem with the Italians as long as we stay out of their way. I think we’ve done good on that so far. D13 don’t give a shit about us as long as we stay on our side of the line.”
He shook his head like there was something he couldn’t figure out. I was on the same page.
My phone chimed, ringing out almost too loudly in the room. It did nothing to break the tension that was hanging around. As I reached for it, I had this feeling of dread in my gut. I read the text message then looked up at Prez.
“Prospect says the manager is in Laurel’s place. Looks like he’s taking stuff out,” I said getting to my feet and ready to take off. Only as I stood, I realized I was too far gone to drive.
“I’ll drive. We’ll take one of the SUVs.” He patted me on the back as we made our way out of the room.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” I roared the moment I stumbled over the threshold to Laurel’s apartment. “This isn’t your fucking stuff. Get your goddamn hands off of it.”
“Look, man,” the skinny, dirty middle-aged man said holding up his hands in surrender. “This bitch ain’t been here in like two fuckin’ weeks. She’s late on her damn rent, again. The way I sees it, she couldn’t hack it and left. No rent, no place. I gotta make money, too.”
I took in a deep calming breath. Yeah, the loss of the apartment was nothing to cry over but that didn’t mean I didn’t care about her stuff. And though it wasn’t much, it was hers and I had been around to see how hard she worked just to keep that shit hole.
“Fine, but don’t you touch another fucking thing. We’ll have it cleared out tonight.” I stood tall and stared him down.
“Be my guest,” he said walking to the door. “I’m changing the locks first thing in the morning,” he said like he was trying to get one last jab in.
I didn’t even bother to tell him how shitty those locks were and that I could get in here if I damn well wanted to. It didn’t matter anyway because come morning, this place would be completely empty.
I didn’t need to fill Iron in, seeing as he was standing there in the doorway.
“I’ll get some more prospects over here. I’ll have them get a bunch of boxes,” he said pulling out his phone and putting it up to his ear a second later.
I didn’t wait around to see how long it was going to take. I walked over to the bed, swallowing down the lump in my fucking throat. As I snatched the sheets off the mattress, her scent swirled in the stale air around me. It hit me so damn hard and I could feel the moisture building up in my eyes. Which was stupid, really. Or was it? In a way, I almost couldn’t believe that it had taken me this long to crack.
There was so much weighing me down. I felt like I’d been doing everything I could just to crawl my way through every day. I guess all it took was being smack dab in the middle of where so many memories had been made. All those moments with her were here.
Tangled in the sheets talking.
Curled up on the couch eating.
Standing in the so-called kitchen area laughing.
I swore I could still hear that magical sound bouncing off the empty walls now. It was messing with my head.
“You okay, brother?” Iron said as he came back into the apartment and slapped me on the back.
I shook my head, trying my best to snap out of it.
“Yeah,” I said, my throat raw and my voice low.
“Mason is bringing a truck so we can load up the big stuff. We can store it in one of the empty rooms at the compound for now.”
“Sounds good. Thanks,” I choked out then finished stripping the bed.
With four prospects, Mason, Iron, Mouse, Ky, and myself, we were able to have the place packed up and cleared out in under two hours. To be fair, there wasn’t exactly that much there. But I wanted to make sure that I got everything. You just never knew what was important to someone. It could have been something as silly as a bottle of lotion. And I didn’t want to get her back and have that one item be the thing that set her over the edge.
We got back to the compound and unloaded everything into one of the empty rooms in the second building. I hated to see everything she owned reduced to a few pieces of furniture and a handful of boxes. I may not have been in her upscale condo more than twice, but I had seen all the fancy shit that filled that place up. I also saw all the shit she left behind. And all the things she didn’t even think twice about as she walked out of that condo for the last time.
And now there was only this. It didn’t seem like enough but Laurel never complained. I suddenly wondered if she would let me change that. If I had been straight up with her before and told her how I felt. If she had let me in. Would she even have let me take care of her as I truly wanted to do? None of that trying to be sneaky shit, showing up to her apartment with food claiming I had extra or a craving. I forever wondered if she saw through my act. And if she did, how hard was it for her to accept it. Maybe it helped that I told little white lies about it. Maybe that was just enough for her to feel okay.
But then I thought of her letter and it was clear that she knew. And she never said anything. She never stopped me. So maybe I had been placing imaginary roadblocks when I should have just been straight with her.
Sadly, none of that mattered right now. How much would she hate me because I cleared her apartment out? It would have been no problem for me to pay the rent. Hell, I could have paid the next year for her. And I would have too, without even batting an eye, but it wasn’t even worth it. I would find her somewhere that was more secure. Where I didn’t feel like shit for leaving her in the middle of the night. Where I didn’t have to scoot around drug deals going on in the hall just to get to her door.
