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Maria continued to arrange the package, but her focus remained on him. “So why do they suspect you?”

“She’s got people looking out for her, who don’t like the fact that maybe a time or two I looked her way. They think I’m bad news.”

“Bad can be a good thing.” A wicked grin. “So what did you tell the cops when they asked where you were last night?”

“I was at home. Alone.”

She tsked. “Not much of an alibi.”

Exactly, but he wanted her to believe he spent his nights home alone. “They’re going to need more than suspicion to nail me for attempted murder.”

Another mistrustful look. “What motive would you have for trying to hurt her in the first place?”

“Her brother seems to think I took offense to her noninterest in me.”

“Did you?”

“I told you already, she’s roses and rings and carpools. She’s a picket-fence life, and I’m a lone wolf.”

She grinned at that. “My lone wolf.” The possessive tone irked him.

“Not yours. I told you, I’m not looking to be with anyone right now.”

She fiddled with the tissue paper. “Oh, but you are mine because we share a secret.” She thought she had him under her thumb.

“A mutually destructive secret,” he reminded her. “So don’t go thinking you’ve got something on me.”

She stood tall and faced him head on. “Just so long as you understand I run things.”

He raised a brow and challenged that assertion. “You? Not Lobo?”

She waved that off like it was nothing. “He’s a fucking idiot who’s all about the pack and loyalty and ride or die.” She rolled her eyes. “He believes in the brotherhood and working together for all of you.” The dismissive tone told him she really believed that all to be meaningless. It meant a lot to the guys who belonged to the MC.

He studied her. “You don’t think that’s a good thing?”

“In the last five years, the legit side of this MC has brought in very little money. Enough to sustain the club, buy the booze, pay the rent, and help out a few guys who found themselves in a jam.”

Sounded right to him. “Isn’t that the point of paying the dues and taking on a few legit jobs here and there to benefitallthe members?”

“And yet I’ve pulled a few of the guys out of debt and provided the means for them to better their lives. I’m giving you a way out of all that manual labor, scraping by on jobs with low margins just so you can win the bid and get the work.” Smart thinking.

He didn’t underestimate anyone on the job. People may look and talk a certain way, but you never knew who they really were, or what they were hiding, until you dug down deep and allowed them to show you the truth.

For months, she hadn’t even been on his radar.

Now he knew the fun, flirty woman hid a cold-blooded side.

“Construction is honest work.”

She cocked her head. “Don’t you want more?”

“I took the job, didn’t I?”

She studied him more closely. “And it didn’t seem to impact you the way it did the others. Scratch, Cueball, Bleaker, Spike . . . they all came back from their first job amped but also in a kind of shock, like they couldn’t believe they’d done it, even though they had past experience with such deadly things.”

Viper appreciated her giving him a list of the players. He’d already put the four on his short list of possible suspects because of their backgrounds. It didn’t get past him that she’d done her homework, too, and only approached those in the club who already had the capacity to commit murder. None of them, except for Spike, had ever taken a life prior to working for her, but they all had violence in their past.

“If you’re concerned about my mental health, don’t be. Last night... not my first rodeo.” And that was the sad truth. Though he hadn’t killed that asshole’s wife last night, he’d killed before. It weighed on him, but it didn’t stop him from doing the job and meting out more justice.