Page 8

Willa

A tlas said surprise him, so I’m making soft boiled eggs. They rumble against each other in the pot on the industrial gas stove. It was hell on earth getting it up here from the main floor, but I couldn’t let it die a dusty death where I found it sitting and rusting. A little cleaning up and five guys from Atlas’ club to sweat and curse as they moved it, and it was good as new.

Not everything can be made new so simply.

I can’t stop thinking about Atlas in the bathroom. I wasn’t sure what came over me when I decided to tie him up earlier. Well, I do know. Last night he was getting too inside his head, I saw the look on his face, the way he was retreating into himself. Tying him up was a way of forcing him to be in the moment. If he’d objected, then I’d have released him straight away and probably be mortified. But it seemed to do the trick. However, now I’m worried about what comes next.

I flip the back bacon over, the pink has darkened nicely on both sides, the yellow cornmeal edging turning a golden brown.

Lynette used to tell me that a little bit of self-doubt goes a long way towards self-preservation. It was her nice way of saying stop and think for a change. Unbeknownst to her, I’ve been doing just that from a very early age. We just think differently.

The eggs reach the end of their seven minutes, and when my phone timer goes off, I drain them, hopefully the yolks will be perfectly jammy. I pop six slices of rye bread into the toaster and press them down.

Should I have waited? Atlas’ heart is still a graveyard, haunted by the past. He’s not someone who makes a decision overnight. He’s no poet, but he is a deep thinker. He needs time to adjust to this, but I also don’t want to give him too much space or he’ll start second guessing himself and inserting doubts, planting land mines all over what could be good and beautiful.

He emerges, wet hair slicked back behind his ears, walking sin and good enough to eat… again… right as the toast pops up.

“Good timing.” I try to sound casual, but the words probably come out sounding anything but.

I put four eggs, the whole pan of bacon, and the six pieces of toast onto his plate. It looks like a feat for twelve, but I noticed how little he ate last night at his parents’ house, due to the uncomfortable conversation, no doubt. He worked hard yesterday, and we have metric fuck-ton of work to do unloading that trailer into the back shop area this morning.

“These are still in the shell?” It sounds more like a question than a statement.

“Yeah. Soft boiled.”

“That’s exciting.”

My stomach is a wreckage of butterflies, nerves, and anxiety brought on by all the second guessing, but the storm goes quiet when Atlas steps past the island, bypassing his plate, and covers my hand. I study his fingers, work roughened with short, blunt nails.

Finally, I tear my eyes from our hands, straight to his face. He brushes his other hand over my jaw in a sweet caress that heats my whole body and pebbles my nipples under my long sleeved black shirt.

“I’ve never told you how sexy those pants look on you.”

“They’re just cargos. Work pants.” Made of duck canvas, they’re thick and durable. I wear them for all my unloading and for at least half of my picks so that I don’t destroy my regular clothes.

“Mmm. I’d love to take them off you.”

My heart explodes. He could be trying to claw his way back behind his walls, but instead, he’s intentionally reaching out to me.

“Sit down and eat before your breakfast gets cold.” I shudder at the thought of goopy, congealed yolks.

“That’s what the microwave is for,” he protests.

“Easy there, slugger. Microwaved eggs explode and toast would turn to leather. Save some strength for unloading. You’ll need it.”

His cock rams into my stomach as he presses closer, tugging my lower lip between his teeth. The thought of him without boxers on under those jeans threatens to turn me into an animal, so I force myself away.

“You’re hungry. Eat. Please.”

He curls around the island reluctantly, pulling out a stool and arching his huge body over his plate, but when he tucks into his food, he eats like he hasn’t had anything for weeks.

He’s finished long before I make myself a few slices of bacon and toast, and walks to the fridge like he lives here, gets out the store bought cake in the silver tray, and starts in on that with a fork while leaning casually against the counter.

I know that we still have so much to sort out and talk about, but this gives me hope. It would make me feel a thousand percent better if I knew that he had hope too, a balm to all his inner aches that he disguises so carefully.

***

After breakfast, Atlas backs the trailer up to the single loading dock door that’s left. It opens up to a large space in the back that’s closed off from the rest of the store. There are several workbenches back here with carefully arranged tools, as well as a large sorting and storage space. I can work on anything that needs some TLC before it goes out onto the floor. Most antiques need some love, whether it’s repair or just cleaning.

Loading always takes forever, but the unloading isn’t nearly as bad. The back is getting full, which means that I should start cleaning and pricing and stop worrying about going out picking.

Atlas carries the heavy trunk in for me, even though I beg him to let me help. He sets it down and we both ignore it until the trailer is empty. I close and lock it, and Atlas parks it for me neatly in the side stall in line with my pink station wagon.

The first thing he does when we get back inside is to grab a grinder off the peg on the far wall above the workbench. “We had better cut that lock off.”

“What?” I rush to the trunk and throw myself in front of it dramatically. “Never!”

“ Willa .” He proffers the grinder menacingly. “You can’t use the trunk like that. You won’t be able to sell it with the mystery contents inside. Do you think you can find a key for this thing?”

“No,” I admit. “It’s old and that would take some time, and even then, buying a random one might not work. I’d have to research what they even look like. It could take weeks.”

“Looks like cutting it is the only option.”

“It doesn’t matter if it sits back here for weeks!”

I might be fighting against the idea, but now I’m kind of intrigued by what’s in there. You can buy rustic, antique looking locks online for twenty bucks, and even the real things don’t cost all that much. It’s silly to protest like this.

“You promise that you won’t damage the trunk?”

Atlas sets the grinder down and find a small piece of plywood in the scrap wood crate near the roll up door we just closed. He wedges it between the lock and the trunk with care.

“If I slip off the lock, I’ll hit that wood. I won’t damage the trunk. You have my word.”

“It’s beautiful. One of the nicest ones I’ve ever seen. If it got a few new battle scars, I’d be devastated.”

“I promise.”

He’s basically asking if I trust him. I’d trust him with my life. I’ve wanted to tell him that for so long.

I back away from the trunk, but when he fires up the grinder, I quickly grab a set of safety glasses. He stops for me and puts them on without an argument, even though I know he hates wearing them.

He works through the lock slowly, but still, it takes almost no time at all for the grinder to make quick work of the old metal. A steady stream of sparks shoots over the concrete floor, and then the lock falls apart and drops to the ground .

Atlas kills the grinder. He replaces it and sheds the safety glasses before he points to the trunk. “Do you want to do the honors?”

It’s silly, but my throat is suddenly dry. I’m afraid I’m going to lift that lid and there really will be bodies in there. I grasp the lid and flip it up fast, using more force than necessary because I anticipate that it’ll need some encouragement after being sealed for all those years, but it pries apart easily without sticking or groaning.

“Holy mother fuck!” I yelp, staggering back.

Atlas comes running. He wraps his arms around me and wheels me, acting as a human shield. “Shit!” He slowly releases me, but I grab his hand and hold it in a murderously tight grip as we both stare into the trunk.

“Holy balls, please tell me that’s fake.”

He picks up one brick of bills and sifts through it before pulling one crisp hundred off the top of the stack and checking it over. “I don’t think it’s fake, but I’m no expert.” He inhales sharply after setting the brick back beside all the neatly arranged other stacks of bills. “Fuck. I knew we shouldn’t have taken this.”

“What would something like this be doing stashed in Agatha’s old barn? It hasn’t been touched back there for ages—oh shit .” It makes horrible sense now why the back part of the barn was blown clean, and it wasn’t because Agatha was back there or due to the wind blowing through the slats. “It did look like someone had come through the back. This trunk was only barely covered and not as dirty as the rest of the barn.”

Atlas tugs me away like the trunk is doing to implode at any second. “If you were looking to stash a lot of cash for a short time, where would you hide it?”

“Somewhere no one would think to look.”

I fall back flat on my ass. “Holy fuck, but why?” I scramble up before Atlas can answer. “We need to get back to Agatha’s and warn her!”

Atlas wraps his arms around me and thrusts me in against him, holding me so tight, like that alone can ward off the Pandora’s chest we just busted wide open. “We’re putting this trunk right the fuck back and going and getting Agatha out of there. This isn’t safe. Only a major criminal would have cash like this. There’s probably a quarter million there or more.”

“We’ll just put it back. They’ll never know.”

“The barn’s clearly been gone through. If they don’t know it’s missing already, they will soon. No one is going to leave this amount of money unchecked. They’ll be watching. I’d be surprised if they don’t already know it’s gone.”

“Oh my god.”

He clasps my hands, bringing them to his mouth and brushing kisses over my knuckles, a new calm smoothing out his worried features. I know that face. It’s his take charge expression.

“Call her. Tell her that we’re coming for her in a few hours and to stay in the house and call us immediately if she sees anyone around her yard. I’d bet they’d come at night and not in bright daylight if they’re going to come at all, and maybe we do still have a bit of time until they realize it’s gone.”

I’m still trying to sort through the how and why of this.

“You can’t just launder that much money at once,” Atlas explains, even though I haven’t spoken out loud. “Whoever put it there was probably being watched, or they didn’t want anyone else to know about it.”

I’m two seconds away from freaking out, but Atlas hugs me. Hard. I know it’s just an illusion, but having his arms locked around me like steel grips makes it seem like nothing is going to get us.

“Shh,” he sooths, though I still haven’t said anything and I’m biting back the sob that wants to burst out. “We’ll go straight to the club.”

“We can’t just leave this here!” I mutter frantically into his shoulder.

His hand smooths over my hair. “You’re right. We’ll have them come to us. I’ll call Bullet right after I call Tyrant.” A horrible hiccup comes out of me, followed by a whimper. Not the sob I’ve been suppressing, but still a sound of unmistakable panic and misery. Atlas turns my face up, so I can drink in his calm. “Wizard has good security around this place, yeah? Trust me. We’re okay.”

“Why didn’t I just listen to you?”

“If you had, whoever put this there might have got scared after seeing us in the barn and they could have attacked Agatha, thinking she knew something about it. It’s better this way. At least we can keep her safe. Plus, if someone’s doing something illegal around here, the club should know. We’ve eradicated the smalltime scum, but this is no smalltime shit. We can’t have something like this going on right under our noses.”

I wish I didn’t have to ask, but I can’t help it. “Something like what?”

“Drugs or weapons. I don’t see another way.”

“Maybe it’s Agatha’s. Maybe it does belong to her. Maybe she put it there and forgot about it.”

“The bills are too new. She wouldn’t have let you buy the trunk if that was the case, and if she didn’t trust the bank, what’s wrong with her basement? She has no idea. I’m certain.”

What Atlas said about calling Bullet finally sinks like a rock settling at the bottom of my gut. “Lynette’s pregnant. This is going to upset her. Oh my god, what if it upsets her so much that—”

“Hey. Hey.” He cups my face, and my eyes lock on his, burning like bright cobalt. “Every single one of the old ladies knows what it takes to be with a man who belongs to a club like ours. We might be one of the better clubs, but there’s still no end to potential problems and even violence that could arise. Our life isn’t for the faint of heart. They know that it could be dangerous.”

“Harold kidnapped my sister,” I protest, thinking back to that horrible time last year. “I don’t want her ever having to go through anything like that again.”

“You need to watch out for yourself too,” he cautions, as though I’m reckless.

“I will. I can.” Something else needles into my brain, inflating that ballooning panic in my chest again. “But we need to make sure the club is on top of keeping your family safe as well. Anything and anyone this touches. We can’t let anyone become a target. I’d never forgive myself if someone we loved got hurt because I had to have a stupid trunk.”

“Willa.” He pauses. Like he’s not sure what to say.

I put his cell into his palm. “Call the club. We had better get moving on this. At least the bonus is that our going back to Agatha’s doesn’t have to look suspicious. Your bike’s there. We were going to get it anyway.”

“That’s true. But we need to assume that they know, and that they know who took their cash and where we are.”

“If they knew, wouldn’t they be here already? They could have just broken into the trailer last night and I never would have known the difference. Sure, there’s cameras around the place, but they could have worn masks, and we never would have been able to identify them.”

“Good point,” he muses, scrolling through his contacts to find Tyrant’s number. “They might not know yet, but if that’s true, we should make sure they can’t follow us back when we get my bike and pick up Agatha. I’ll get Wizard on that.”

“Wizard does way too much. How come you guys don’t have other IT guys or people who are good at tracking and finding those who don’t want to be found?”

Atlas’ sandy brows crash down over his nose. “That’s a good question. I don’t know. But for a while now, Wizard has been handling way too much. It’s probably time that we find someone else. I’ll bring that to Tyrant too. No doubt they’re going to call church before they make any decisions.”

Atlas’ thumb is covering over his contact list and I ask him in the smallest whisper I’ve ever heard myself utter. “When you call Bullet, please tell him not to leave my sister alone, whatever he does. Take her to the club, or bring her here with him.”

He nods firmly.

“And please ask Tyrant to have someone drive past your parents’ house regularly from here on out. Maybe… oh fuck, maybe your sister too? I know she’s still there —would she be in danger in Seattle?”

“Don’t worry. It won’t be the first time we’ve pissed off someone. I know the drill.” Despite his reassurance, his jaw tightens. He hates this, but he’s trying to control his emotions so that he doesn’t scare me. He’s my rock now, but the storm is chipping away at him too.

I’ve never been more thankful to the club in all my life, and there have been so many times already in this past year where they’ve saved our asses, and made my life here, my dreams, and my business a reality.

They take an oath of loyalty when they join that club, of brotherhood, and I know that every man in the place will have Atlas’ back through this, and by extension, mine.

The storm might be intensifying, but we won’t have to weather it alone.