Unchain My Heart(62)

“Ryder, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” She stared at me for a long moment, trying to figure me out.

“I just need another beer. I’ll be fine.” I tried to smile, but it was a pretty lame attempt.

“Cobra made you the babysitter. You’re watching over the kids today, huh?” The amusement in her voice made me laugh. I nodded.

“Just keep an extra eye on Jamie, please. He had another asthma attack, and I’m worried about him.”

“Sure, Mama Mia,” I said, placing Isabella back in her chair, my back to Mia. I wanted to get back outside and watch over our family. My eye had started twitching, and I definitely didn’t want Mia to see it. All the guys teased me about it, but she knew better.

It frightened the living crap out of her.

Me too.





Chapter Forty-Five — Ryder


Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a movement. It was something glistening in the sunlight. Fuck, it was cliché as shit; it couldn’t possibly be anything suspicious. Could it? My nerves were raw. After everything that had happened during the last few months, it took the smallest thing to trigger my twitching eye.

I'd regretted ignoring the premonitions I’d had before, so this time I was double-checking. Even if I made a fool of myself, I’d rather err on the safe side. Since the last incident with Harrison and the cops, I’d convinced Cobra to put up security cameras everywhere so we could see what was going on outside our walls. Cobra didn’t need much of a hard sell; his nerves were as frazzled as mine.

Not wanting to seem too obvious, I sauntered over to the security room. Yeah, Hammer had set up a fucking state-of-the-art system any Swiss banker would be proud of. We were lucky to have the talented fucker on our team.

Pushing the door open, I was surprised as fuck that nobody was in the room. Wasn’t the point of having these cameras so that we could watch what was going on? Especially today? I growled; somebody was going to shit. Checking out each of the monitors in turn, I looked carefully for clues. I wasn’t trained to do this, but I knew I had to look for anything that appeared to be out of place. Just as I finished going through the monitors, coming up with nothing, Hammer walked in.

“What’s up, brother?” He lifted his chin in greeting.

“I should be asking you that question. Where’s the person who should be watching these fucking cameras?” I angled my head toward the screens, waiting for an explanation.

“He got the fucking runs—said his stomach is cramping and he had to run to the toilet. That’s why I’m here now. Anyway, why are you here?” He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at me. It wasn’t like me to check up on my brothers.

I trusted everyone to do their assigned fucking job, and didn’t keep watching over their shoulders to verify they were doing it right. I mean, there were only so many hours in a day; I had my own shit to worry about. But today I was worried about everything, especially as I hadn’t been at the club as much as I usually did. What if I missed something important?

“I saw something glisten outside. Too many bad movies in my youth.” I chuckled, feeling like a fool. I should leave the job to the experts and go do my part.

Hammer knew me too well. “Your fucking eye is twitching. Why is that?”

“Don’t know. Had it all day, but it's getting worse,” I admitted. There was no point in lying; anyone just had to look at me to see the fucking twitch go crazy. If only I could control it.

“Let’s look again, shall we? Maybe I see something you missed?”

I patted his back. Hammer was a good friend. He’d rather appease me than laugh it off. I appreciated that about him. After about three minutes he turned to me. “Nah, Ryder, it's just a shitload of bad movies—”

He stopped mid-sentence. “Hang on . . . those weren’t there before.” He zoomed in on a frame of the building next door to ours. Large drums and pallets were stacked in the driveway all along the wall that separated us.

“They’re just wooden pallets.” I chuckled nervously. I didn’t want to spook Hammer unnecessarily.

“No, they weren’t there this morning. It's fucking Sunday. Nobody works that yard on Sundays. Something isn’t right.”

He pressed a few buttons and took a closer look. He let out a long slow breath.

“We’re being watched. There are a few fuckers inside the building. The reflection you saw . . . it was probably when somebody opened the window. Must have caught the sun for a second or so.”

“Really? What the fuck?” I took a step closer to stare at the screen.

Hammer went to his computer and hit a few keys. “Jesus.”