Grief. Regret. Anger. All of it tangled together until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Travis had been watching me. Had been proud of me, and I never knew. I spent years hating him for leaving. For abandoning me with Mom and her endless parade of men who used her and threw her away. But he had been watching. He cared. And now it was too late.
“You ready to go?”
I spun around to find Morpheus standing in my doorway, his expression unreadable.
I hadn’t even heard him open the door. For a moment, I just stared at him, the letter still clutched in my hand. Then I nodded.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice rough. “I’m ready.”
I stood, folding the letter carefully and placing it on my desk beside my keyboard. I didn’t look at it again. Didn’t let myself think about what it meant or what I was going to do about Mellie. Right now, there was a mission. Right now, there was Arizona. Right now, there was blood to spill and a war to fight.
I followed Morpheus out of the room, pulling the door shut behind me, and I never looked back. What was the use?
There would never be someone to watch me walk away.
Everyone was waiting outside, brothers revving their bikes as I walked over to mine, flinging my leg over the seat, feeling the familiar weight and power between my legs, the rumble of the engine vibrating through my entire body. That was when I heard Poseidon curse loudly from across the lot, “She stole my fucking bike!”
Several brothers burst out laughing, some slapping their thighs, others shaking their heads in disbelief as I just sat there watching Poseidon completely lose his shit. His face was turning red, veins popping in his neck as he spun around looking for his prized Harley.
I didn’t blame him for the reaction. A biker’s motorcycle was sacred. Practically holy ground. It was an extension of who we were, a piece of our soul made of chrome and steel. You didn’t mess with another man’s bike. Period. Then again, I had to wonder if Poseidon really expected anything less from his wild, unpredictable sister. She had a talent for pushing boundaries and getting under his skin in the most creative ways possible.
She was a thief after all.
With no choice, Poseidon was forced to take one of the Brotherhood club vehicles, as we all pulled out and headed for Rapid City. The rumble of motorcycle engines filled the air as our convoy rolled down the highway, a dozen bikes strong. With the ledger recovered from Alex’s backpack, we had a list of businesses Arizona was syphoning money from to fund the Death Dogs. The ledger contained a hell of a lot more than that. Names, dates, transaction amounts, offshore account numbers, and what looked like coded references to shipments we couldn’t quite decipher yet, but for the moment, everyone hoped that one of the businesses might lead us to Arizona. It was our only solid lead, and we were running out of time.
During the ride, I tried hard not to think of Alex and why she’d walked away. The wind whipping past my helmet couldn’tdrown out the memory of her turning her back on me, couldn’t erase the look in her eyes when I turned my back on her. She made her choice, no matter how much that choice hurt. No matter how many times I replayed our last conversation in my head, searching for something I could’ve said differently. Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I really didn’t give her a reason to stay. I’d pushed her away more times than I could count, kept her at arm’s length when she was trying to get close, and now she was gone.
The second we hit the city limits, we broke up into groups and spread out.
Morpheus took Cerberus and Garrote to check the businesses on the north side. A pawn shop and a check-cashing place that showed up repeatedly in the ledger’s transaction logs. Carver and Scythe headed east toward a storage facility that had been flagged for irregular cash deposits. Wanderer and Vortex went south to canvas bars and strip clubs where Arizona might have connections.
I got 4th Street, Apartment 3B. The address Alex had given us two days ago while kneeling on that basement floor, broken and desperate and begging me to look at her.
Poseidon rode in the club vehicle he’d been forced to take after Alex stole his bike. He sat in the driver’s seat, silent and brooding, his jaw tight as he stared out the window at the passing streets. When we pulled up to the apartment complex, he got out, slamming the door. Walking up the stone path, he finally muttered, “She always did have a talent for making an exit.”
I didn’t respond. Didn’t know what to say.
She stole your bike because she needed to disappear. Because staying meant facing what I did to her. What we all did to her.But I kept that thought to myself.
The apartment building was a shithole. Four stories of crumbling brick and rusted fire escapes, wedged between a liquor store and a laundromat in a part of town where nobody asked questions. The kind of place where people came to disappear.
Perfect for someone like Arizona. The entrance was propped open with a cinder block, the lock long since broken. Inside, the hallway smelled like piss and mold. The walls were covered in graffiti and water stains.
“Third floor,” I hissed, my hand moving to the gun tucked into my waistband.
Poseidon nodded, his expression grim. We took the stairs slowly, our boots silent on the worn concrete. The building was quiet, too quiet. No sounds of TVs or arguments or crying babies. Just the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant drip of water somewhere in the walls.
Apartment 3B was at the end of the hall. The door was closed. No light was visible underneath. I pressed my ear against the wood and listened.
Nothing. Poseidon met my eyes, and I nodded. He stepped back, and I tried the handle.
Unlocked.
Fuck.
I pushed the door open slowly, my gun raised, sweeping the room as I entered. Empty.
The apartment was small. A studio with a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a single window overlooking the alley. The furniture was minimal: a mattress on the floor, a folding table, and a chair. No personal items. No clothes. No food in the fridge.
