A voice called behind us, soft and confused.“...Goldie?”
Goldie went completely still.Her eyes went wide, and slowly she turned.
Standing in the open front doorway was a blonde woman carrying two reusable grocery bags.She looked between all of us, then at the destroyed living room.Confusion spread across her face.“Goldie?”The grocery bags slipped from her hands.
“Novalea!”Goldie’s voice cracked.She threw herself across the room, wrapping both arms around her sister so hard they nearly stumbled backward onto the porch.
Novalea hugged her just as tightly.She looked over Goldie’s shoulder at the broken furniture, shattered pictures, and the strange men in leather cuts with guns.
“Goldie...”She swallowed.“Can you please tell me why my house is destroyed, and Sons of Anarchy is standing in my living room?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hodge
The Ledger had gotten what they came for.The second set of papers was gone, and Goldie’s sister was alive, though.
That fact should’ve made me feel better.
It didn’t.
I leaned back in one of the wooden chairs out front of the clubhouse and tipped the front legs off the concrete.The chair creaked beneath me as I balanced on two legs and stared out across the street.
The picture kept replaying in my head.
Not Gene getting his head blown off.I’d seen enough death in my life that it wasn’t the part sticking with me.
It was the damn picture of me.
Standing outside the clubhouse.
Why?
I ran through every possibility for what had to be the hundredth time.Was I standing where I shouldn’t have been?Did I know somebody they wanted?Had I missed something?
Nothing fit.
I scrubbed both hands over my face and let out a slow breath.“Think, asshole.”
Nothing.Absolutely nothing.
The front door behind me opened, and I didn’t bother looking.
I knew the footsteps.Wheels.
He stopped beside me.“You coming in?”
“In a bit.”
“You’ve been sitting out here for an hour.”
“I know.”
He leaned against the doorframe.“You gonna tell me what’s going on in that thick skull of yours?”
I snorted.“Not much.”
“Bullshit.”
