My fingers curled around my beer bottle.“That someone was me,” I said quietly.
Twister nodded once.“Figured.”
Gramps set his mug down at the bar.“Hell of a paper trail.”
Podge nodded from the couch.“Messy, but there’s a pattern.”
I looked at him.
He lifted the notebook slightly.“Numbers make patterns.So do names.”
“Of course you noticed that,” Nugget muttered.
Podge ignored him.
Twister kept his eyes on me.“Here’s the problem, Goldie.I don’t know what the fuck any of this has to do with my club.”
Suddenly, everyone was looking at me.
Wheels.
Twister.
Tempi.
Swift from the door.
Britta from near the kitchen.
Method, Gramps, Nugget, and Sully at the bar.
Hodge, Rev, and Podge from the couch.
Magnum and Chewy behind the bar.
All of them waiting.All of them expecting me to finally explain the nightmare I had dragged to their door.
My pulse jumped.For a second, I couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing in my ears.
I had made my choice when I walked up to their clubhouse and shoved that envelope into Wheels’ hands.I had made my choice when I ran.And maybe I’d made my choice before that, when I printed the first file I wasn’t supposed to see and started connecting names no one wanted connected.
Wheels shifted beside me, just enough for my shoulder to brush his arm.It was barely anything, but I felt it as a reminder.
I wasn’t in that city office alone anymore.
I wasn’t sitting in my apartment with all the lights off, listening for footsteps in the hall.
I wasn’t driving through the dark with headlights gaining behind me.
I was here, surrounded by men and women who had every reason to throw me out and hadn’t.
Still, my mouth felt glued shut.
Twister waited.No pressure.No yelling.No threats.That somehow made it worse.
“So,” I said, my voice rough.“We’re doing this now?”
Twister nodded once.“Seems like a good time to me.”
