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“I know,” Colt said, his tone somber. He reached for my hand and gently pulled me toward the fireman in charge.
“Sir, please step back,” the fire chief said. He was in his mid-fifties and clearly had been doing this a long time, long enough to have a sense of authority on the scene.
“My girlfriend’s house,” Colt explained.
The man’s brown eyes shot to me. “Your home?”
I nodded. “How did this happen?”
“We won’t know for a bit yet,” he answered vaguely. “You were lucky you weren’t inside.”
“Yeah. Lucky.”
“Excuse me. I need to talk to my crew.” The fire chief dipped his head and then turned and walked away.
I heard the sound of motorcycles and immediately pressed myself against Colt.
“Relax,” he said. “They’re ours.”
A few moments later, I saw, Boxer, Reap, and Cheese striding toward us.
“Acid parked the van on the other side of the intersection,” Boxer said. “We couldn’t get through. What the hell happened?” His gaze took in the smoking remains of the house.
“My home caught fire,” I said, suddenly exhausted, bone-weary.
“Fuck,” Cheese murmured.
I started to shake. Every keepsake, every photograph, my entire family history was in that house.
“This is bad shit,” Reap said.
The men began to talk in low voices but it sounded like I was underwater and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I somehow found it within me to detach from Colt’s side and walk to the fire chief.
“Sorry to bother you,” I said, gaining his attention. “I just wanted to give you my number so you can reach me when you have more of an idea about what happened.”
As he took my information, he asked me a ton of questions to make sure I wasn’t committing insurance fraud.
“If I had to guess the cause, I’d say it was faulty electrical,” he said after finishing his questions and realizing I’d had nothing to do with the fire.
“Faulty electrical. Sure.” I nodded even though I was screaming inside. Dev and the Iron Horsemen had done this. They were toying with me, instilling fear, trying to manipulate me into giving them what Richie had taken from them.
My phone rang and it said UNKNOWN.
“Excuse me?”
The fire chief nodded in dismissal.
I moved away from the mayhem and walked down the block to get some distance and privacy. “Hello?”
“How’s your house?” Dev asked, his tone light. Comical.
“I think you know.”
Dev laughed. “Yeah, I do.”
“Why did you do it?” I heard my voice. It sounded cool, detached.
“Simple. You take something from me, I take something from you.”
