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She started giggling.
It was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.
“Until then, I want you to start making a list of places you want to go visit around here. Then we’ll go hang out without your brothers to tell us where we can and can’t go.” I paused. “Anytime you need me, Carrie, I’m here. Anytime.”
Then a thought occurred to me.
Carrie and Sara could talk.
Sara could act like she was fixed all day long. But had she been fixed, she wouldn’t have waited fifteen years to tell me—and Davis—what had happened to her.
Yeah, I’d get the two of them together for sure.
Maybe they could go see Dutch back to back, and then we could all go have a bad lunch afterward.
Thoughts and plans blooming in my mind at rapid speed, I headed out to the truck in the driveway with the crew at my back and sides.
Cassius and Etienne were incredibly overcautious as they guided me toward the truck. And only once we were inside and out of the open air did they finally relax.
“I hate being in the truck.” Alice sighed to Cassius.
I, in the middle of both Alice and Matilda, stayed silent as they talked about being cooped up in the trucks instead of on the motorcycles they usually rode on.
I shuddered.
“Riding in the rain is a very bad thing to do,” I said. “Riding after the rain is just as bad.”
I recalled the ground the night my dad had his accident. It’d been raining all damn day. According to my dad’s friends, the ground should’ve been fine. Apparently, right when you were out and it was first raining, the ground became its most slick because of all the oil and residue on the roads. The water made them slippery as hell, and until that all washed off, the roads could be dangerous.
Alice looked over at me. “I’ve heard that only true bikers ride in the rain.”
I shook my head. “True or not, riding in the rain is still dangerous. I mean, first, there’s visibility. Bikers are already on the low end of the totem pole when it comes to being seen on the roads. It’s as if we’re invisible. Add rain into the mix, and that’s just a recipe for disaster.” I fiddled with my hands for a few seconds. “But the true problem is the roads. Two tires are worse than four. Less traction. If you go into a slide, there’s nothing to keep you stable. You’re going to go down.”
Alice frowned slightly. “Why do I feel like you know this from experience?”
I opened my mouth to tell her that I knew because my father had paid the price for his inability to read the situation outside and then ended up blurting out the entire story.
“I can still picture the bloodstains on the guardrail,” I said, almost in a trancelike state.
“You saw it all?” Matilda asked, slightly ill sounding.
“I did,” I confirmed. “I gathered my dad’s entrails, too. Tried to help the paramedics. Him. I don’t know. I can still feel them in my hands.”
I squeezed my hands as if in remembrance.
“So I hate to tell you this,” Alice said to Cassius, “but you’re never, ever, ever allowed to ride in the rain ever again.”
I snickered.
Cassius shot me a murderous glance in the rearview mirror.
I shrugged.
Maybe a little bit of caution on his part would do him a bit of good.
My phone rang in that next instant, so I was unable to apologize—even if it was a fake one.
I frowned when I saw the unfamiliar eight-hundred number.
“Hello?” I answered.
There was a beep and then, “Hello, this is Margery Messi with Secure Sano Securities. We’re calling because of a possible break-in.”
I felt my stomach drop out. “Um, what happened?”
“The back door silent alarm was tripped. Do I have your express permission to open up the internal cameras?” she asked.
I immediately gave my permission, then put the phone on speaker before going to the camera app that Kobe had installed onto my phone. Once I’d given my face ID, I opened up the app and immediately clicked on the cameras.
Why hadn’t I gotten a notification?
My best guess? The two of them, Kobe and Davis, hadn’t wanted me to be aware if shit hit the fan at my house. Most likely, because as long as I wasn’t aware, I wouldn’t try to do anything crazy, like going over there to confront anyone.
Not that I would.
“We have an adult male, six foot, white. Short-hewn hair with black clothes in your main living room.” She paused. “He’s, ah, taking your wall down.”
I blinked as I clicked into that camera specifically.
Sure enough, there was a man that I didn’t know taking my wall down with a crowbar and a hammer.
He was making a mess.
And I was lucky that my birds weren’t right up in the middle of it all.
