Chapter 1 NOVA
NOVA
“Hey,” I answered my sister’s call.
“Hey, where are you?”
Prison. “Just running some errands over lunch,” I lied as I crossed the parking lot for my car. Behind me, the state penitentiary loomed behind a twelve-foot chain-link fence topped with rows of razor wire.
“Oh, good. Can you swing by for like five minutes? I need to get this cake loaded into the van, but I can’t lift it by myself.
I was stupid and didn’t think ahead. I should have done it in two parts and assembled it at the bank.
Jack is stuck in a meeting until three and Mom isn’t answering her phone.
I need to have it delivered by two for this guy’s retirement party. ”
“Um . . .” Shit. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I need to get back to work. I’m swamped.”
“You’re already out running errands. Five minutes. Pretty, pretty please? You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. I even went to Mrs. Frank next door, but she was gone. I promise to give you a cupcake when you come over.”
Shelby had just started her own business making custom cakes.
She was baking out of her house, but it had taken off faster than she’d expected thanks to a string of satisfied brides who’d hired her to decorate their wedding cakes.
Missoula was one of the larger towns in Montana, but word of mouth still traveled fast through the right circles.
Her orders had exploded, and she was hesitant to turn away business, so while she searched for the right assistant and commercial bakery, we’d all promised to pitch in and help through the growing pains.
She paid me in cupcakes, so I didn’t mind. And if I were actually in Missoula, I’d drop everything to help her in a heartbeat. She was going to be pissed when she found out where I actually was.
I braced and stopped walking. “When I say I’m running errands . . . I actually mean I’m out of town.”
My confession was met with silence. A long, drawn-out silence that meant when the intercom turned on in the background and a loud buzzer filled the air, she most definitely heard the announcement that the inmates currently in the yard were to line up and return inside.
Damn.
“You went to see him again, didn’t you?” she asked.
The air rushed out of my mouth and my shoulders slumped. “Yes.”
“What are you thinking, June?”
“Don’t call me that.” My words were as short as the click of my stiletto heels on the pavement.
“It’s. Your. Name.”
“You know that’s not my name.” Maybe it was to the rest of the world, but to my family, to the people who knew the truth, I was Nova.
She scoffed. “You’re thirty-two years old and still haven’t figured it out. He’s manipulating you. This is all a sick and twisted game to get what he wants.”
I bit my tongue, not wanting to have this fight. Again.
My sister and I agreed on almost everything. Almond cake was better than vanilla. Buying designer heels was money well spent. Her son, Christian, was an angel on earth. The list went on forever, but the one topic where we never shared common ground was our father.
“I don’t want to get into a fight about this.” I reached my car and set my briefcase on the trunk. “I’m sorry I’m not there to help.”
And after the meeting I’d just had with our father, my absence from Missoula was going to extend well past a single afternoon trip to the prison. Something I’d tell her later. Maybe.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice no more than a whisper.
“What needs to be done.”
“Don’t get mixed up in his bullshit. Please. Let it go. Let him go.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. Walk away. Live your life.”
She’d never tried to understand Dad’s loyalty to his club. Maybe because she’d been kept in the dark. I had too, until recently. But the blinders were gone now and there were things that needed to be done.
People who needed to pay.
“Can you just . . . trust me?” I asked.
She groaned. “Now you sound like him.”
“He’s counting on me, Shelby.”
“My name is May.” And with that, she hung up.
“Goddamn it.” I frowned at my phone, then put it into my purse.
May. When it was just the two of us, I always called her Shelby, just like Dad. Just like he’d always called me Nova. But she’d been relentless about her name again lately. Even Mom had stopped calling her Shelby.
I’d assumed it was because Mom spent a lot of her time babysitting Christian and now that he was two and starting to talk, they didn’t want to confuse him with names. But maybe that had nothing to do with it. Maybe since Dad’s arrest and conviction, she wanted to completely erase him from her life.
Her husband didn’t even know that her name—her intended name—was Shelby. Jack thought it was her middle name and he always gave me a curious stare when I slipped and used it.
Legally, she was May Shelby Johnson-Barnes. But her real name was Shelby Talbot.
Mine was Nova Talbot. My driver’s license read June Nova Johnson, but that was all part of the ruse. The secrets that kept us safe.
Not even Jack knew who we were. Because the best way to ruin a secret was to tell people.
And we told no one. Dad had taught us all that lesson young and I’d had thirty-two years to perfect the illusion. Shelby—May—was content with the facade. She wanted to be May, while I loathed being June.
Maybe once my task was complete, I’d be Nova. I’d let go of the ruse and just be me, for myself and for the world.
I turned and stared at the prison grounds, leaning against the warm metal of my car.
The facility sat isolated on a wide expanse of land.
In the distance, indigo mountains broke through the green and gold fields.
But those mountains were miles away and if an inmate did manage an escape, there was only space to run, not hide.
There were numerous buildings within the fenced enclosure, each one a shade of beige or gray with slits in the walls they considered windows. Dad was held in the building closest to where I’d parked.
He was trapped inside. This was where he’d spend the rest of his days. This was where he’d die, not surrounded by his family, but alone in a cell.
Maybe if Shelby came here to see him, she’d feel the same rage that coursed through my veins, though it was doubtful. She said this was what he deserved. That it was his choices that had landed him here with three consecutive life sentences.
She wasn’t wrong.
Dad had made numerous mistakes. He’d lived his life on the wrong side of the law, and his crimes had caught up to him. But if he was going to spend his life in prison for his sins, it was only fair that the men who’d put him here, the men who were just as guilty, were in cells too.
The Tin Kings.
My father was a tall, powerful and strong man who would wither away behind the prison’s concrete walls. He’d never again take a free breath. He’d never again ride his bike under the summer sun. He’d never again hold my mother in his arms.
The same was true for my brother.
All because of those bastards in Clifton Forge.
If Dad couldn’t take his revenge personally, then I’d take it for him. He was counting on me.
I shoved off the trunk and picked up my purse and briefcase, tossing them in the passenger seat as I slid behind the wheel. I shrugged off my blazer and let the heat of the leather seat soak through my ivory lace top and black slacks.
I’d worn my favorite suit today. Mom always teased that I wore my blazers like a coat of arms, and she was right. I wore them like Dad had worn his cut before they’d ripped it off his back.
I needed this suit because today, I was going to war.
I hadn’t expected Dad to give me his nod of approval today. I’d thought it would take more than one trip to convince him that his revenge didn’t lie with a distant relative or a young Warrior prospect. If he wanted revenge, he could count on me to see it through.
But he’d given me his blessing. He’d given me his trust. And I wouldn’t let him down.
Tucker Talbot would have his vengeance by my hands.
Starting now.
Turning the key in the ignition, I let the purr of the engine seep into my bones. I let its rumble slide over my skin like the touch of a lover in the dark of night. I ran my fingertips around the wheel, taking one last moment to breathe before I dove in.
The drive home to Missoula would take a little over an hour. But in the other direction, the highway would take me to Clifton Forge.
I wasn’t going home.
My 1969 Chevy Nova Coupe soared over the road as I left the prison in my rearview mirror. The car had been a gift from my father on my twenty-first birthday and if ever there was a place where I felt most like myself, it was behind the wheel of this car.
The machine was loud and fast. It was sexy and sleek. Dad always said that the Nova was a little badass and a whole lot cool. It was the reason he’d named me Nova. It was his second favorite car—the first being the Shelby Mustang.
The whirl of the tires on the asphalt soothed my nerves and with the sun shining, the sky above me was as clear as an azure jewel. The fields streaked past in a blur of green and gold.
Dad couldn’t enjoy the open Montana road, but I’d do it for him.
I rolled down the windows, pulling off the blond wig I’d donned for my visit to the prison.
It got tossed into the passenger seat along with my fake, black-framed glasses.
Then I let the rush of wind whip my long hair out of its twist. The fresh air filled my lungs, and I drew it in, holding it for a long moment as I reminded myself why I was doing this.
For Dad.
For TJ.
I might not be a member of the Arrowhead Warriors, but that didn’t mean the club hadn’t been a part of my entire life. Sure, not a single living member of the Warriors knew I existed. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t been told their secrets.
I was not a Warrior.
But I was a warrior.
It was time to put my plan into action.