Chapter 35
The text from my mom comes just after eleven-thirty.
I’m sitting at my desk in Ambrosia with payroll open on one side of the screen and vendor invoices on the other, trying very hard to pretend this is still a normal Friday and not the kind of day where every quiet minute feels like it’s waiting for something ugly to happen in it.
The office is mine in every way that matters.
My desk. My files. My schedule board. My staff on the other side of the wall moving through midday setup before the club opens tonight.
Usually this room steadies me. Usually numbers and routine and the small, practical demands of running a business are enough to keep my mind from wandering too far.
Lately, not so much. I’m just reaching for my coffee when my phone buzzes.
Mom: You free for lunch? Your dad and I are home. Come by if you can.
For one second, I just stare at the message.
Nothing about it is weird. Nothing about it should be weird. My parents live close enough that dropping by for lunch isn’t unusual, and my mom has always texted like that, simple, casual, expecting me to answer without acting like she’s summoning me to a board meeting.
Still, something low and uneasy shifts in my stomach before I can help it.
Maybe because everything feels loaded lately. Maybe because Drew has turned every normal thing into something I have to look at twice. Maybe because even when life is trying very hard to pretend it’s moved on, my nerves still haven’t.
I glance at the clock.
I could go.
I’m caught up enough on paperwork that stepping out for an hour won’t hurt anything, and truthfully, the idea of sitting at my parents’ table with my mom’s cooking and my dad pretending not to hover while he asks me if I’m sleeping enough sounds a hell of a lot better than another hour of staring at spreadsheets while my mind spirals.
So I text back.
Me: Yeah I can come by
The reply is almost immediate.
Mom: Good. We’ll wait for you.
Then I text Jimmy, because that’s what life looks like now.
Me: Heading to my parents for lunch.
The reply comes before I even make it to the office door.
Jimmy: Who’s with you?
My mouth twitches in spite of myself. Overbearing. Protective. Impossible.
Mine.
Me: Prospect’s following. Don’t start.
That one takes longer.
Then:
Jimmy: Not starting. Let me know when you get there.
I smile a little, lock my office, and head out.
The prospect on me today is Ryan, one of the steadier younger guys, not chatty, not intrusive, smart enough to know when to give me room and when not to. He’s leaning against his bike in the Ambrosia lot when I come out, arms crossed, sunglasses on, expression unreadable.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Apparently I’m never allowed to be alone again, so yeah.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Orders.”
“From the world’s most relaxed boyfriend.”
“That does not sound like the Jimmy I know.”
I laugh once under my breath and head for my truck.
Ryan follows behind me on his bike once I pull out, keeping enough distance not to make me feel babysat and staying close enough that if something did go wrong, he’d be on it in seconds.
That should help. It does, mostly.
The drive to my parents’ place is short.
Familiar. All backroads and sun-bleached mailboxes and stretches of Alabama heat shimmering above the asphalt even before noon.
This is home in the oldest sense of the word.
Not the clubhouse. Not Ambrosia. The first version.
The one that smells like my mom’s detergent and my dad’s boots by the door and Sunday lunches that somehow always turned into five hours of sitting around the kitchen table while people talked over each other.
When I pull into the driveway. My dad’s truck is there.
My mom’s car is there. The curtains in the living room are half open.
The front porch looks exactly the way it always does, one hanging fern dying despite my mother’s best efforts and a package on the swing that probably came this morning and got forgotten about.
I text Jimmy letting him know I got here safe.
Ryan rolls in behind me, kills the bike, and waits.
I glance at him through my open window. “You can go. I’m here.”
“You sure?”
I nod. “It’s my parents’ house, not a war zone. Plus my dad counts as protection, he’s still a scary biker.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but after a second he jerks his chin once. “I’ll circle back in a bit.”
“Jimmy will probably call if you disappear too long.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
That gets another small smile out of me, and for one stupid second, standing in my parents’ driveway with a prospect giving me a reluctant nod before peeling back out toward the road feels absurd enough to make everything else seem less sharp.
Then he’s gone. And the second his bike disappears at the end of the drive, the world shifts. Not outside. Inside me.
It happens fast. So fast I almost miss it.
That little change in the air that isn’t really a change at all. That instinctive, animal part of my brain suddenly going still and cold at the same time.
Wrong.
The word lands whole in my chest before I’ve even fully shut my truck door.
I stand there with my keys in my hand and my bag over my shoulder, staring at the front porch like maybe if I look at it long enough, something obvious will appear. A broken window. A strange car. A door standing open the wrong way.
There’s nothing. Everything looks normal. That almost makes it worse.
I start walking anyway, slow enough that every step feels deliberate.
Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe this is still just the shape fear left in me after Drew. Maybe my body is learning all the wrong lessons and now every quiet house is going to feel like a threat until enough time passes that I remember what normal used to feel like.
I make it to the porch. Still nothing. No noise from inside. No voices. No television. No clatter from the kitchen.
That’s not unusual either. My parents can be quiet. My dad naps in his recliner sometimes after late nights. My mom can lose an entire hour in the laundry room if she’s organizing something and forget the rest of the world exists.
I reach for the doorknob. It’s unlocked. It’s daytime. This is still Alabama. People lock doors here more out of principle than fear.
I step inside.
The cool air hits me first. Then silence. And there it is again, stronger this time. That bone-deep certainty.
Wrong.
My whole body goes tight. I don’t call out right away. That alone should tell me enough. Because any other day, I’d already be halfway through a loud, “Mom?” before the door was fully closed behind me.
Today, I stand just inside the entryway and listen.
Nothing.
No kitchen sounds. No footsteps. No hum of the television in the den. No movement anywhere in the house.
Only silence.
I should leave. The thought hits so hard and so clear it feels like something else spoke it into my ear.
Leave. Get out. Call someone. Go. And for one split second, I almost do it.
My hand actually flexes around my keys. My weight shifts toward the door. Then another thought cuts through.
What if something’s wrong with Mom?
Not weird wrong. Not danger wrong. Medical wrong. Fell and hit her head wrong. Bad enough that she can’t call out wrong.
That’s what stops me.
Because if I walk away and it turns out she needed me, I’ll never forgive myself.
“Mom?” I call.
My voice sounds too loud in the silence. No answer. I step farther in.
The living room opens off the entryway, and halfway there I know.
Not because I see anything yet.
Because the air feels occupied in a way empty rooms don’t. Because my skin is already trying to crawl off my body. Because every instinct I’ve got is screaming now and I’m still moving forward because some part of me needs to know exactly how bad before I can react properly.
“Dad?”
Nothing.
Then I round the edge of the doorway into the living room and see my mother.
Bound on the couch. Gagged. Blood running down from a cut at her temple, dried and fresh all at once where it has tracked into her hair and along the side of her face.
For one impossible second, the whole world stops. Actually stops. There is no thought. No sound. No movement.
Just that image.
My mother’s eyes hit mine immediately. Wide. Panicked. Furious in that useless, helpless way people are when they’ve been trying too long not to show fear and can’t hold it anymore.
“Mom—”
The word barely makes it out before a hand fists in my hair at the nape of my neck so hard it snaps my head back, and cold metal jams into my side.
A gun.
My whole body locks. Hot terror floods me so fast I almost black out on the first hit of it.
“Easy,” Drew says into my ear, voice rough and too close and triumphant in the ugliest way possible. “Knew it wouldn’t take much for the dumbass trash to get sloppy.”
Everything inside me goes ice cold. Not from the gun. Not even from him touching me. From hearing his voice in my parents’ house with my mother bleeding on the couch.
I go perfectly still.
Because the barrel at my side is real. Because his hand in my hair is real. Because one wrong move gets my mom killed before I even know where my dad is.
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
Breathe. Think. Don’t panic.
I swallow once and force my voice steady. “Where’s my dad?”
Drew laughs softly behind me. A terrible sound. Satisfied. Mean. “That’s your first question?”
“Yes.”
He tugs my hair just enough to make pain lance across my scalp. “Good,” he says. “Means you’re thinking straight.”
I hate him so much I could choke on it.
I stare at my mother instead. Because if I look at him, I’m going to forget the gun and do something stupid and get us both killed.
Mom’s eyes are wild on mine. Trying to say something past the gag. Trying to warn me. Trying to apologize.
That nearly undoes me more than the blood does.
“Is he alive?” I ask.
Drew’s grip shifts slightly, just enough to tell me he’s enjoying this. “Maybe.”