Chapter 2
For three disorienting seconds, she didn't know where she was. The ceiling was wrong—industrial beams instead of her apartment's water-stained drywall. The bed was wrong—firm mattress, clean sheets that smelled like detergent instead of the lavender fabric softener she bought at the dollar store.
Then it came back. The studio. The voices through the vent. Victor on his motorcycle, telling her to leave everything behind.
Not Victor. Raven.
That's what the man at the gate had called him last night when they'd pulled up to this converted warehouse compound in the middle of the Carolina pines. She'd heard it clearly over the rumble of the engine: Raven's back. He's got company.
Her guitar instructor had a road name. Her guitar instructor was part of a motorcycle club that operated out of a fortress with chain-link fencing and camera coverage on every approach.
She sat up and took inventory.
One guitar—her Martin D-28, the only instrument she'd ever owned that was worth more than her car. One notebook filled with song drafts, chord progressions, and half-finished lyrics she'd been working on for two years. One phone with a cracked screen and seventeen percent battery.
That was it. That was her entire life, compressed into what she could carry on the back of a motorcycle.
The rest—her amp, her pedalboard, her microphone stands, the cables she'd collected from a decade of gigs—sat abandoned in a studio she couldn't go back to. Equipment she'd spent years acquiring, gone in the time it took to make a decision.
The Martin. The rest can burn.
She'd meant it when she said it. Still meant it now, in the gray morning light filtering through reinforced windows. Gear could be replaced. She couldn't.
But God, her hands needed something to do.
The compound was bigger than she'd realized in the dark.
Jessica walked the grounds with her guitar case strapped across her back, burning off the restless energy that usually went into four hours of daily practice.
The main building was a converted tobacco warehouse—exposed brick, industrial bones, Green Beret and Airborne memorabilia covering every wall she could see through windows.
Smaller structures dotted the property: storage buildings, what looked like a bunkhouse, a massive garage complex with bay doors open to the morning heat.
Men in leather cuts moved between buildings, nodding at her without stopping to chat. She counted eight before she lost track, each one carrying himself with the kind of quiet competence that said military without saying a word.
The garage drew her like a magnet.
Three brothers were working on bikes when she approached—one under a lifted Harley, one cleaning parts at a workbench, one scrolling through a laptop balanced on a toolbox. The smell of motor oil and metal hung thick in the humid air.
"Help you?" The one at the workbench looked up. Tall, forgettable build, eyes that assessed her without seeming to.
"Just looking for somewhere to sit." She gestured at the guitar case. "Hands need something to do or I'm going to crawl out of my skin."
"Raven's girl?"
The label landed strange. She wasn't Raven's anything—she was his guitar student, and apparently even that had been some kind of cover for something she didn't understand yet.
"I'm Jessica."
"Ghost." He nodded toward an empty stool near the bay door. "Grab a seat. Won't bother us if you won't bother us."
She pulled the stool to the corner where she'd be out of the way and unzipped her case.
The Martin gleamed in the morning light, rosewood and spruce, the most beautiful thing she'd ever owned.
She'd bought it used from a session player in Nashville who was upgrading to custom, paid it off over eighteen months while eating ramen and playing every dive bar gig she could book.
Her fingers found the tuning pegs automatically.
The low E was flat—always drifted on that peg. She adjusted by ear, not bothering with a tuner, letting the familiar ritual settle her nerves. A major scale next, then a minor, then chromatic runs up and down the neck until her hands stopped shaking.
The brothers kept working. Nobody told her to stop. Nobody asked questions.
For twenty minutes, she ran through technical exercises while the garage operated around her—the clank of tools, the hiss of compressed air, low conversation about parts and modifications.
It should have felt intrusive, practicing in someone else's space.
Instead, it felt like the first time she'd breathed since hearing those voices through the vent.
"Chapel's soundproofed."
She looked up. Ghost had moved closer, wiping grease off his hands with a rag.
"What?"
"The chapel. Meeting room, back of the main building. Walls are reinforced, no sound carries in or out." He shrugged. "If you need a real practice space, that's where you'd find it."
"Won't I be in the way?"
"No church today. Room's empty." He studied her for a moment, something unreadable in his expression. "Raven said you're a musician. Session work and teaching."
"Was." The word slipped out bitter. "Pretty sure my gig calendar just got permanently deleted."
"Temporary setback."
"Easy to say when your whole life isn't sitting in a studio you can't go back to."
Ghost's mouth curved—not quite a smile. "Lost everything twice. Once overseas, once when I came home. Rebuilt both times." He nodded toward the main building. "Chapel's through the common room, door at the end of the hall. Lock's on the inside."
He walked back to the workbench without waiting for a response.
The chapel was exactly what she needed.
Brick walls, concrete floor, a heavy table surrounded by chairs that looked like they'd survived several wars. No windows. Reinforced door with a deadbolt that engaged with a satisfying click.
Jessica set up in the corner farthest from the door, arranging a chair and positioning her open case where she could reach it. She didn't have a music stand, so she propped her notebook against the case and worked from memory instead.
Three students had been scheduled for this week. Three cancellation texts she'd sent from the back of Raven's motorcycle, thumbs clumsy on the cracked screen, making up excuses about a family emergency.
Matty, twelve years old, working on chord transitions for "House of the Rising Sun." She played through his lesson plan twice, imagining his small hands struggling with the F chord that always gave him trouble.
Destiny, sixteen, preparing for her high school talent show. Jessica ran the accompaniment for the song they'd been rehearsing, leaving space where Destiny's voice would be, feeling the absence like a missing limb.
Mr. Patterson, seventy-three, learning guitar because his wife had died and he needed something to fill the silence. She played "Landslide" the way he liked it—slower than the original, with room to breathe between phrases.
By the time she finished, her fingers ached and the notebook was damp with sweat from the uncirculated air.
But her hands had stopped shaking.
She leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling, guitar resting across her thighs.
Somewhere outside this soundproofed room, men with road names were probably planning how to deal with the mess she'd brought to their door.
Raven was doing whatever Raven did when he wasn't pretending to be a guitar student named Victor.
And she was sitting in a chapel playing lessons for students who weren't there, because it was the only thing that made sense anymore.
A knock at the door made her jump.
"Yeah?"
The door opened six inches. Raven's face appeared in the gap.
"Thought I'd find you here." His eyes swept the room—the setup, the guitar, the notebook. "You okay?"
"Define okay."
"Breathing. Not running."
"Then I'm okay." She didn't get up. Didn't invite him in. "Ghost told me about this room."
"He's good at reading what people need." Raven pushed the door open wider but stayed on the threshold, respecting the space she'd claimed. "Hungry?"
"Should be. Haven't eaten since yesterday."
"Kitchen's serving. Come eat something."
It wasn't a question, but it wasn't quite an order either. Somewhere in between—the voice of a man used to being followed without needing to demand it.
Jessica looked at the guitar in her lap, then at the man in the doorway. She'd known him for three months as a mediocre student with more money than musical talent, a quiet presence who asked thoughtful questions and never complained about practice assignments.
She didn't know him at all.
"Who are you?" she asked. "Really."
"Someone who's going to make sure those men don't hurt you." His voice was even, certain. "Everything else can wait until you've eaten."
She should push harder. Should demand answers before following him anywhere else.
Instead, she packed her guitar, tucked the notebook under her arm, and walked toward the door where Raven was waiting.
Some questions could wait.
Her growling stomach couldn't.