Chapter Six #2
His eyes moved past me, toward the main room where Twister’s voice rumbled low for a second before disappearing under the sound of the bar sink running.
“By never asking for anything he wouldn’t do himself.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Most people I had worked with in the city had asked for plenty of things they wouldn’t do themselves. Sign this. Ignore that. Push this file. Lose that page. Make it look clean.
I had spent years believing the system worked because people cared enough to make it work. Now I knew the system worked because certain people knew exactly how to bend it without getting caught.
Wheels pushed off the wall. “Come on. I’ll show you the garage.”
The garage was where the clubhouse started to feel less like a building and more like them.
Bikes lined one wall, polished chrome and black paint catching the work lights overhead. Tools hung neatly from pegboards. A lift sat in the middle of the floor with an engine part I couldn’t name resting on it. The air smelled like oil, rubber, metal, and something sharp I couldn’t place.
Wheels’ whole posture changed when we stepped inside. His shoulders loosened, and his gaze moved over the bikes the way some people looked at artwork in a museum.
“This is your spot,” I said.
He looked at me. “What?”
“This.” I nodded around the garage. “You like it in here.”
“Yeah.”
“Because of the bikes?”
“Because bikes make sense.”
I walked closer to one parked near the front. It was sleek, black, and looked like trouble on two wheels. “How?”
“You take care of them, they run. Something’s wrong, they tell you. Might take a while to figure out what, but there’s always a reason.” He grabbed a rag from the workbench and wiped his hands even though they weren’t dirty. “People are messier.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
He leaned against the bench. “You ever ride your own?”
“No. Just been on the back a few times.”
“With who?”
The question came out casual.
I looked at him. “Is that your business?”
“Nope.”
“Then why ask?”
“Curious.”
“About me?”
“Yeah.”
My stomach did that annoying flutter again. I turned back to the bike so he wouldn’t see whatever had probably crossed my face. “An ex had one. Years ago. He liked the idea of owning a bike more than actually riding it.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he bought one, posed with it, talked about it constantly, then sold it after he dropped it in a gas station parking lot.”
Wheels barked out a laugh. “Please tell me he was wearing fingerless gloves.”
“He was.”
“Fucking tool.”
I cleared my throat and looked down at my backpack strap. “So, what else is on the tour?”
Wheels watched me for another second, then pushed off the bench. “Outside.”
He led me through the back garage door into the alley behind the building. The sun was bright enough to make me blink. After the dim clubhouse and work lights, the outside world felt too exposed.
My body reacted before my brain did. My shoulders were tight, and my eyes scanned.
Wheels stepped beside me, not in front of me, but close enough that I knew he could move if he had to.
“You’re good,” he said.
I hated how much I wanted to believe him.
The back alley held bikes—Wheels’ and Nugget’s bikes—a couple of trucks, and a dumpster that had seen better decades. The alley stretched toward the street one way and curved behind neighboring buildings the other.
My stomach twisted. “I’m sorry,” I said.
Wheels looked at me. “For what?”
“Having to watch your back every second. The bar. The clubhouse. Britta getting shot. All of it.”
“You didn’t shoot anybody.”
“No, but I brought the papers.”
“You brought a warning.”
“I brought trouble.”
He turned fully toward me. “Goldie.” The way he said my name made me stop. Not because it was loud, because it wasn’t. It was steady. “You didn’t bring this fight. It was already here.”
I looked away.
He kept going. “They burned Tempi’s bar before you walked through our door. They shot at Swift before you gave me that envelope. They buried us in permit bullshit before we knew your name.”
“I made it worse.”
“You made it clear.”
I stared at him.
He held my gaze like he had all the time in the world and nowhere else to be. “You brought us a map,” he said. “Maybe not all the answers, but enough to know where to start.”
My throat tightened. “I was scared.”
“I know.”
“I’m still scared.”
“I know that too.”
His honesty should have made me uncomfortable. Instead, it made me feel seen in a way I wasn’t sure I could handle.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whispered.
His eyes softened, just barely. “Good thing you’re not doing it alone anymore.”
I breathed out a shaky laugh. “You say that like I had a choice.”
“You did.”
“I ran to you because I was out of options.”
“You still came.”
The alley was quiet around us. Too quiet, maybe, but for the first time in days, I realized I wasn’t looking over my shoulder every two seconds.
I had scanned when we first stepped outside, sure.
But now? Now I was standing in a back lot with a biker between me and the world, and I had stopped bracing for headlights.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
Wheels stayed beside me, silent and solid, letting me have the moment without trying to fill it. For nearly an hour, I realized, I hadn’t thought about running.
That should have scared me. Maybe it did, but not enough to step away from him.