Chapter Twenty-Three
Goldie
The ride back to the clubhouse felt longer than the ride to Gene Kettler’s house.
It wasn’t. I knew that.
The streets were the same. The traffic was the same. The distance hadn’t magically stretched because a man had been shot right in front of me.
Everything felt longer after watching Gene’s head snap back and blood spray across the wall behind him.
My arms were wrapped around Wheels so tight my fingers had started to ache.
I knew I was probably squeezing the life out of him, but he never once reached back to loosen my hold.
He just rode with me tucked against him, his shoulders stiff, his body a wall between me and the rest of the world, even though we were flying down the street on his bike.
The wind slapped against my face. The roar of the engine filled my ears. Cars passed. People walked along sidewalks. The city moved around us like nothing had happened.
That was the worst part. Somewhere behind us, Gene Kettler sat dead in his leather chair with coffee on the table beside him and blood on the wall.
And Madison kept moving.
I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek against Wheels’ back. I could still hear Gene’s voice.
Took you long enough.
He had known. He had known they were coming.
Maybe not that exact second. Maybe not that exact bullet. But he’d known the second he opened that door that he was a loose end and the Ledger didn’t leave those lying around.
They took him out.
One of their own.
By the time we pulled into the alley behind the clubhouse, my body felt like it was made of lead. Twister parked first, then Magnum, Swift, Hodge, and finally Wheels. Engines died one by one until the alley was too quiet.
I didn’t move.
Wheels twisted slightly and put his hand over mine where it was locked around his middle. “Babe.”
I blinked.
“You gotta let go so I can get off the bike.”
“Oh.” My voice sounded far away. “Right.”
My fingers didn’t want to work. I forced them loose and climbed off the bike on shaky legs.
Wheels was off immediately after me. His hands landed on my hips before I could pretend I was steady. I swayed into him, and he caught me like he had been expecting it.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
“No, you’re not.”
I wanted to argue. I didn’t have the energy.
The back door opened before anyone even reached it.
Tempi stepped outside first, Britta right behind her. Both of them took one look at us and stopped.
Tempi’s eyes went to Twister. Britta’s went to Swift.
Whatever they saw on their faces was enough to wipe every question away for half a second.
Then Tempi moved. She came down the steps toward Twister. “What happened?”
Twister didn’t answer right away. That scared me more than yelling would have.
Swift slid an arm around Britta before she could ask anything. His face was blank, but his jaw was tight enough to crack stone.
Hodge stalked past everyone and into the clubhouse without a word.
Magnum stayed by the alley entrance, scanning the street behind us like the shooter might have somehow followed.
Wheels kept one arm around me and guided me toward the door.
Tempi looked at me, then her face changed. “Oh, Goldie,” she whispered.
I shook my head, not because I didn’t want comfort, but because if she hugged me, I might fall apart. I couldn’t fall apart yet.
We stepped inside the clubhouse, and the familiar noise hit wrong.
Gramps was at the bar with a cup of coffee. Nugget was near the pool table. Plug and Cord were by the front windows. Podge sat at the table with his laptop open. Rev stood near the office door with a stack of papers in his hands.
Everyone looked up. Everyone knew before anyone said it.
The room went quiet.
Twister shut the back door behind us. “Gene’s dead,” he said.
No one moved.
Podge’s face went pale. “What?”
“Sniper,” Swift said, his voice clipped. “One shot through the front window.”
“Jesus,” Plug muttered.
Nugget’s mouth opened, then closed again. For once, he didn’t have anything stupid to say.
Podge slowly pushed back from the laptop. “But he talked?”
Twister walked to the table and rested both hands on the back of a chair. “Some.”
Rev set the papers down. “How much?”
“Not enough.”
I stood beside Wheels while the conversation moved around me.
Hollis was wrong.
The Ledger wasn’t what it started as.
They went too far.
You keep looking underground.
The answers aren’t under the city.
The words circled in my head, looping over and over until they started to lose meaning.
Gene had known the system was rotten because he had helped rot it. He had signed papers he shouldn’t have signed. Helped hide a tunnel that shouldn’t have existed. Helped build the monster that was now eating its own.
And then they killed him.
Not because he betrayed them years ago. But because he might betray them now.
Wheels moved me toward the couch. “Sit.”
“I don’t want to sit.”
“Sit anyway.”
I looked up at him.
His eyes were hard, but not at me. Never at me.
I sat. Mostly because my knees had started shaking and I didn’t want everyone to see.
Wheels sat beside me, close enough that his thigh pressed against mine. He didn’t ask if I needed him. He just stayed.
Tempi sat on my other side.
She didn’t hug me. She didn’t ask what I saw. She simply reached over and took my hand.
I held on.
Britta stood near Swift, both arms wrapped around herself. “They killed their own guy?”
“They killed a loose end,” Hodge said from near the bar.
His voice was flat. Cold.
He hadn’t taken his cut off. Hadn’t sat down. Hadn’t stopped moving since we walked inside. He paced from the bar to the front window and back again like he needed something to hit and didn’t care what it was.
Gramps looked at him. “Sit down before you wear a path in the floor.”
Hodge didn’t even glance at him. “No.”
“Fine. Keep stomping. Maybe you’ll find another secret hatch.”
No one laughed.
Gramps looked down into his coffee. “Too soon?”
“Yeah,” Method muttered from the hallway.
Twister walked to the middle of the room. “We need to talk through what he said before any of it gets lost.”
“It’s not getting lost,” I said.
Every head turned toward me.
I looked at Twister. “I remember.”
Wheels’ hand settled on my knee.
Twister nodded once. “Then talk.”
I took a breath. It didn’t feel like enough air.
“He said Hollis was wrong. That The Ledger started as protection.” My voice sounded steadier than I felt. “Families protecting what they built. Influence. Money. Power. They thought they were controlling the city for the right reasons.”
Hodge scoffed. “Of course they did.”
I nodded. “But Gene said it changed. He said The Ledger wasn’t what it started as anymore.”
Podge’s fingers moved over his keyboard. “Changed how?”
“They don’t just want influence.” I swallowed. “They want ownership. His word. He said they want to own every door, every official, every deal, every piece of dirt under our feet.”
Tempi’s hand tightened around mine.
Rev rubbed a hand over his beard. “That tracks with the shell companies.”
Podge nodded. “And the property acquisitions.”
“And the permits,” I said. “And the inspections. And the way they buried things in records until no one questioned them anymore.”
Twister’s eyes narrowed. “What else?”
I closed my eyes. Gene’s face flashed behind my eyelids.
Tired.
Defeated.
Already dead, even before the bullet.
“He said he kept records.”
Podge looked up sharply. “Where?”
“He wouldn’t say.” I opened my eyes. “He said not there. Then he said if he told us, they’d know.”
Nugget frowned. “How the hell would they know?”
Swift looked toward the front windows. “Because they were watching.”
The room went cold again.
“They saw us go there,” Magnum said. “They were in position before we walked inside. Had to be.”
Twister nodded once. “Or they were watching Gene already.”
“That makes sense,” Rev said. “If he was wavering.”
“They knew he was a risk,” I whispered.
Wheels squeezed my knee. I looked down at his hand.
Big. Warm. Steady.
A week ago, I had been alone in my apartment with papers spread around me, my stomach in knots and the certainty that I was digging my own grave.
Now I was sitting in the middle of the Saint’s Outlaws clubhouse, and I wasn’t alone anymore.
I had Tempi holding one hand. Wheels anchoring me with the other. A room full of angry bikers listening to every word I said like it mattered.
Like I mattered.
Twister’s voice pulled me back. “The clue.”
I looked up.
“Say it again.”
I took another breath. “‘You keep looking underground.’ Then he paused.” My throat tightened. “Then he said, ‘The answers aren’t under the city.’”
Gramps frowned. “That makes no damn sense.”
“Maybe it does,” Podge said slowly.
Everyone looked at him.
He lifted both hands. “I said maybe. I don’t know yet.”
Hodge pointed at him. “Then don’t start a sentence like you know something.”
“I’m thinking out loud.”
“Think quieter.”
Britta looked at Hodge. “You’re extra charming today.”
He cut his eyes toward her. “I watched a man get his head blown off.”
The room went silent. Britta’s face softened. “I know.”
Hodge looked away first, because there it was. The ugly truth none of us could joke away.
Gene had died in front of us. And if The Ledger could do that to him, a man who had once been part of them, what would they do to us?
To Wheels?
To Tempi?
To Britta?
To—
My body went cold. Not chilly. Not scared. Ice-cold. I sat up so fast Wheels’ hand fell from my knee.
“Goldie?” Tempi asked.
The room tilted slightly. Gene’s words slammed through my head again, but not the ones about the tunnel. The papers. He had known I copied them.
Two sets, just like you.
He knew I had hidden away a set of papers. If Gene knew, the Ledger knew. If the Ledger knew, they would want every copy. Every single copy.
My breath stuck in my throat.
Wheels shifted beside me. “Babe.”
“Oh my God.”
Twister’s face sharpened. “What?”
I stood too fast, and Wheels stood with me, one hand going to my lower back.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The papers.”
Podge looked at the table. “We have them.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, not those.”
The room went quiet again.
Twister took one step toward me. “Goldie.”
My hands started shaking. “I made copies.”
“We know,” Twister said.
“No. I made more copies.”
Wheels’ fingers tensed against my back. I looked at him, and my voice broke.
“The second set.”
He stared at me. “You said they were safe,” he said quietly.
“They were.”
Twister’s voice dropped. “Where are they?”
I closed my eyes for half a second. I had kept the answer locked behind my teeth for days because trusting anyone with it had felt impossible. Now it felt like the only thing that mattered.
“With my sister.”
The entire room froze.
Twister didn’t move.
Wheels did.
He was suddenly closer; his eyes locked on mine. “Novalea.”
I nodded. “I gave them to her before I knew how bad this was.” My words started tumbling over each other. “I told her it was work stuff. I told her I didn’t have room at my apartment and asked if she could keep a folder for me. She didn’t know. I swear she didn’t know.”
Wheels turned me toward him. “Look at me.”
I did.
“She doesn’t know what they are?”
“No.” Tears burned behind my eyes. “She thinks they’re boring office papers. I made her promise not to look at them because I didn’t want her involved. I thought if she didn’t know, she was safe.”
No one spoke because everyone knew what I was realizing.
Not knowing didn’t make her safe. It made her defenseless.
I looked toward Twister. “We have to go.”
“We will.”
“Now.”
Twister nodded once. “Address.”
I rattled off Novalea’s address, and Magnum typed it into his phone.
My chest felt too tight. “She’s a teacher. She’s probably home by now. Unless she stayed late. Sometimes she stays late. She grades papers or sets up her classroom or—” My voice cracked. “I should have called her.”
Wheels cupped the side of my face. “You were trying to protect her.”
“I put a target in her house.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have,” I wheezed.
“No.” His voice went firm. “You don’t get to blame yourself for what they do.” I stared at him and he leaned closer. “You hear me?”
I nodded, but it was shaky. “I need her to be okay.”
“She will be.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he admitted. “But we’re going to get to her.”
Twister was already moving. “Swift. Hodge. Magnum. Wheels. With me.”
Britta stepped forward. “Swift—”
“No,” Swift said before she finished.
Tempi stood too. “Twister—”
“No.”
This time, neither woman argued.
Maybe because they saw my face. Maybe because they understood this wasn’t the moment.
Tempi crossed the room and wrapped her arms around me hard.
I froze for half a second, then hugged her back.
“We’re bringing her here,” Tempi whispered. “You hear me? We’ll make room. We’ll figure it out.”
A sob tried to crawl up my throat, and I swallowed it down.
Britta hugged me next, quick and tight. “Novalea is going to be okay.”
I nodded. I had to. Because if I let myself think anything else, I wouldn’t be able to move.
Wheels grabbed my jacket from the back of the couch and helped me into it. His hands lingered on my shoulders for one second.
Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. Not soft. Not sweet. A promise. “We’ve got this.”
I looked up at him. And there it was. The thing I needed before we walked into whatever nightmare waited at my sister’s house.
Wheels.
Solid.
Mine.
The Ledger had stolen my home, my job, my safety, and maybe now they were trying to steal the only family I had left.
But they hadn’t stolen him.
Twister opened the back door. “Move.”
This time, I didn’t hesitate.
I walked out with Wheels at my side and the club behind me, praying with every step that we weren’t already too late.