Some Things You Remember
Nora
I don't go home. They want me to go home, sit somewhere safe, wait for news like a woman who's used to waiting.
I'm not built for waiting anymore. Three years of holding everything together alone burned that particular skill out of me a long time ago.
"Take me to the clubhouse," I tell Sloane, the only one not currently arguing with someone about logistics. "I need to be close. I can't sit in an empty townhouse staring at a phone."
She doesn't argue. Nods once and gets me in the truck.
The clubhouse is half-empty when we arrive, most of the brothers already gone with Ash, but the old ladies are there, gathered in the kitchen with the particular stillness of people who've done this exact kind of waiting before and know better than to pretend otherwise.
Sunshine's the first to pull out a chair for me. Lila puts a warm mug in my hands I don't remember asking for. Iris stays near her laptop, watching a screen I can't read, occasionally relaying updates to Holt through an earpiece I didn't notice her wearing.
A clock over the stove ticks loud enough to be its own presence in the room, and every one of us keeps checking it without meaning to.
"How long," I ask. "How long does this usually take?"
"Depends," Sunshine says, gentle but honest. "Could be twenty minutes. Could be a couple hours."
"You've done this before."
"More times than I'd like." She doesn't elaborate, and I don't ask her to. Some things don't need more words stacked onto them to be understood.
I can't sit still. I'm up and pacing before the mug's even cooled, turning the same five feet of kitchen floor into a track, my mind racing through every detail I know about Lucas, every story Butch ever told me about his brother, looking for anything useful buried in three-year-old memories.
Lucas hated risk. Hated exposure. Whatever hole he's hiding Rose in, it has to be somewhere he trusts completely, somewhere with history attached.
I close my eyes and let myself go back there—a kitchen table, Butch a few beers in, the only nights he ever talked about his brother without his jaw going tight first.
Dad kept a room under the depot nobody could find walking through. Lucas used to hide down there as a kid, playing at guarding it like it was treasure. Never grew out of thinking that building belonged to him.
"The depot," I say out loud, the memory sharpening. "There's a room under it."
Iris looks up. "What depot?"
"Butch used to talk about a grain depot off Route 9. Said it was where the Vipers stashed product back before he got out, before Lucas took over as Prez. Said his brother loved that building because their father used to run jobs out of it. Sentimental, in the worst way."
Iris is already typing. "That's exactly where the last ping placed them."
My whole body goes cold and electric at once.
"Call him," I say. "Call Fuse. Tell him to check for a basement, a back room, anything underground. Butch said his dad used to keep a strong room down there for product nobody could find by walking through. If Lucas is hiding her anywhere, it's there."
Iris doesn't hesitate. Hands me her phone before I even finish the sentence.
Fuse picks up on the second ring, breathless, tight with the kind of focus that means he's already moving through danger.
"Nora?"
"Listen to me. There's a strong room. Basement level, hidden, Butch's father built it for product storage. If Lucas has her anywhere in that building, that's where."
A pause. Then, "How do you know that?"
"Because some things you remember even when you wish you didn't." I don't shake, somehow, even though everything else in me is shaking hard enough to rattle teeth. "Find the room, Fuse. Please."
"Found it." His tone sharpens. "Stairwell behind the loading dock. We're moving."
"Be careful—"
The line goes dead before I finish the sentence, and I'm left holding a phone that's gone silent in my hand, surrounded by women who watched the entire exchange without saying a word.
Iris takes her phone back gently. "You did good."
"I don't feel good. I feel like I'm going to be sick."
"That's the same thing, most nights." Sunshine's hand finds my shoulder, steady, grounding. "Now we wait again. Worst part, every time. Knowing you did everything you could and there's nothing left to do but stand here."
I nod because there's nothing else to say, and I go back to pacing my five feet of kitchen floor. The clock over the stove ticks past another minute, then another, each one heavier than the last, my whole body aimed toward a phone that hasn't rung yet.
The sickness isn't all fear, and that's the part I can't say out loud to any of them. My hand finds my stomach before I can stop it. This baby is the reason I was inside. Five minutes, a glass of water, something to settle a stomach that's been unsettled for weeks—and five minutes was all he needed.
I keep my hand where it is anyway. One of my children is out there in the dark. The other one is right here under my palm, and I am not allowed to fall apart in front of either of them.
Somewhere out there, the father of my unborn child is walking toward exactly the kind of danger I swore I'd never let near my family again.
I made the right call giving them that information. I know I did.
That doesn't make the waiting any easier to bear.
But I gave them something real to go on, not just hope thrown blind into the dark. That has to count. I hold onto that instead of the silence, because it's the only thing in this kitchen I can actually do anything with.