Chapter Twenty-Four
Wheels
I’ve never ridden my bike that hard.
The engine screamed beneath me as I cut between cars, my eyes constantly moving from the road to the mirrors and back again. Goldie clung to my waist behind me, and I could feel every ounce of fear in the way her arms locked around me.
I knew exactly where her head was.
Novalea.
Twister led us through traffic with Magnum right behind him. Hodge stayed on my left whenever the lanes widened enough, while Swift covered the rear.
I reached back for just a second, squeezing the hand she had wrapped around my stomach. “We’re getting there.”
She nodded against my back. I felt it more than I saw it.
Please let us not be too late.
The thought wasn’t mine.
The neighborhood changed as we turned off the main road.
Smaller homes. Older trees. Quiet streets. Kids’ bikes leaned against garages. A basketball hoop sat over a driveway. The kind of place where people waved at each other when they got the mail.
Goldie had told me Novalea loved living here. Said she knew half the neighbors by name. Said her students occasionally rode their bikes past the house and waved if they saw her outside. It looked like exactly the kind of neighborhood where nothing bad was supposed to happen.
Twister slowed, and he raised one hand. We all eased off our throttles.
“There,” Goldie whispered behind me. I followed her line of sight.
Blue shutters. White siding. Flower beds lining the front porch. A little wooden sign beside the sidewalk that read: Welcome.
Then I saw it. The front door standing open.
Twister parked so fast the kickstand barely hit the pavement before he was off the bike. “Move!”
I killed my engine, and before I could even swing my leg over, Goldie was already climbing off. “Goldie!”
She didn’t stop, ran straight up the sidewalk, and I caught her halfway to the porch.
She fought me and tried to push me away. “Wheels!”
“Slow down,” I grunted.
“My sister—”
“I know.”
She shoved against my chest. “I have to—”
“I know.” I caught both sides of her face. “Look at me.”
Tears filled her eyes immediately.
“We’re going in.”
She nodded frantically.
“But we’re doing it smart.”
Another nod.
Twister was already on the porch with his gun drawn. Hodge covered the left side of the house, and Magnum moved toward the backyard. Swift checked the neighboring yards.
The door stood open as if Novalea had just forgotten to close it.
Like whoever had come here hadn’t cared if anyone knew.
I stepped inside first with Goldie directly behind me, despite every instinct telling me to keep her outside.
There wasn’t time.
The smell hit first, something sour from an overturned trash can. Then the living room came into view. Every drawer had been dumped, and the couch cushions sliced open. Books were thrown everywhere, and picture frames were shattered. The television lay face down on the floor.
It wasn’t vandalism. It was a search. A methodical one.
Goldie stopped breathing. “Oh...” Her voice broke. “No...” She pulled away from me. “Novalea!” Her shout echoed through the house.
No answer.
She ran toward the hallway. I stayed on her heels.
The bedroom was destroyed. The closet emptied, the mattress flipped, and the dressers dumped.
“Novalea!” she shouted again.
Nothing.
The kitchen was the same. Everywhere I looked, someone had searched. Not for valuables. For something specific.
Goldie was crying now and absolutely terrified. “Nova!”
She disappeared down another hallway, and I followed.
A bathroom and the second bedroom were destroyed. School supplies were strewn all around, and the closet was trashed. Every plastic tote had been opened. Every filing cabinet emptied.
The desk had been pulled away from the wall.
Goldie dropped to her knees beside the overturned desk. “No...” She shoved papers aside with both hands. “No...”
I crouched beside her. “What?”
“I left them...” She pulled open an empty desk drawer. “...right here.”
My stomach sank.
The folder was gone.
She looked up at me. “They found them.”
I didn’t answer because she was right. The copies were gone.
Twister appeared in the doorway. “All rooms are cleared.”
Magnum came in from the back. “Garage is clear.”
Swift shook his head. “No one outside.”
Goldie stood so fast she almost lost her balance. “Nova!” She bolted toward the front of the house again. I caught up just as she stumbled into the living room. “Novalea!”
Silence.
Twister’s phone buzzed, and everyone froze. He looked down at an unknown number. His jaw tightened, and he opened the message. He slowly started reading off the message. “You made us do this.”
Nobody spoke.
Another message came through.
“Now leave before you really regret it.”
Goldie covered her mouth.
His phone buzzed again, but this time he wrinkled his brow.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned his phone to us, and showed us a picture of Hodge standing outside the clubhouse with a coffee in one hand, talking to Nugget and Magnum, taken from across the street.
Hodge frowned. “The hell...”
Swift stepped closer.
“When was that?”
“Thursday,” Magnum said immediately. “I remember because Nugget dropped his coffee five seconds later.”
The room went quiet again.
“They’re watching us,” I said.
Twister nodded once. “They’re telling us they’ve been watching us.”
The house suddenly felt smaller, like eyes were still on us.
A voice called behind us, soft and confused. “...Goldie?”
Goldie went completely still. Her eyes went wide, and slowly she turned.
Standing in the open front doorway was a blonde woman carrying two reusable grocery bags. She looked between all of us, then at the destroyed living room. Confusion spread across her face. “Goldie?” The grocery bags slipped from her hands.
“Novalea!” Goldie’s voice cracked. She threw herself across the room, wrapping both arms around her sister so hard they nearly stumbled backward onto the porch.
Novalea hugged her just as tightly. She looked over Goldie’s shoulder at the broken furniture, shattered pictures, and the strange men in leather cuts with guns.
“Goldie...” She swallowed. “Can you please tell me why my house is destroyed, and Sons of Anarchy is standing in my living room?”