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“But powerful enough to throw wrenches into everything that you try to do,” Amstaff shoots back. “Look at yourself. Running around, hiding. You almost lost Miss David here, and the whole police force is scouring the city and its surrounding areas, leaving no stone unturned until they find you. The clubhouse is off-limits. You’ve got club members in jail. I read the news, Kendric.”
“We knew this was coming,” he insists.
“Yeah, you told me. And what did I tell you?”
Kendric exhales sharply, a muscle ticking angrily in his jaw. “When they go low, we go lower. It’s the only way that we’re going to get them.”
“What does that mean?” I ask them.
“It means we’ll have to find a way to break into your home,” Kendric shoots back, giving me a wary look, topping it off with the sweetest, most awkward half-smile.
It all sounds crazy.
But the mere thought that my father knew anything about my mother’s death not being an accident makes my blood boil, filling me with the kind of unquenchable fury that only the truth can soothe.
I have to find out what really happened and how deeply my father is involved.
20
Sky
The following days unravel in a confusing fashion.
We dash in and out of the city for surveillance and additional evidence. But the days seem too slow as we let our lawyers handle Shiloh and Spike’s arraignment. Just as we suspected, the cops don’t have enough to hold them, and with the number of cases already clotting the legal system, it’s going to take a while for several warrants to come through. This gives my sister time to clean the house and leave nothing for when the investigators do come knocking on her door.
“I tell you, if there’s one thing I don’t regret paying so much money for, it’s this law firm,” I mutter as I take Ariana through the back door of my mother’s bike shop. “They’re making certain things remarkably easy for us. It actually feels nice to know we’re not entirely on our own here.”
“Even so, we shouldn’t have come to the shop,” Ariana mutters. “We should be planning a visit back to my father’s place. Amstaff said we need to—”
“I know what Amstaff said, and we’re working on it,” I gently cut her off. “The problem is that the mayor’s residence is heavily guarded. We need a few more days to get a solid plan together. The last thing we need is to get ourselves arrested while inches away from crucial evidence that your father might have no choice but to destroy if we do get caught.”
Ariana accepts my argument and follows me through the narrow corridor leading into the office. I’m one of three people with a key to this part of the building, and we had to wait for a few hours before we were able to get in. Cops keep scouring the area. Luckily, there were shift changes, and that was our shot.
“Couldn’t you have just called her?” Ariana asks, nervously pacing around the room while I rummage through the desk drawers, fishing out every USB drive that I can find. I left a lot of potentially incriminating stuff in here, and I don’t want my mother getting dragged into this mess any more than she is about to.
“No. I needed to see her one last time, just in case,” I reply.
She gives me a worried look. “Please, don’t talk like that.”
“It’s still a possibility we can’t deny,” I say. “Ariana, from the moment I showed up at your place with a gun in my hand, I knew that this could end badly for me. For us.”
“I know, but …” her voice fades as we both freeze upon hearing footsteps on the other side of the door. A split second later, my mother comes in, and she’s not alone.
“Shiloh!” Ariana exclaims, rushing over to hug my sister.
I wish I had more time to enjoy the moment properly. Shiloh rarely took to any of the women I was involved with, yet she seems to be particularly fond of Ariana. I take this as a good sign and pray we’ll get to laugh about it years later.
“How’d you get out of jail?” I ask Shiloh.
“Your lawyers are ridiculously good,” she chuckles dryly.
My mom throws her arms around me and holds me close, practically ignoring Ariana for the better part of a minute. I welcome her relief and affection—I’m not sure when I’ll be able to feel my mother’s embrace again once we take this show back on the road. Yet, as soon as she pulls back, my mom promptly smacks me over the head. “You crazy stupid child!”
“Ow,” I mutter but ultimately accept the berating. I’ve earned it.
“You have lost your goddamn mind!” she says. I take a second to look at her and just smile. Her Italian American features are a subtler mirror of mine. Black hair, wide, deep brown eyes, and an elegant nose befitting the face of a Roman queen. Granted, time has been kinder to her than to my father, who passed away long before he could see her do so well on her own. “Dragging this poor girl everywhere with you,” my mom adds, giving Ariana a nod of acknowledgment. “I’m sorry we have to meet this way, honey. I’m Paula, this magnificently reckless man’s mother.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, either way,” Ariana can’t help but giggle.
