But the lightness in my chest says otherwise.
The ride to Josie’s place takes twelve minutes. I know because I’ve made this drive before—late nights after strategy sessions, telling myself I was just making sure she got home safe. Never admitting the real reason I kept finding excuses to be near her.
Her house is dark when I pull up and there’s no car in the driveway.
I check my phone. Fourteen minutes since we hung up. She should be here by now. Her office is only a ten-minute drive, fifteen if she hits every stop sign.
I wait.
Another five minutes pass and there’s still no sign of her.
Frowning, I call her. It rings through to voicemail.
“Josie, it’s me. Where are you? Call me back.”
I hang up and pace beside my bike, checking my phone again.
Eighteen minutes pass and there’s still nothing.
A cold sensation prickles at the back of my neck. The same instinct that’s kept me alive for the twenty-plus years I’ve been running this club. The same gut feeling that’s warned me of ambushes and betrayals and deals gone wrong.
Something’s not right.
I try her again. Voicemail again.
“You’ve reached Josephine Bright. Please let a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you shortly.”
“Where the fuck are you?” I growl. “Pick up your damn phone, Josie. Don’t make me worry.”
I hit end, pacing once more.
Maybe her phone died. Maybe she stopped for gas. Maybe?—
But the cold feeling is spreading now, settling into my chest like ice water. Josie doesn’t ignore calls. Josie doesn’t run late without texting. Josie is the most punctual, organized, on-top-of-her-shit person I’ve ever met.
“Fuck it.”
I swing my leg over the bike and head for her office.
The route is quiet this time of night. Empty streets, dark houses, streetlights casting pools of orange on the asphalt. I take the same path she would have, tracking her drive to work.
I see the lights first.
Red and blue, flashing against the buildings. An ambulance. A police cruiser. And in the middle of the Miller Road intersection, a tangle of metal that used to be two vehicles.
One of them is a silver Honda.
No.
I’m off my bike before I consciously decide to stop. Running. Shoving past a cop who tries to hold me back, ignoringhis shouts, my eyes locked on that crumpled vehicle, on the paramedics working frantically on the driver?—
Josie.
She’s pale. Too pale. The warm olive skin that usually glows with life is ashen, almost gray under the flashing lights. There’s blood on her face, matting the dark hair that’s always so perfectly styled, streaking down the elegant neck I’ve imagined pressing my lips to more times than I can count. Her arm is bent wrong. Her eyes, those sharp hazel eyes that miss nothing, are closed.
She’s not fucking moving.
This isn’t her. This broken, bloodied woman isn’t the Josie who strides into rooms like she owns them, who argues case law with a fire that makes me want to push her against a wall and kiss her until neither of us can breathe. This isn’t the woman who wears her suits like armor and her intelligence like a weapon.
