I come out of my shift exhausted, head pounding, hands smelling like fryer grease and old paper. My beat up red Kia is parked right where I left it.
And there’s something on the hood.
A glove.
Black leather. Heavy. Worn soft like it’s been used a lot. It’s placed dead center, fingers pointed toward the windshield, deliberate as hell.
Like someone took their time.
Like they wanted me to see it before I touched the door.
My stomach drops straight to my feet.
I don’t touch it. I don’t look around. I unlock the car with shaking hands and drive like I’m being chased, heart hammering hard enough to blur the edges of my vision.
I don’t go home.
I go back to the pawn shop.
The lights are still on when I pull in, but Lottie’s truck is gone. That hits wrong. She’s usually here late on Fridays, closing up paperwork, cussing at receipts, letting the world wear itself out before she goes home.
I check my phone.
No signal.
Of course.
I’m counting the seconds until she gets back when the lights cut out.
Every single one.
The shop plunges into darkness so sudden I gasp. The hum dies. The air feels thick and wrong, like the building swallowed sound.
My ears ring. I can hear my own pulse.
Something creaks in the dark.
Not the building settling.
Something shifting weight.
The front door is locked. I check it twice. The back door won’t budge. My hands shake hard enough I can hear my keys rattling.
I fumble for my phone, anyway. Dead screen. No bars. Nothing.
That’s when headlights sweep across the front windows, slow and steady.
A Harley engine. Big. Familiar. The kind that doesn’t sneak up on anything.
Oaks steps inside like the dark invited him. Like it knows him. Like it belongs to him.
He takes in the dead lights, the locked doors, my face pale, panicked and betraying every damn thing I feel.
Then his eyes settle on me.
“I told you to watch your back,” he says.
Not loud. Not angry.
