"Every weekend for almost a year. Hunting down parts, cleaning rust, arguing about paint colors—he wanted cherry red, I told him black was classic. We never did settle it." I had to stop, swallow hard against the tightness in my throat. "Then he relapsed. Lost his job, lost his apartment, disappeared for three months. By the time he surfaced again, the bike was just sitting here gathering dust, and Danny was a different person. Hollow. Like something had scooped out everything that made him Danny and left this shell walking around wearing his skin."
"But he got clean again."
"Eventually. It took another year, another stint in rehab, a sponsor who actually seemed to get through to him. The last six months of his life, he was more himself than he'd been in years. Started talking about the Shovelhead again, making plans, getting excited about the future. He wanted to open a custom shop someday—do restorations, build something real."
I stared at the bike, at the partially assembled engine, at all the pieces Danny had never gotten to put together.
"The night he died, I was supposed to meet him. We were going to work on the bike—he'd found a vintage kickstart assembly that was exactly right, couldn't stop talking about it on the phone that afternoon. But I got held up at the shop. Some bullshit with a supplier, took longer than it should have. By the time I got to his place?—"
The words caught in my throat.
"The paramedics were already there. They'd been working on him for twenty minutes, but he was already gone. Needle still in his arm. The whole scene staged to look like he'd fucking relapsed."
Tyler was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of someone who understood exactly what I was describing. "Did you ever wonder whether it was all a farce?"
"I didn't. Not then." I pulled away slightly, just enough to meet his eyes. "That's the thing. I believed the official story. Everyone did. Danny Morrison, the addict who couldn't stay clean, finally pushed his luck too far. His sponsor told me that relapse was part of recovery, that sometimes people just couldn't fight the disease. And I bought it. I stood at his funeral and listened to people talk about what a shame it was, and I hated him for leaving me."
The admission hung in the air between us, ugly and raw.
"six years." My voice came out barely above a whisper. "I spent six years blaming a dead man for his own murder. Every time I looked at that bike, I felt angry—at him for giving up, at myself for not saving him, at the world for being the kind of placewhere someone like Danny could just throw it all away. And the whole time, he hadn't thrown anything away. Someone had taken it from him."
"That's not your fault." Tyler's hand found mine, squeezed hard. "You believed what the evidence showed. What everyone told you. You couldn't have known."
"I should have asked questions. Should have pushed back when the cops closed the case so fast. Should have?—"
"Should have gotten yourself killed." Tyler cut me off, his voice firm but gentle. "If you'd started digging back then, you'd have ended up on that kill list right next to Danny. Is that what he would have wanted?"
The question hit harder than I expected. Danny had always been protective of me, even when he was the one who needed protecting. Little brother with big brother instincts—he'd never outgrown that stubborn need to watch my back, even after I'd grown taller and stronger and more capable of handling myself.
"No." The word came out rough. "He would have told me to let it go. To keep my head down and stay safe."
"But you're not going to do that."
"They killed my brother." I met Tyler's eyes, letting him see the cold thing that had taken root in my chest alongside the grief. "They put his name on a list like he was just another problem to be solved. And then they went after you, and Kai, and Sarah, and everyone else who ever got in their way. I'm not letting that go. Not ever."
Tyler held my gaze for a long moment. Something passed between us—understanding,recognition. He'd spent years running from Cross, hiding, trying to stay safe. And it hadn't worked. The danger had found him anyway.
"Then we burn it down together." His voice was quiet but certain. "All of it. The network, the corruption, Cross. We take it apart piece by piece until there's nothing left."
Together. The word settled into me like a promise.
The afternoon light shifted through the dirty windows as we talked, the shadows growing longer across the garage floor. Our shoulders touched where we sat against the workbench, our voices low, the conversation flowing in fits and starts with silences that didn't need filling.
Tyler had told me about Cross. Not just the facts I'd already heard at church meetings, but the reality of what it had been like to spend three years with a man who'd seemed perfect and turned out to be poison.
"In the beginning, he was everything I thought I wanted." Tyler's voice had gone distant, like he was describing something that had happened to someone else. "Smart, ambitious, passionate about the work. He made me feel like I was special—like he'd chosen me out of everyone else, and that meant something."
"What changed?"
"Everything. Nothing." Tyler's hand was still in mine, our fingers loosely interlaced. "The first time he criticized me, I thought he was trying to help. He said my report writing was sloppy, that I needed to be more careful if I wanted to advance. And he was right—the report did have problems. So I fixed them, and I was grateful that someone cared enough to point it out."
He paused, seeming to choose his next words carefully.
"Then it was my clothes. My friends. The way I spent my free time. Always framed as concern—he just wanted what was best for me, he just wanted me to reach my potential. And I believed him, because why would someone who loved me lie? Why would he spend all this time trying to help me if he didn't have my best interests at heart?"
I thought about Danny, about the way addiction had crept up on him the same way. Small compromises that became bigger ones. Choices that didn't seem like choices until it was too late to choose differently.
"By the second year, he'd isolated me from everyone else. My friendsweren't good enough, my familydidn't understand our relationship, my colleagueswere jealous of my success. The only person I could trust was Marcus." Tyler's laugh was bitter. "And that was exactly what he wanted. A partner with no outside support, no one to tell me that what I was experiencing wasn't normal."
