Page 146 of Reckless

It stops being an assumption. It stops being something I can explain away, and it becomes tangible.

I reach out slowly, resting my fingertips against the cardboard as though touching it too quickly might somehow change whatever is waiting inside.

The box is ordinary—brown cardboard, clear packing tape, one shipping label. Nothing about it looks threatening.

That’s almost worse.

I glance toward the office door. For one ridiculous second, I consider leaving the parcel exactly where it is and pretending I’d never seen it.

My thumb slides beneath the edge of the tape. The sound it makes as it peels away seems impossibly loud, and I wince.

One strip, then another, and by the time I’ve worked my way around the lid, my hands are trembling again.

“Come on…” I whisper to myself, though I’m not entirely sure whether I’m trying to convince myself to open it or not.

I hook my fingers beneath the cardboard flaps, while my heart pounds hard enough that I can feel it.

This is the point where I still have a choice.

The box can stay closed. Whatever’s inside can stay unknown.

The second I open it, I don’t get to unknow it.

I close my eyes for the briefest moment before taking one slow breath and folding the flaps back, and when I look inside, my breath catches.

Photographs.

Glossy.

Freshly printed.

The kind you pick up from the photo counter at a drugstore.

For a second, my brain refuses to process what I’m looking at, but then recognition slams into me.

It’s me, walking out of the clubhouse at dusk, my jacket only half zipped, my head turned toward something outside the frame.

Another.

Ghost standing outside Millie’s bakery on opening day, hands shoved into his pockets while he watched the crowd the way he watches everything, like he was already calculating every possible way something could go wrong.

Another.

My breath catches—the Sunday ride. I’m on the back of Ghost’s bike, my arms wrapped tightly around his waist, my face buried against his shoulder while the rest of the club rides ahead of us.

I remember that moment.

I remember smiling.

I remember thinking nobody was watching.

Another photograph slips free.

Piper—my stomach drops. She’s standing outside the grocery store, one reusable bag hooked over her wrist while she digs through her handbag for her keys, completely unaware someone is close enough to capture the freckles across her nose.

The angle… dear God. The person behind the camera couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away.

The blood drains from my face.