Page 68 of Reckless

Not because I was afraid for myself.

Because someone found Piper.

Because someone threatened Ghost.

Because they looked at everything I’ve spent my life trying to protect, and they knew exactly where to twist the knife.

I pull up the files on my laptop right there in the car. Three years’ worth of work fills the screen—families, photographs, testimonies. I read every account again, match every face to a name, and revisit every reason I started this in the first place.

Then I close the laptop and sit with my hands on the wheel, my forehead against them, for a minute.

Then I open the files again, and I keep working, because I am not stopping.

I need to be smarter about how I move forward.

Chapter Fourteen

SAGE

Two Days Later

By Sunday afternoon, the clubhouse parking lot is already filling with bikes.

Brothers drift between rows of Harleys with beers in one hand and helmets in the other, the familiar soundtrack of laughter, engines, and Deek arguing with somebody about something carrying across the asphalt in a way that’s become strangely comforting over the past few months.

The Sunday ride.

It doesn’t matter where they’re riding.

It never really has.

Somewhere along the way this stopped being about motorcycles and started becoming about the people waiting beside them.

Ghost is already outside. His cut is on, helmet resting on the seat of his bike while he crouches beside it, checking something I can’t see. He glances up as I walk over, his eyes finding mine for exactly long enough that something warm stirs low in my stomach before he straightens. “Sage, you’re with me.”

I widen my eyes. “What?”

He hooks his helmet over the handlebar like the conversation is already over. “You’re riding with me.”

I fold my arms. “Ahhh, no, I’m here to hang out with my girl, Marley, today.”

Ghost shakes his head. “Already spoke to her. She said you’re cleared of maid of honor duties, and you’re on the back of my ride today.”

“Was there a meeting where everyone voted on that while I wasn’t looking?”

“No.”

“So, this is just dictatorship?”

He shrugs, a small smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “It is what it is, Objection.”

I snap my head around to face him. “Did you just call me Objection, or are you objecting?”

“You object to everything I say, so the name fits.”

I huff, folding my arms across my chest. “I do not!”

“Case… in… point.”