“It wasn’t by choice,” Lucy said, rising to her feet beside me. “You don’t… you don’t actually think I’m capable of doing something like that. Right?” I didn’t answer her right away, and she pressed. “Leo.”

I grabbed hold of the tire rack and tried to haul myself into a standing position without assistance, but pain bit hard into my side and made my knees lock. Lucy was there in an instant to help me up, and though I grunted unhappily, I didn’t rebuke her. No reason to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Still, I wondered… if Lucy was part of whatever the hell Delfino’s plan was… how much did she know? Had any of it been her idea? I didn’t want to believe it was possible, but then again, I didn’t want to believe I was so stupid as to get distracted by what was now so obviously a lure.

How had I missed the signs? The glaring red flags? Delfino left us alone every goddamn day in that house, essentially daring us to fuck, but instead of stopping to think how strange that was I’d just thrown myself at the opportunity to get my dick wet. Delfino wasn’t stupid, but somehow I’d believed I was getting one over on him—that I had actually outsmarted him—and that had made me cocky. Lazy. Stupid.

Maybe even dead.

I closed my eyes, trying to make the world stop spinning, gripping the metal rack hard to tether myself as the foundation of what I’d believed was going on here slipped through my fingers like a sandcastle caught in the tide. I’d been so damn blind, so willfully ignorant in the name of bliss, so desperate to have that one light in my life back that I’d thrown in my lot with a lie. What would it cost me? Is this where death was gonna find me—some cookie-cutter town not even big enough to warrant a spot on a map? Was this how Leo Richards would go out, not with a bang, but with a goddamn pitiful whimper?

I wanted to slap myself. How had I let this happen? How had I believed that I could really hold on to any shred of happiness? Hadn’t I learned? After all this time—a shitty childhood that culminated in growing up way too damn fast; memories better expressed as scars instead of photographs; enough red in my ledger it was a small wonder churches didn’t burst into flames when I passed ‘em by—hadn’t I figured out that happiness was for other people?

When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was Lucy. The way she was looking at me… All the anger fled my body at once, leaving my chest sunken, my shoulders slumped. She took the fire right out of me, this girl. Stole the breath right from my lungs with just a look.

Part of me hated that she had that kind of power over me. But an even bigger part of me kind of loved it, too.

“Leo, you have to believe me,” she said, tears starting to glimmer in her eyes, “I didn’t know anything about Delfino getting rid of your bike, and I don’t know anything about anything else he has planned. Jesus, do you really think I’d be okay with him killing you? You think I’d just…” Her voice cracked, and her face twisted in pain. “You think I’d want you dead, after waiting so damn long for you to come back and find me again?”

“No,” I said, and mostly, I meant it. Maybe I’d had a moment of weakness, a flash of anger and mistrust dredged up from the still-open wounds of my past, but ultimately I knew in my gut Lucy had nothing to do with Delfino’s schemes. She might have been part of them, sure—but she’d been an unwilling, and unwitting, participant. “No, I don’t think that, Lulu. It’s just… everything else I’ve thought so far has been wrong. We’re in deep shit here. Clearly. I think we may even be in over our depth.”

“So what, we just… lay down and die?” Lucy asked as I moved past her toward the scrapheap that was once my bike. A pang of regret, of despair, rippled through my chest like the striking of a gong. I’d loved that goddamn bike and everything it represented. Loved what it gave me—the big things a man needed in life, like freedom and independence, the ability to wander and roam and escape—while asking so little of me in return. All I had to do was keep it safe, keep it tuned, keep it up and running. All I had to do was put in a little bit of work, some elbow grease…

Just one more failure to add to my collection, I guessed, staring at what felt like the wreckage of my very soul. Delfino had decimated it, and if I didn’t think of a way to head him off at the pass, he would sure as hell do the same to the rest of me.

“I’m not a ‘lay down and die’ kinda guy, Lulu,” I said, forcing myself to step away from the ruins of my bike. “No matter what Delfino’s taken from me, or what he still might… I’m not going down in anything less than a blaze of glory.” I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ease the tension headache brewing at the base of my skull. “I just need to know what Delfino’s master plan here is. Why the hell has he got such a hard-on for me? What’s he got to gain by disappearing me? For once, we need to get ahead of him, or it’s game over.” If it’s not already, I added, but only in my head. I looked at her. “You said you broke into his study?”

Lucy nodded. “That’s right. But he doesn’t keep a lot of sensitive information in there. At least, not when it comes to business.” The emphasis she put on the word made me think she was talking about a little more than just accounting. “That stuff he keeps at his church offices. I don’t think he wanted to run the risk of me getting anywhere near it. Delfino’s kind of paranoid that way. He’s so worried about being blackmailed.”

“This guy’s worst fear is someone getting the upper hand on him, huh?” I snorted. “Figures.” Guys like Delfino were always terrified of being taken down a peg. They had to assert their dominance at every available opportunity, always had to be the smartest guys in the room, and they damn sure needed everyone else around them to know it. Dear old Dad had been just like this asshole in that way, priding himself on how oh-so-clever he was, just dying for an excuse to lord even the smallest victory over the rest of us peons.

But you know what they say… pride goeth before a fall. And nothing felled a guy like that harder than exposing him to the harsh light of day. That was their Achilles heel, their glass jaw—having their bluster stripped away and revealing who they really were for the whole world to see. In the end, they were nothing but bullies, just insecure little brats living in the bodies of full-grown adults.

“There’s gotta be records of the con-job he’s running here over in that church,” I muttered, stretching out my side. It hurt like a bitch, but there was no way I was gonna let Lucy know that—she’d want me to go home, rest, and live to fight another day. But now I knew there very well might not be another day. If we were gonna get the hell out of Dodge, and if I was gonna avoid an untimely death, we were gonna have to do something now.

Lucy’s gaze slipped to my ribs. There was a suspicious glint in her eyes, but when she spoke, it wasn’t about my injuries. “With how many cookie jars Delfino has his hand in, I’d say you’re right. The people he’s paid off. The things he’s run through here. I imagine the mafia would want records of that to make sure he wasn’t skimming.” That glint turned almost murderous. “I kinda hope he is.”

“Even if he’s not, it’s our opportunity to hold him at gunpoint, for once. All we gotta do is find the specifics on what he’s been up to and what he’s planning, then shove it in his face and threaten to call the Feds. When it comes down to it, if Delfino thinks his reputation is at stake, he’s gonna fold like a cheap lawn chair. I’m sure of it.” I held out my hand to Lucy. “So, what do you say, Lulu? You up for some more breaking and entering?”

She offered me the shade of a half-smile. I could tell she was worried. No matter how solid of a front I put up, she knew this was bad. Real bad. And she knew that this was one hell of a Hail Mary, one that could easily bite us both in the ass.

And yet she put her hand in mine anyway, and she lifted her chin defiantly when she said, “I thought you’d never ask.”

Maybe Lucy was about as sheltered as they come, and maybe she knew next to nothing about biker culture, but somehow, she still managed to be the most ride-or-die chick I’d ever met. I couldn’t help but feel like I didn’t deserve her.

But at the same time, holding hands with the girl who’d committed a crime with nothing but a pair of bobby pins and some fast talk, the same girl who filled my stomach and heart every chance she got, who’d haunted my dreams damn near every night since I’d met her… I also couldn’t help but feel like we were made for each other.