CHAPTER NINETEEN | SIENNA
I pulled up to Lucky Brake, but the shop was closed up. There were no signs of life; the lights were off and the windows were shuttered up.
My mind immediately raced to the worst case scenario; Kaplan had beat me to the punch.
I made a lap around the building, cupping my hands over the windows and trying to see inside for any clue as to what might have happened. Then I remembered the basement under the shop.
I retraced the path that Ace had led me on towards the back of the building, where a chain link fence separated a section of the gravel lot. The gate was unlocked and ajar, and my heart raced—both with hope and with dread.
I squeezed in through the gap and tip-toed over the gravel, trying to stop my footsteps from crunching.
There was a single bike parked in the square lot, but it wasn’t Ace’s. In fact, I wasn’t convinced that it belonged to any of the High Rollers. The body was bright pink; identical to the bubblegum hue of Kendra’s Vespa.
I frowned as I took a few careful steps towards the bike to get a better look.
Maybe I could find some sort of hint or clue…
I leaned over the bike, scanning it with my eyes. The black leather seatback was embroidered with a single daisy, and a jet-black helmet hung from the handlebars.
Who does this bike belong to—
“Can I help you?” a loud voice snapped from behind me.
I gasped, spinning around. When I saw the woman source of the voice, I nearly gasped all over again.
She had cotton candy pink hair that was tied up in a bow-shaped bun on the top of her head. She wore scuffed combat boots, black torn stockings, a puffy black tutu, and a pink leather jacket that matched the color of her bike.
She was a pint-sized punk rock princess.
She was also pissed off.
Her arms were folded over her chest and her legs were spread in an intimidating stance. And even though she was at least half a foot shorter than me— and probably all of a 100 lbs, soaking wet—she still made me inch back apprehensively.
“I asked you a question,” she snapped. Then she reached around her back and I heard her hand grip around something that I could only assume was the handle of a gun. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
I thrust my hands up in surrender.
“I’m a friend of Ace Boone,” I said. “I was just trying to find him—”
“Well as you can clearly see, he’s not here right now.”
“Right. Um… do you know where I could find him?” I asked. “It’s kind of urgent.”
“If he’s really your friend, then why don’t you just ask him that?”
“I would, but… well, I don’t have his phone number.”
She raised one of her perfectly drawn-on eyebrows.
“I don’t have his number,” I scrambled nervously. “I know, I know. It’s a very long, complicated story—”
“You’re that agent bitch, aren’t you?” she cut me off.
“Umm…” I hesitated, wondering if that was a wise thing to admit to a woman with her hand on a gun. “My name is Sienna O’Malley.”
I slowly extended my hand to offer a handshake, but she just sneered down at it, then back up at me. She kept her hand on the gun the entire time.
“I heard all about you,” she said. “Ace might trust you, but not all of us do.”
“I understand—”
“I don’t think you do,” she said. She took a slow step towards me and narrowed her eyes. “This club is a family. If you fuck with one of us, you fuck with all of us. And if you try to pull one over on Ace, I’ll bedazzle your skull with so much fucking lead that the county coroner won’t be able to tell your face apart from a bowl of tomato soup. Do I make myself fucking clear?”
“Crystal,” I choked.
“Good.”
She stormed past me, shoving her shoulder into mine as she stomped towards her bike. She plucked up the helmet and started to pull it over her head.
“Wait!” I pleaded. “This really is important. I need to talk to Ace.”
She hesitated, helmet hovering just above her pink up-do.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“The club could be at risk,” I said. “I—”
I started to feel nauseous again, and I cupped my hand over my mouth as I stumbled backwards.
The pink-haired woman must have assumed that I was in shock from her warning, because her face instantly softened and she sighed.
“I think Ace is at my place,” she said. “He was going to visit Bingo this afternoon.”
“Thank you!” I said, swallowing back the bile that had rushed up my throat. “Can you give me the address?”
“No,” she said. “But I can give you a ride.”
She scooted forward on her bike’s seat, leaving a sliver of space for me on the back, then she glanced at me expectantly. My stomach churned and I gulped.
“What’s the matter?” she taunted me. “Scared?”
“I’m wearing a dress,” I said meekly, tugging at the skirt of the belted olive green work dress that I was wearing.
“So am I,” she shrugged, mimicking me by tugging at her tutu. “Move it or lose it, agent.”
I took a deep breath, then I strode forward and straddled the bike. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do…
I gripped the back of the seat as the engine roared to life.
“By the way,” I shouted. “What’s your name?”
“Daisy,” she shouted back. Then she kicked the bike into gear and twisted the throttle.
***
I could tell that riding on the back of Daisy’s bike was a mistake as soon as she ripped the gas. She drove like an absolute maniac, weaving between cars and blowing straight through traffic lights.
To make matters worse, I didn’t have a helmet. The only thing stopping my brains from becoming scrambled eggs on the asphalt was Daisy.
Maybe it was another intimidation tactic, or maybe she was an absolute psychopath. Either way, I was never so grateful to see solid ground in my entire life, as I was when we finally pulled up to a house and she killed the engine.
I nearly spewed my guts all over again as I slipped off the bike and stumbled onto the driveway.
Daisy strutted towards the garage and effortlessly rolled up the door.
“Well, their bikes aren’t here,” she said. “They must have gone for a ride.”
She turned back to me, and then she frowned.
“You look as green as your dress,” she noted, observing the color—or lack thereof—in my face.
I was on the verge of blowing chunks, and I needed to get my head over a toilet ASAP.
“Do you have a bathroom I could use?” I asked.
She huffed out a dramatic sigh, as if I had just asked her to give me her kidney. Then she gestured for me to follow her up the porch steps.
“Come on,” she said gruffly. I followed her into the house and was surprised by how homey and normal it felt. Framed photographs, Bath & Bodyworks candles, pink throw pillows… not exactly the decor I would have imagined in the home of biker.
“The bathroom’s that way,” she said, nodding towards a door at the end of the hall. I made a grateful mumble—which was about all I could manage with my lips clamped shut—and I stalked quickly into the bathroom.
As soon as the door was locked behind me, I slammed down onto my knees and hung my head over the toilet. A dry heave immediately croaked its way up my throat, bringing with it a mouthful of bile.
I waited for the main act, but it never came. My stomach slowly started to settle, and the nausea faded. Still, I didn’t trust myself to stand up just yet. Instead, I slid away from the toilet and pressed my back against the bathroom wall.
My eyes scanned the bathroom. Once again, I was surprised by how homey it all was. There was a reed diffuser on the lid of the toilet tank. Pink fluffy towels were folded and arranged on a shelf next to the shower. There was a fancy pump-bottle of hand soap next to the sink.
And then I saw something that made my stomach clench and the color drain from my face all over again.
Right there, on the bathroom counter, was a box of pregnancy tests.
More specifically, it was a twelve pack.
Who buys a twelve pack of pregnancy tests?! I wondered. I didn’t even know they sold those.
I frowned, imagining the pink-haired biker chick.
She must be trying to get pregnant.
Then my mind raced back to the bright red “P” on my calendar app; my missed period.
I’m not pregnant, I told myself. It was probably just a technical glitch.
But it wasn’t just the missed period. There was also the nausea. And the fact that I felt like I had been hit by a semi-truck.
I closed my eyes and saw the pile of used condom wrappers in the hotel room.
Fuck.
I knew that stealing a pregnancy test from a stranger’s bathroom was crazy. Stealing a pregnancy test from a woman who had, moments earlier, just about threatened me at gunpoint was even more crazy. But my head raced with the possibilities, and there was only one way to settle it.
Before I could second-guess my decision, I reached into the box and pulled out a single test. It was wrapped in foil, and I tore open the package and pulled out a pink plastic wand.
I had never taken a pregnancy test myself, but I had sat through a few of them with Kendra. I knew the drill.
I squatted down on the toilet and propped the wand between my legs. Once I had finished, I replaced the plastic cap on the end of the wand. I kept my eyes locked on the results window as I waited, holding my breath and bobbing my knees.
The panel slowly began to darken and a single pink line began to form. The line grew stronger and stronger, and then another one fainter—
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
A fist pounded against the bathroom door, banging so hard that the hinges rattled. I jolted up, startled, and the test slipped out of my hands and landed, face down, on the bathroom floor.
“They’re back!” Daisy’s voice called through the door. “You can talk to Ace now!”
“O-okay!” I stammered.
In a moment of panic, I grabbed the test. Without glancing at the result again, I quickly rolled it up in a wad of toilet paper, then I buried it in the wastebasket underneath a box of tampons and an empty bottle of shower gel. For good measure, I added another wad of toilet paper to the heap of garbage.
Confident that I had hidden the evidence, I flushed the toilet and slipped out of the bathroom.