Page 61 of My End
Stretch shook his head. “No. This is going to sound crazy, but Adam? Not really Adam. He’s with the FBI.”
I blinked. “I, what?”
“He’s been doing the same thing I’ve been doing. Except he’s been a hell of a lot better at it than me. About an hour after you called my club, Adam got word. He came clean.”
My knees buckled, and I sat back on the edge of the bed.
“So... Adam is a fed. You’re a biker. Boone is worse than I thought. And Gibbs is still the creep in the shadows.” I let out a humorless laugh. “Everyone’s been lying to me.”
Stretch knelt in front of me. “I never wanted to lie to you.”
His words were quiet, sincere. And they hurt.
“I know,” I whispered.
And somehow, I did. Underneath all of this, under the secrets and danger, I knew he cared. That he had protected me the only way he could. But now, that wasn’t enough.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
His jaw clenched. “You pack. Whatever you can carry. Backpack only. We leave tonight.”
I stood quickly. “Excuse me?”
He nodded. “I need to get you out of here before shit hits the fan.”
“Stretch-Jake, I can’t just leave. My stuff, my paintings, I can’t leave it all behind.”
“I don’t know if you’ll get another shot to come back for it,” he said, voice grim. “I hope you can. I hopeweboth can. But we’re out of time.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Right. Pack a bag. Backpack only.” This was life or death. I could replace most everything in my studio.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Meet me out front in fifteen.”
I nodded and squeezed his hand before I slipped out of his room. I waited by the door, listening. The house was quiet. No footsteps above. No voices. I darted out and moved fast up the stairs and through the halls.
My studio was like a sanctuary, and stepping inside felt like I was closing the door on my whole life.
I grabbed a backpack from the closet and flung it on the bed.
It was time to work a miracle and pack this sucker full.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Stretch
I pulled the bike around front and parked it just shy of the steps. The sky was starting to dim. The whole house looked still, calm, like nothing was about to go sideways inside it. That was good. That was what we needed.
Everyone I passed in the hall before slipping out back to grab the bike was acting like it was any other day. Jim gave me a grunt and a nod. Kevin asked where the extra damn coffee filters were.
But I felt it.
The kind of tension that made your spine itch.
The front door creaked open, and there she was.
Tilly.
A bulky black backpack was slung over her shoulders, and her arms were wrapped tight around a canvas nearly as big as she was. Her dark curls were up in a messy bun, and her eyes were wide, scanning the yard like she half-expected someone to jump out and scream that she couldn’t leave.
