We finally got out of the house, hours after Colt wanted to leave, but we were on our way back to the clubhouse when his phone rang.
“Yeah?” He listened for a few moments and then said, “All right. Thanks. Get some brothers and we’ll meet you there. Bring the van.”
He hung up and then turned down a street that would not take us to the clubhouse. “That was Torque. He said the Iron Horsemen prospect hasn’t been at your place in six hours. We’re gonna go to your house and get your shit—whatever you want—clothes, furniture, and we’ll move it to my house. Our house.” He shot me an amused smile.
I grinned back in excitement. I would finally be able to grab the things that mattered to me, along with my entire wardrobe.
“What do you want to do with it?” he asked.
“Do with what?” I was distracted thinking about where to hang my family photos.
“Your house. You own it, right?”
“Yeah. I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest. I’m not ready to sell it, but I’m not sure I want to become a landlord and rent it out.”
I did like the idea of residual income without having to do anything. The house had been paid off for as long as I could remember and the roof had been replaced only a few years ago. It needed to be painted, but everything worked. The appliances, the fridge. It had all been taken care of.
We turned down the street and immediately had to pull over. Traffic was blocked off by cones and a fire engine. Before Colt could even put the truck into park, I was unlatching my seatbelt.
I ran down the block, sprinting into a group of people who were watching and pointing, rubbernecking but not doing anything except witnessing a house go up in flames.
“Get back!” A fireman in his uniform yelled at me when I’d dashed through the crowd, using my elbows.
I watched in numb horror as flames licked along the roof and poured out of the windows. Firemen with hoses attempted to put out the inferno.
“What the hell, Mia? You can’t just take off like that.”
I felt him at my back, but didn’t turn around to address him. “That’s my home,” I whispered, still unable to comprehend what I’d just seen.
“I know,” Colt said, his tone somber. He reached for my hand and gently pulled me toward the fireman in charge.
“Sir, please step back,” the fire chief said. He was in his mid-fifties and clearly had been doing this a long time, long enough to have a sense of authority on the scene.
“My girlfriend’s house,” Colt explained.
The man’s brown eyes shot to me. “Your home?”
I nodded. “How did this happen?”
“We won’t know for a bit yet,” he answered vaguely. “You were lucky you weren’t inside.”
“Yeah. Lucky.”
“Excuse me. I need to talk to my crew.” The fire chief dipped his head and then turned and walked away.
I heard the sound of motorcycles and immediately pressed myself against Colt.
“Relax,” he said. “They’re ours.”
A few moments later, I saw, Boxer, Reap, and Cheese striding toward us.
“Acid parked the van on the other side of the intersection,” Boxer said. “We couldn’t get through. What the hell happened?” His gaze took in the smoking remains of the house.
“My home caught fire,” I said, suddenly exhausted, bone-weary.
“Fuck,” Cheese murmured.
I started to shake. Every keepsake, every photograph, my entire family history was in that house.
“This is bad shit,” Reap said.
The men began to talk in low voices but it sounded like I was underwater and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I somehow found it within me to detach from Colt’s side and walk to the fire chief.
“Sorry to bother you,” I said, gaining his attention. “I just wanted to give you my number so you can reach me when you have more of an idea about what happened.”
As he took my information, he asked me a ton of questions to make sure I wasn’t committing insurance fraud.
“If I had to guess the cause, I’d say it was faulty electrical,” he said after finishing his questions and realizing I’d had nothing to do with the fire.
“Faulty electrical. Sure.” I nodded even though I was screaming inside. Dev and the Iron Horsemen had done this. They were toying with me, instilling fear, trying to manipulate me into giving them what Richie had taken from them.
My phone rang and it said UNKNOWN.
“Excuse me?”
The fire chief nodded in dismissal.
I moved away from the mayhem and walked down the block to get some distance and privacy. “Hello?”
“How’s your house?” Dev asked, his tone light. Comical.
“I think you know.”
Dev laughed. “Yeah, I do.”
“Why did you do it?” I heard my voice. It sounded cool, detached.
“Simple. You take something from me, I take something from you.”
“I didn’t take anything from you.”
“No, but Richie did, and you know where it is.”
“Well, you already got him back, didn’t you?” I snapped.
“Babe?”
I whirled, phone to my ear to see that Colt had come up behind me, his face downright scary.
“Who you talkin’ to?” he asked.
I swallowed.
“Is that your man?” Dev asked. “Put him on. I want to speak to him.”
I held out the phone to Colt and he took it. His eyes never left mine as Dev spoke to him. Colt’s jaw clenched so tight it looked like his teeth would shatter.
Colt ended the call without saying a word and handed my phone back to me. I didn’t want to ask what Dev had said to him. No doubt it would only heighten my fear.
“Party’s canceled,” he said finally.
I nodded. I wasn’t in a festive, celebratory mood anyway.
We headed back to the Blue Angels that were standing on the sidewalk, looking very out of place in the quaint neighborhood. Colt spoke to them and then they disbanded, leaving Colt and I alone.
As we drove away, I looked out the window. I could see smoke in the sky, disappearing into the clouds. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the leather seat, scraping my nails against the hard fiberglass of my cast.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“About what?”
“About what’s going through your head.”
“Why?”
“You just watched your grandmother’s house go up in flames. You don’t have feelings about that?”
“I have feelings,” I said. “I know I should be angry. I know I should be ranting and screaming, cursing Dev’s name. But right now, all I can feel is sad. My entire life was in that house. Photo albums, my grandmother’s favorite teacup with a painted pink rose pattern on the delicate china, the shoebox of my mother’s favorite costume jewelry. I have no idea what survived and I can’t handle another loss, Colt.”
“I fucking hate him for this.” His tone was full of anger. “I hate that he’s playing this sick game of cat and mouse and he took this from you.”
“What did he—” my voice cracked. I cleared my throat before speaking again. “What did he say to you on the phone?”