Chapter 20

Sky

20

The following days unravel in a confusing fashion.

We dash in and out of the city for surveillance and additional evidence. But the days seem too slow as we let our lawyers handle Shiloh and Spike's arraignment. Just as we suspected, the cops don't have enough to hold them, and with the number of cases already clotting the legal system, it's going to take a while for several warrants to come through. This gives my sister time to clean the house and leave nothing for when the investigators do come knocking on her door.

"I tell you, if there's one thing I don't regret paying so much money for, it's this law firm," I mutter as I take Ariana through the back door of my mother's bike shop. "They're making certain things remarkably easy for us. It actually feels nice to know we're not entirely on our own here."

"Even so, we shouldn't have come to the shop," Ariana mutters. "We should be planning a visit back to my father's place. Amstaff said we need to—"

"I know what Amstaff said, and we're working on it," I gently cut her off. "The problem is that the mayor's residence is heavily guarded. We need a few more days to get a solid plan together. The last thing we need is to get ourselves arrested while inches away from crucial evidence that your father might have no choice but to destroy if we do get caught."

Ariana accepts my argument and follows me through the narrow corridor leading into the office. I'm one of three people with a key to this part of the building, and we had to wait for a few hours before we were able to get in. Cops keep scouring the area. Luckily, there were shift changes, and that was our shot.

"Couldn't you have just called her?" Ariana asks, nervously pacing around the room while I rummage through the desk drawers, fishing out every USB drive that I can find. I left a lot of potentially incriminating stuff in here, and I don't want my mother getting dragged into this mess any more than she is about to.

"No. I needed to see her one last time, just in case," I reply.

She gives me a worried look. "Please, don't talk like that."

"It's still a possibility we can't deny," I say. "Ariana, from the moment I showed up at your place with a gun in my hand, I knew that this could end badly for me. For us."

"I know, but …" her voice fades as we both freeze upon hearing footsteps on the other side of the door. A split second later, my mother comes in, and she's not alone.

"Shiloh!" Ariana exclaims, rushing over to hug my sister.

I wish I had more time to enjoy the moment properly. Shiloh rarely took to any of the women I was involved with, yet she seems to be particularly fond of Ariana. I take this as a good sign and pray we'll get to laugh about it years later.

"How'd you get out of jail?" I ask Shiloh.

"Your lawyers are ridiculously good," she chuckles dryly.

My mom throws her arms around me and holds me close, practically ignoring Ariana for the better part of a minute. I welcome her relief and affection—I'm not sure when I'll be able to feel my mother's embrace again once we take this show back on the road. Yet, as soon as she pulls back, my mom promptly smacks me over the head. "You crazy stupid child!"

"Ow," I mutter but ultimately accept the berating. I've earned it.

"You have lost your goddamn mind!" she says. I take a second to look at her and just smile. Her Italian American features are a subtler mirror of mine. Black hair, wide, deep brown eyes, and an elegant nose befitting the face of a Roman queen. Granted, time has been kinder to her than to my father, who passed away long before he could see her do so well on her own. "Dragging this poor girl everywhere with you," my mom adds, giving Ariana a nod of acknowledgment. "I'm sorry we have to meet this way, honey. I'm Paula, this magnificently reckless man's mother."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, either way," Ariana can't help but giggle.

"You two can't be here for much longer," Shiloh warns us.

"I know, but I needed to get some things out of the office," I say.

Mom looks at me with understandable concern. "It's out of our hands now, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," I reply with a heavy sigh. "I am sorry, for what it's worth."

"Meh. As long as you get results, we'll be fine. It wouldn't be the first time they've raided the shop, anyway. We weathered the 2008 financial crisis, and we're going to get through this, too."

Ariana gasps. "Wait, did you say raid?"

"Yeah, they're coming," Shiloh says. "The lawyers told me as soon as Spike and I got out of the joint."

"Where is Spike?" I ask, my mind firing rapid responses for each incoming development. We're about to go into the fast lane, and I need every possible exit clear and visible in the back of my head.

"Already doing what you asked," Shiloh responds. "Sky, I swear to God, if you don't buy us that lakeside house when this is all over, I'm going to kill you with my bare hands."

"I still can't believe you got involved over a house," Mom exhales sharply.

"She's kidding, Mom," I remind her. "Shiloh is in it for the long run, out of loyalty and sisterly love. Come on, we've been over this so many times already. We have to end them. We have to destroy the Black Hand if we're ever going to see peace again in Everton."

Mom sighs and walks over to a safe in the wall. She punches a code into the keypad and takes everything out—rolls of cash, a couple of guns, ammunition, and several important documents—putting it all into a duffel bag. "You might as well take this while you're here," she says, handing the bag over to me. You'll need it."

"These are the deeds to the shop and Dad's house," I mutter, staring at her.

"Just take it. Keep it safe. We know how the cabal operates at this point. We don't want to make it easier for them," Mom says.

POP-POP!

Guns rapidly fire outside. We can hear men shouting through the walls. A glass breaks inside the shop, signifying they've made entry into the building.

"Shit, they're here," Shiloh says, the color suddenly draining from her face.

My heart stops for a moment, and a loud bang rattles me to the core. "Flashbang grenades," I say.

"Shiloh, we need to go out there and surrender," Mom cuts in.

"I just got out on bail, and I have nothing to surrender for," my sister replies.

"Sky, get Ariana out of here," Mom says, then looks directly at her. "I'll see you again, honey, I promise, and under better circumstances. But in the meantime, you two need to leave."

Shiloh nods at the back door. "Go, Sky. Now!"

A bullet pierces the door of the office. It whizzes right through my sister's shoulder, drawing blood. She cries out in pain and falls to the ground.

"Shiloh!" I yell, but Ariana grabs me by the arm.

"My baby!" Mom screams.

"Get down!" I shout, unable to do anything else for them.

"POLICE! We've got a warrant!" a man calls out, following up with a hail of gunfire.

POP. POP. POP. POP.

My mom and sister are on the floor, covering their heads.

Everything happens so fast, yet my body is accustomed to this sort of action. Survival becomes key for me and Ariana, and I get us both out the back door just as the SWAT officers break through the office.

They're not here to arrest me. These dirty fuckers are here to kill me.

My stomach tightens as we both run up the back alley.

Shots are fired somewhere behind us.

"Stop!" an officer yells from the alley. Boots thud down the steps and up the pavement, but Ariana and I keep running as fast as our feet can carry us.

Bullets are flying past us. We zigzag up the last twenty yards before I yank my woman out of their range and drift into a side street. I don't know how my muscles and tendons are able to keep up with this insane speed, but I'm bolting faster than the fucking wind.

Sirens wail in the distance.

"Sky!" Ariana manages. "Your mom! Your sister!"

"They're not after them," I tell her. "They're too focused on not letting us get away. My mom and sister are more valuable to them alive because they will assume they have intel on us."

"They shot Shiloh!"

"It wasn't a life-threatening wound. We'll worry about that later," I say and take a left turn.

Lucky for us, I know these streets by heart. Tall buildings rise high everywhere. It's a busy district, and these are the entrails, the narrow supply roads they use for shipments. I used to roam them freely as a kid, playing hide-and-seek with the neighborhood kids whenever I was left on my own.

I glance back, and I can't see anyone following us.

I can hear them, though.

They could still catch up, so we keep on running. My heart is racing. The repercussions of every decision we've made so far come back to haunt me. I didn't think they'd shoot at us, not while executing an apparently legal raid of my mom's bike shop.

I certainly didn't think Shiloh would become collateral damage. I got a glimpse of her wound, however. It was through and through. She should be okay.

"Why were they shooting at us?" Ariana asks, short of breath as we reach a busy street and slow down, careful to blend with the passersby. We can hear the sirens on the other side of the block. We may be out of sight, but we're not safe yet. We are, however, closer to a clean escape. My truck is just fifty yards away. I can already see it.

"They likely had heat scanners," I tell her, trying to wrap my head around what just happened. "They weren't aware of the back door because the alley's a dead end.

True enough, it's one of the shop's best features if anyone's looking to engage in criminal activities while fixing Harleys. The back alley is sealed and cluttered with dumpsters. It's also not in the building's newer blueprints, though I'm not sure how that happened. I'm just thankful for bureaucratic glitches because it absolutely came in handy when we needed it.

To my relief and astonishment, I got everything out of the office. My calves and thighs burn, and my lungs feel like they might explode at any given moment, but we got out. It's all that matters.

"Heat scanners. So, they were waiting for us to come in," Ariana says.

"They were watching from the front. They didn't have access to the back."

"Right, because we came through from the other building."

"Precisely. As soon as they figured out we came in through a back door that they knew nothing about, it was game over," I reply. "I guess they fumbled and rushed in to kill us before we'd have a chance to get out the same way we came in."

"Jesus Christ," Ariana mumbles.

"To say that we were lucky would be one hell of an understatement. We came close. Too close. We can't let it happen again. I can't let you come out like this anymore; it's too risky."

We move cautiously, blending in with the crowd while my heart rate begins to normalize. The danger isn't over just yet, but merely being out of their line of fire is enough to get my senses back on track. Active combat was one thing; this is something else entirely. These aren't insurgents. They're fellow Americans, and they're itching to kill Ariana and me. It means we've gotten closer to the Black Hand than ever before.

Despite the repercussions, it's a good thing. We rattled the beast and it has come out to play. I just hope my mom and my sister are okay. I'll have to make it up to them a million times over.

Finally, we reach my pickup truck and get in, carefully checking the side and rearview mirrors to make sure that no one saw us or followed us. Ariana is trembling, taking deep breaths in a bid to calm herself. The adrenaline is wearing off, and now she's struggling to pull herself back together. I squeeze her knee and wait for her to regain her composure.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"I am anything but, Sky. We need to get out of here," she replies. The fear in her bright blue eyes has my heart twisted in a painful knot. I ache for the day when I will only see peace and happiness in them.

"On it," I say and twist the key in the ignition.

We leave the city center behind and take several additional routes to avoid the heavy traffic. The streets are teeming with cops. They'll turn Everton inside out in their attempts to find us, so we need to get away and stay away for a while. That means I won't be able to see my mom or my sister for who knows how long.

"They're going to be okay," Ariana says once we're out of the city. It's as if we can both breathe easily for the first time since we left the cabin this morning. "They have to be okay."

"Whatever happens, we push forward," I tell her. "If we give up now, it will all have been in vain."

"We're not giving up. If anything, I think I know what to do next."

I give her a curious look. "What's brewing in that fine noggin of yours, Ariana?"

"There may be crucial evidence back at my father's house," she says. "I know that place inside and out. I know where he might've hidden anything he didn't want to be found. I also know that we need to get him out of the house in order to search it. And I know how to do just that."

I'm intrigued. "Why are you doing this?"

"How can you even ask me that at this point?" she scoffs. "There's more proof against my father than there is in his favor. The Black Hand keeps trying to kill me while he's out there moping to every camera about how he wants his daughter back, alive and well. And there's a pretty good possibility that he had something to do with my mother's death. I need the truth, Sky."

Ariana is, of course, familiar with her father's house. We both know he wouldn't keep anything incriminating in his office. No, he'd keep it at home. The home where Ariana was raised.