Chapter 12: Paint Over It

Stephanie's POV

My old room smelled like diesel and Birdie's laundry soap, and I had just put the crate down when someone knocked.

It was a slow, easy knock. I knew it.

I opened the door on the chain.

"Evening, Steph," Dutch said.

He held a white envelope in one hand and a bouquet of grocery-store roses in the other.

"No," I said.

"You haven't heard me out."

"I don't need to."

"Five minutes." He smiled the room smile, for nobody. "You'll want to see what's in here."

I didn't open the door wider, but I didn't close it.

He slid the envelope through the gap.

Inside was a cashier's check for twenty thousand dollars, made out to me.

Under it was a paper with the club lawyer's name at the top.

The paper said the Telford Custom Cycles paintwork clause was withdrawn.

It said the garage's name was mine to use. My designs were mine.

"It's everything you wanted in the diner, Steph," Dutch said.

"You come home, we put this behind us, and you tell the club you were upset and confused."

"And Kendra?"

"That's finished."

"Is it?"

"It will be." He leaned his forehead against the door frame.

"I made a mistake, babe. I've been alone in that house for three weeks. I know what I lost."

It was good. It was almost good enough.

For ten years I'd have fallen for it, and a part of me even felt it pull.

Then I thought of forty thousand dollars in cash and a man in a gray cut standing in a gravel lot with empty hands.

"The money in the account," I said. "The one ending in seven-seven-three-one."

He went still. "What about it?"

"You said it was safe."

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