I Set the Sheets on Fire, Then the Clubhouse novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Books

We reached the clubhouse garage in ten minutes.

Cade drove, Elena rode behind him with her arms locked around his waist, and I followed in Pearl's pickup with the lights off.

The garage door stood half open, and a yellow bulb burned inside.

Dario was alone with three patches.

He had the safe open and the club's books stacked on the concrete in a tidy pile.

The red fuel can stood beside them.

It was the same can.

My whole body went cold, and then hot, and then very clear.

"Dario," I said from the door.

He didn't turn right away.

He finished tipping the can over the books and let the fuel run down the covers, and then he looked up with the same easy face he'd worn in my bedroom.

"Becky," he said. "You're out late."

"Those are the club's books."

"They're mine. I'm the president."

"You swore on my terms in front of forty men. Nobody touches the books until the table votes on the eleven."

"I swore," he said, "to a woman who burned down my bed."

The three patches with him had gone very still.

One of them was holding a pry bar.

Dario took a lighter from his pocket.

Behind me, Cade breathed out slow.

"Don't," Cade said.

"Why not? She taught me how." Dario flicked the wheel and a flame stood up between his fingers. "Burn it, and every man at that table walks away clean. Nobody can read a page that's ash."

"You'd be burning it with me standing in it," I said.

I walked into the garage.

I heard Cade say my name behind me, and I kept going.

I walked straight across the concrete until my shoes were in the spilled fuel, and I stood between Dario and the books.

"Becky, move."

"You said it yourself in the lot. You can't hurt me. I'm Boone's blood."

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