Page 7 of Emmy's Ride

Inside the small, cluttered space, Maya flopped onto the couch while I sat behind the desk, hands twisting in my lap.

“He’s helping me find Luke.”

Maya’s eyes narrowed. “Helping you… or letting you think you’re helping while he pulls the strings?”

I bristled. “I’m not some clueless girl who’s gonna let him run the show. If Austin wants to keep me on a leash, he’s in for a rude awakening.”

She smiled gleefully. “Damn right he is.” But then her expression sobered. “Look, I get it. Luke’s your blood. I’d do the same if it were my brother. But are you sure about this? Going back into that world?”

The short answer? Hell, no. “I don’t have a choice, Maya. If the club is tied to what happened to Luke, I need to know.”

Maya stared at me for a long moment, then sighed. “Just promise me one thing. Be careful. And don’t let Austin get in your head again.”

Too late.

The memory of his touch, his voice, the way he had always made me feel like the center of his world—even when I knew I wasn’t—stabbed into me like a phantom ache.

“I won’t,” I lied.

Maya rolled her eyes. “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever heard. But fine, I’ll let it slide for now.”

Never one to sit around, I worked through my lunch break and left for the day early to check out Luke’s place. That meant another drive, but I was determined to get answers. My heart raced when I found his door unlocked.

That was the first red flag.

I hesitated in the hallway, my pulse hammering. I had been here plenty of times, had helped Luke move in after I left for college, and he sold the home we had both been born in to subsidize my education. He had never been careless—not after the life we grew up with.

My fingers tightened around the handle of the door before I slowly pushed it open. Inside, the apartment was a disaster.

Luke was never known to be neat, but this? This wasn’t just a mess. The coffee table was overturned, glass shattered acrossthe rug. One of the kitchen chairs was missing a leg, and the cushions on the couch had been slashed open.

A lump formed in my throat. Someone was looking for something. Or sending a message. I took a step inside, heart pounding. If Luke was here when this happened?—

A sound behind me had me spinning.

Austin.

He stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, his stance all casual confidence, but his eyes… his eyes missed nothing.

“Are you following me?” I asked the obvious question.

He didn’t flinch. “Just a coincidence. Thought I’d missed something the first time I was here so I came to see if I could find anything. This has happened recently; it wasn’t like this before.”

My pulse jumped from his nearness. I turned back toward the apartment, gesturing at the wreckage. “Whoever did this, they were looking for something.”

Austin’s gaze swept over the scene, his jaw tightening. “Or to send a message.”

My gaze landed on the slashed pillow cushions. The message was blatantly obvious. What was my brother mixed up in? “I’ll go talk to his neighbors and see if they heard or saw anything.”

He took a step closer, crowding into my space, the heat of him wrapping around me like a warning. “No the hell you won’t. You’re going to stay out of it. Because you don’t know when to back off, Emmy.”

“I have to, Austin. I can’t just let it go. This could be the way we find him.”

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then Austin let out a breath, breaking the silence between us. “You never could walk away from a fight,” he murmured, eyes locked on to mine. “Especially not one that matters.”

His voice was steady, but there was something beneath it—a quiet intensity that made my chest feel too tight. He wasn’t trying to talk me down. He was meeting me there.

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