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I groan and shove her shoulder.

She laughs harder.

Soon I'm laughing too, and somehow we end up leaning against each other on the living room floor like we used to after movie nights when we were kids.

Tomorrow will bring police reports, lawyers, difficult conversations, and decisions neither of us feels ready to make. Tom is still out there. Lucy still has questions. The road ahead is longer than either of us would like.

Tonight, though, my sister is home.

She's safe.

And I find myself believing we might actually make it through this.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Torin

I know trouble before I see it.

Maybe that's the tattoo artist in me. Years of reading people before they sit in my chair tends to sharpen the instinct. Maybe it's all the time I've spent around bikers, bars, and men carrying stories they'd rather keep buried.

Or maybe it's Tom White.

The feeling hits the second we turn onto his parents' street.

Laurel feels it too. I see it in the way she shifts beside me, the easy conversation about Lucy and Briggs dissolving before either of us realizes we've stopped talking. A minute ago, we'd been laughing over Lucy's latest theory that dinosaurs would've made excellent motorcycle riders. Now the truck feels tight around us.

Then the house comes into view.

Tom is standing near the front gate, gripping the mailbox hard enough that it seems to be doing half the work of keeping him upright. Even from the road, I can tell exactly how drunk he is. His movements have that loose, unpredictable edge that usually ends with somebody bleeding, crying, or getting arrested.

"Shit," Laurel mutters.

I keep my mouth shut.

Mick stands on the porch with his arms crossed, Sophie planted beside him. Neither of them look pleased. Tom's shouting carries across the front garden, though the windows mute the words into angry noise. Mick fires a response back, and Tom throws both hands into the sky as if he's delivering a grand speech to an audience that never asked for one.

The gesture nearly sends him staggering into the hedge.

Laurel's grip tightens around the door handle.

"Stay behind me," I tell her.

The fact she nods without argument does more to unsettle me than any protest would.

I climb out of the truck and Tom notices us immediately.

His expression shifts as recognition lands. It only takes a second before anger takes over. "Well, look who it is."

His words roll down the driveway ahead of him.

Laurel steps out from behind me, and his attention locks onto her so fast it's almost physical. "There she is."

The sneer underneath the words turns my stomach.

Laurel lifts her chin and meets his stare head on. "Where's Lucy?"

Tom barks out a laugh. "Where's Maggie?"