~RYDER~
The house was dead quiet at dawn.
I was alone, walking through the quiet hallways of the mansion. Tess was still asleep, tangled in the sheets.
I didn't leave a note. Didn't need to.
I knew where exactly I was going.
~
The door to my dad’s old study was still the same... mahogany, brass handle, the faintest oil stain near the bottom edge from all the years he’d kicked it open with his boot.
I hadn’t stepped inside since the funeral.
It smelled like dust and leather and that faint, permanent tang of motor oil... like it had soaked into the wood.
The desk was just as he left it.
Sketches of old bike frame designs. Receipts. Rolled-up invoices.
A framed photo of the original Bishop Motors crew... him, Uncle Wes, two guys I barely remembered, and a teenage version of me in
