"I'll take the job. " The silence on the other end of the line was the particular kind that comes from someone who was hoping for this and trying not to show how much. "Good," Hawk said. "I have conditions. " "Tell me. " "I give 3 weeks notice at both my jobs. I do this right, not fast. " "Agreed. " "Maya comes first. If something is happening with Maya that needs me, I'm gone and the work waits.
"Of course. And I want to understand everything about how this is funded. Not because I don't trust you, because I need to be able to trust it before I stake my reputation on it. " "That's fair," Hawk said. "I'll have Darlene walk you through the full financial structure next week. " "One more thing," she said. "Yes. " "I want to keep working with you directly on the harder cases.
The ones that need someone who can read a room. I've been doing that my whole life without knowing it was a skill and I don't want to spend this job behind a desk. " Hawk was quiet for a moment. Then, "Sienna, that's exactly what I was going to ask of you. " She hung up. She sat at the kitchen table and looked at the yellow walls and the paper stars and she thought about Angela Torres and her three children and a piece of medical equipment that needed power to keep a 14-year-old safe through a cold night and she thought about Vanessa's voice on the phone saying, "I'll see what I can do. " Because people said that all the time and didn't always mean it, but Vanessa had meant it and she thought about 18 minutes. 18 minutes between a crisis and a solution because she'd known who to call.
The world was full of that, she thought. Full of those small, specific, uncataloged pieces of knowing things people carried without realizing they were carrying them, connections and competencies and pieces of lived experience that the world never asked for formally, but that could be the difference in the right moment between someone getting through the night or not. She had a lot of those pieces. She spent 31 years collecting them without intending to. Now she had somewhere to use them.
The Friday of her last week at Harland's was when the first thing happened that she didn't know how to explain. She was coming out of the diner at 2:30 when she noticed the motorcycle at the corner. A single bike parked rider still on it, not moving, not apparently going anywhere, just there. She wouldn't have thought anything of it except that she recognized the vest even from that distance. And she noticed the rider nod once when she came out, barely perceptible, and then pull away.
She called Cole. "Was that one of yours at the corner of Harland's? " she said. A pause that lasted about one beat too long. "Hawk asked a few people to" he stopped. "He was worried about you, about the neighborhood situation. " "He has people watching me. " "Watching out," Cole said.
"It's different. " "Is it? " "Sienna. " Cole's voice was patient but firm. "You know what you got involved in, not the bad version people imagine, the real version. And the real version, the kind of work Lilly's Legacy does, sometimes makes people uncomfortable. People who prefer that need stays invisible. Hawk wanted to make sure. " "He should have asked me," she said.
"You're right," Cole said immediately. "He should have. I'll tell him. " "Tell him I don't need watching. Tell him I've been keeping myself and my daughter safe in this neighborhood for 12 years without anyone riding protection at my corners. " "I'll tell him," Cole said. She was still irritated about it on the bus home, and then she was partially not irritated about it, which itself irritated her because she could see both things at once, the overreach and the intention behind it.
And she wasn't sure she was in a position to demand clean lines between the two when the world didn't generally deal in clean lines. She was thinking about this still when she got off at her stop and found Terrence from across the alley standing outside her building with his arms crossed and an expression that had left neutral sometime ago. "Three of them today," he said. "Three of what bikes on this street? " He pointed like she might need directions to the street they were both standing on. Slow rolling stopping one of them talked to Mrs.
Patterson. "You want to tell me what's going on? " Sienna breathed. She made a decision in about 4 seconds because 4 seconds was what she had. "I got offered a job," she said, "with the organization that man was part of. The man I helped.
It's a humanitarian organization. They help families in crisis quietly no publicity. I've spent 2 weeks looking at how it works and I believe in it. I took the job. " Terrence stared at her. "A humanitarian organization," he said.
"Yes. " "Run by Hell's Angels. " "Run by a man named Robert Hawkins," she said. "Who happens to have spent 30 years in a motorcycle club and who also happens to have spent 11 years quietly helping struggling families across 11 states without telling anyone about it. " The silence between them had texture. "And the bikes on the street," Terrence said, "are something I didn't ask for and have already addressed," she said. "They won't be back. " Terrence looked at her for a long moment. "Sienna," he said, and his voice had shifted, still worried but differently worried, the way it shifts when someone's argument is actually getting through.
You sure about this? " "I'm sure about the work," she said. "I'm sure about what I saw. I'm not sure about everything else because I'm not a person who pretends to be sure about things I can't verify on my But yes, Terrence, I'm sure. " He looked at her for another moment. Then he uncrossed his arms. "You've been running doubles for 9 months," he said.
"Yes. " "And now somebody's offering you something better. " "Yes. " "And it's real the helping people part. " "That's actually what they do. I watched them restore power to a disabled child's medical equipment in 45 minutes on a case I helped with Tuesday. She said. Yes, it's real. Terrence was quiet.