Ride With Me (Paige and Jace) novel Chapter 307

CHAPTER 172-2

Jace walked toward a row of engines.

“There must be at least ten of these.” Jace said.

“Some of them are probably rebuildable. Ethan said and I smiled despite myself.

“That sounds exactly like Uncle Will.” I said.

Ethan opened another crate, and inside were old tools arranged in neat rows.

Wrenches, sockets and torque tools.

Specialty motorcycle tools that I had not seen since I was a teenager.

I reached down and picked up one of the old wrenches. I remembered Uncle Will putting it into my hand during one of my first serious repairs.

He had stood behind me, watching carefully while I struggled with a stubborn boit.

He had told me that a good mechanic needed patience because forcing something usually made the problem worse and I swallowed hard.

“He kept everything.” I said as Jace came closer.

“He kept pieces of his life.” Jace said.

I looked around the unit, and suddenly it didn’t feel like a storage unit anymore. It felt like walking into a piece of my childhood that had been locked away and forgotten.

There were boxes of receipts stacked along one wall, and Ethan immediately became interested in those.

“Paige, you need to see this.” Ethan said and I joined him as he opened the first box.

Receipts filled it from top to bottom. Parts purchases. Engine rebuilds. Motorcycle restorations. Supplier invoices. Customer payments.

The dates stretched back years.

“How far back do these go?” I asked as Ethan pulled out a handful and checked them.

“Almost twenty years.” Ethan said and I stared at him.

“Twenty years?” I asked.

“Some are older.” He said.

Jace crouched beside another box and opened it.

“These are organized by year.” Jace said.

I looked around again, and I realized something that made my chest tighten.

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Claim

Uncle Will hadn’t simply dumped his belongings into this unit. He had organized everything. Every box had Tabels. Every shelf had a purpose. Every receipt had been kept.

He had planned for someone to find this.

Maybe not me specifically, but someone he trusted.

I walked toward the back of the unit and found several large wooden cases.

One contained spare engine parts, while another held old motorcycle frames.

The third contained a collection of photographs.

I picked up the first one, and there he was. Uncle Will stood beside a motorcycle I remembered from my childhood, grinning like he had just won a championship and I laughed quietly.

“He was so proud of that bike.” I said as Jace smiled.

“You sound like him.” Jace said as I looked at him.

“How?” I asked.

“You get that same look when you talk about the garage.” He said.

I glanced toward the shelves filled with parts.

Maybe he was right.

Lawson Customs had never been only a business to me because it carried pieces of Uncle Will everywhere.

That was why I couldn’t leave his things sitting in this unit.

“We’re bringing everything back.” I said as Ethan looked at me.

“All of it?” He asked.

“All of it that can be moved safely, yes.” I said and Jace nodded.

“I will get the guys to bring trucks.” He said.

We spent the next hour making a rough inventory, and the more we found, the more amazed I became.

There were old restoration manuals, spare engines, specialized tools, workshop records, motorcycle magazines, and boxes of parts that could probably be worth a small fortune today.

There were also several sealed containers marked with dates, but I decided we would go through those later because right now I wanted everything somewhere we could protect it.

As Ethan moved toward the back wall, he stopped suddenly.

“Wait.” Ethan said and I turned around.

“What?” I asked.

He was standing beside a stack of wooden crates, and something dark was partially hidden behind them.

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CHAPTER 1

He crouched down and pulled one crate aside.

A metal case sat against the wall. Unlike everything else in the storage unit, the case was completely

clean.

There was no dust on it. No rust covered the surface. It looked as though someone had handled it recently and Jace immediately moved closer..

“What is that?” Jace asked as Ethan brushed his hand across the top.

“I do not know.” Ethan said.

I stepped toward them, and my pulse began to race again.

There was a small lock on the front, and beneath it was another marking.

The same symbol from Uncle Will’s journals. The same symbol Charlotte had recognized from Victor’s office and my stomach dropped.

Jace looked at me, and I could see the realization in his eyes.

“Paige, don’t touch it.” Jace said as Ethan stared at the lock.

“I think the brass key might open this.” Ethan said.

The three of us stood silently around the case because suddenly the storage unit didn’t feel like a collection of old motorcycle parts anymore.

It felt like a message.

And whatever Uncle Will had hidden inside that locked metal case had been waiting for us to find it.

Ethan reached slowly toward the lock and then he stopped.

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