Then his expression shifts—darkens—at something behind me.
I turn.
Eric lies crumpled on the warehouse floor. Still. Unmoving.
But Tony doesn’t look at him like a threat.
He looks at me.
At my bruises.
At Tiffany’s cuts.
At the zip tie marks on our wrists.
Something ancient and violent ignites in him.
“You’re safe now,” he murmurs, thumb brushing my cheek. “But I’m not done yet.”
I swallow. “Tony?—”
He pulls me closer, eyes never leaving me, voice shaking with intensity I’ve never heard from him.
“No one,” he growls, “ever touches what’s mine.”
The words steal the breath from my lungs.
Smoke stiffens. Tiffany goes wide-eyed.
Tony doesn’t correct himself.
Doesn’t soften.
Doesn’t take it back.
He just holds me tighter as the Hellions close in around us, forming a wall of leather and steel, and says:
“We’re going home.”
Twenty
Stud
The ride back to the compound is a blur of noise and nothing.
Engines roar all around us, Hellions forming a moving wall on either side of the SUV carrying Holley and Tiffany. I’m on my bike up front, but my head’s not on the road. It’s half turned back the entire time, like if I take my eyes away from that vehicle for more than a second, they’ll vanish again.
I keep replaying the image of them tied up.
The marks on their wrists.
The bruise on Holley’s jaw.
The smear of dried blood at the corner of Tiffany’s mouth.
Every time, my grip tightens on the handlebars.
I should’ve protected them.
