“Fine. I’m ready.”
We pack quickly. I check the room again, wipe surfaces, collect our trash. When I’m satisfied we’ve left nothing behind, we slip out the door into the morning haze.
I open the passenger door for her. She pauses, eyeing me.
“Where are we going?”
“To a safe house.”
She frowns. “Where?”
“You’ll see.”
She doesn’t press again. Just slides into the seat and buckles up.
I shut the door, circle to the driver’s side, and slide in. The key turns in the ignition, the engine hums, and just like that, we’re in motion. Out of the motel parking lot and out of Marcus’s reach, for now.
I glance over at her. She’s staring straight ahead, one hand fisted in the edge of the tux jacket like it’s the only thing tethering her to the world. I want to reach for her. Want to say something soft. But I don’t.
Instead, I adjust the rearview mirror, hit the gas, and drive.
Chapter 12
Axel
Nik’s hand in mine, we push through the doors of our favorite dive, Psychos.
As the name suggests, it’s not exactly full of saints. It features a rough crowd, sticky floors, ax-throwing cages and two-dollar beer. Basically, heaven.
Nik slides into a booth while I head for the bar. The lighting’s shit and the bar top’s worse, but our favorite bartender, Jenny, is manhandling a row of shots like a pro.
When she spots me, she flashes a grin and holds up a finger.Be right there,she mouths.
I drum my fingers on the laminate bar, resisting the urge to swipe away a mysterious smear.
“Axel!” she greets, slinging a towel over her shoulder. “What’ll it be tonight?”
“The usual,” I say with a grin that’s been known to get me free drinks and poor decisions.
She pours a pitcher of lager and slides it over with two frosted glasses. “Start a tab?”
I nod. “You’re the best, Jen.”
“Yeah, yeah. Stay outta trouble.”
“No promises.”
∞∞∞
One pitcher deep, we’re hustling a crew of leather-clad bikers at the ax cages who say we look “too city” for this. We let them believe that for five whole minutes. Then, we sink three bullseyes and wipe the smirks off their mustached faces.
By the end, they’re clapping us on the backs and joking we must be serial killers.If they only knew my brother.They buy us another round to celebrate, and we collapse into a new booth, just us.
“This was good,” Nik says, sipping his beer. “I needed tonight.”
A drop slides down his chin, and it takes everything in me not to lean over and lick it off.
He catches me staring and smirks. “Keep looking at me like that, and I’ll have to take you behind the dumpster.”
