If I wanted to protect her, I had to convince her that she needed protecting.
As I came to a stop as a stoplight, I was faced with two choices. To the right was the pathway to my home. A place I hadn’t been in weeks. Then, to the left was the on-ramp to get onto the highway so I could boogey toward the clubhouse. I knew in my mind that I needed to take a left, but if someone was tailing us, I didn’t want to put the rest of the group at risk. So, the second the light turned green, I took a hard right.
And once I did, a bright yellow and purple car pulled out behind us.
“Fuck,” I grumbled.
I had no way to communicate with Lexi, so I swerved in between two cars. Her grip automatically tightened, and I hoped with all my might that she got the message. I peered in my rearview mirror and watched as that bombastic, bright-ass car eased into the lane we were in. So, I set my sights ahead of me and gritted my teeth.
Time to lose these motherfuckers.
I kicked it into gear and hopped up onto the curb. Lexi shrieked, blanketing my ears with a sound that gripped my very gut. I heard the car speeding up behind us to catch up and I tore down an alleyway to my right, skidding around a dumpster before I took a hard left. I heard tires squealing behind me and I peered back long enough to see a red and orange car hop the curb and soar down the alleyway behind us.
And I knew there was only one real way of losing them.
“Hang on!” I bellowed.
Lexi tucked herself into me, her body shivering as her hands white-knuckled my leather jacket. I pulled the gun off my hip and aimed it backward, popping the two front tires of the car to flatten them. I holstered my weapon just as I kicked up burnt rubber to get back out onto the main road, and that damned purple and yellow car tried to cut me off.
But I vaulted into a parked car and flew over their heads as they came to a stop at a stoplight.
“Dean! Stop!” Lexi shrieked.
My motorcycle soared through the air before it crash-landed in the middle of a busy intersection. Car horns honked and people cursed up a storm as I took to the left and stepped on the gas. Sirens sounded in the distance. I heard car engines revving before the sounds of tires squealing with their brakes filled the air. Burnt rubber wafted up my nostrils. The sounds of the sirens crept closer, and I knew I had to get the fuck out of there.
So, I tucked us into a pitch-black alleyway and cut the engine to my bike.
Lexi panted for air. “What the fuck are we--?”
“Shut up,” I commanded.
I held my breath while the police cars soared by us. One by one, they blazed a trail right past the alleyway that concealed us, and as the sirens faded away, I breathed a sigh of relief. I cracked my neck and stretched my hands above my head and waited to see if those cartel goons would creep up on us.
And when they didn’t, I cranked my bike up and eased us away from the cacophony.
I wanted to take Lexi straight back to the clubhouse, but I knew I couldn’t do that without her permission. I knew Lexi like the back of my fucking hand, and if she didn’t want to do shit then she simply didn’t do it, and nothing I’d be able to say would ever convince her otherwise. So, until I figured out a way to get her onto my side, I did the only thing I could do in that moment.
I took her back to my townhouse complex so that I could answer her questions without people eavesdropping all over the place.
As I eased us into a parking space off in the shadows of the parking lot that sat outside my place, she practically scrambled to get off the back of my bike. I turned my torso, trying to hold my arm out to give her something to steady herself on, but it didn’t shock me one bit that she didn’t take the help. She yanked the helmet off her head and tossed it at me like it was disease-ridden or something, and I knew that didn’t forecast a very pleasant conversation.
Nevertheless, I escorted her across the parking lot and into my place.
“So, this is where you are now, huh?” she asked.
I turned on the foyer light. “Yep. Home, sweet home.”
She nodded as she walked into the living room. “It’s a pretty nice place.”
I chuckled. “You sound shocked.”
And the second she whipped around, everything about her changed. “What in the absolutefuckwas all of that, Dean!?”
I sighed as I leaned against the wall, trying to keep my cool since one of us needed to. “I’m sure you have many questions about the guys that came into the hospital.”
She leaned her ass against the back of the couch and folded her arms across her chest, her voice startingly calm after her outburst. “I do, yes. And you’re going to answer every single one of them. Got it?”
I nodded. “Ask away. I’ll answer however I can.”
