“Do I get a say in that?”
He considered. “Probably not.”
I should’ve been furious. Instead, I just felt tired. “So what happens if your president decides I’m more trouble than I’m worth?”
He shrugged. “You’ll know. I’m not planning on letting it get that far.”
I slumped back onto the couch, hugging my knees again. “You’re not like the others.”
He looked at me, then at the ground. “You ever ride a motorcycle before today?”
“Of course.”
He sat across from me, elbows on his knees, hands locked together. “You ever kill someone, Melissa?”
The way he said my name made my scalp tingle. “Not on purpose.”
He grinned, but there wasn’t any joy in it. “That’s how it starts.”
“Why’re you helping me?”
He studied my face, then nodded once, like I’d passed some kind of test. “I protect what’s fragile, not make it more fragile.”
He stood up, crossed the room, and started reassembling the Glock with the casual, precise motions of a guy who could do it blindfolded. I watched him, trying to put the pieces of this place and this man together, and failing.
“What if I wanted to leave?” I asked.
He clicked the slide into place, checked the chamber, and set the gun back on the table. “Then you leave. But the Leatherbacks have a long reach, and I doubt you made it this far without help.”
I was about to argue, to say I didn’t need anyone, but I caught his expression and realized he was the first person in a long time who actually gave a shit whether I lived or died. That scared me more than anything.
He tossed me a granola bar from a drawer. “Eat. You’ll need the energy.”
I opened it with shaking hands. “How long do I have before your club figures out what to do with me?”
He looked at his phone. “Couple hours, maybe less. The cleaner you look, the less questions they ask.”
I laughed. “So, clean up, blend in, and try not to die?”
“Pretty much,” he said.
He watched me eat, and for a while neither of us said anything. In the silence, I heard the hum of motorcycles outside, the clatter of bottles and voices in the next room. I wondered if Damron St. James was still pissed, or if he’d decided it was easier to bury the problem than argue about it.
I finished the bar and wiped my mouth. “You trust me?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I trust myself.”
***
They say you can always tell when people have been fighting, even if they walk in with smiles. The air gets charged, hair-on-skin electric, like the moment before the power comes back after a blackout. That’s what I felt the second Damron and Augustine strode into the room.
I was perched at the farthest end of the leather couch, body coiled to spring even though I had nowhere to go. I must have looked like a stray cat someone lured in with food and then slammed the door shut behind. Augustine walked in first, easy on the outside, but his eyes gave it away—he was already playing out four versions of how this was going to go. Damron trailed, a few steps behind,hands jammed in his back pockets, jaw set so hard it looked like his teeth were about to cut through his cheek.
Damron stopped in the doorway and planted himself there, arms crossed like he could barricade the exit with attitude alone. He took a long, silent inventory of me: the ripped blouse, the bandages, the club jacket swallowing my frame. I pretended not to notice, but my pulse thumped so loud it was a miracle neither of them called me out.
Augustine dropped next to me on the couch, elbows on knees. He gave me a nod—more warning than comfort.
Damron spoke first, voice a few shades above lethal. “So, princess. Want to tell us why the daughter of the Leatherback president is running scared in our territory?” He spit the word “princess” like it tasted foul.
