I take the turn inland, and the ocean drops away behind me.
The pressure in my chest has nothing to do with attraction now. Not entirely. It’s the knowledge sitting under all of it that she’ll run the second she thinks she can.
Not because she doesn’t feel it, but because she’s afraid. Women like Adelaide don’t accept help easily. They bite down on it until they’re bleeding and call that independence. I can’t mark her yet, can’t give her the one thing that would lock this into her body as hard as it’s already locked into mine, because if I take that choice from her, I become exactly the kind of Alpha she should be afraid of.
So I protect her instead.
The road flattens into residential streets, palms overhead, old houses behind wire fences. A bar sits on the corner, with peeling paint and dark windows with rust on the railing and dead neon in the glass. Three men out front. One is on his phone, another is smoking, and the third is just watching the road.
I ease off the throttle.
Phone Guy spots me first. Smoker follows, and Watcher doesn’t move at all, which is interesting. Men who don’t shift when a bike rolls up are usually one of two things—very confident or very stupid.
I park and kill the engine. Every single mission I did for The Breakers surfaces. Faces I still see when the sleep doesn’t come. They belong to fucking monsters who deserved what they got, and the night we stood in a parking area without discussion, the three of us were done with this life.
Watcher gives my bike a slow glance, then me. He’s mid-twenties maybe, solid through the chest with a face that’s been broken before and kept going out of spite.
I swing off the bike and pull my helmet free. “Afternoon,” I say.
Smoker flicks ash onto the pavement. “You lost?”
“No.” I hook the helmet under my arm. “That would imply I was hoping this place would be easier to find.”
Phone Guy snorts.
“I’m here to catch up with the chief. He knows I’m coming,” I tell him.
“About?”
I glance past them toward the dark door behind the three of them. “Depends how honest everyone’s feeling.”
Watcher’s mouth shifts, not quite a smile. “You a cop?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame. I like charging cops double.”
I smile back. “Then it’s lucky for both of us that I’m not here to buy anything.”
The air changes a fraction. Phone Guy lowers his mobile and glances my way. “He’s waiting,” he says.
“I know.”
They move aside, and I stride through the door.
Inside, the bar is exactly what it always was. Dark wood, bad lighting, the smell of old beer and something fried in the kitchen that nobody’s ordered in hours. A few men at the far end with drinks. Two others at the dartboard, one of whom hasn’t thrown a dart since I walked in. I don’t acknowledge any of them and walk straight to the back where a man the size of a refrigerator stands in front of a door and stares at me.
“North,” I state.
He stares for three more seconds, then knocks twice, pauses, and once more.
The door opens from inside, and I enter.
Couches against two walls, worn leather. A bar in the corner that’s better stocked than the one out front. A desk with a closed laptop and a notebook I know better than to try to read upside down. Television mounted high, showing something with thesound off, and four men, each one carrying enough hardware to outfit a small conflict.
One of them pats me down before I’ve fully crossed the threshold. I let him. No point in making it adversarial over a formality, and besides, I came here with only my helmet in hand. Which serves as the perfect weapon if needed.
On the center couch, one arm stretched along the back, legs wide, is the chief. He’s forty-four and got the position by stepping into his father’s place after he got stabbed at a card game. He’s tanned, with shorter hair than the last time I saw him, has a crooked nose, and wears a white tank shirt that shows off scars on his neck, forearm, and collarbone.
