She skirts around me so I’m forced to look at her, her lips pursed, an icy scowl set on her face, high-heeled boot tapping against the concrete shop floor. “Thebig dealis that we didn’t know where you were. You said you were on your way back, and then you show up eight hours later.”
“I told you. I ran into a friend, and they offered me a place to stay. I texted. You said yourself, you and my brother were… busy.” I toss a dirty shop rag over my shoulder. “I didn’t really feel like listening to that all night.”
Exhaling, I focus back on my motorcycle. I’ve been working on it for the last hour, and now I’ve started a completely unnecessary oil change. Maybe it’s the time I was without it, or maybe I’m just looking for the distraction I was gunning for last night. Either way, I’ve welcomed the last sixty minutes of relative peace.
“And this friend is… who, exactly?” She crosses her arms. “I didn’t think you had any of those left in South Bay.”
Thefriendbeing the cop who spent an obscene amount of time between my legs this morning. God, that man is good with his mouth. I think it’s one of my new favourite things. The part I don’t like is when he opens it and sound starts coming out.
“I spent almost seventeen years of my life here. It shouldn’t be surprising to you that I still have a few acquaintances in my hometown.”
“Okay.” She presses her lips together. “How about you just give me her name? It is aher, isn’t it?”
Snorting, I slide an oil pan under my machine. “That what this is about? You want to make sure I wasn’t with a dude? Sounds more like Jack’s asking these questions, not you.”
Triss narrows her eyes. “He’s just… worried about you.”
“He hasn’t been worried about me in ten years. He doesn’t get to play protective big brother whenever it suits him. You tell him if he’s got questions for me, he can ask me himself. Though I’m not sure why he’d be so eager for the details of my sex life.”
She bites down on a smile. “I’ll be sure to relay that message. You gonna be much longer? Kat’s freaking out about wedding cakes.” She sighs. “She’s got like twenty samples in Axe’s apartment. Bex brought wine.”
I grin. “I need a half hour or so, then I’m there.”
With a relatively warm smile, she takes her leave. I finish the oil change quickly, thankful to have something to do tonight other than tinker with my bike. Like I said. Distraction. From the man hunting me. And the stupidly hot cop with the talented tongue who I kind of want to punch in the face.
Twenty minutes later, I wander across the dark parking lot, avoiding the boisterous Saturday night bikers loitering at the front door of the clubhouse by skirting around to the back entrance, the quickest way to get to Axe and Kat’s apartment.
I’ve just wrapped my fingers around the knob when a hand slaps down on my mouth and I’m jerked back.
Scream catching in my throat, I claw at the meaty paw covering the bottom half of my face. My attacker presses down harder, cutting off my oxygen. Then he yanks me from my feet and hauls me away from the Sinner clubhouse, away from those laughing voices and clouds of smoke. Away from safety. Towards the barely lit street bordering the back of the lot.
“Hello, Gracie girl,” a gruff voice says in my ear, thick with an Irish brogue.
My blood turns to ice. Keegan Bannon. The enforcer that’s been on my tail since I stopped his brother’s heart with an eight-inch kitchen knife.
God no. Please no.
I scratch. I kick. I try to scream, but the hand pressed down on my mouth is firm, the man holding me strong and unyielding as he drags me towards a white van.
No. No, no, no.
“Easy does it.” He chuckles, his cold voice sending an unwelcome tremor down my spine. “You’ll be passed out soon enough. Just let it happen, darlin’.”
Another muffled scream.
“Shh. You and I are gonna be spendin’ a lot of time together. Don’t be using up all that energy now.”
My movements slow and my vision goes spotty. I fight for breath, grating my nails deep into the arm holding me. But I’m losing steam. There’s no way out. I know how this ends. It’s not so much the death that scares me, but what’ll happen before. The man holding me, suffocating me, is as brutal as they come. What he’s got in store for me will be slow and the kind of painful I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
As I fight to stay conscious, my eyes flutter shut. I have to… to do something… I—I need… I need…
A knife.
With all the strength I still have, I reach to my thigh and unsheathe the blade strapped under my skirt. Then I plunge it back. I make contact. There’s a loud grunt. The hold on me releases, and I fall hard to the ground.
“Bitch,” he growls.
Still disoriented, I push up and scramble, searching for footing, but I trip over my feet, still dizzy, my vision blurry. I crawl forward, willing my limbs to cooperate, my heart a jackhammer thrumming against my ribcage as my body buzzes from the adrenaline surging through my veins.
