Jason noticed their approach and froze, hand still tight around her wrist. She turned back towards him and as the men made it across the street, Morgan jerked free and took a few steps back.
The man in the black helmet stepped forward, half blocking Morgan from Jason’s view, while his friends hung back slightly, alert but letting him take the lead. “I believe the lady asked you not to touch her.” The voice from behind the visor was deep, slightly muffled, but the warning in it was unmistakable.
Jason scoffed. “This is between me and my girlfriend—”
“Ex-girlfriend.” Morgan corrected, finding her voice again. “Apparently you have a new girlfriend in there waiting on you, so you better hurry on back to her.”
“I already told you, it wasn’t like that,” he shot back at her. “Look, whoever you are,” Jason sneered at the biker, “You need to back off. This doesn’t concern you.”
The biker in the helmet took a step forward, and despite being roughly the same height as Jason, he somehow seemed to tower over him. “When a man disrespects a woman on a public street, it becomes everyone’s concern.”
Something in his stance, the coiled readiness beneath the leather, must have finally registered with Jason.
Jason was lean—runner’s build, all wiry limbs and polished business attire. Next to the bikers, he looked like he belonged behind a desk, not in a street confrontation. The man in the helmet wasn’t much taller, maybe a little over 6 feet, like Jason, but he seemed to take up more space, his presence pressing in like a storm front.
The others were no less imposing. Broad shoulders. Sharp eyes that missed nothing. That quiet, heavy stillness that said they didn’t need to puff up their chests to be dangerous—they already knew exactly what they were capable of.
Jason’s confrontational posture withered beneath the confidence emanating from her masked rescuer.
Jason took a half-step back, eyes flicking between them, probably realizing how outnumbered he was now that he wasn’t just trying to ‘talk it out’ with Morgan.
“Whatever,” Jason muttered, “It was just a misunderstanding.” He turned to Morgan. “We’ll talk later.”
“No, we won’t. Don’t call me again, I’m blocking your number.” Morgan squared her shoulders and stood straighter.
She couldn’t help but be thankful she’d never let him leave his things at her house, there would be no messy exchange of belongings.
Jason shot one last venomous look at the biker before stalking back toward the restaurant, presumably to explain the situation to his “client.”
The bearded man tilted his head towards Jason’s retreating back, “We’ll make sure he gets where he’s headed.” The three other bikers trailed leisurely after Jason.
Morgan exhaled shakily, the adrenaline that had carried her this far beginning to ebb. “Thank you,” she said to the leather-clad stranger. “You didn’t have to step in.”
The biker tilted his helmet. “I saw everything from down the street. A guy like that... a woman can never be too careful.”
Morgan nodded, suddenly aware of how vulnerable she felt standing on the dimly lit street, her emotional armor cracked wide open. “I should go.”
“Is your car nearby?”
“A couple blocks.” She gestured vaguely behind her.
The biker hesitated, then asked, “Would you like an escort? Just to be safe.”
The sensible part of Morgan—the part that checked her locks twice before bed and never accepted drinks from strangers—immediately formed a polite refusal. But tonighthad already taken a sledgehammer to her carefully constructed life. Her boyfriend of nine months seemed to be someone else's boyfriend too. The safe choice had proven the most dangerous of all.
Morgan hesitated. This was reckless, she knew it. A helmeted stranger offering to walk her to her car should have triggered every red flag she had. But she was tired—bone-deep tired of playing it safe, only to end up betrayed. For once, she wanted to feel something other than disappointment.
“Actually,” she said, surprising herself with the steadiness in her voice, “That would be nice.”
The biker offered his arm with an old-fashioned gallantry that seemed at odds with his intimidating appearance, the black visor of his helmet reflecting her own wide-eyed image back at her.
Morgan hesitated, heart pounding. This night had already shattered every safe boundary she'd carefully constructed. The sensible Morgan Reeves would thank him politely and walk away.
But that Morgan had died the moment she'd seen the photo of Jason's fingers intertwined with another woman's.
After just a moment’s hesitation, she reached toward the stranger's outstretched arm, her hand trembling in the space between them, hovering at the precipice of a decision that felt bigger than just accepting an escort to her car.
2
