Run.Call the cops.Dosomething.
But I hadn’t moved because none of it made sense.That was the part my brain kept getting stuck on.
I’d worked cases involving genuinely evil people before.Human trafficking.Domestic abusers.One guy who ended up getting arrested for murdering two women.
I knew what killers felt like.
And somehow… The Kings of Anarchy didn’t.
Jerks?Absolutely.
Aggressive?Definitely.
Terrifying?Without question.
But evil?No.Not in the cold, calculated, murdery way.Even Anchor, the president with the hard eyes and permanent scowl, hadn’t felt evil.
Protective.Suspicious.Possibly violent, but not evil.
And Push…
Push had looked shocked to see me.Not guilty, though.That distinction mattered.
My stomach rolled uneasily.I remembered stepping backward and panic climbed up my throat.Push said my name and then nothing.
My eyelids fluttered open before I could stop them.Blinding white light stabbed straight into my skull.“Ah shit-” I jerked and immediately regretted it as pain exploded behind my eyes.I threw an arm over my face with a groan and squeezed my eyes shut again.The light was brutal.Every inch of my head pulsed angrily.
“Easy there.”An unfamiliar older male voice came from nearby.
Not threatening but not warm either.Just calm.
I slowly lowered my arm enough to squint.The room around me blurred together at first.
I blinked a few times until the blurry figure beside me finally sharpened into an older man with graying hair and tired eyes.
“There you are,” he said as he leaned over slightly.“You took a little longer than I thought you would to wake up.You must have really hit your head.”
And just like that, the pain in my skull fully registered.“Oh my God,” I croaked.
The back of my head throbbed viciously now that I was awake enough to feel it.I lifted a shaky hand toward it instinctively.
“Wouldn’t do that,” the older guy warned.“You’ve got stitches back there.”
Stitches?“What?”I tried to sit up too quickly and it was an instant mistake.Nausea rolled through me so violently I nearly gagged.
“Easy,” the man said firmly, pressing a hand lightly against my shoulder.“You’re concussed.”
Concussed?Stitches?Panic started creeping in around the edges of my thoughts.“Where am I?”I managed to ask.
The older man glanced to his right.“You might want to answer that one, Anchor,” he said.“I don’t know where you’re planning to take this.”
My blood ran cold.Anchor, the president of the Kings of Anarchy.
My eyes snapped toward the darker corner of the room.
A large figure pushed away from the concrete wall.He was wearing a leather cut, heavy boots, and a dark stare.Anchor.
He hadn’t been there when I fell, but he was here now, and suddenly every terrifying possibility my brain could invent crashed into me all at once.
