Page 94 of Spock’s Snare

The others close ranks around Chloe without hesitation.

“She can ride with us,” another adds. “We’ll make sure nobody touches her.”

Gratitude cuts through my fury, but Chloe shakes her head.

“I’m not going back to the clubhouse.” She looks up at me, and beneath the fear in her eyes, I see something harder. Something Blackwood didn’t manage to break. “I want to see you take him down.”

My jaw clenches. “Baby—”

“I need to see him scared, Spock.” Her voice cracks, but she keeps going. “I need to see him realize that he isn’t in control. If I leave now, I’ll spend the rest of my life remembering how he looked when he hurt me. I don’t want that to be the last image I have of him.”

Jesus Christ.

This woman.

She escaped a fucking psychopath, ran barefoot through a neighborhood she didn’t know, faced down three strangers, and she still refuses to let fear make her decisions.

Something inside me gives way.

I cup the uninjured side of her face and stare into her eyes. The words come out before I can question them, but they feel more certain than anything I’ve ever said.

“I love you.”

Her lips part.

The noise around us goes silent in my head.

“I fucking love you, Chloe,” I say again. “And I understand why you need this. But you do exactly what I tell you. You stay out of sight until we have Blackwood under control. No matter what you hear, you don’t come out until I call for you. Understood?”

Her eyes fill with tears, but she blinks them back and nods.

I lower my forehead to hers, careful not to hurt her. For one heartbeat, I let myself have this. Then I straighten and turn to the women.

“Can you keep her hidden?”

The woman in front plants her hands on her hips. “Honey, we’ll protect her like she’s one of ours.”

The others agree, moving closer until a wall of furious women surrounds Chloe.

I look back at Chloe. “Stay with them.”

“I will.”

The three men begin lowering their hands.

“Keep them up,” Dice snaps.

The man who grabbed Chloe rolls his eyes but raises them again. “Look, we told you, we thought she was in trouble. If this Blackwood guy is the one who did that to her, we’ll help you deal with him.”

“Yeah,” another says. “Nobody comes into our neighborhood and does that shit.”

I study them for a moment. They could have killed Chloe when they thought she was spying on them. They then stood between her and five armed bikers.

I finally nod at my brothers.

Dice and the others lower their weapons, though none of them put their guns away.

“You want to help?” I ask.