I wake up to the sensation of pins and needles all the way from my thighs down to my toes. I open my eyes. Right. I’m the one who made the idiot move by resting Axe’s head on my lap as he dozed off on the sofa. He isn’t resting on me anymore, but I can barely feel my legs right now. With a yawn and a stretch of my arms, I lean forward to check whether Axe is in the bathroom. Nope. The place is way too quiet. Assuming he’s outside stretching his legs or something, I push off the sofa and do a half-limp tiptoe duck walk on my numb legs to grab a change of clothes from my bag.

I notice his note on the nightstand and roll my eyes at the three rules he added to the bottom. Like I would open the door for a stranger, take a phone call, or use the handgun he left in the side drawer for anything other than self-preservation.

Shaking my head, I find a fresh pair of underwear, a t-shirt and some jeans, and get into the bathroom. After taking my sweet time to shower, get dressed and organize the room a bit, I’m bored. I pace back and forth on the dingy carpet, combing my fingers through my hair to keep my hands busy. What am I supposed to do with myself now that Axe is off doing his badass biker meets tortured soul meets white knight thing? I wonder how he feels after getting that tragically horrific story from his childhood off his chest.

That reminds me to take a closer look at how much damage he did to my neck. I head back to the tiny bathroom mirror and pop up on my tiptoes. Okay, so there’s redness and bruising. I look like I either had a run-in with an abusive boyfriend, or had a one-night stand with someone who’s really into giving hickeys. Or with someone who gets off from choking the crap out of a sexual partner until said partner is within an inch of his or her life. I’ve been with all three types at one time or another. Got the t-shirts and am never going back down that road.

This mark on my neck is different.

Even if me and Axe weren’t anything more than casual partners and fugitives from mutual would-be attackers, he’s different. He’s honest. And he gives a damn. I can actually see us becoming close friends after all this hiding out drama is over.

Friends with a heck of a lot of benefits.

While I’m in the bathroom, I give myself something to do. Looping up my hair into a nearly perfect fishtail braid, I snap a hairband around it and return to the bed. Time still ticks away and no Axe. I find the handgun he left in the drawer. This is not the first time I’ve held a firearm, but I don’t like them at all. With a quick test of the safety and examination of the clip, I put it on the counter beside Axe’s note. Boredom is a hell of a dangerous thing. I find my cell phone and curse. No sim card. I start scheming. Although Axe has disabled it, I can still swipe it on, put in my password and see a few numbers from my contact list. I look at the motel phone. A call to my job can’t hurt. And to my neighbors to see how my dogs are doing.

Before I can scroll through my contact list, I notice some movement out of the corner of my eye. My head snaps to the front door. Someone has slipped a folded sheet of paper under the door. If this were a decent hotel and we were about to check out, I would have thought nothing of it. The four and five-star hotel chains customarily slip a paper copy of departing hotel patrons’ final bill under their door as a rule. Here at a seedy low-end dive motel, though, that document has to be something else.

For a second, I don’t want to know. My stomach drops. Maybe the message is for Axe, but even if it were, the implications will affect both of us. Perhaps the Los Diablos have figured out where we are. I tilt my head to one side in confusion. What kind of dumbass idea is my oxygen-deprived brain coming up with? No murder-loving pursuer would be so courteous and amateur as to leave a note instead of breaking down the door to finish the job. Unless this is a warning from someone on our side.

I don’t dare take the chance opening the door to look around outside. Hustling over, I secure the door chain lock, yank up the paper and scurry back to the bed within arm’s reach of the Glock. I scan the fancy custom letterhead centered at the top of the page. This is the motel’s letterhead? It’s elegant for such a dump. I shrug one shoulder and keep reading. The gist of the note is that our credit card didn’t go through for the room payment and the owner is demanding cash now or we’ll have to leave in less than an hour before he calls the police.

Except Axe does not look like the type of guy who flashes plastic around to pay for seedy motels. He’s sure to have paid in cash last night. None of this makes any sense. Either way, this note gives me the chills. If Axe doesn’t walk in that door within ten minutes, I’ll pack my shit and find somewhere else to go before whoever comes back. I think about phoning Axe, but I don’t have his number. That in itself speaks volumes.

I wonder whether the note is a ploy to get us out of the hotel room. If it is, the motel owner must be involved. Or maybe he was threatened.

Christ! This paranoid line of thinking is driving me insane.

Convincing myself it’s nothing at all, I crumple the note into a ball and throw it across the room. I wait for what feels like forever until I figure out no one is going to knock on the door—or smash it down with a battering ram. Still, every time I hear a sound outside, I go on high alert and clutch my fingers around the gun.

The doorknob rattles.

“Angel, it’s me.” Thank God it’s Axe. “If you’ve got the gun out, lower it now and don’t shoot me in the face, okay?”

“Coming,” I call out, blowing out a breath as I open the door. “I’m so glad you’re back. What took you so long?”

“Good morning.” Axe comes through the door and shuts it with a decisive click. He hands me a cup of coffee from the cardboard tray he’s carrying and takes a seat on the sofa. “Rounding up breakfast took a while,” he tells me, stuffing his hand into the brown paper bag he also brought in.

“Okay. By any chance, did you see anyone leaving the parking lot, or anything weird, or maybe even dangerous?”

He stops dead, halfway through biting into a glazed donut. Only his eyes move up to lock with mine.

“What happened?” he asks, with his mouth full and his lip still covered in crumbs.

“I don’t know.” I put down my coffee and bring over the crumpled note.

Axe reads it quickly. He wipes his mouth and stands up. “Grab your stuff. We’re leaving.”

He shoves his things into his satchel as I pick up my already packed bag at the side of the bed. I put the safety on the Glock and pass it to him with the muzzle facing down. I follow him out the front door into the waiting minivan, which Axe promptly starts and calmly drives out of the motel parking. All I can do is dart my eyes around the roads and squint to check the passenger side rear view mirror for whether anyone is following us.

We didn’t even take the coffee.

Not that I can eat or drink at a time like this.