CHAPTER 2
AXLE
She’s staring at me with those eyes that scream for help while her lip trembles. Fuck my night. Why is there a girl hiding in the back of our ride?
Then a sick feeling tightens my core when I realize why she’s probably hiding. Fury rides through my veins as I shut the door on her, concealing her from sight, when I hear the fast approaching footsteps of our prospective clients.
I shouldn’t have opened the door, but I heard a noise. Now all I want to do is put a bullet in Lathan for what he might have done to her.
“Did you assholes see a girl run through here?” Lathan asks, wiping some coke away from his nose.
Junkies. We don’t do business with junkies.
“Nope,” I lie, absently noting how Snake cuts his eyes toward me.
“Fuck!” Lathan roars, slamming his fist against the punching bag in his massive garage that is in the middle of no-damn-where. “Find her!” he yells to three guys who run into each other in their haste to follow orders.
“It’s like watching the Stooges,” Snake muses from my side.
“It’s like watching junkies,” I grumble. “Thought someone vetted them.”
“Herrin set this up,” he says with a shrug.
We watch as Lathan goes on a tantrum, kicking shit, punching random things, and finally throwing things around.
“We need to head out,” I yell to Lathan, who doesn’t even acknowledge me.
“No way are we fucking doing business with them,” Snake says quietly as Lathan actually flips over a table. “Ever.”
“Definitely not,” I agree, but for an entirely different reason.
“Find her!” Lathan roars again.
“You know she’s in the backseat, right?” Snake asks.
“Yep.”
“Just checking.”
He goes to get in on the passenger side, while I take the driver’s seat. This was a waste of two fucking hours of my life that I’ll never get back. Herrin is sure as hell going to hear about it, too.
As soon as we’re out of the garage and halfway down the street, Snake addresses the stowaway.
“You owe him money or something, girl?”
A heavy breath comes from the backseat, and some of the tension eases out of my shoulders. I hadn’t even considered that she might be a junkie—even though she doesn’t look like one. My mind immediately always goes to the worst thing that would leave a woman cowering in fear.
“No,” she says from the floor very quietly.
That has the tension notching back up.
“Start talking if you want to keep riding,” Snake goes on.
She blows out a heavier breath while the rustling sound behind me lets me know she’s getting up. My eyes stay on the road instead of glimpsing at her as she makes herself comfortable in the backseat.
“Lathan is psychotic,” she grumbles.
“Ex of his or something?” Snake pries.
“Sister,” she confesses, allowing all the tension to leave my body with that word. At least I hope he didn’t cross that fucking line.
“Why are you hiding from him?” I ask, hearing her breath hitch at the sound of my voice.
“Because he’s psychotic,” she says again, forcing my lips to twitch. “Lathan blew through his trust fund and now he wants mine. Long story short, he had his thugs bring me to his place tonight, and the conversation ended with a gun pointed at my head.”
There’s more annoyance to her tone than surprise, so I wonder if the gun pointed at her head statement is a euphemism.
“I’m almost positive he was planning to kill me tonight,” she goes on. Her tone is flat, almost as though it’s no surprise.
Fucked up families everywhere, it seems.
“So what were you guys doing there? Buying? Selling? Working for him?” she asks us.
Snake and I both snort derisively while shaking our heads.
“We’re not junkies or dealers,” I tell her, listening to the way her breathing hitches at the sound of my voice again.
What’s her deal? People freak out over the scars, but not my damn voice.
Irritated, I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. I assumed all the terror in her eyes when I saw her cowering on the floorboard was because of her fear of Lathan. Now I half wonder if it was just the sight of me that had her shivering in fear. Wouldn’t be the first fucking time that’s happened.
“So what were you doing there?” she asks.
“Our business. Not yours,” I tell her curtly, ignoring the sound she makes this time.
“Sheesh. Sorry. Just making conversation.”
“You need better conversation skills,” Snake points out as we ride out of town and head toward Halo.
“Where are we dropping you?” I ask her.
Fucking eh. Why does she make a sound every time I speak?
“Wherever you’re going, that’s where I want to go. I can’t go back to my place. Lathan’s goons got in too easily, and I don’t trust him not to just repeat the performance. I doubt I’ll get lucky enough to escape twice.”
The sky thunders and lightning crashes in the distance, reminding me why we took the SUV in the first place. She’d been shit out of luck if we’d taken our bikes.
“Can’t go home with us, sweetheart,” Snake drawls.
“Yes. Yes I can,” she says quickly.
She doesn’t make a sound when he speaks. Just me. Guess the monster is scarier than the pretty boy with some ink.
I keep my mouth shut the rest of the way to Halo, but Snake continues to argue with her the second we hit the town line.
“No, you can’t,” he says, sighing heavily. “Our place isn’t for pretty, sweet girls with junkie brothers. Promise.”
“I’m not stupid enough to think you guys are legit or anything, which is why I want to stay with you. You could probably protect me. I can pay you. I have a lot of money, hence the reason Lathan wants me dead. Not that he can touch my money if I die.”
“Then he doesn’t want you dead. He’s trying to scare you into handing everything over,” Snake points out helpfully.
“Regardless, I can’t go home. I can’t check into a hotel either. He has guys everywhere. And I can’t leave Halo.”
“Why can’t you leave Halo?” Snake muses, asking the questions I can’t, since she doesn’t like the sound of my voice.
I feel her eyes on me, and it makes me tenser than I already am. Not sure why she’s getting under my skin like this. Probably because of the fear in her eyes… The way she looked like she’d sell her soul for just one more breath.
I’ve held a breath like that myself once upon a time ago.
“Because,” she finally says, “I just can’t.”
“Well, we just can’t let you into our clubhouse.”
“Oh, so you’re a motorcycle club,” she says in surprise, causing me to cast a sideways glance at Snake.
He curses himself before staring out the window and zipping his lips, putting the burden of finding out where to take her on my shoulders.
“Where do we drop you off?” I ask her, this time hearing a soft sigh pass her lips.
“Wherever you’re going, I’m following. I’m not ready to die just yet.”
Rolling my eyes, I turn on the street toward the warehouse, and Snake cuts his eyes toward me.
“We can’t take her there,” he hisses.
“We can’t leave her on the street. We’ll let Drex deal with this, since Herrin’s the one who set up that meeting to begin with and didn’t do any of his homework.”
“You seriously want to let Drex around her? Next to Rush, he’s the worst person to speak to a woman.”
My eyes flit up to the rearview to see a dark set of eyes staring right at me. Fuck. Her bottom lip is drawn between her teeth, and she’s staring like she can’t look away. Guess she’s never seen a face like mine.
Annoyed, I look back at the road, even though I still feel the heat of her heavy gaze on me.
“Drex is the best one to get rid of her,” I say dismissively.