Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
BLADE
The engine growls to life beneath me, familiar and steady, the only thing that makes sense right now. The vibration runs up through the frame and into my bones, grounding me in a way nothing else can. Bri climbs on behind me, her arms sliding tight around my middle like she’s anchoring herself.
Or anchoring me. Probably both.
I pull out smooth and controlled, even though my pulse is hammering like I’m already in a fight. Every nerve in my body is lit up, buzzing, waiting for the hit I know is coming even if I don’t know when.
Her helmet bumps lightly against my back as we merge onto the road.
I reach down, catch her left hand, and lift it, pressing my lips to her knuckles, right where her ring finger rests.
It’s quick. Barely a second. But it matters.
She squeezes me tighter in response, like she understands exactly what I’m saying without words.
I’m going to keep you safe.
I swear it silently, over and over, like a prayer I don’t fully believe in but keep saying anyway because stopping feels worse.
My mind won’t shut the hell up.
This wasn’t random. Perdition. The clubhouse.
The timing. The placement. I know those pricks are behind it.
I feel it in my bones, the same way I always do before shit goes sideways.
We’ve been tailing them around town for weeks.
Watching. Learning patterns. Logging plates.
Counting faces. Trying to find the thread that leads back to whoever’s actually pulling the strings.
Warehouse on the south end. Late-night shipments. Men who don’t drink, don’t talk, don’t look like college kids playing gangster.
And Mason wanted patience.Hands off. Wait until we know who the main boss is.
Do it clean. Do it once.I agreed. I understood the logic.
One clean strike is better than chaos. But now they’ve crossed a line they don’t get to uncross.
They went after our women. And whatever they do next will be worse.
That’s how this works. Escalation is the point.
I tighten my grip on the handlebars as the road stretches ahead, dark and empty.
Too empty. My instincts prickle, crawling up the back of my neck.
I check my mirrors. Nothing. Still nothing.
Bri presses closer, her cheek resting against my shoulder blade.
She trusts me. Completely. No hesitation.
No fear of me. That’s the part that nearly guts me.
Headlights flare suddenly behind us. I clock the SUV immediately. Dark. Big. No plates I can see. Riding too close, too aggressive for this stretch of road. My jaw locks. “Fuck,” I mutter.
I ease off the throttle, slow just enough to let them pass.
They don’t. They surge forward instead. Metal clips my back tire.
The impact is violent and unforgiving. The bike jerks hard, and the world tilts sideways.
I fight it, muscles screaming as I try to correct, to keep us upright, but physics doesn’t give a damn about intention. The bike goes down hard.
I twist instinctively, taking the brunt of it, my body slamming into asphalt as sparks scream around us. Pain detonates everywhere at once. Shoulder. Ribs. Leg. My helmet smacks the ground, and the world fractures.
Black. Just for a second. Then sound crashes back in. High-pitched ringing, sharp and disorienting, like someone shoved an ice pick straight through my skull. My helmet is cracked. I know that without touching it. My head throbs in a way that tells me I hit it hard. Hard enough to scare me.
But not hard enough to take me out. Thank fuck.
I suck in a breath and regret it immediately. Pain spears through my ribs, sharp and deep, like something’s grinding where it shouldn’t. Broken. Definitely broken. My leg is on fire too, bent wrong, screaming every time I try to move it.
Blood runs down my face, warm and sticky, dripping onto the pavement. None of that matters. I hear tires screech. The SUV. They’ve stopped. We don’t have long. “Bri,” I rasp.
I drag myself toward her, every inch a battle. Asphalt tears at my palms. My vision swims, dark spots blooming at the edges, but I force it to focus on her shape sprawled a few feet away.
I roll, clawing toward her, ignoring the screaming agony in my side. “Bri!” I shout. “Bri, look at me!”
I try to stand, but my body doesn’t give a shit about what I want. I get halfway up before my leg gives and I slam back down, breath tearing out of me. Something is wrong. More than one thing. I taste blood. She’s moving. That alone keeps me conscious.
I reach her and fumble at her helmet with shaking hands, fingers slick with blood and sweat. The straps fight me, but I get them loose and ease it off carefully, terrified I’ll hurt her more.
Her arms are scraped and bleeding, dirt and gravel embedded in her skin. Her eyes are wide and glassy with shock. She’s breathing. Fast. Ragged. But breathing.
“Oh god,” I breathe, cupping her face. “Hey. Hey, baby. Look at me.”
Her eyes lock on mine, panic flooding them. “Blade,” she sobs. “It hurts.”
“I know,” I say, my voice wrecked. “I know. Stay with me.”
I run my hands over her fast but gentle, checking her head, her neck, her shoulders. When I touch her arm, she cries out, sharp and broken.
“Don’t… don’t touch it,” she gasps.
I freeze instantly. Her arm is already swelling, blood soaking through her sleeve. Not spraying. Not pulsing. Thank fuck. But bad. Real bad.
“Okay,” I murmur. “Okay. I won’t. You’re doing good. You’re doing so good.”
My own body is screaming now. My leg feels useless. My ribs grind every time I breathe. My head pounds like it’s trying to split open. But I force myself upright enough to put my body between her and the road. Between her and anyone else.
I pull her carefully against me, shielding her with my body. She’s shaking hard, fingers clutching my jacket like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
“I thought you were dead,” she cries into my chest.
“Not that easy to get rid of me,” I manage, even though it feels like a lie. “I’m right here.”
A door slams behind us, the sound sharp and final, and footsteps crunch over gravel as someone moves closer. That’s when real fear finally sinks in. Not from the crash or the pain tearing through my body, but from the fact that whoever’s coming isn’t rushed. He isn’t surprised. He isn’t reacting.
He’s arriving.
The man steps out of the SUV with a gun already in his hand, his arm loose at his side like the weight of it means nothing.
He moves with the kind of confidence that comes from knowing exactly how this ends.
His shoulders are relaxed, his pace unhurried, like this is just another task on a list instead of the aftermath of a wreck.
He’s not some twitchy college kid riding an adrenaline high.
He’s calm.
Too calm.
The headlights catch his face as he comes closer, and recognition hits me harder than the pain in my ribs.
Warehouse. Third floor. Back corner near the tinted office windows.
I remember him leaning against a crate, arms crossed, saying nothing while everyone else talked.
Clean jacket. Expensive boots that had never seen real work.
The kind of man who doesn’t raise his voice because he never has to.
The kind of man people instinctively listen to, even when he barely says a word.
Not the boss.
But close enough to matter.
Close enough to bleed.
“Oh,” I growl, forcing myself more upright even as my vision swims. Blood drips down my chin and splatters onto the asphalt between us, but rage cuts through the pain, sharp and steady. “I fucking know you.”
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile, more like quiet amusement. Like this moment has been anticipated.
“Yeah,” he says easily. “I figured you might.”
He takes another step closer, the gun still loose in his hand, and his gaze flicks to Bri. Not a glance. Not a check.
A slow, deliberate look.
The kind that crawls.
“You boys weren’t exactly subtle,” he continues, tone almost conversational. “Same bikes. Same trucks. Same routes. Hanging around the edges like you were waiting for an invitation.”
My jaw tightens as his eyes drag over Bri again, lingering too long on the way she’s pressed against me, the way I’m shielding her with my body.
“We clocked you the third night,” he goes on. “Warehouse. Bar. Gas station on Miller. You thought you were learning us, but the truth is, we were learning you.”
His gaze stays on her now, open and unapologetic, and something ugly twists in my gut.
“That bar of yours wasn’t just a message,” he says, nodding vaguely toward town. “It was leverage. Pressure. You don’t flush men like Mason out by poking once and hoping for the best. You destabilize everything around them. You make them react.”
He tilts his head, studying Bri like she’s a prize already claimed.
“And you,” he adds quietly, voice dropping, “were never supposed to be on that bike tonight.”
My arm tightens around her instinctively. I feel her stiffen, her fear spiking.
“So this was planned,” I snarl.
He shrugs. “Parts of it. Chaos has a way of improvising.” His lips curve faintly. “You getting clipped just made things more efficient.”
My vision narrows. “You touch her again and I swear to god—”
He cuts me off with a soft laugh. “Touch her? No. I’m past that.”
His eyes are hungry now. Interested. Like he’s been waiting for permission he’s decided he no longer needs.
“I’ve been watching her for a while,” he says calmly. “Long before tonight. And she’s wasted here. Hiding behind patches and rules and men who think they own her.”
Bri sucks in a sharp breath.
“She won’t be a biker’s whore anymore,” he continues, voice smooth and confident, like he’s stating a fact. “If she wants that kind of life, she’ll learn it on her knees, where she belongs. Under my control.”
Something in me snaps.
I shift, pain screaming as I plant myself fully between him and Bri, teeth bared, blood dripping onto the pavement.
“You don’t get to talk about her,” I growl. “You don’t get to look at her.”
He lifts the gun a little higher, finally aiming now, his smile thin and knowing.
“You think you’re the hunters here,” he says. “But you’ve been circling a shadow. The real players don’t sit in warehouses, and they don’t get their hands dirty. Guys like me exist so they don’t have to.”
He tilts his head, studying me like a broken machine he’s deciding whether to dismantle or discard.
“And now,” he says calmly, certainty baked into every word, “you’re in the way.”
I shift just enough to block Bri completely with my body. My ribs scream. My leg threatens to give out. But I plant myself anyway.
“You’re not taking her,” I say. “Over my dead body.”
He smirks. “That’s the plan.”
Before he can pull the trigger, Bri moves.
She twists out from behind me with a scream and slams into him, both hands grabbing the gun. The force knocks him off balance. He curses, shoving her back hard enough that she slams into the side of the SUV.
She gasps, pain ripping out of her, but she doesn’t let go.
“No!” I roar, dragging myself forward.
They struggle, bodies colliding, the gun jerking between them. Bri screams my name as he slams her again, harder this time, her back hitting metal with a sickening sound.
She cries out, then knees him hard, right between the legs.
He grunts, stumbling.
That’s my girl.
He snarls and backhands her, sending her staggering. She nearly goes down but catches herself, wild and furious, blood streaking her face.
Something snaps inside me.
I launch myself forward, pain be damned.
My bad leg buckles, but I crash into him anyway, slamming him into the pavement. The gun skitters across the road.
We’re a tangled mess of blood and rage.
He punches me in the ribs, hard. I feel something shift wrong. White-hot agony rips through me, but I welcome it. Use it.
I grab his throat and slam his head into the asphalt.
“You picked the wrong fucking woman,” I snarl.
He laughs, bloody and breathless. “You don’t even know what you’re in the middle of.”
“Oh, I know enough,” I say. “And when I’m done with you, you’re going to tell me everything.”
He knees me in the gut. I go down, gasping. Bri screams for me and he scrambles for the gun.
Bri beats him to it. She grabs it with her good hand, both hands shaking, arms locked straight as she points it at him. She’s crying, shaking so hard I don’t know how she’s standing. But I’m so fucking proud of her and how strong she’s being. “Don’t come any closer!” she screams.
He freezes. Slowly lifts his hands.
“Well,” he says lightly. “This just got interesting.”
“Get on your knees,” she sobs.
He doesn’t. Instead, he lunges. Everything happens at once. Bri screams. The gun goes off. The sound is deafening.
White light explodes behind my eyes as I shove myself between them again, grabbing for her, for him, for anything. Pain slams through me. Then…Nothing. Darkness takes me whole.