2. Chapter 2 #2
When I turn, she stands in the middle of the room like she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. The fight in her is still there, but the quiet is catching up now. Her face looks pale under the cheap yellow lamp. Scratches mark one cheek. Dirt streaks her palms.
My chest tightens.
I don’t like seeing marks on her.
Don’t like that I care already.
“You hurt?” I ask.
“No.”
I give her a look.
She huffs. “Scraped. Bruised. Humiliated by a bush. Nothing fatal.”
I move toward her.
She holds her ground, but her breath hitches.
I catch her wrist, turn her palm up, and check the gravel cuts there. Small. Dirty. Need washing.
Her skin is warm against my fingers.
Soft.
Too soft for the places she’s been tonight.
“You need to clean these.”
“I know how soap works.”
“I’m thrilled. Prove it.”
She pulls her hand back, but not fast.
Her eyes search my face. “What’s your real name?”
I go still.
Most people don’t ask. Or they ask once, hit silence, and learn better.
Talia looks like the type to ask again just to annoy death.
I don’t answer questions like that.
But she asks like my name matters. Not my patch. Not my size. Not the thing men see before they decide whether to run.
Me.
So I give it to her.
“Jayce.”
Something changes in her expression.
Like she expected a wall and found a door.
“Jayce,” she repeats, softer.
My name in her mouth does things to me I have no business letting it do.
I step back.
She notices.
“Why Shadow?” she asks.
I should tell her to wash her hands. Should call Ghost. Should check the window again.
Instead, I answer.
“Military.”
“That all?”
“No.”
She waits.
I look at the blinds, at the thin stripes of red neon cutting across the wall.
“I was good at moving unseen. Getting in, getting out. Watching from places nobody thought to look.” My jaw tightens. “Before that, I learned young how to be invisible.”
Her sass fades.
I don’t want pity. Pity sits wrong on my skin.
“I didn’t have family,” I say, keeping it flat. “Orphanage until I was six or seven. Then a couple took me in. Wasn’t adoption, not really. They belonged to a religious cult. Needed kids for labor and obedience. I left at eighteen and enlisted.”
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t interrupt.
Good girl.
The thought comes hard and low, and I shove it down.
“Went back years later,” I say. “Place was empty. Cult had moved or broken apart. Don’t know. Didn’t find anyone to save.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
My shoulders go tight.
“Don’t be. It’s old.”
“Old doesn’t mean gone.”
Sharp little thing.
Too sharp.
I look at her then, and for the first time all night she doesn’t seem like just a reckless woman who stumbled into a trafficking operation. She looks like someone who knows the shape of being left. Different wounds. Same language.
Maybe that’s why she charged after Brianna with no plan.
Maybe she knows what it feels like when nobody comes.
Her stomach growls.
Loud.
Violent.
The moment breaks.
She claps a hand over her middle, eyes going huge. “That was the plumbing.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“This room is old.”
“That was you.”
“You can’t prove that.”
I look down at her stomach, then back at her face.
Color rushes into her cheeks.
Damn.
I want to put my mouth there. On the blush. On the freckles. On the pulse jumping in her throat. Want to pin her against the door and find out if she still mouths off when my hands are on her hips and my beard is scraping the inside of her thighs.
My blood heats fast and mean.
Wrong time.
Wrong place.
No.
Not wrong woman.
That’s the problem.
“You eat today?” I ask.
She lifts one shoulder. “I work in a diner. I taste things.”
“That’s not eating.”
“I had coffee.”
“That’s not eating either.”
“It was a very emotional coffee.”
Her stomach growls again, betraying her with enthusiasm.
I turn for the door. “Vending machine outside.”
“You’re leaving me?”
“For food.”
“You just told me Landon could come after me.”
I pause with my hand on the chair wedged under the door. “You’ll lock this behind me. Chain stays on. Chair goes back. You don’t open for anyone but me.”
“How do I know it’s you?”
“I’ll ask who you bit tonight.”
Her lips twitch despite everything.
There she is.
“I could have bitten several people.”
“You’d remember me.”
The words come out rougher than I mean them to.
Her smile dies slow.
Heat moves between us. Quiet. Heavy. Dangerous.
I let myself have one second of it. One second to imagine crossing the room, wrapping her hair around my fist, taking that smart mouth until it goes soft and breathless under mine.
Then I open the door.
Cold air hits my face.
Good.
I need it.
“Lock it,” I order.
“Bossy,” she mutters again.
I step outside and wait until the chain slides into place and the chair scrapes back under the handle.
Only then do I move.
The vending machine sits beside the ice room at the end of the back walkway, not far from where I hid the bike. From here, I can see room twelve, the maintenance shed, the fence line, and the thin slice of road beyond the motel.
Not safe.
Manageable.
I feed in bills and buy everything that looks edible. Chips. Crackers. Peanut butter cups. Two granola bars pretending to be healthy. A bottle of water. Then another.
My earpiece crackles.
Ghost again.
I stare at the motel room door down the narrow back lane.
Inside is a woman with baby blue eyes, scraped hands, and a missing sister. Salazar’s men know her name. Landon wants her handled. And I’ve just put myself between her and whatever comes next without talking to my prez or my brothers, with nothing solid beyond keeping her breathing.
Smart.
Real damn smart.
I should be thinking about logistics.
Routes.
Cameras.
How fast the club can mobilize.
Instead, I keep feeling her teeth in my palm and her hands around my waist.
I tap the mic.
Ghost answers before I say a damn word.
“You secure?”
“For now.”
“The girl?”
My gaze stays on room twelve.
A shadow moves behind the curtain, small and restless.
“With me.”
Ghost goes quiet.
He knows me too well.
“That a problem?” he asks.
“No,” I say.
But I don’t look away from the door.
And the lie sits heavy on my tongue.