Chapter Two
Tessa Hart had been inside plenty of rough neighborhoods, but nothing compared to the silent mountain of a man currently walking her toward a matte-black Harley like she was being escorted to an execution.
Brick moved with the kind of coiled stillness that suggested he didn’t waste words because violence did the talking for him. He had broad shoulders, thick arms, and hands that looked capable of snapping cinder blocks.
Brick was a wall of muscle and quiet menace and yet, despite the intimidation radiating off him, Tessa felt weirdly safe. Comforted, even. Which was ridiculous and concerning. And also, frankly, very on-brand for her questionable taste in men.
He did, however, make sure she was secure before he moved a muscle. That tiny, subtle gesture lodged somewhere deep in her chest. When he slid into the driver’s seat, the truck dipped with his weight.
He started the engine and pulled out of the lot without so much as a hello. Tessa cleared her throat, determined not to let silence win.
“So... how long have you been with the Devil’s Crown?” Tessa asked.
Brick’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Long enough.”
He wasn’t exactly the chatty sort.
She tried again. “King seems to respect you. A lot of the guys do.”
A low grunt. Maybe agreement or maybe annoyance.
“Must be nice,” she continued, “having a place where everyone’s got each other’s backs. Not all teens are lucky enough to have that.”
Brick’s jaw flexed. “That why you do what you do?”
She blinked. He was listening? That alone felt like a victory. “Pretty much. I guess I just want every kid to know someone’s fighting for them,” she explained.
Brick didn’t answer, but something flickered in his profile. Something softer, something almost troubled. He looked away quickly, eyes back on the road. Interesting.
Tessa turned in her seat slightly, studying him. His presence was intimidating, but not cold. Not to her. There was something simmering beneath that rigid, stoic exterior. Something that made her chest warm despite herself.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Dillon’s a good kid. He’s just in a bad situation,” she told him.
“He’s the son of one of ours,” Brick said quietly, surprising her. “We take care of our own.”
Oh. That explained a lot. King’s willingness, Brick’s tension, the urgency humming beneath every step.
Tessa softened. “Then thank you. Really. For helping,” she told him.
Brick made a noise she couldn’t read, but he didn’t shut her down.
That felt like progress.
They pulled into the junkyard on the edge of Serpent territory twenty minutes later. Rusted cars piled three stories high like jagged metal tombstones. The office was a battered trailer with peeling paint and a broken AC hanging halfway out the window.
Tessa swallowed. “Charming place,” she whispered.
Brick looked like he wanted to throw the entire lot into the sun.
“Stay close,” he said, voice low and commanding.
She nodded, pulse fluttering. Brick led her across the gravel, every step steady, controlled, lethal. Tessa followed, her heart beating faster with each crunch under her flats.
The door to the trailer creaked open before they reached it.
A large man with a Serpent patch leaned against the frame. “Well, well. King sent his ... social worker.” His eyes slid over her body, slow and dismissive. “Cute.”
Tessa bristled but kept her voice even. “I’m here to check on Dillon’s guardian. State requirement. Nothing more.”
The Serpent smirked. “Sure. Why don’t you come in, sweetheart? We’ll have a chat.”
Before she could answer, Brick stepped in front of her. Not rushed or dramatic. Just a simple shift of his body and suddenly Tessa couldn’t see the Serpent anymore. She saw Brick’s back, wide and immovable, blocking her completely behind him.
The Serpent’s smirk vanished.
“Back up,” Brick said, voice flat but dangerous. “You talk to her with respect. Or you don’t talk at all.”
Another Serpent approached from the side, flipping a butterfly knife in his hand. “Easy, big guy. We’re just being friendly.”
Brick’s voice didn’t rise. If anything, it grew quieter and somehow far more threatening. “Last warning.”
Tessa felt the air change. Like the world held its breath. Brick wasn’t bracing for a fight. He was the fight. And the Serpents realized it a second too late.
The knife stopped spinning.
The first Serpent lifted his hands. “All right. All right.” He stepped back from the door. “She can talk to the guardian. Alone.”
“Brick can come,” Tessa said, finding her voice. “He’s my escort.”
The Serpent laughed, harsh and mocking. “You want him? Sure. But if he starts something—”
Brick took a single step forward. Every Serpent in the yard moved back.
Suddenly Tessa understood what he really was. Brick wasn’t just a bodyguard, not just some scary biker who didn’t talk much. He was a shield. A silent, unbreakable fortress and she was standing directly in its protection. Knowing that gave Tessa a measure of relief.
Inside the trailer, Tessa met Dillon’s guardian. He was a skinny man in his forties with nicotine-stained fingers, and he worked for the Serpents. He signed off on the paperwork with barely a grunt. The guy clearly didn’t care whether Dillon lived or died.
Tessa’s chest tightened with frustration. “You know he’s missing school, right? That he hasn’t been home the past two nights?” Tessa asked.
The man shrugged. “Kid runs off. Not my problem.”
Brick’s stance shifted. Tessa felt it behind her, the way his anger rose like a silent tide.
“Sign the rest,” Brick said darkly.
The man didn’t argue.
Ten minutes later they stepped back outside. The Serpents were still watching, but none came close. Tessa let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
Brick guided her to the truck with a hand on her lower back. It was the lightest touch, barely there, but heat shot straight up her spine.
“You okay?” he asked.
She blinked. Tessa had a feeling Brick never asked questions unnecessarily.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Thanks to you.”
Brick’s jaw ticked, as if the gratitude unsettled him.
They got into the truck. He started the engine but didn’t pull out immediately. His grip on the steering wheel was hard enough to pale his knuckles.
Tessa studied him. He looked like a man wrestling with something he didn’t have the words for.
“Brick,” she said quietly. “Back there ... you stepped in before anything even happened.”
He kept his eyes forward. “They were disrespectful.”
“They were threatening,” she corrected.
A beat of silence. Brick shifted, just slightly, turning his head enough for her to see the edge of his expression. Hard and controlled, but beneath it there was concern.
“You shouldn’t be around men like them,” he said.
“I deal with men like them all the time.”
“Not with me,” Brick growled, the lowest hint of emotion finally cracking through. “Not when I’m responsible for you.”
Her heart tripped. Responsible for her? Or protecting her because he wanted to?
She swallowed, cheeks warming. “Brick, I appreciate you. Really. You didn’t have to step in the way you did.”
He shot her a look. Brief but fierce. “Yeah. I did.”
Tessa’s breath caught, because that wasn’t the voice of a man performing a duty.
That wasn’t obligation, politeness or orders from King. It was something fierce, instinctive, primal. A man like Brick didn’t posture, didn’t bluff. He didn’t need to.
The quiet intensity in his tone told her this was a man who would burn down an entire MC, scorch the earth behind him, and walk through the ashes before he let anyone lay a finger on her. She’d never met anyone quite like Brick before. Not even close.
She’d dated a few men, enough to know the pattern by heart. They charmed, they impressed, they promised. In the end, they all disappointed her, betrayed her, or drifted away when things got real.
None had ever looked at danger and silently dared it to try her. None had ever felt like a force.
That made something inside her chest flutter, frightening in its intensity. A tug she wasn’t prepared for. An ache she didn’t know how to name.
She wasn’t ready to examine it or admit what it meant.
She stared at the hard line of his jaw, the silent storm brewing behind his quiet eyes and her pulse stumbled. This man was going to be trouble. The kind she wasn’t sure she wanted to run from.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
They returned to the Devil’s Crown MC clubhouse to retrieve her car.
He offered to ride back with her. The journey back to her house was quiet, but not the strained kind Tessa sometimes endured with people who didn’t know what to do with silence.
She kept sneaking glances at him and decided to speak.
“You’re really good at that,” she ventured, trying for lightness. “The whole looming wall of doom thing.”
Brick blinked once. “Looming wall of what?”
She bit back a laugh. “Doom. You know.” She mimed a big, hulking stance with her shoulders. “Big, scary, silent. Like you’re about to eat someone’s soul.”
Another blink. Then, so soft she almost missed it, the corner of his mouth twitched. Was that a smile? Tessa’s heart did a stupid skip.
“I’m not trying to doom anyone,” Brick muttered, eyes fixed ahead. “Just keeping things from going sideways.”
“Still,” she said, settling back in her seat, “you’re very effective.”
Brick tightened his hands on the wheel. “You were getting crowded. Didn’t like it.”
Brick pulled onto her street a minute later, slowing in front of her small, tidy rental house. Warm porch light. A potted fern she always meant to replace. Nothing special or noteworthy.
Brick, however, looked at it for a moment like he was assessing a perimeter, scanning for risks she’d never considered.
The biker club world she’d stepped into today felt like a different planet, and Brick felt like the only safe thing in it.
When the truck rolled to a stop, she unclicked her seatbelt, hesitation fluttering through her. She wasn’t bold by nature, not forward. Something about Brick, though, pulled things out of her she normally kept buried.
“Brick?” she said softly.
He turned toward her, and even in the dim light, his presence felt overwhelming. Big, solid, comfort wrapped in armor.
“Would you...” Her voice faltered, stupidly. She cleared her throat. “Would you want to come in? For coffee? Or tea? Or whatever you drink when you’re off-duty.”
Brick didn’t move. His gaze dipping to her lips for a fraction of a second so quick she could’ve imagined it.
Then he shook his head. Tessa’s stomach dropped.
God, she should’ve known better. Too fast, too much, too her. She always misread signals. She always embarrassed herself. Of course he wouldn’t want to come in. He barely talked to her. Why would he—
“It’s not that,” Brick said suddenly, voice low.
She paused, hand halfway to her bag.
His eyes were fixed forward again, but something in his expression had softened. Unshielded for a heartbeat.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Brick said.
Her heart thudded painfully.
Brick shifted again, uncomfortable for reasons she couldn’t read, then reached into the chest pocket of his cut. He pulled out his phone, tapped a few times, then held it out to her.
“Put your number in,” he said.
Tessa stared, not breathing. “You want my number?”
“Yeah.” The word left him gruff, like it scraped something raw on the way out. “And—” He cleared his throat. “And I’ll give you mine.”
Her fingers shook as she took the phone, entering her contact. When she handed it back, Brick saved it without looking at her.
He wasn’t good at this, she realized. At connection or letting people near his edges. Yet he was trying for her.
“If anything happens,” he said, finally meeting her eyes, “you call me. Or text. Doesn’t matter the time.”
Something melted inside her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Brick flinched.
“Just doing my job,” he muttered.
“No.” Her voice gentled. “You were protecting me.”
His breath hitched. He didn’t deny it. The quiet that settled between them wasn’t empty or cold or tense. It vibrated. Warm and thick with something neither of them had a definition for yet.
Something that felt like the beginning of a line tying them together.
Tessa reached for the door handle, stepping out of the vehicle. The night air wrapped around her, cooler than the heat Brick carried with him.
She turned back, one hand on the frame. “Good night, Brick.”
He stared at her for a second too long, like pulling his gaze away required effort.
“Night, Tessa.”
The way he said her name, low and rough and careful, sent a shiver down her spine.
As she started up her walkway, she glanced back one last time. Brick was still there, watching until she reached her porch, until she unlocked the door, until she stepped safely inside and turned on the hall light. Only then did he put the Jeep in drive and pull away.