Chapter Six #2
The biker Kane was leaning against a black Harley about twenty yards away, one boot hooked over the peg while his arms rested across the handlebars like the bike belonged to him the same way the ground beneath it did. He had been staring at the car before we even stopped.
Now he was staring at me. Recognition spread slowly across his face. The man scared the hell out of me.
He looked to be in his late thirties, with dark hair, hard green eyes, and a muscular body covered from neck to wrist in tattoos that twisted across his skin like dark vines. There was no softness anywhere in him, nothing that suggested he had ever been anything but dangerous.
He was good-looking in the same way a storm could be beautiful—impressive right up until the moment it destroyed something.
The last time I had seen him he’d been standing inside my thrift store, leaning across my counter while calmly explaining exactly how easily Drago could burn the place to the ground if I didn’t cooperate.
“With you in it,” he had added casually.
He’d looked around my shop like he was already imagining the flames crawling up the shelves and furniture. Now that same look flickered across his face again. Except this time it wasn’t the shop he was imagining. He pushed away from the motorcycle and started walking toward us. Slow. Unhurried.
“Well,” he said as he stopped a few feet away, his gaze already locked on me, “looks like we got company.”
Ruby barely spared him a glance. “We’re here to see Drago.”
Kane didn’t answer her right away. Instead his eyes moved slowly over me, the way someone might study a painting they were trying to decide whether to buy. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I know.”
His gaze drifted downward, lingering over the fitted waist of my dress, the soft swing of the skirt brushing my knees, the flats on my feet, before slowly climbing back up again.
A slow grin pulled at the corner of his mouth. Kane leaned a little closer to me instead, close enough that I could smell cigarette smoke and leather on his jacket.
“Been thinkin’ about you,” he said quietly, his eyes moving slowly over my face again. “Ever since that little shop of yours.” His mouth curved faintly. “I wonder if you taste as good as you look?”
My throat tightened.
Ruby rolled her eyes. “Kane.”
He ignored her completely. “I fucking love it,” he said, his voice dropping slightly as his attention lingered on the curls pinned softly around my face. “This whole old time thing you got goin’ on. Like you stepped outta one of those old movies my grandma used to watch.”
His eyes slid down again.
“Don’t see many women dressin’ like that anymore.”
Something about the way he said it made the compliment feel less like admiration and more like possession.
Ruby jerked her head toward the building. “Drago’s waiting.”
Kane leaned a little closer to me instead. “I wonder what you wear underneath,” he said quietly.
The words slid down my spine like cold water and I felt faint.
Before I could respond or pass out, the door to the building opened.
Every man in the yard noticed. The ones leaning against their motorcycles straightened slightly.
The man sitting on his bike swung his leg down to stand.
Even Kane shifted beside me. Not nervous. Aware.
A man stepped into the doorway. For a moment he was just a broad silhouette against the light behind him, lighting a cigarette with slow, deliberate movements before lifting his head.
I knew without being told it was Drago.
Dirty blond hair fell across his forehead, and when he stepped forward the fading light caught the sharp green-gold color of his hazel eyes.
Scars marked his skin—one pale line curving along his jaw and down his neck where someone had tried and failed to kill him, another disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt toward his shoulder.
They didn’t weaken his appearance. If anything they made him look harder. Like a man who had already survived something most people wouldn’t.
He stepped down from the doorway and walked toward us, and the men scattered around the yard watched him the way people watch lightning gathering on the horizon.
Ruby straightened beside me. “Drago.”
He stopped a few feet away. His eyes landed on her first and lingered there, studying her in silence.
Ruby lifted her chin slightly beneath that look, like she was waiting for something she had chased for a long time.
But Drago’s gaze hardened with something that looked suspiciously like disappointment before his attention moved to me.
Slow.
Curious.
He tilted his head slightly as he studied my face, and when he spoke his voice was calm and rough. “You’re the one getting close to the Devil’s House tech man.”
He watched my reaction carefully as I nodded.
“Does he trust you yet?”
Before I could answer, Ruby spoke quickly beside me. “He does. Like I told you, she’s exactly the type of woman he’d notice.”
Drago glanced at her but didn’t comment.
Kane shrugged casually, resting one hand against the seat of the motorcycle.
“She’s got the kind of face men like trusting,” he said easily.
“All innocence and soft eyes and that sweet little dress.” His gaze slid back to me again.
Slow. Possessive. “And when this whole thing’s finished,” Kane added with lazy certainty, “I might just keep her for myself.”
Ruby shot him an irritated look.
But Kane only smiled.
And the way Drago watched the exchange, calm, unreadable, faintly amused, made something deep in my chest twist with quiet certainty.
I had stepped into something dangerous. And the men standing around me weren’t just using me to get to their enemy.
One of them had already decided I belonged to him.
Drago studied me for another moment before flicking the cigarette into the dirt and crushing it beneath the heel of his boot, the motion deliberate and unhurried as if nothing about this meeting required urgency.
“Inside,” he said simply. The word wasn’t loud, but the men around the yard moved as though it carried weight.
Ruby didn’t hesitate. She turned toward the building immediately, smiling back at me over her shoulder in a way that made it clear she believed I had just passed some kind of test I hadn’t even realized I was taking.
Drago fell into step beside her, already speaking quietly to her in a voice too low for me to hear, and I followed a few paces behind them with the uneasy awareness that Kane had shifted from his motorcycle and was walking close enough behind me that I could feel the warmth of him at my back.
The door opened into a rush of noise.
Music thudded somewhere deeper inside the building, the heavy bass vibrating faintly through the floorboards while voices overlapped in rough laughter and loud arguments that sounded one bad mood away from turning into a fight.
The smell hit me first, beer, cigarette smoke, sweat, motor oil, and something sharp beneath it all that burned the back of my throat, and the inside of the clubhouse looked nothing like the quiet clearing outside.
Men crowded the room in loose groups, some leaning heavily against the bar while others sprawled across battered couches that had clearly survived more than one brawl.
Several women moved through the room wearing tight shorts, skimpy tops, and makeup thick enough to be visible from across the room, their laughter loud and careless as they carried drinks or draped themselves across whichever biker happened to catch their attention.
Someone whistled when we walked in.
A bottle clinked loudly against the bar.
My stomach tightened.
Drago didn’t slow.
He moved through the room the way a storm moves across open water, inevitable, unchallenged, while the noise shifted slightly around him as people noticed him passing.
Ruby stayed close beside him, practically glowing with excitement, and when they reached the stairs that led to the upper level he stopped and turned toward her.
“Come upstairs,” he said.
Ruby’s reaction was immediate. Her eyes lit so quickly it almost hurt to watch, and she shot me a quick glance over her shoulder. “I’ll be back.” Then she followed him up the stairs without hesitation. Just like that. Gone.
The moment they disappeared around the landing the room seemed to grow louder, the music heavier, the laughter rougher, and I suddenly became painfully aware that I was standing in the middle of a biker clubhouse with absolutely no idea how to behave in a place like this.
Kane stepped closer.
Too close.
“Well,” he said near my ear, his voice deep enough that I could feel the vibration of it more than hear it clearly, “looks like it’s just you and me for a bit.”
I took a small step away from him immediately. “I’ll just wait outside.”
His hand closed around my wrist before I could move. Not tight enough to hurt. Just enough to stop me. “There’s no need for that,” he said easily, his fingers sliding slowly along my arm before letting go as if the contact had been accidental.
My skin crawled. “I’m fine.”
He grinned. “Oh trust me,” he said, his eyes drifting slowly over me again, “I can see that.”
A woman wearing a red bathing-suit top and shorts that barely qualified as clothing walked past us then and gave Kane an exaggerated pout. “I thought we were headin’ to your room,” she complained.
“Change of plans,” he said without even glancing at her. “Get lost.”
His eyes never left me.
She followed his gaze then, looked me up and down with open disapproval, and wandered off toward the bar without another word.
I tried to focus on anything in the room that wasn’t Kane.
The place was chaos.
A group of bikers near the back were arguing loudly over a pool table while another man stood on a chair shouting something about a race down the highway.
Someone knocked over a beer bottle and laughter erupted from the couch beside them, while the women drifting through the room seemed completely comfortable moving through the noise and smoke like it was the most natural environment in the world.
I felt like a deer standing in the middle of a pack of wolves.
Kane’s hand settled suddenly against my lower back.
My stomach twisted.
“Don’t you worry none,” he said slowly, his hand sliding slightly higher along my spine. “I’ll keep you nice and safe.”
I stepped away again. “I really should go wait in the car.”
He moved with me instantly, shifting just enough to block the path toward the door without making it obvious. “Relax,” he said. “I ain’t gonna bite.” His hand brushed my arm again, lingering this time. “I mean,” he added with a slow smile, “not unless you ask nice.”
The room suddenly felt smaller. Louder. More dangerous. I glanced toward the door again, quietly measuring the distance. It wasn’t far. Just a quick walk across the room. If I moved fast enough—
Kane’s hand caught my waist. “Where you goin’?”
“I just need some air.”
“You’re fine right here.”
His fingers tightened slightly against my side before sliding upward again, his attention lingering on the curve of my waist before drifting to the soft fabric of my dress. He rubbed the material slowly between his fingers. “Soft,” he said. “You always dress like this?”
I swallowed. “It’s just a dress.”
“That’s where your right,” he murmured. “It’s the bitch in the dress that has me excited.”
His hand lifted slightly, brushing one of the curls pinned near my temple before tucking the strand gently behind my ear. The gesture was almost tender. Which somehow made it worse.
“You really shouldn’t walk into a place like this lookin’ that sweet,” he said quietly. “Makes a man start thinkin’ things.”
My pulse jumped.
For a moment I seriously considered running for the door anyway—running straight to the car, locking myself inside, and waiting there until Ruby came back. My foot shifted. I was just about to move when a voice cut through the noise.
“Evie.”
I turned. Ruby was coming down the stairs. Her expression was neutral, but something about the tightness around her mouth told me the visit upstairs hadn’t lasted very long.
Kane’s hand dropped from my waist slowly.
Ruby’s eyes flicked to it before settling on his face. “You’re crowding her.”
Kane shrugged. “Just keepin’ her company.”
Ruby looked at me. “You ready to go?”
The relief that rushed through me was so strong my knees almost felt weak. “Yes,” I said quickly.
Kane’s smile faded slightly. “Already?”
Ruby stepped between us. “Drago said that’s enough for tonight.”
Kane watched both of us for a moment, something darker settling behind his eyes as he leaned back against the nearest table. “See you soon, Evie.”
The way he said it made my stomach drop. Because something in his voice told me he wasn’t guessing. He was certain. And as Ruby led me back toward the door, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Kane was going to be trouble.