Chapter 8
Tank
One week.
That is all it took for the safe house to stop feeling like a bolthole and start feeling like hers.
Her coffee mug in the sink.
Her shampoo and body wash lined up in the bathroom after I took her into town two days ago and made her buy whatever she needed.
My shirt hanging off the chair by the bed because she wore it to sleep and I liked the sight enough not to move it.
One week of her in my space, on my bike, in my bed, under my hands.
One week of her saying my name like it means something.
Too damn much for seven days.
Not enough either.
She is standing by the kitchen counter now, pulling her hair back while morning light cuts across the cabin. Jeans this time. One of my black shirts. Boots.
I watch her tie it off and lean one shoulder against the doorway.
“You sure about this? Going back to your house?”
She looks up at me.
Not confused. Not hesitant. She knows exactly what I mean.
“Yes. We’ll be in and out.”
“We can send one of the prospects.”
Her mouth tightens. “For the papers, maybe. Not for my mother’s necklace.”
“Why?”
“Because I hid it.”
That gets my attention in a different way.
She glances down, then back up. “After Mom died, Earl started pawning everything that looked worth anything. Tools. Her jewelry. Even some of her kitchen stuff.” Her voice goes flatter. “I knew if I left it out, they’d sell it.”
“So where is it?”
She hesitates.
Then, “Somewhere they never found.”
I study her face for a second. Pale still, but stronger than she was a week ago. Eyes clearer. Mouth steadier. She is scared. She is going anyway.
No way in hell was I leaving her behind.
I push off the doorframe. “Then we go get it.”
She nods once like she knew that answer was coming.
Good.
My phone vibrates in my pocket before I get it on.
Ghost.
I answer and turn toward the window while Julie checks the zipper on her jacket.
“Tell me something useful.”
Ghost snorts. “Morning to you too.”
“Got plans.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m calling.”
Of course he does.
“You moving somewhere now?” he asks.
“You’re watching me too closely.”
“For your safety.”
“In ten. We’re going to Swoon Peaks.”
“Shadow’s with me. Viper too. We’ll hang back unless it goes loud.”
That gets my attention.
I glance over at Julie.
She is focused on lacing her boots tighter, pretending not to listen.
“Works for me,” I say.
Ghost’s voice roughens. “House is still hot, Tank.”
“No shit.”
“We’ve had two different sightings of Huntington men in that area in the last three days. They’re squeezing everything around the sale.” A beat. “If this turns, it’s going to turn fast.”
That was always the bet.
“Then stay close.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
The line clicks dead.
I pocket the phone and look at Julie.
“Ghost, Viper, and Shadow are riding backup.”
Something eases in her face at that. Not because she wants an audience. Because she knows I am not being reckless with her.
And because she knows who they are now. What the club is. What the brotherhood means when they say they have your back.
“Okay,” she says.
I jerk my chin toward the door. “Come on, angel.”
She grabs her helmet.
So do I.
And twenty minutes later, we are on the road back to the one place I would rather burn down than let her walk into.
My angel goes stiff behind me the second we turn onto her road.
I feel it in the way her arms lock around my middle.
I cover one of her hands for a second where it rests against my stomach.
She squeezes once.
Then lets go.
The house comes into view.
Small place. Sagging porch. Yellow paint gone ugly with age. The kind of yard that used to be cared for before the wrong people were left in charge of it.
But it is not the yard that pulls my attention.
It is the truck near the side of the house I do not recognize.
The tire tracks in the dirt.
The front door standing half open.
I slow the bike.
Julie sees it too. I feel the exact second her body goes tight.
“Tank.”
“Yeah.”
I pull up thirty yards short of the porch and kill the engine.
Silence drops.
No birds.
No voices.
No movement.
Bad sign.
I get off and take her helmet. My hand catches her jaw for one second.
“You stay behind me.”
She nods.
We go up the porch. I step through the front door first, Julie close behind me.
The smell hits before the sight.
Blood. Sweat. Beer.
Then the kitchen.
Earl and Travis are tied to chairs in the middle of it.
Both bloodied.
Both bruised.
Travis has one eye swollen nearly shut and blood dried at the corner of his mouth. Earl looks worse in a softer way, nose broken, shirt stained, his whole body rattling with the kind of coward-shake men get when they finally realize pain can come back around.
Julie stops dead behind me.
I feel it more than hear it.
Earl sees her first.
His face twists into something ugly and desperate.
“This is your fault.”
The words come out wet through blood and spit.
Julie goes very still.
Travis laughs once, sharp and ruined. “You should’ve stayed sold.”
That does it.
I am across the room before the chair legs stop scraping.
My hand closes around Travis’s throat hard enough to pin his head back against the wood.
He gags.
Julie makes a sound behind me. Small. Shocked. She is not afraid of me. She just did not expect how fast I move.
I lean in until Travis can see exactly what kind of death is in front of him.
“You say one more word to her,” I tell him, “and I’ll pull your tongue out through your teeth.”
He goes still.
Blood bubbles at the corner of his mouth where his split lip opens again.
Good.
I let him go and step back.
Julie is still standing in the doorway, eyes fixed on the two men tied up in front of her.
No tears.
No shaking.
She is just looking.
Earl’s gaze flicks between me and her like he still thinks there is a version of this where she feels sorry for him.
“Those men came because of you,” he says.
Julie does not answer.
Travis spits blood onto the floor. “We already got paid.”
Julie flinches.
Just once.
Then something in her face changes.
It empties.
That is worse.
“You sold me,” she says quietly.
Neither of them answers.
She takes one step into the kitchen.
Then another.
“My mother left me with you.” Her voice stays flat. Quiet enough to cut. “And you sold me.”
Earl starts crying.
Actual tears.
Coward.
Travis glares at her like she is the one who ruined his life.
“I had to pay for you running,” he says. “Do you know what they did to us?”
Julie stares at him.
Then she says the coldest thing I have ever heard out of that soft mouth.
“I don’t care.”
Good.
No pity. No apology. Nothing for them.
She turns to me.
“My room’s in over there.”
I nod once. “Go.”
She looks at the tied-up men one more second, then slips past me and heads down the short hall.
I stay in the kitchen with Earl and Travis.
Earl starts babbling the second she is gone. Men showing up. Money owed. Payment taken. Beatings handed out when the girl disappeared and the buyer ended up dead.
I listen to enough of it to know one thing.
The men who did this are not done with the house.
“They’re coming back,” I mutter.
Then I hear it.
Engines.
More than one.
I move fast.
Julie appears at the end of the hall with a small metal tin in one hand and a folder clutched to her chest.
Good girl.
She got what she came for.
“Julie.”
Her eyes hit mine.
“Come here. Now.”
She moves.
Fast.
She is halfway to me when tires bite dirt outside the house.
Then more engines answer from the road.
Different sound.
Motorcycles.
Saints.
Good.
The front yard erupts all at once.
Truck doors slam.
Boots hit dirt.
Bikes cut hard toward the porch.
Julie reaches me and I put her behind my back.
The first man hits the front door just as Ghost comes through the side of the yard like death with a pulse.
He shoots him center mass before the bastard gets one full step into the house.
The body slams back into the doorway.
Viper comes in hard behind him, all sharp motion and bad temper, firing once through the front window and dropping the second man before he can clear the porch rail.
A third man cuts across the side of the house with a gun in his hand.
Shadow appears out of nowhere.
One second the bastard is moving. The next there is a knife buried high in his throat and Shadow is already on him, wrenching the gun free before the body finishes going down.
Clean.
Fast.
No wasted motion.
Gunfire cracks again.
Ghost drops another man at the edge of the porch.
Viper swears and fires toward the truck.
Shadow reappears at the front window and puts two tight shots into the last bastard trying to crawl behind the engine block.
Controlled. Center mass. Done.
Then silence drops so fast it rings.
That is how these things usually go once they start. Loud. Fast. Ugly.
I keep Julie behind me until I am sure the yard is ours.
Ghost steps into the doorway first, gun still up, eyes scanning.
“Clear.”
Viper appears beside him, breathing hard but grinning like he enjoyed himself way too much. “Housewarming gift.”
Shadow comes up last.
Quiet as before. Blood on one sleeve. None of it looks like his.
His gaze flicks once to Julie, making sure she is untouched, then away again.
Useful.
I like useful.
I look down at Earl and Travis still tied to their chairs in the middle of the kitchen, both of them white-faced now, both of them shaking harder than before.
Good.
I pull Julie in against my side and look at the two men who sold her.
Both of them flinch.
Better.
“You listen real careful,” I say.
Earl cries harder.
Travis tries to glare. Fails.
“You ever come near her, look for her, ask about her, I will bury you with the men on your porch.” My hand tightens once at Julie’s hip.
Travis’s mouth trembles.
Earl just nods too fast.
I lean in one inch closer.
“She is my woman now.”
The room goes dead quiet around the words.
Julie stills against me.
The blood is still wet on the floor.
My threat hangs over all of it.
And I mean every goddamn syllable.
When I straighten, Julie does not look at Earl or Travis again.
She looks at the kitchen once. The house once. The two men tied up in the middle of the life that broke her.
Then she says, “I have what I need. Forget about them.”
That is it.
No speech.
No tears.
Nothing for them to hold onto after this.
Perfect.
I nod toward the door. “Then we go.”
Ghost moves first, checking the yard.
Viper follows him out, still keyed up and muttering to himself.
Shadow pauses just long enough at the doorway to sweep the room one last time, then steps out after them.
And Julie walks out of that house without looking back.