Chapter 7
Overdrive
“Rue?” I called out, head out the window of the SUV as I looked around for her. She stepped out of the shadows and waited as I parked the SUV nearby. “Hey,” I said, stepping out of the vehicle.
“Hi.”
She looked nervous. Her eyes were darting to mine then away and she was wringing her hands.
“Everything okay?” I asked. I knew something was up since she’d called me. She’d sounded slightly frantic on the phone and I hadn’t bothered to ask what was going on. All I’d wanted to know was how to get to her. I frowned. That wasn’t like me. I wasn’t the knight in shining armor type usually.
“Um.” She hesitated, then sighed. “You’re going to think I’m insane.”
Okay. That wasn’t a great sign. I went through my mental rolodex of crazy behavior from women in my past, but couldn’t come up with a reason for me to be in this parking garage. So I stayed quiet and waited.
“I got this,” she said pointing to her fading black eye, “from a man the other night. I barely got away from him.”
Narrowing my eyes, I fought to keep my cool. I hated fuckers who beat women. Boiled my fucking blood. “Boyfriend?” I asked even though she’d denied having one before.
“No. I don’t have a boyfriend. He’s a stranger.”
I frowned. “Maybe you should just tell me everything.”
“I will, but first I think we should load him into your vehicle and go. Then I’ll explain.” She gave me another nervous look.
“Load him into…” I followed her as she went back around the cage ride and there, lying in the shadows on the concrete was a guy.
A big guy. Like a Bolo-sized guy. “Is he dead?” Now my mental rolodex was on fire, and my dick was hard.
I didn’t know what I’d stepped into but I was excited.
And wasn’t that fucked up? Though Kilo had always said I was attracted to crazy women. Turned out he wasn’t wrong. Who knew?
“No. I injected him with a sedative,” she said. “He somehow found out I worked here and came after me.”
That was pretty much all I needed to know.
I kicked him in the ribs and heard a satisfying crunch.
At least one broke. I’d save the rest for when he woke up.
The fucker had attacked her here at her job?
Asshole deserved everything I’d give him.
I’d find out the rest later because she was right.
Anyone could drive or walk past right now and we’d have a lot of explaining to do.
I understood now why she looked so nervous.
She was wondering if I was going to help her or call the cops on her.
I must’ve been her last resort since I was a stranger, but for some reason she didn’t want law enforcement involved and that was damn fine by me.
I liked handling things my own way. Too many years making decisions in the field while deployed and now doing what I wanted with my club.
I wasn’t a part of polite society anymore.
She didn’t know that though. At least not yet.
But she must suspect, or maybe she was desperate and blindly hoping.
Bending over, I grabbed the guy beneath the arms and grunted as I dragged him to the back of the SUV.
He weighed a fucking ton. I was irrationally angry at Bolo.
Like, big guys should always be on hand to move other big guys.
It’s an unwritten rule. But I wasn’t about to wait for him to make the drive over here.
He should’ve just known to be here. Fucking inconsiderate. “Grab that door.”
She opened the back door and I huffed as I shoved his dead weight into the back like he was a bag of laundry. “Couldn’t have gone up against a smaller bastard?” I grunted as I shoved his legs into the back and then slid his body in enough to close the hatch.
She gave a soft laugh and shook her head. “I would’ve preferred that, too.”
“Get in,” I told her.
Once we were both in the SUV and on the road, I looked over at her. “You okay?”
“Yeah, a couple bruises, but I hit him with that sedative before he could do any real damage.”
“Why did he track you down?”
“He caught me following him the other night,” she admitted, looking guilty. She pointed to her bruised eye. “This night.”
“Why were you following him?” I asked when she didn’t continue.
She sighed. “It’s…complicated.”
“Okay. I still need to know.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as I got on I-10.
“To my clubhouse.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“Yeah. We have an area we can tie him up in,” I told her.
She rubbed her temples. “And then what? He knows where I work. He’s going to keep coming after me…”
“Trust me, he won’t,” I told her. “We’ll handle it.”
“We?”
“Me and my brothers,” I replied.
“I can’t ask you to do anything that might be-”
“You’re not, I’m offering.”
“Why?” she asked, those green eyes locked on the side of my face.
Turning my head, I met her gaze. “Because you clearly need help. And I’m not letting this asshole put his hands on you again.”
Her shoulders slumped a little. “Thank you, Overdrive.”
“You can call me OD if you want,” I offered.
It was obvious to me that this woman didn’t ask for help very often.
And granted, we were talking about killing a man.
Not outright speaking about it, of course, but that was what was happening right now.
The only way to keep her safe at this point was likely going to be getting rid of the fucker in the back.
Before that could happen I had questions. A lot of them.
My eyes darted to the rear view as movement caught my eye. “Shit!”
Rue yelped as the fucker crawled out of the back and grabbed her by the hair. Her head hit the headrest hard as she tried to get out of his grip.
The flash of metal forced me to act even as I drove.
It was a knife. Rue had already taken his gun off him, but she must’ve missed the blade he was swinging down toward her chest from behind her.
I leaned forward, grabbing my gun from the holster shoved into the back of my jeans and pointed the barrel toward the back of the SUV.
Wincing at the loud ass sound as I pulled the trigger, I swerved the car to the side of the road and slammed it into park.
As soon as it was in park, I launched myself between the seats and slammed into the huge fucker in the back.
The bullet had grazed his side—and Ruck’s cage ride now had a bullet hole in the side panel—but it’d stopped him from plunging that fucking knife into Rue’s body.
My head snapped to the side as the guy landed a punch.
He was almost as fucking strong as Bolo, that was for damn sure. Something warm brushed past me as I wrestled him for the top position in the cramped space. “What’re you doing?” I grunted as the crazy woman all but climbed over me.
Then the gorilla underneath me went lax. I looked down, confused, until I saw Rue pulling a needle out of him. “Handy.”
She shrugged. “Guess I didn’t use enough before.”
“Guy’s massive. No wonder you misjudged the dosage.
” This time I tied him up using his shoe laces, but I kept a close watch as I drove back to the clubhouse.
I didn’t need that monster waking up again while we were on the freeway.
I hadn’t brought anything extra to deal with him when she called.
No rope, cuffs, or zip ties. I should’ve figured it was something big though.
She didn’t seem the type to call to ask for help moving a heavy piece of furniture.
I didn’t think like Relay though, who was always prepared for a kidnapping.
“Why isn’t this freaking you out?”
Her voice was soft, nearly a whisper as she asked that. My lips twitched. If only she knew the shit me and my brothers got into. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Even if I couldn’t, I would. I’m sort of trusting you to keep a huge one right now,” she pointed to the unconscious lump.
“Fair enough. I have a side business selling organs for transplant, and this dude is ripe for harvest. I get paid by the pound and I bet his liver alone is like six pounds.”
“What!”
“Just kidding. We help people.” A quick glance at her face showed that she was frowning in confusion. “Me and my club. Cops would call us vigilantes.”
“So…you help people…by hurting others?”
“Only those who need to be hurt,” I replied with a nod. “We only go after the shitheads. The people the cops aren’t able to lock up. Though to be fair, we don’t always give them the chance to try.”
She nibbled on her full lower lip and I had to bite back a groan of appreciation and shift in my seat. My cock was hard and aching now, just imagining her licking her way up it. Or down it. Either way. I wasn’t picky.
“And you don’t harvest organs?”
“No. That’s just weird.”
Pulling into our compound, I parked and shut off the vehicle. My brothers were already coming out of the clubhouse. I’d shot Kilo a quick text as we drove to let him know I had someone to deal with. Looked like the others were bored and wanted in on the action.
“Who are they?” Rue asked, coming around the SUV to stand by me.
“Don’t worry,” I told her, reaching over to touch her hand to reassure her, “those are my brothers. They’re here to help.”
She looked down at where I’d linked our fingers. I was blatantly holding her hand at this point, but she didn’t pull away from me.
Kilo’s brows shot up as he walked up and saw me holding Rue’s hand, but he also read the look on her face and kept his mouth shut. Something I’d be forever grateful for.
“Any chance Bolo’s here?” I asked.
Kilo jerked a thumb over his shoulder and I nodded as our club’s enforcer walked up. “What’s going on?”
“Got a fucker in the back who likes to put his hands on women,” I told the group as they circled around.
There were plenty of angry mutters that accompanied my explanation.
“Can you and Merc move this guy? He’s a huge fucker.
Put him in the interrogation room for now, then join us back in the main area. Thanks.”