Chapter 2 - Knuckles
I know a runner when I see one.
It's in the eyes first: that wild, hunted look that comes from crossing a line you can't uncross.
The way she keeps glancing at the entrance like she's waiting for the devil himself to walk through it.
The white-knuckle grip on that little beaded purse like it's the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth.
But more than that, it's the way she's holding herself. Like she's bracing for impact. Like she's learned the hard way that sitting still doesn't mean you're safe.
I invented that posture. Wore it for two years on the streets before Pope found me and gave me a reason to stop running.
The wedding dress throws me for a second, I'll admit. Not what I expected when I clocked her coming through the side entrance twenty minutes ago. But the more I look, the more sense it makes in a fucked-up way.
Nobody runs in a wedding dress unless they're running from the wedding. And nobody runs from a wedding looking like that—makeup smeared, feet bleeding, pure panic barely held in check unless they're running from something worse than embarrassment.
I've been working the casino floor for three hours. Friday night shift, which usually means breaking up fights between drunk tourists and making sure nobody's cheating too obviously at the card tables. Easy work. The kind that lets my mind wander to places it shouldn't go.
Tonight it wandered to the book in my cut. Some thriller about a guy with a worse childhood than mine, which is saying something, and whether I should grab food before or after my shift ends at two.
Then she walked in and every instinct I've spent the last thirteen years honing started screaming.
Danger. Threat. Someone who needs help.
Not necessarily in that order.
I watched her make her way to the back corner, moving like every step hurt.
Watched her collapse into that chair like her legs couldn't hold her anymore.
Watched her pull out her phone with shaking hands and read whatever was on the screen with an expression that made something violent wake up in my chest.
I know that expression too. That specific mix of fear and resignation and bone-deep exhaustion.
I've seen it in the mirror.
So, I gave her space for a few minutes. I let her breathe, let her think she was invisible in the corner of a Vegas casino at eleven o'clock on a Friday night. Let her believe nobody was paying attention.
But I was paying attention. That's my job. And more than that, it's who I am. The kid who nobody protected learns to protect everyone else. It's not noble. It's just reflex at this point.
When she started crying—quiet tears that she kept trying to wipe away like they were evidence of weakness, I decided space wasn't what she needed anymore.
Hence the water. Hence the first aid kit I grabbed from the security office. Hence me kneeling down next to her chair with my hands where she can see them and my voice as gentle as I can make it.
"This is gonna sting," I tell her, holding up an antiseptic wipe. "But we need to clean them before we bandage anything."
She nods. Doesn't speak. Her amber eyes are fixed on my hands, specifically on my knuckles, which are a road map of every stupid fight I've been in since I was fifteen.
"I'm Ryan," I say, because maybe a name will help. "Everyone calls me Knuckles."
Her eyes flick up to mine. "Because of..."
"Yeah." I flex my right hand, where the scars are deepest. "Earned the name. Seemed fitting."
"Does it hurt?" she asks quietly.
"Not anymore. Hurt like hell when I was getting it, though."
I take her left foot gently like she's something fragile that might shatter if I'm not careful. She flinches when I touch her but doesn't pull away. Progress.
The bottom of her foot is torn up worse than I thought. Glass, maybe, or just straight pavement damage from running barefoot on the Strip. Either way, it's going to hurt like a bitch once the adrenaline wears off.
I start cleaning the wounds as slowly as I can. She hisses in pain but stays still.
"You got a name?" I ask, trying to distract her.
"Savannah."
"That your real name or your Vegas name?"
A ghost of a smile crosses her face. "Real name. Savannah Cross."
"Pretty name."
"My mom liked it. Said it sounded sophisticated." Her voice goes flat on the word *mom*. Interesting.
"Where you from, Savannah?"
"Phoenix."
"Long way from home."
"Not far enough," she mutters.
I finish with her left foot and move to the right one. This one's even worse. Deep cut across the ball of her foot, probably from glass. It needs stitches, but I don't tell her that yet.
"You need to go to a hospital," I say instead.
"No." The word comes fast and sharp. "No hospitals."
"Savannah—"
"No hospitals. No police. No anything that leaves a paper trail." She's looking at me now with those amber eyes burning. "Please."
And fuck, I know that plea. I know what it means when someone would rather bleed than risk being found.
"Okay," I say. "No hospital. But this needs more than a band-aid."
"Can you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Whatever it needs. Can you do it here?"
I should say no. Should tell her this is above my pay grade, that she needs actual medical attention, that I'm a casino security guard with a violent past and not a fucking doctor.
But I've stitched up brothers after bar fights. Done field medicine in parking lots and club houses when going to the ER meant answering questions nobody wanted to answer. I can handle a cut foot.
"Yeah," I hear myself say. "I can do it. But I need to get supplies from upstairs. You gonna be okay here for ten minutes?"
She nods. "I'll be here."
"You better be. Don’t make me have to look for a bride in a bloody wedding dress around the casino."
That gets me another almost-smile. "I'll be here," she repeats.
I stand up and catch Havoc’s eye across the floor. He's working the main entrance tonight. More than six-foot of tattooed intimidation that makes drunk assholes think twice about starting shit.
I walk over to him, keeping Savannah in my peripheral vision.
"Need a favor," I tell Havoc.
He looks past me to where Savannah's sitting. "The bride?"
"Yeah."
"She in trouble?"
"The running-from-something kind, yeah."
He nods slowly. He's been with the club longer than I have, and he's seen enough shit to know when not to ask questions. "What do you need?"
"Keep an eye on her while I grab medical supplies. Anyone comes in looking for a woman in a wedding dress, you don't know shit."
"What if they're cops?"
"Especially if they're cops."
Havoc's expression doesn't change, but I see the acknowledgment in his eyes. "She's got five minutes before I call Pope."
"Fair."
I head upstairs to the security office, taking the stairs two at a time. My mind's racing through what I remember about stitching: how to sterilize, how to tie off, how to make sure it won't get infected.
Ghost is in the office, feet up on the desk, watching the security monitors with the attention of someone who's bored out of his fucking mind.
"Need the first aid kit," I tell him.
He doesn't move. "What'd you do?"
"Nothing. Got a situation downstairs."
"What kind of situation?"
"The kind where I need the first aid kit and don't have time for questions."
Ghost swings his feet down and looks at me with those pale gray eyes that earned him his road name. "Pope know about this situation?"
"Not yet."
"Should he?"
That's the question, isn't it? Club rules say I should call Pope before I get involved in anything that might blow back on us. But something about Savannah, the way she looked at me, the way she said please like it was the last word she had left, makes me want to handle this myself first.
"If it becomes something, yeah. Right now, it's just a woman who needs help."
Ghost considers this. Then he stands and opens the safe where we keep the serious medical supplies, the stuff we use when brothers get hurt and can't go to the hospital. Suture kit, antibiotics, local anesthetic, the works.
He hands it to me. "You've got thirty minutes before I tell Pope you're doing something stupid."
"Appreciated."
"Knuckles." I turn back at the door. "Whatever this is, be smart about it."
"Always am."
"Bullshit. You're the guy who jumped into a four-on-one fight in a parking lot last month because one of them looked at you wrong."
"He called me a pussy."
"My point exactly. Be smart."
I take the supplies and head back downstairs. Havoc catches my eye as I cross the floor and gives me a subtle nod. Still clear.
Savannah's exactly where I left her, still gripping that purse, still watching the door like it might explode any second. When she sees me coming, some of the tension leaves her shoulders.
Interesting. She trusts me, at least a little. Enough to relax when I'm around.
I don't deserve that trust. She doesn't know me. Doesn't know what I've done, what I'm capable of. But I'll take it anyway because the alternative is her sitting here alone and scared, and that's not fucking happening.
I kneel down again and open the kit. "This is gonna hurt worse than the antiseptic. I've got local anesthetic, but it's gonna sting when it goes in."
"How bad?"
"Bad. But then you won't feel me stitching."
She takes a breath. "Okay. Do it."
I prep the syringe, my hands steady despite the fact that I haven't done this in months. Muscle memory takes over. Find the wound. Calculate how much anesthetic she needs. Inject slowly to minimize pain.
She makes a sound when the needle goes in. Half gasp, half whimper, and her hand shoots out to grab my shoulder. Her grip is tight enough to hurt.
"Sorry," she breathes. "Sorry, I—"
"You're fine. Squeeze as hard as you need to."
She doesn't let go while I work. I can feel her nails digging in through my shirt, can feel the way she's trembling with the effort of holding still. But she doesn't cry out again. Just breathes through it while I inject the anesthetic and wait for it to take effect.