Chapter 1 #2
Freedom. The thought is bitter. Men like Malice and John are caged too. They just ride in bigger cages and call it power.
My hands tremble again. I think about my mother, how she left in the middle of the night and never looked back, like I was an afterthought she could abandon without consequence. I think about Malice using me to punish a club I’ve never met.
My mouth is dry. My heart thuds so hard it hurts.
Headlights appear around the bend.
A single bike rolls into view, the sound deep enough that I feel it in my bones. I don’t have to force anything into my expression. Panic is already sitting in my throat. The fear is real. The only performance is that I’m standing here at all.
The bike slows as it approaches. The rider pulls up just behind my car and kills the engine. He swings a leg over the seat and stands.
He’s tall, broad, and in the moonlight his silhouette is all strength and stillness. Tattooed arms catch the faint light as he comes closer, calm like he owns the quiet.
Then I see his eyes.
Pale. Almost silver.
They meet mine, and something in my chest dips hard, like my body recognized him before I did. My breath catches. My skin goes hot. My pulse jumps up into my throat, loud enough I swear he can hear it.
He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. Not in a polished way. In a real way. Like he belongs out here, built for the dark road and the cold air and the kind of trouble you don’t survive by being soft. There’s a harsh beauty to him that makes my stomach twist, makes my mouth go dry.
This is not part of the plan.
I’m supposed to be afraid, and I am, but the fear tangles with something else, something humiliating and bright.
Heat unfurls low in my belly, sudden and hungry.
My hands twitch with the urge to reach for a pencil, to catch the angle of his jaw, the set of his shoulders, the way his presence fills space without him even trying.
I didn’t rehearse for this.
I hate the reaction and crave it at the same time.
I swallow.
He takes off his helmet, shaking out dark hair. His gaze sweeps the engine, pauses for a heartbeat, and moves on.
His eyes drop to my hands, the grease under my nails, the way I’m planted with my weight on my back foot, ready to bolt.
“Evening,” he says, voice low and rough.
There’s no threat in it. No violence. It’s just a man who sounds like gravel and smoke, greeting a stranger on the side of the road.
I force a nervous smile that feels like it might crack. “Hi. Uh… my car died. It just… died. I don’t know why. I’ve been sitting here for an hour. I didn’t know what else to do.”
My words tumble out fast, breathless. I hate that my voice sounds like I’m flirting.
I can’t be flirting.
I’m just surviving.
He nods and steps closer, peering under the hood. His hand moves with practiced ease, touching metal, checking wires. Competent. Calm. Like this is a normal problem, not a trap baited with a girl.
Then he straightens and looks at me again, and I feel it, the way he catalogs the details I wish I could hide. The missing connector. The tension in my shoulders. The way my eyes keep darting to the tree line, measuring the darkness.
“Could be the alternator,” he murmurs, as if he’s thinking out loud.
I don’t think I can lie to him. He seems too observant, too steady. Like he’d notice a crack in glass from across the room.
You’re too panicked, Grace, I scold myself. You’re going to get yourself killed.
He checks one more thing, listens like he can hear a car’s secrets, then closes the hood with a soft click.
“It’s getting late,” he says. “Best not to be out here alone.” He pauses, just long enough for the name to matter. “I’m Diesel.”
The name hits me like a fist.
Diesel.
The Wolves told me about him. Brief notes about most of the Saints, enough to recognize targets, enough to know about weaknesses. His real name is Nash Decker, but they call him Diesel because he can fix anything that runs.
Damn, I’m unlucky.
He’s also the last person I should be trying to sell an engine lie to.
My chest tightens.
Stay still, Grace. You started it. You finish it. Even if he catches the lie, he might be more merciful than your so-called family.
His gaze holds mine for a beat longer than necessary. Focused, as if he’s reading something he doesn’t want to say aloud.
He’s exactly the kind of man I swore never to trust. But my body doesn’t get that memo. Heat creeps up my throat.
“Grace,” I say.
It feels wrong to give him my real name, but there’s no point in lying. He could find out in minutes. Malice always said the Damned Saints have eyes everywhere.
“Grace,” Diesel repeats, like he’s testing the taste of it. My pulse flutters.
“I can have someone tow your car back to the clubhouse,” he says. “We’ve got a shop there. I can fix it in the morning.” His eyes shift toward the trees, toward a dirt driveway disappearing into shadow. “In the meantime… you can stay at my cabin. It’s just up the hill.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to refuse. His voice leaves no room for argument, but there’s no threat in it. It’s matter-of-fact, like handing me a tool and expecting me to use it.
Part of me wants to say no on principle. The vow in my head screams.
Never trust a biker. Never go with them. Never.
But another part of me, the part that remembers Malice’s hand slamming down and John’s smile when he’s about to hit, wants to run into those woods and never come back.
And then there’s the feeling I don’t know what to do with. It isn’t logic. It’s instinct.
The terrifying, hopeful thought that if I go with this man, I might be safe for one night.
Safe is what I crave.
Safe is what I don’t believe in.
“Okay,” I say quietly. The word sticks in my throat like it’s too big to swallow. “Thank you.”
Diesel doesn’t smile. He just nods once, like that’s settled. He shrugs out of his jacket and hands it to me.
“Put this on,” he says. “It’s cold on the bike.”
The jacket smells like leather and gasoline and something warm and clean beneath. I slip my arms into it. It swallows me, heavy and protective, wrapping me in his heat.
He pulls out his phone and types a message with quick, practiced thumbs. “Tow’s on the way,” he says, like it’s already done.
A reply flashes on his screen almost immediately. Diesel’s eyes narrow a fraction as he reads it. His jaw tightens, then relaxes. The change is subtle, but it’s there, like something just shifted inside him.
He pockets the phone.
“Hop on,” he says.
My heart hammers.
I pick up my sketch book and my bag from the car, then climb onto the back of his bike, my hands hovering in the air for one stupid second before I place them on his sides as he urges me to do so.
His muscles are hard beneath his shirt. Heat radiates from him, steady and real.
The engine roars to life, vibrating up through my bones.
Diesel eases forward, leaving my car behind under the trees, doomed and waiting for the tow truck. The dirt road rises, pine trees closing in around us, forming a tunnel of dark.
I can feel his strength through my palms, the stability of him, the way his body knows exactly what it’s doing.
Without meaning to, I press my cheek against his back.
This is something you had to do, Grace.
And I did it. Somehow, the scariest part is that for the first time tonight, my body isn’t bracing for the next hit.