Chapter 2
MARKED TERRITORY
Three days since I'd played guardian angel to a bleeding biker. Three days of checking my mirrors, varying my routes, parking in different spots. Three days of jumping at shadows and dreaming about grey eyes and waking up with my heart pounding from nightmares I couldn't quite remember.
Memorable isn't safe.
His warning played on loop in my head as I walked through the hospital parking garage, morning sun slanting through the concrete gaps and painting stripes of gold across the oil-stained floor. My sneakers echoed in the emptiness. Somewhere above me, a car door slammed. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
So why couldn't I shake the feeling of being watched?
My Kawasaki waited in her usual spot on level three—I'd moved her from level two, one of a dozen small paranoid adjustments I'd made since that night. The violet underlights were off, the chrome gleaming dull in the fluorescent light. I reached for my helmet.
And heard it.
That distinctive Harley rumble, echoing through the structure like thunder rolling in. Growing closer. My hand found the tactical pen in my jacket pocket—Tyler's gift, from back when he still worried about me navigating the world alone.
The bike emerged from the shadows, and my breath caught.
Custom black Road King, chrome pipes throwing light like liquid mercury. But it was the rider that stopped me cold.
Axel.
He killed the engine twenty feet away, swinging off with a fluid grace that shouldn't have been possible for a man his size.
I caught the slight stiffness when he straightened—still favoring those ribs.
Black leather jacket over his Steel Phoenixes cut, dark jeans stretched over powerful thighs.
Those grey eyes found mine immediately, like he'd known exactly where I'd be standing.
"You're jumpy." His voice carried that same controlled power I remembered. Thunder held in check. "Good. Means you're taking this seriously."
"How did you find me?"
"Wasn't hard. Male nurse at St. Mary's who rides a restored '78 Kawasaki?" He moved closer, each step deliberate, eating up the distance between us. "Violet highlights? Pretty memorable."
"Stalking is illegal."
His lips quirked—the first hint of anything other than intensity. "So is practicing medicine without a license in parking lots."
"I have a license."
"Not for parking lots."
Despite everything—the danger, the warning bells, the voice in my head screaming about self-preservation—I almost smiled. "What do you want, Axel?"
The humor vanished. "Devil's Dust knows there was a witness. They're looking."
My stomach dropped. I kept my expression neutral—a skill I'd learned young, in homes where showing fear was an invitation.
"And you thought following me to work would help how?"
"I've had eyes on you for three days." He closed the remaining distance until I could smell leather and motor oil and that warm masculine scent underneath that made my pulse skip. "Making sure they haven't found you first."
"Eyes on me?" Anger flared, mixing with something hotter I refused to name. "You've been having me watched?"
"Protected." His grey eyes bore into mine. "There's a difference."
"Not to me."
His hand moved. I tensed, muscles coiling, but he only pointed to a white van across the structure. "See that? Been there since you arrived. Engine's still warm. No hospital parking permit."
I looked. Tinted windows. Clear sightline to employee parking. No visible driver.
"Could be anyone—"
"Could be." He stepped closer, and suddenly my back was against my Kawasaki, his body a wall of heat and muscle blocking out the fluorescent light. "Want to risk it?"
This close, I could see the exhaustion lines around his eyes. The healing cut on his knuckles. The way his body positioned itself between me and the van without conscious thought—a soldier's instinct.
"I can take care of myself."
"I know. Saw that three nights ago." His hand came up, hovering near my jaw without quite touching. "Doesn't mean you should have to."
The van's engine roared to life.
Everything happened fast.
Tires squealed. The van stopped ten feet away, side door sliding open with a metallic shriek. Three men spilled out—Devil's Dust patches visible on their cuts.
The one in front had a voice I recognized. Nasal. Sneering. The knife-wielder whose wrist Axel had snapped.
"Well, well." His grin showed too many teeth. A cast encased his right arm, but his left held a gun. "Reaper's got himself a new toy."
"Walk away, Slash." Axel's voice had gone deadly quiet. "This doesn't concern him."
"Anything concerning Phoenix concerns us." Slash moved closer, flankers spreading to cut off escape routes. One carried a rusted pipe. The other had a hand inside his jacket. "Especially pretty little witnesses."
My hand tightened on the tactical pen. Three against one, with me as liability. Bad odds.
"I said—" Axel started.
I moved.
The pen found the flanker's liver before he could draw—Tyler had drilled this into me a hundred times.
Soft tissue. Maximum pain. Minimum effort.
The man doubled over with a strangled noise.
I grabbed his collar, used his momentum, threw him into Slash.
The gun went wide. Third man swung the pipe—I ducked, drove my elbow into his solar plexus, shoved hard.
His head met a concrete pillar with a crack that echoed through the garage.
Three seconds. All three down or disoriented.
Axel had Slash against the van before I could blink, forearm across his throat, his other hand keeping the gun at bay, lifting him onto his toes. The muscles in his arms bunched and strained, barely contained violence.
"Just try and touch him," Axel said, soft as silk and twice as deadly, "and I'll paint this garage with your blood."
Slash wheezed something unintelligible.
"Kai." Axel didn't look away. "Get on your bike. Start it."
For once, I didn't argue. The Kawasaki roared to life between my thighs, the engine's vibration grounding me.
"This isn't over, Reaper." Slash forced the words out through his compressed windpipe. "Viper wants the witness."
"Then Viper comes through me." Axel released him, stepping back with predator grace. "All of Phoenix. He's under our protection now."
"He's not one of yours—"
"He is now." The finality in those words sent heat through me that had nothing to do with anger. "Spread the word."
Slash gathered his men—the one I'd dropped was limping badly, clutching his side. They piled into the van and peeled out, engine screaming.
Axel turned to me. Something fierce burned in his grey eyes, protective and possessive and completely at odds with the controlled soldier I'd seen three nights ago.
"We need to talk. Follow me."
"I have to—"
"They know where you live." He swung onto his Harley, the bike dipping under his weight before settling. "They know where you work. Trust me."
He paused, and something in his expression shifted. Softened.
"Please."
That word decided it. Axel didn't seem like a man who said please often.
What followed was a fever dream.
We tore through city streets like traffic laws were suggestions for lesser mortals.
Axel's Harley wove through morning commuters with reckless precision, splitting lanes by inches, dodging mirrors by millimeters.
His massive frame moved with the bike like they were one creature, leaning into turns with predatory grace.
And I matched him. Move for move, risk for risk.
My Kawasaki screamed beneath me as I pushed her harder than I had in years. When Axel cut right at an intersection, I went left—took the parallel street, ran two yellow lights, and emerged ahead of him on the other side. Showing off. Proving something I couldn't name.
He caught up at the next red light, pulled alongside. His eyes found mine through our visors, and even with the tinted plastic between us, I felt the heat of his gaze. The approval. The hunger.
He nodded once. Then the light changed, and we were flying again.
By the time we reached the industrial district, my blood was singing. That feeling I'd had watching him fight—invincibility, recklessness, alive—had returned tenfold. On my Kawasaki, with Axel beside me, I felt like we could outrun anything.
The clubhouse looked like nothing special from outside. Warehouse. Corrugated metal. But security cameras tracked our approach, and the heavy steel door opened before we'd even dismounted.
Axel's smile as he pulled off his helmet was wicked. Appreciative. His eyes tracked down my body once—quick but unmistakable—before meeting my gaze again.
"You ride like you've got something to prove."
"Maybe I do."
His smile widened. "Yeah. Maybe you do."
Inside, the clubhouse opened into controlled chaos.
Pool tables dominated one corner. A long bar ran the length of the far wall, bottles gleaming in the low light. Couches clustered around a massive flat screen. The smell hit me first—leather, motor oil, whiskey, and something cooking that made my stomach growl despite everything.
Members looked up as we entered. I felt their assessment—surprise at the outsider, questions in their eyes, a few knowing smirks at the way Axel's hand hovered at my lower back.
"Church in twenty," Axel announced. Not a request. "Spread the word."
He led me past curious gazes to what looked like an office. Sparse but lived-in. Desk covered in papers, leather couch against one wall, weapons locked in a glass case. His space—I could tell by the way he moved through it.
"Sit." He shrugged off his jacket, and I caught sight of bandages under his shirt. Someone had properly dressed the wound I'd cleaned. "You okay? They didn't hurt you?"
"I'm fine." I stayed standing, too wired to sit. "Though one of them might need his liver checked."
Something like pride flashed in his eyes. "Where'd you learn to fight like that?"
"My foster brother." The familiar ache twisted in my chest. "Tyler. He said pretty boys in the system needed to know how to fight dirty."