Chapter 3
BEHIND ENEMY LINES
My apartment had never felt smaller. I'd been pacing for twenty minutes, trying to convince myself that coming back here was the right call. Axel had wanted me to stay at the clubhouse after Slash's text, but I needed clothes, toiletries, my medical kit. Just a quick stop. In and out.
The Kawasaki was hidden in the underground garage, tucked between a concrete pillar and someone's dust-covered sedan. I'd taken three different routes getting here, doubled back twice, watched for tails the way Tyler had taught me years ago.
Paranoid, I told myself. You're being paranoid.
But Slash had sent a photo of my building. My window. Circled in red.
Paranoid was just another word for alive.
I shoved another pair of scrubs into my go-bag, moving through the apartment I'd called home for three years.
It looked different now. The exposed brick I'd loved felt like a target.
The street-facing windows I'd admired for their light now seemed like vulnerabilities.
Even the jade plant on my windowsill—the one I'd nursed from a cutting, talking to it during lonely nights like a crazy person—looked like something I might never see again.
My phone buzzed. Axel.
You get your stuff?
Almost done.
Hurry. Bad feeling.
I typed back: Your bad feelings are contagious.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Just be careful. Please.
That word again. Please. From a man who probably hadn't said it ten times in his adult life.
I was reaching for my grandmother's jade pendant—the one thing I never took off, but I wanted to grab the box it had come in, the last piece of obaachan I had left, when glass shattered in the living room.
My body reacted before my brain caught up. I dropped the phone, grabbed the tactical pen from my pocket, pressed myself against the wall beside my bedroom door.
Footsteps. Heavy boots on hardwood. Multiple sets, not even trying to be quiet.
"Come out, come out, little witness." Slash's nasal voice made my skin crawl. "We know you're here. Saw your pretty purple bike in the garage."
Four days. Four days since I helped a stranger, and now I'm going to die in my own apartment.
"Check the bedroom," Slash ordered. "I'll take the kitchen."
I controlled my breathing the way Tyler had drilled into me. Slow inhale. Slow exhale. Fear is just adrenaline. Use it.
The footsteps got closer. My door swung open, blocking me from view. A Devil's Dust member stepped through—young, nervous, gun held in shaking hands like he'd never actually pointed it at a person before.
Amateur.
I moved.
Pen to his throat—not stabbing, just pressing against his carotid with enough force to make his eyes go wide. My other hand locked around his gun wrist, twisted until his fingers spasmed open. The weapon clattered to the floor.
"One sound," I whispered, "and I puncture your artery. Nod if you understand."
He nodded frantically.
I kneed him in the kidney. He crumpled, gasping, curling into himself. I caught him before he hit the ground—quieter that way—and lowered him to the carpet.
One down.
I grabbed his gun. Checked the clip—full. Safety off. The weight felt wrong in my hands. I was a healer, not a killer.
But I'd use it if I had to.
"Jenkins?" Slash called from the living room. "You find him?"
I stepped over the groaning man and moved into the hallway, gun raised, sighting down the barrel.
"Jenkins is taking a nap." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Want to join him?"
Slash stood in my living room, two more Devil's Dust flanking him. His cast-wrapped arm hung at his side, but his good hand held a pistol pointed at my chest. The other two had weapons drawn—one with a pipe, one with a knife.
And on my floor, shattered into a hundred pieces, lay my grandmother's vase.
The blue and white porcelain she'd brought from Japan. The only thing I had left of her besides the pendant around my neck. The vase she'd filled with cherry blossoms every spring, telling me stories about Kyoto while I sat at her feet and dreamed of a world bigger than our tiny apartment.
Something cold settled in my chest. Something that felt like murder.
"There he is." Slash's grin was all teeth. "Look, boys—the pretty nurse has claws."
"You broke my grandmother's vase."
"Aww." Mock sympathy dripped from his voice. "Was it special?"
"You have no idea."
"Here's what's going to happen." He stepped closer, glass crunching under his boots. "You're going to put down that gun. You're going to come with us. And if you're lucky—real lucky—Viper might let you live after he's done asking questions."
"Counter-offer." I kept the gun steady, aimed at center mass. "You leave. Now. And I don't put a bullet through your other wrist."
"You won't shoot." He took another step. "Nurses don't shoot people. You save lives, remember?"
"I save lives worth saving."
The standoff stretched. I could see them calculating—would I actually pull the trigger? Could they rush me before I dropped more than one?
My front door exploded inward.
For a split second, I thought it was more Devil's Dust. Then I saw the patches. Flaming phoenix. Steel Phoenixes.
Tank, whom I met at the clubhouse, came through first, a wall of muscle with a large shotgun, moving with surprising speed for a man his size.
Irish—another member I recognized—followed right behind him, handgun already tracking targets, a manic grin on his face like this was the most fun he'd had all week.
Axel followed behind them.
He looked like walking death. Controlled fury in every line of his body, grey eyes burning with something between rage and terror. Those eyes found me first—checking for damage, cataloging injuries, making sure I was still breathing. Then they landed on Slash.
"I told you." His voice was barely human. "He's under Phoenix protection."
"This ain't Phoenix territory—"
Axel moved.
His fist connected with Slash's jaw with a sound like a baseball bat hitting meat. Slash flew backward, crashed through my coffee table, wood splintering under his weight. The two flankers reached for weapons.
Tank's shotgun centered on one's forehead. "Don't."
Irish's pistol found the other. "Really don't want to redecorate Kai's apartment with your brains." He paused, glanced around. "Though honestly? The blood might be an improvement. What is this, beige? Who chooses beige?"
Despite everything—the shattered vase, the home invasion, the gun still trembling in my hands—I almost laughed.
Axel hauled Slash up by his collar, blood streaming from the man's nose. Definitely broken this time. Maybe permanently.
"Listen carefully." Each word was a promise of violence. "You come near him again, you die. Your boys come near him, they die. Viper wants to make this war?" He leaned closer, his voice dropping to something intimate and terrifying. "Then it's war. But Kai is off-limits. Non-negotiable."
"Viper won't let this—"
"Viper can take it up with me personally." Axel released him, letting him drop. "Now get out. Take your trash with you."
Slash stumbled to his feet. His eyes found mine—promising pain, promising retribution, promising all the things men like him lived for. Then he gathered his men, including Jenkins limping from the bedroom, and they were gone.
Silence.
Then Axel was in front of me, hands cupping my face, grey eyes searching mine with desperate intensity.
"Are you hurt? Did they touch you? I swear to God, if they—"
"I'm okay." My voice cracked on the words. "I'm okay. You got here in time."
His forehead met mine. I felt the tremor run through him—adrenaline and fear and something else, something that made his hands shake as they held me.
"When you stopped answering texts..." His voice was ragged. "I thought I was too late."
"I'm here." I gripped his wrists, anchoring us both. "I'm right here."
We stood like that for a long moment, breathing each other in. Then Tank's voice broke the silence.
"Hey, Irish. Come look at this."
I pulled back to see Tank on his knees near the window, carefully gathering pieces of blue and white porcelain.
"Don't—" I started.
"Might be fixable." He placed each shard in a box like they were precious. "Irish is good with puzzles."
"It's true," Irish confirmed, holstering his weapon. "Fixed Hawk's kid's favorite toy once. Took six hours, but I did it." He crouched beside Tank, examining the pieces. "Japanese, right? Meiji era, maybe? My grandmother had something similar."
I stared at these men—dangerous, violent men who'd just committed assault and breaking-and-entering—carefully saving broken pieces of my grandmother's legacy.
"Thank you." The words came out thick.
"Family." Tank said it simply, like it explained everything. "Phoenix takes care of family."
"I'm not—"
"You are." Axel's arm came around my waist, solid and warm. "Whether you've accepted it yet or not."
We left through the garage, my Kawasaki flanked by Harleys. Riding in formation, protected on all sides. The city passed in a blur of streetlights and strangers, and I didn't look back.
Whatever my life had been, it was over.
The clubhouse at night was different. Quieter, but not empty—members drinking at the bar, playing pool, working on bikes in the garage. Music drifted from somewhere, low and bluesy. The smell of leather and whiskey wrapped around me like a blanket.
They nodded as we passed. Some with curiosity, others with knowing smiles that made heat creep up my neck.
Hawk met us in the common room, his presence filling the space the way a king fills a throne room—not demanding attention, just inevitably commanding it. "They hit the apartment?"
"Four of them." Axel's hand hadn't left my back. "Slash leading."
"Casualties?"
"Their pride, mostly." Irish grinned. "Kai dropped one before we got there. It was beautiful." Hawk's eyes found mine—really seeing me, measuring me against some internal standard. "You good with this? Being here?"
"Do I have a choice?"