Chapter 7 Alexandria
ALEXANDRIA
The engine roar hits the loft like a wrecking ball.
It starts as a low vibration in the floorboards, a tremor traveling up the bed frame to settle in my broken bones.
A dull, throbbing ache. Then the noise swells.
A tearing mechanical scream shatters the fragile peace of the last three days.
The storm outside broke, but a worse one just arrived.
Tristan stands by the window, peering through the blind slats.
Fully dressed. He wears his cut now—the leather vest with patches marking him as something other than the man who held me through the night.
Road Captain. Broken Halos MC. He turns.
The soft, liquid heat that melted me an hour ago is gone. His gaze is opaque. Impenetrable.
"They're here." His voice rumbles, stripping away the tenderness he used when washing my skin.
I pull the heavy quilt to my chin, painfully aware of my nakedness. The makeshift splint on my leg feels like a lead weight anchoring me to the mattress. "Who?"
"My brothers. Logan. Austin. Shane."
He stalks to the bed. I brace for a kiss, an anchor in the coming chaos. Instead, he grabs a t-shirt from the laundry pile and tosses it. "Put this on. Cover up. Don't speak unless asked directly. Even then... let me handle it."
The command stings. "Tristan?"
He checks the Sig Sauer in his waistband, movements efficient. Lethal. "No more bubble, Allie. This is club business. You're a civilian in a splash zone. Trust me and do exactly what I say."
"I thought I was..." Yours. The word dies in my throat. I thought I was more than a civilian. The way he touched me, claimed me... surely that changed the definition.
"Just cover up." The growl brokers no argument.
He unlocks the steel door as boots stomp up the metal stairs. I scramble to pull the oversized black shirt over my head, wincing as the movement jostles my fracture. Fabric barely covers my hips before the door swings open.
The room shrinks. Three men fill the space, bringing the smell of exhaust, cold mountain air, and violence. I recognize the frontrunner from town. Logan Gunnar. I’ve seen him at the hardware store, a towering wall of muscle with eyes that could strip paint. The President.
Logan ignores Tristan. His gaze pins me to the pillows. A threat assessment. He scans my face, the bruising on my temple, the splinted leg, and finally, my hands clutching Tristan’s shirt against my chest.
"You've got to be kidding me, Tris." Logan's voice is a deep, gravelly rasp vibrating in my chest. "Three days? You've had a civilian stashed here while half the town wonders where the hell the 'Bird Girl' went?"
"She's hurt." Tristan steps between us, back wide and rigid. A human shield. "Broken tib-fib. Concussion."
"So you take her to the clinic." The second man wears a charming, dangerous smirk. Austin, the VP. He leans against the doorframe, thumbs hooked in his belt, eyes razor-sharp. "You don't play doctor in the club loft and go dark on coms. Do you know how messy this looks?"
"She was targeted," Tristan says flatly.
The room goes dead silent. The third man, Shane—quiet, brooding, scary—steps forward. "Explain."
"She was tracking near the eastern ridge," Tristan says. "Off-trail. Didn't slip. Someone took a shot at her. Impact blew out the rock next to her foot."
Logan’s eyes narrow, shifting to me. Suffocating intensity. He steps around Tristan, ignoring a low growl of warning, and looms over the foot of the bed. "Is that true?"
I swallow hard. Throat dry. "Yes. I... heard the crack. Rifle shot. Then the ground disintegrated."
"Did you see who it was?"
"No. Fell before I could turn."
Logan rubs his face, looking ready to punch something. "The eastern ridge. Disputed territory. Ramirez wants it for the resort expansion. The guys on the cliffs don't want anyone breathing their air." He glares with renewed suspicion. "What were you doing up there, Ms. Emerson? Bird watching?"
"I'm a biologist. I was tracking a colony of pine martens. If I find a den, it halts development on that land—the state has strict protections for their habitat. My data is the only thing standing between Ramirez and his resort."
Austin whistles low. "Explains the bullet. You're a walking, talking lawsuit for a lot of rich people in this valley."
"She's not a lawsuit," Tristan snaps. "She's under protection."
Logan turns on Tristan, expression dark. "Is she? Or is she a liability you decided to keep as a pet?"
My stomach drops. Pet. The word hangs in the air, cruel and heavy.
Tristan steps into Logan’s space, chest to chest. Violence radiates off them like a clash of tectonic plates. "Watch your mouth, Pres."
"I'm thinking about the club, Tristan." Logan snarls, holding his ground. "You brought a woman actively being hunted into our safe house. Didn't call it in. Didn't vet her. You just—" He gestures at the bed, at sheets smelling of sex and sweat. "—got distracted."
"I didn't get distracted." Tristan's voice drops to the lethal register from when he first found me. "I was handling the situation."
"Did you vet her?" Logan presses, his harsh whisper cutting the silence. "Or did you just fuck her?"
I flinch. Crude bluntness feels like a slap. I look at Tristan, waiting for him to defend our intimacy.
"I’ve vetted every inch of her," Tristan growls, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. "She’s solid. She’s not a threat to this club, but she is a target. And she’s mine. Every curve, every breath, and the way she tastes—it all belongs to me. Don't look at her again."
Logan stares at Tristan, the silence stretching thin.
He sighs and steps back. Tension breaks, but only slightly.
"Fine. If she's yours, she's your problem. But if that data protects our land, she’s a tactical advantage.
We can't keep her here. If the shooter tracks her to the loft, it brings war to our doorstep. We move her."
"Not yet," Tristan says. "She's not stable enough for transport."
"No choice," Shane interjects quietly. "Town is asking questions. If cops come looking for a missing person and find her in your bed... we all go down for kidnapping."
"I wasn't kidnapped." My voice trembles.
Logan looks at me, expression unreadable.
"Doesn't matter what you call it, sweetheart.
Matters what it looks like. Right now, it looks like the Broken Halos Road Captain snatched a pretty little scientist off the mountain.
" He turns back to Tristan. "We verify her story.
Austin, laptop. Check permits, see who knew she was on that ridge.
Shane, up to the site. Find the shell casing or impact point.
I want to know who is taking shots in our backyard. "
"And me?"
"You stay on her. Don't let her out of your sight. If she plays us, or makes a run for it and gets killed, it’s on you."
The brothers file out. The steel door remains ajar. Silence rushes back, heavy. Loaded. Tristan stands in the middle of the room, back to me. Shoulders tense. Muscles bunched tight under leather.
"Tristan."
He turns. The mask is back. The gentle giant who worshipped my body is gone. In his place stands the Road Captain. A soldier dealing with a tactical error. "Are you okay?" Perfunctory.
"Am I a pet?" I throw Logan’s word back. "Or a liability? Having trouble keeping track of my status."
He winces. A crack in the armor. He approaches the bed but doesn't sit. Looming. Large. Imposing. "Logan is protective. Assumes the worst. Keeps us alive."
"And what do you assume?" I push up on my elbows, ignoring the throb in my leg. "You told him you 'made sure' I was solid. Is that what last night was? A background check?"
His eyes flash with returning heat, but he damps it down. He leans over, bracing hands on the mattress beside my hips, trapping me. "Don't insult me, Allie. You know what that was."
"Do I?" My heart hammers against my ribs. "Five minutes ago, we were in a bubble. Now I'm a problem you have to 'handle.' A danger to your club."
"You are a danger. Not because of who you are. Because of what happened. Someone tried to kill you. That brings wolves to my door. I have to think like a soldier, or you end up dead."
"I didn't ask for your protection," I snap. A lie. I craved it. Leaned into it. His detachment forces the lash out.
"You didn't have to ask," he growls. "You had it the second I saw you."
He pushes off the bed, pacing to the window.
Agitated. "You don't get it. You think this is a misunderstanding?
The people on the eastern ridge don't fire warning shots.
A miss is a mistake. They will come back to finish it.
Now that Logan knows, the club is involved.
Not just me and you in a cabin anymore. This is war. "
I sink back against the pillows. Reality settles like a shroud. Trapped. Leg useless. In an outlaw stronghold, hiding from assassins. The only person on my side treats emotions like landmines.
"So what happens now?" My voice is small.
He looks at me. The Road Captain's mask slips. I see the man who brushed hair off my sweaty forehead. The man who looked at me like I was the only light in his dark world. Exhausted.
"Now, I lock this door. I sit in that chair with a gun in my lap. And I wait for my brothers to tell me if the woman I just claimed is going to get us all killed."
He doesn't wait. He shuts the door, throwing the heavy deadbolt.
He drags the worn leather armchair from the corner—the one he used to watch me sleep—and plants it directly in front of the door.
He sits, spreading massive thighs, resting the gun on his knee.
He stares across the room. Ten feet feels like miles.
"Get some sleep, Alexandria."
My full name. Not Allie. Not Baby. Not the desperate, heated endearments whispered against my skin when he was inside me. Alexandria.