Witness Under Gunner's Protection

1. GUNNER

Chapter one

GUNNER

Myla Hyde had blood on my cut before I made it halfway across the clubhouse.

Not a little either. The whole right side of her shirt was wet with it, and every step I took shifted her enough to send another warm trickle over my forearm.

She’d stopped telling me to put her down somewhere between the front door and the bar, which was probably the only reason I didn’t dump her on the nearest table and let Elaina deal with her there.

The woman had driven into our compound half-dead, staggered out of a stolen car with a flash drive clenched in one bloody fist and told a yard full of armed Iron Flames that somebody close to us was feeding information to Rafe Maddox.

She’d nearly cracked her skull on the concrete immediately afterward, yet somehow being carried was still the part of the night she seemed most offended by.

“I can fucking walk.”

Her voice was weaker than it had been outside, although the attitude was holding up just fine.

“Sure you can.”

Myla lifted her head from my shoulder, dark hair sticking to the sweat along her temple. There was dried blood beneath her nose and bruising spreading around one eye, but the glare she aimed at me would’ve been impressive if she hadn’t been pale enough to pass for a corpse.

I didn’t know her, and I sure as hell didn’t trust her, but the sight of those bruises had been bothering me since she stepped out of the car.

Behind us, the clubhouse locked down fast. Knox dragged the heavy bolt across the side entrance while Hawk stood near the bar with his phone in his hand, and outside I could see Reaper and Axel moving toward the car she’d arrived in.

Nobody joked.

That was how you knew shit was bad around here.

Half these assholes would crack jokes during a gunfight if it irritated whoever was shooting at them, but a bleeding woman arriving with proof that Rafe had somebody close to the club had killed the mood quickly.

“Back room,” Hawk said. “Elaina’s coming.”

Myla heard him. “Who’s Elaina?”

“Nurse.”

“I don’t need a nurse.”

I looked at the blood soaking through her clothes. “You need something.”

She muttered under her breath as I carried her into the small room behind the bar and lowered her onto the couch. The moment her ass hit the cushion, her hand disappeared inside her jacket.

Mine closed over it before she got far.

Myla froze.

So did I.

Her fist was trapped beneath mine against the warm skin above her hip, and suddenly I was far too aware that I was standing between her knees.

“Move your hand.”

“What’re you reaching for?”

Her eyes narrowed, amber showing around dark pupils beneath the ugly overhead light.

“A gun.”

At least she didn’t bother lying.

I eased my grip without letting her draw it. “Planning on using it?”

“If I need to.”

A smile pulled at my mouth before I could stop it.

Myla looked thoroughly unimpressed. “You find this funny?”

“Kinda.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Been called worse.”

I released her and stepped back. “Keep it holstered and we won’t have a problem.”

She stared at me as though she had expected the weapon to be stripped off her immediately, and on any other night, with any other stranger, that was exactly what I would have done.

But Myla had run toward our gates rather than firing through them, and scared as she clearly was, she hadn’t threatened anybody until I put my hand on her.

Didn’t mean I trusted her.

It meant I was willing to give her room to prove whether I should.

Elaina arrived with Hawk a moment later and went straight to work.

Once the jacket and ruined shirt were pulled far enough aside, the reason for all that blood became obvious: a knife had sliced along Myla’s ribs, deep enough to need stitches without doing the damage whoever swung it had probably intended.

The bruises bothered me more.

Finger marks darkened one arm, with more purple spreading along her side.

“Rafe do this?” Hawk asked.

Myla’s shoulders tightened. “One of his men.”

She gave us nothing else, and I let it go while Elaina cleaned the wound because Myla’s face had already gone gray around the mouth. Whatever adrenaline had carried her through our gates was burning out fast.

Grizz arrived before Elaina finished, with Knox close behind him.

Knox looked at the flash drive tucked beside Myla and held out his hand. “Give me the drive.”

Myla curled her fingers around it instead.

“No.”

The single word changed the room.

Knox stepped forward, and I moved between them before I thought much about it.

He stopped short. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“She said no.”

“This ain’t the time to play nice.”

“Who said anything about nice?”

Knox’s stare hardened, but neither of us needed the chest-beating bullshit. We’d known each other too long for that.

Grizz cut through it before either of us did something stupid. He sent Knox back a step, then looked at Myla.

“You came into my compound claiming somebody close to my club is helping Rafe Maddox. I’ve got women and kids sleeping behind these walls, sweetheart, so I need more than you telling me to trust you.”

Myla was still pale while Elaina worked, but anger put some color back into her face.

“I didn’t say one of your patched brothers was the leak. I said somebody close enough to the Iron Flames to have access is feeding him information.”

“Then tell me who.”

For a second I thought she might.

Then whatever she remembered closed her back down.

“I can’t.”

Knox gave a humorless laugh.

Myla snapped her attention toward him. “I’ve spent eight months running from these people.

I stopped using my bank account, burned through phones and slept in my car because places I stayed kept appearing in records they should never have seen.

Tonight somebody knew where I was again, and now I’m bleeding in a room full of men wearing the same patch while you demand the only thing that’s kept me useful enough to stay alive. ”

Her hand tightened around the drive.

“I’m not handing over everything I have until I know which one of you Rafe can hear.”

Nobody had a smart answer for that.

Because however much we disliked it, she had a point.

Elaina tied off the last of seven stitches while Grizz dragged a hand over his beard.

“She can’t stay here.”

Myla immediately reached for her jacket.

Grizz sighed. “Didn’t say you were leaving alone.”

That started another protest, but this time Diesel appeared in the doorway, took one look at her and said, “For what it’s worth, you look about thirty percent dead.”

Myla stared at him.

Diesel lifted his hands. “Just calling it like I see it.”

A surprised snort escaped her before she could stop it.

The tension in the room cracked just enough to let everybody breathe.

Then Grizz looked at me. “Take her somewhere secure.”

Myla’s amusement vanished. “Absolutely not.”

I folded my arms. “Got somewhere better?”

“I don’t know you.”

“True.”

“I don’t trust you either.”

“Probably smart.”

Her gaze hardened. “You could be the leak.”

That landed differently.

Knox went still behind me, and Hawk’s face closed off.

I stepped closer to Myla, stopping far enough away that she didn’t have to lean back to keep space between us.

“If I was feeding Rafe, you’d already be dead.”

Her throat moved. “That supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. Just true.”

Fear was easier to see now that the adrenaline had worn off. She was fucking terrified, but there was a difference between terrified and weak, and Myla didn’t strike me as weak.

She was still trying to make her own decisions in a room full of men who could easily make them for her.

I respected that.

“You wanna walk out, nobody’s chaining you to a chair,” I said. “But Rafe found you once tonight, your car’s fucked, you’ve got fresh stitches and you look ready to fall over. Going alone ain’t a plan.”

“And going with you guarantees I’m safe?”

“No.”

That surprised her.

I wasn’t going to promise something I couldn’t deliver.

“What I can promise is I’ll put myself between you and whoever comes through the door. Rest depends on who comes looking.”

Her expression shifted slightly.

Not trust.

Not yet.

But she was listening.

“The club safehouse?” she asked.

I shook my head.

If somebody close to us really was leaking information, using a location connected to Iron Flames was a stupid risk.

“I’ve got somewhere else. Old family place. Nobody in the club knows I still have access to it, and it ain’t tied to Iron Flames business.”

“Who knows you’ll be there?”

“Right now? Me and you.”

Myla studied me for a long moment before finally reaching for her jacket.

Her arm shook badly enough that she couldn’t get it on.

I took it from her.

“I can do it.”

“I know.”

That seemed to disarm her more effectively than arguing would have.

She turned, and I held the jacket while she eased her arms into it. When I pulled her hair free from the collar, my fingers brushed the back of her neck.

Myla went still.

So did I.

For one inconvenient second, the blood, the club and Rafe fucking Maddox disappeared beneath the awareness of warm skin under my fingers and a faint sweet scent beneath the sweat and antiseptic.

Attraction was the last thing either of us needed.

Unfortunately, my dick hadn’t been consulted.

I stepped away.

Myla looked over her shoulder, caught me doing it and let her gaze move briefly over my chest before returning to my face.

Well.

At least the bad judgment wasn’t one-sided.

Grizz told us to move, and I grabbed my keys while Myla tucked the drive securely inside her jacket.

Then she stood.

She made three steps before her knees gave out.

I caught her around the waist and dragged her against me before she could hit the floor.

“Don’t,” she muttered.

I hooked an arm beneath her knees.

Her eyes widened. “Gunner.”

“Save your breath.”

I lifted her.

Her arms went around my neck on instinct as I carried her toward the door, and behind us I heard Hawk laugh quietly enough to know he was going to be an asshole about this later.

Myla leaned close to my ear.

“I fucking hate you.”

I tightened my hold.

“Get in line, sweetheart.”

She was still muttering threats when I carried her out through the clubhouse, but for the first time since she had come through our gates, I wasn’t thinking only about the flash drive or the traitor sitting somewhere too damn close to my club.

I was thinking about the woman in my arms who had arrived bloodied, hunted and outnumbered and still refused to surrender the one thing keeping her alive just because a room full of bikers told her to.

Brave or stupid, I hadn’t decided yet.

Probably both.

Either way, she was mine to keep alive now.

And whoever had put those bruises on her had better hope Rafe reached him before I did.