Chapter 3 Striker
Chapter Three
STRIKER
The door swings open and two men walk into my bar.
I take them in the way I take in any opponent.
The lead guy is shorter than me, but muscular, and has a bulge under his left armpit, holster carry, a professional.
The other, bigger one is hanging back with the butt of a piece riding too high on his hip and his jacket sitting all wrong over it.
Rotmere muscle dressed up as concerned citizens.
The lead has a sharky smile.
“Bar's closed.” I keep my hands moving, the towel polishing the glass in a slow circle. The cat watches the men with focused attention, tail twitching.
“Good afternoon. We won't keep you long.” He spreads his hands, palms out. “We're looking for a young lady. She's a guest at a private function up at the High Vale Lodge. Mental health issues… wandered off the grounds. We're authorized to bring her home.”
“Authorized by who?”
The smile gets tighter. “Her fiancé. Mr. Taylor.”
“Mr. Taylor? Don't believe I know him.”
“There's no reason you should. Mr Taylor’s a private man… discreet.”
“A man who’s so discreet that he can't keep track of his own fiancée?”
The second suit locks eyes with me, irritated. The lead guy doesn't break the smile, but there’s a small adjustment in his shoulders, a tenseness that’s a tell that he's about to escalate.
“We saw her come this way. The road through the forest comes out at your front door.”
I shrug. “There’s a lot of road around here.”
The smile is gone now. His voice is quiet, another tell. “We don't want to make this difficult.”
“Then go home.”
The lead guy glances past me toward the back of the bar and then at the door that leads to the restrooms. He's checking my face for whether the guess is right, but my expression is something I learned to keep flat in cages where a flinch could lose me a paycheck.
Then he makes a big mistake, stepping forward and reaching for me.
My right hook comes up from the floor the way it used to in the cages, short and tight. I put it on the hinge of his jaw with my whole body behind it. He drops like someone cut the strings. The towel is still in my left hand.
The other one is fumbling for his gun before the lead guy hits the floorboards.
Hawk steps clear of the wall as I throw the punch, putting his sights on the other suit's chest from twelve feet. The guy’s only got his piece halfway up before he freezes.
Hawk is calm as a man waiting for his coffee.
The cat has puffed out his fur, doubling his size, and is watching with what I can only describe as professional interest.
The big suit glances at his lead on the floor and works out whether his pension covers what's about to happen. He decides it doesn't.
“Easy,” he says. He lowers the piece.
“Put it back,” Hawk says. The big suit holsters it, fumbling. The guy on the floor is rubbing his jaw, still dazed.
I come around the bar.
“Pick him up.” I nod at the lead on the floor. “Take him home. Tell Mr. Taylor if he sends more of you back down here, I’ll send back what's left in pieces.”
The big one bends and gets an arm under his lead's shoulder, picking him up and hauling him to the door. He pauses on the threshold and looks at me.
“You don't know what you've stepped into,” he says.
“Then run along and tell them.”
The door swings shut and the cat lies back down on the bar. Hawk walks over to the window to check they’re leaving. Walking back behind the bar, I crouch down to the recess where I tucked her. The girl lifts her head. Her eyes are huge amongst all that white fabric.
“It's done, they’re gone now. You can come up for air.”
She's shaking as she tries to stand, but her legs aren't ready for it. She puts her hand out to brace on the side of the bar, and I catch it to steady her.
The moment my fingers close around hers, my world changes.
I don’t do romantic shit; I'm a man who once broke faces for a living. Now I manage a bar and ride with an MC. I haven’t had a single feeling I couldn't fight my way through since I was eleven years old.
The girl’s hand is small and cold, as I close my grip around it. She looks up at me, and her eyes are filled with tears.
“You're with me.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “Do you understand?”
“I don't want to cause trouble—”
“I said you’re with me, princess.” I bring her closer without letting go as the wet dress trails against my boots. “Hawk.”
“On it.” He's already got his phone out, dialing.
“Lock the front and get someone to cover the bar tonight. Tell Prez we have a situation and see who can get back.”
Hawk nods.
I walk her around the end of the bar with my hand still around hers. She looks down at our hands and then up at me.
Her voice is a whisper. “Where are we going?”
“My place. You're not safe in this bar tonight.”
“I don't know you.”
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but we need to get out of here first. I don’t trust those assholes not to be back here with more men.”
She makes a small noise in her throat and nods.
I take her out the back door, over to where my bike is parked. I get a leg over and reach back for her.
“Up. I don't have a lot of gentle in me, princess, but I won't drop you.”
She gathers the wedding dress up in two handfuls. There's a moment where she tries to figure out how and I wait. Then she finally hikes the whole muddy white thing up around her thighs and swings a leg over behind me. The dress makes a soft sound against the leather.
She wraps her arms around my waist and the contact goes through me, my cock hard as a rock.
I kick the bike alive. “Hold on.”