Chapter 11 #2
I don’t let that thought finish. Finishing thoughts takes time.
I slam him down over the hood of the van and strip a zip tie from his own pocket.
He tries to buck once, but his arm is already trapped and his face is smashed against cold metal.
I cinch his wrists hard enough to make him curse through clenched teeth.
The second man groans from the pavement.
I look at him. “Move again,” I tell him, “and I’ll make sure you can’t.”
He stops.
Smart. Finally.
My gaze cuts behind me. And for the first time since the van door opened, I let myself look at her directly. She’s on the ground. Not standing. Not watching. Out cold.
Her body lies twisted slightly where I eased her down, coat pulled wrong, one arm bent under her, the other slack at her side. Her hair spills across the pavement, catching the streetlight in a way that feels wrong for a place like this. Too still. Too quiet.
Alive, but out of it.
Something inside me shifts. Not relief. Relief is soft. This isn’t. This is something darker, sharper, taking shape without asking permission.
Mine.
The word doesn’t come like a thought. It lands like law. Unconscious or not. Doesn’t matter. They touched her. And now they’re done.
One of the men on the ground groans again, and the moment snaps.
I turn away from her before I look too long, before something in me makes a decision I can’t walk back.
The street is no longer quiet. Lights are starting to flicker in upstairs windows.
Someone shouted after the gunshot, distant and panicked.
We have minutes before this becomes a spectacle.
Maybe less. The man goes still under my boot.
The driver’s face is pressed into the hood, breath broken, wrists cinched tight behind him. The other two aren’t getting up anytime soon. The van sits open behind them, engine still running like nothing just happened.
The street is starting to wake up. Lights flicker on above us. A window cracks open somewhere down the block. Voices carry, low and uncertain, people trying to decide if what they heard matters enough to get involved.
It doesn’t. Not for them.
I grab my gun, jamming into the temple of the driver knocking him out cold. The man under my boot has officially lost consciousness. I toss them and the first guy into the back of the van like throw pillows. A folder catches my eye, I open it and see that it is about her.
Olivia Martin.
I grab it and tuck it into my cut, then shut the door.
I turn and go to her. She’s exactly where I put her.
Unmoving. The second I crouch, everything else drops out again.
Not the sounds. Not the movement around us.
Just the importance of it. None of it matters the way she does lying there on cold pavement like something abandoned.
No.
That word settles in hard. Not happening.
I slide one arm under her shoulders, the other beneath her knees, lifting her carefully.
Too carefully for a man who just broke four others without blinking.
Her weight settles against me, light and wrong and completely unprotected in a way that flips something violent in my chest. Her head falls against my shoulder. No resistance. No awareness.
Just…gone.
My jaw tightens. I shift her closer without thinking, angling her into my chest so there’s no space between us.
My body blocks her from the street, from the van, from the men on the ground, from everything.
No one sees her. Not like this. My phone is already in my hand before I remember pulling it out.
I hit Logan’s name.
He answers on the first ring. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Need cleanup,” I say.
There’s a beat. Then his voices comes out sharp, “What happened?”
“Van moved.”
Silence stretches just long enough to turn ugly.
“Fuck. Where are you?”
“A couple blocks from Ambrosia.”
“Anyone else?”
I look down at her, at the way her breathing is shallow but steady, at the faint mark already rising at the side of her neck. My grip tightens. “Yeah.”
“What kind of problem we have?” Logan asks, voice already shifting into command.
“Grab attempt.”
Another pause. Shorter this time. Colder. “Club?”
“No.”
“Then why the fuck are you still there?”
I look down at her, at the way her breathing is shallow but steady, at the faint mark already rising at the side of her neck. My grip tightens. “They injected her.”
The air on the other end goes cold. “Jesus Christ,” Logan mutters. Then louder, controlled, “Is she breathing?”
“Yeah.”
“Conscious?”
“No.”
“What do you need?” he asks instead.
My gaze lifts to the van, to the men scattered around it, to the street starting to notice. “Cleanup,” I repeat. “Send a cage.” That lands. Heavy. I hear it in the silence that follows. Not confusion. Not surprise. Understanding.
“Prospects are on the way,” Logan says, voice already moving into action. “You stay put.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“No one else gets involved,” he adds, sharper now. “We’ve got enough heat.”
I look down at her again. Still. Too still. “Too late for that,” I say.
The line goes quiet for half a second. “Five minutes,” Logan says.
The line clicks dead.
Good. I don’t need anything else.
The low rumble of engines cuts through the distance minutes later. Not sirens. Bikes. Then more. They come in controlled, not fast enough to draw attention, not slow enough to waste time. Headlights sweep the street before cutting out one by one as they pull in.
Blaze is off his bike first. He takes one look at the scene, the van, the bodies, the blood, and lets out a low whistle. “Well,” he mutters, voice dry, “you really took ‘quiet night’ and said fuck that, huh?”
No one laughs.
His gaze shifts. Finds me. Then drops to the woman in my arms. The humor dies immediately. “Oh.”
Hammer steps up beside him, expression flat, eyes moving fast over everything before landing where Blaze’s already looking. “Alive?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Need Doc?”
“Tell him to go to the clubhouse.”
That’s all he gets.
Hammer nods once. He doesn’t step closer.
Smart.
Blaze shifts his weight, hands lifting slightly like he’s thinking about helping, thinking about reaching.
“Don’t.” The word comes out low. Not loud. Doesn’t need to be.
Blaze freezes. His hands stay exactly where they are. “Got it,” he says, quieter now. “Not touching.”
Joker moves in next. Silent. His eyes take everything in, slower than the others, more deliberate. The van. The men. The blood. Then me. Then her. His head tilts slightly. Not curiosity. Recognition. He doesn’t step forward either.
Good.
The SUV rolls in behind them, engine cutting as prospects pile out. Tate, Eli, Connor, James, Parker. They move fast at first, then slow when they see me holding her. That’s when they understand.
The shift in the air is immediate. No one says it. They don’t need to.
Blaze glances between me and Hammer, then back again, like he’s trying to decide how much he can get away with. He goes with less.
Smart for him.
“Van’s clean enough to move,” he says, keeping his tone neutral now. “We load them up, clear out before this turns into a fucking neighborhood watch meeting.”
“Do it,” I say.
The prospects move after that. Efficient. Quick. They don’t look at her. They don’t come close. Every single one of them feels it.
Blaze lingers a second longer. “You sure you don’t want—”
“No.”
He exhales through his nose, nodding once. “Yeah. Didn’t think so.”
Joker finally speaks. Quiet. “Brought the cage.”
“No one touches her,” I say.
Joker’s eyes flick down to her, then back to me. “Figured.” That’s all. No argument. No push.
Hammer shuts the SUV door and looks at me. “You driving it?”
“No, Joker will.”
“You riding like that?”
“I’m not putting her down.” That ends it.
Blaze mutters under his breath, “Yeah, that tracks,” but he doesn’t argue.
The street noise is getting louder now. Voices. A door opening somewhere. Someone saying they heard a gunshot.
Time’s up.
I adjust my grip on her, making sure her head is supported, her body fully shielded against mine. Still out. Still breathing. That’s all that matters. “Move,” I say.
The men don’t hesitate.
Joker opens the driver’s side of the SUV for me without a word.
I get in with her still in my arms. I don’t set her down. I don’t shift her away. I don’t let anyone else touch her. Not now. Not later. Not at all.
Blaze leans in just enough to meet my eyes before I shut the door. “Logan’s gonna want answers.”
“Then he’ll get them.”
Blaze studies me for half a second longer. Then nods. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I figured.” He shuts the door.
The engine turns over.
And as Joker pulls away from the curb with her still held tight against my chest, one thing settles in deeper than anything else that’s happened tonight. Not instinct. Not reaction. Not even anger. Something else. Something final.
They didn’t just make a move. They picked wrong.
And now…
She’s not leaving my sight again.