Chapter Three
Two days of looking over her shoulder, and Grace was starting to understand why paranoia felt like a full-time job.
Crash had been watching her since Thursday night—she knew because she'd seen his bike parked down the block, a distinctive machine with custom work that announced exactly who it belonged to.
He hadn't come inside the bookstore. Hadn't made conversation.
Just... watched. A coiled presence at the edge of her awareness, making her feel simultaneously safer and more on edge than she'd ever been.
Saturday evening, and Dog-Eared Pages was finally quiet.
The last customer had wandered out an hour ago, leaving Grace alone with Marlowe and the comfortable silence of ten thousand books waiting to be read.
She'd almost convinced herself that Walsh's men had backed off—that maybe the Sentinels' involvement had been enough to make them reconsider.
Then the back door opened, and three men walked into her stockroom like they owned the building.
Grace's heart slammed against her ribs. She was behind the counter, twenty feet from the front door, thirty from the back. Too far to run either direction before they caught her.
The man in front was built like a bouncer gone mean—heavy through the shoulders, patient eyes that said he'd done this before and enjoyed the work. Two others flanked him, younger and hungry, the kind of muscle that followed orders without asking questions.
"Miss Ellison." The leader smiled, and it didn't reach his eyes. "Mr. Walsh asked me to have a conversation with you. About being reasonable."
"I've already been reasonable." Her voice came out steadier than she expected, terror compressed into something that almost sounded like calm. "I said no. That's a reasonable answer."
"See, that's the problem." He moved closer, casual and unhurried, herding her toward the back room without laying a hand on her.
The other two spread out, blocking the exits with the easy coordination of men who'd done this a hundred times.
"You keep saying no. You keep organizing your little coalition.
You keep making Mr. Walsh wait when he's a very patient man who's running out of patience. "
Grace backed up until her shoulders hit the stockroom doorframe. Nowhere left to go. Marlowe had vanished the moment the door opened—smarter than she was, apparently.
"I'm not signing anything."
"Nobody's asking you to sign." The leader stepped into the stockroom, crowding her into the narrow space between bookshelves stacked with inventory. "Not tonight. Tonight we're just going to explain what happens to people who organize resistance against reasonable business offers."
He reached for her, and Grace did the only thing she could think of—grabbed a hardcover from the nearest shelf and swung it at his face.
He caught her wrist before the book connected, squeezing hard enough to make her gasp. The paperback thudded to the floor between them.
"Feisty. Walsh said you had backbone." His grip tightened, grinding the small bones together until tears pricked her eyes. "Let me tell you what happens to women with backbone who don't learn when to bend—"
The stockroom door exploded inward.
Grace had one second to register movement—fast, so fast, a blur of leather and violence—and then the man holding her wrist wasn't holding her anymore. He was flying backward into the shelving unit, inventory cascading around him as the metal frame buckled under the impact.
Crash.
He moved like a weapon with a pulse. The first of the younger men lunged at him and caught an elbow to the throat that dropped him choking to his knees.
The second pulled a knife and Crash was already inside his reach, redirecting the blade hand and using the momentum to slam the guy face-first into the concrete floor.
Bone crunched. The knife skittered away into the shadows.
Three seconds. Maybe four. Two men down and not getting up.
The leader—Buckner, Grace's terrified brain supplied, she'd seen his name on Walsh's correspondence—scrambled upright with murder in his eyes. Blood streamed from a gash above his eyebrow where the shelf had opened his skin.
"You just made a very big mistake," he snarled.
Crash stepped between Grace and the threat, putting his body in front of hers like a wall made of barely contained violence. She couldn't see his face, but she could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands hung loose at his sides—ready, waiting, almost eager.
"The mistake was coming here." His voice was terrifyingly calm. "The mistake was touching what's mine to protect. The mistake was thinking you could threaten her and walk away clean."
Buckner's eyes darted to his men—one unconscious, one curled around his ruined face and making wet sounds that might have been crying. Then back to Crash, calculating odds that had shifted dramatically in the wrong direction.
"This isn't over," he said, backing toward the door. "Walsh has resources you can't imagine. We'll be back with enough men to bury your whole club."
"Looking forward to it."
Buckner ran. The stockroom door banged shut behind him, and suddenly the only sound was Grace's ragged breathing and the soft groans of the men on the floor.
Crash turned to face her, and Grace got her first real look at him in motion.
Sandy hair disheveled from the fight. Blue eyes sharp and assessing as they swept over her, checking for damage.
A crooked nose that looked like it had been broken more than once.
He was compact, not huge like the man behind the bar had been, but built for explosive speed—every inch of him radiating coiled energy looking for release.
"You hurt?"
Grace looked down at her wrist, already purpling where Buckner had grabbed her. Her hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking. But when she opened her mouth, her voice came out steady.
"I'm okay. I think. I'm—" She stopped. Breathed. Started again. "Thank you. For—for whatever that was."
"That was Walsh finding out the rules changed." He moved toward her, and Grace held her ground even though every instinct screamed at her to back away from this man who'd just dismantled three attackers like they were nothing. "Let me see."
He took her wrist gently—so gently it made her breath catch, the contrast between the violence she'd just witnessed and the careful way he cradled her bruised skin. His thumb traced the edge of the bruising, and Grace felt the touch all the way to her spine.
"Not broken. Gonna hurt like hell tomorrow." Those blue eyes lifted to hers, holding her gaze with an intensity that made her forget how to think. "He grabbed you."
"He was explaining what happens to women with backbone."
Something dark flickered across Crash's face. Something that looked like rage compressed into something cold and patient—the kind of anger that didn't burn hot but burned forever.
"He won't touch you again." It sounded like a vow. "Nobody will."
Grace should have pulled her hand back. Should have put distance between herself and this dangerous stranger who'd just committed violence for her without hesitation. Instead, she stood there with her wrist cradled in his rough palm and felt something crack open in her chest.
"I don't even know your real name."
"Crash." His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "That's the only name that matters."
"That's not a name. That's a warning label."
This time he did smile—brief and sharp, like he wasn't used to the expression. "Yeah. It is."
One of the men on the floor groaned, shifting against the concrete.
Crash's attention snapped to the threat instantly, his body going taut with readiness, and Grace watched the transformation with something between fear and fascination.
One second he was almost gentle. The next he was a weapon looking for a target.
"We need to move," he said, already pulling out his phone. "Walsh's people will be back, and they won't make the same mistake twice. Maverick, I need eyes on Merchant Street—three hostiles, two down, one running. Walsh knows we're involved."
He listened for a moment, then ended the call and turned back to Grace.
"Your car's being watched. Probably has been all week. You're coming with me."
"Where?"
"Somewhere safe. Somewhere Walsh can't find you.
" He stepped closer, and Grace felt the heat of him even through the leather of his cut.
"I know you don't trust me. I know you just watched me hurt people and you're wondering what kind of man does that without hesitation.
But those men were going to do worse than bruise your wrist, and I will burn down anyone who tries to touch you again.
So you can come with me, or you can stay here and wait for the next batch of Walsh's muscle to finish what he started. "
Grace looked around her stockroom. Books scattered across the floor. Blood on the concrete where the knife guy's face had connected. Two unconscious men who'd been sent to teach her a lesson about resistance.
She'd organized a block to stand together. Convinced eleven other business owners that collective action was stronger than individual surrender. Made herself a target because someone had to be brave first.
Now she needed to trust someone else to stand with her.
"Marlowe," she said.
Crash blinked. "What?"
"My cat. He's hiding somewhere. I'm not leaving him."
For a long moment, Crash just stared at her—like she'd said something in a language he didn't speak. Then that brief, sharp smile flickered across his face again, warming his eyes in a way that made her chest feel tight.
"Find your cat. Two minutes. Then we're gone."
Grace found Marlowe wedged behind the poetry section, his gray fur bristled with indignation at the disruption to his evening.
She scooped him into the carrier she kept behind the counter for vet visits, grabbed her purse, and turned to find Crash watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read.
"Ready?" he asked.
She wasn't. Not even close. She was about to leave her bookstore with a stranger who'd just beaten two men unconscious and promised to burn down anyone who threatened her.
She was trusting her life to a motorcycle club because the police couldn't help and the system had failed and she had nowhere else to turn.
But the men who'd cornered her weren't going to stop. Walsh wasn't going to stop. And the people depending on her—Miller and Mrs. Chang and Tommy and all the others who'd trusted her leadership—they needed her to survive long enough to win this fight.
"Ready," she said.
And followed the man called Crash into the night.