Trixie
Her father’s men had picked up her trail, and that terrified her more than anything else that had happened tonight.
How had they found her so easily? Had one of the guys at the Road Reapers reported her for the money?
She wouldn’t blame them if they had. It was a lot of money, but the imagined betrayal hurt her heart more than she wanted to admit.
Facing the men her father had chasing her scared the hell out of her.
Not so much because she worried about herself, but for the men who had agreed to help her.
Venom, Razor, Ink, and Cyclops had all put their lives on the line for her, and now, they might lose them.
She wouldn’t let that happen. If things got bad, she’d agree to go back to her father and face whatever punishment that he had waiting for her because there was no way that she’d let them hurt the men who were helping her.
Cyclops reached back and gently pried her arms from his waist. “Stay behind me,” he ordered.
“I can fight,” she snapped.
“Not asking if you can fight. I’m telling you where I want you,” he said.
His words should have infuriated her. They would have if they had come from any other man.
But Cyclops wasn’t trying to cage her. He was trying to protect her.
He wanted to shield her from the threat that was coming for her, and she couldn’t allow him to take the brunt of their punishment.
Her pride reared its ugly head. “I can handle myself,” she spat.
He stepped off the bike and turned to fully face her.
The dim moonlight carved harsh shadows across his scarred face, making him look dangerous in a way that should’ve sent her running.
Instead, she felt herself steady and even leaned into him.
“Trixie,” he said quietly. “If you want to stand beside me, then do it. But I’m telling you now that if shit goes bad, I’m the one taking the hit, not you.”
She stared at him. “I won’t let you do that for me, Cyclops. You don’t even know me.”
He gave a humorless smile. “I know enough about you to know that we’re doing this my way.
You let me handle these assholes.” Her throat tightened as she tried to hold back the threatening tears.
Damn him—crying was the last thing she wanted to do right now.
They didn’t have time for her theatrics, and they certainly didn’t have time for the two of them to stand there and argue about this.
The sedan rolled to a stop twenty yards away, and the doors opened as two men stepped out.
They were both wearing dark, expensive, tailored suits.
They were the kind her father liked his soldiers to wear when he wanted to send a message.
“They are my father’s men,” she whispered to Cyclops as he tucked her behind his big body.
One of them called out, “Trixie Lee, by order of Vincent Lee, you’re to come with us unharmed. Cooperate, and nobody here has to die tonight.” Trixie flinched at her name being spoken in like an accusation or a claim. But Cyclops didn’t flinch. He didn’t even move.
Ink laughed darkly. “Wrong place, wrong night to fuck around, boys,” he shouted back. Razor cracked his knuckles, and the sound echoed like gunshots.
Trixie stepped forward before she could think better of it. “My father doesn’t own me.”
The man in the suit smiled politely. “Mr. Lee disagrees. Now, let’s not escalate this. You’re valuable. He needs you returned in one piece, and I plan to follow his orders.”
Cyclops’s voice dropped to a low rumble. “She’s not going anywhere with you, asshole.”
The suited man’s smile disappeared. “Half a million says otherwise.” Trixie felt the shift in the air. It was something primal and ugly. It was the kind of tension that preceded violence or bloodshed—or both.
She moved closer to Cyclops until their shoulders brushed. She hadn’t planned it. It was just instinct. His eye cut sideways at her, and something heated flashed there—approval, maybe, or something stronger.
The second suited man reached into his jacket.
Trixie inhaled sharply. “Gun!” But she didn’t even finish the warning.
Cyclops moved—fearless, fast, and reckless.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her behind him at the exact moment the man pulled a pistol free.
The clearing erupted into chaos—gravel flying, engines revving, and men shouting.
Venom barreled forward like a bull, tackling the gunman before he even had the barrel lifted fully.
Ink fired a warning shot into the air. Razor flanked the sedan, as they blocked every possible escape route.
Cyclops shoved Trixie behind a fallen tree trunk and crouched in front of her, one knee in the dirt, with his gun drawn. “Stay down,” he ordered.
She bristled. “I can fight!”
“You will,” he said. “But not until I say when.” Anger, hot and fierce, warred with something far more dangerous inside of her—trust.
He turned his head slightly, listening to the scuffle behind him. “They’re scouts,” he said low. “They’re testing us to see how far they can push.”
“Meaning?” she whispered.
“Meaning the next wave of men that your father sends to find you won’t be so polite,” he assessed.
Trixie’s stomach dropped at the thought of more men being sent after her.
“That’s why we’re going to the compound,” he continued.
“It’s safer there. Plus, it’s farther from any town.
They’ll never be able to get close,” he boasted.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
He looked at her then. “Because I’ll burn the world down before I let them take you.” Her breath caught. She didn’t know what to do with what he had just said to her.
The fight behind them ended quickly and efficiently. Her father’s men were on their knees, their wrists zip-tied, and Venom looming over them like a storm waiting to break.
Cyclops stood and offered Trixie his hand, but she didn’t take it at first. “You hurt?” he asked.
“No,” she breathed, still trying to digest his words.
“Were you scared?” he asked, looking her over.
She hesitated only a second. “Not of them,” she admitted.
His mouth twitched like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile or swear. “Good.”
She slipped her hand into his, and he pulled her up gently. His hand was warm, rough, and steady. She stood, practically pressing herself against his body.
“We need to go,” Ink called. “Now, before they’re missed.”
Cyclops nodded. Then he turned to Trixie, lifting her chin lightly with two fingers.
A touch that shouldn’t have felt intimate in the middle of a battlefield, but it did.
“You sure that you’re okay?” Nobody had ever asked her that in the middle of danger—only after, and it was always a rhetorical question.
But Cyclops’s question wasn’t rhetorical.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He didn’t smile, and he didn’t release her chin. “If you ever see a gun lifted again, you duck behind me if you’re close. If not, get behind anything solid. Am I clear?”
Her pride prickled. “I’m not helpless,” she grumbled.
His thumb brushed her jaw—not soft, but firm enough to hold her attention. “I know that. But let me worry about the bullets from now on.”
A beat passed between them—charged, sharp, and electric. She forced herself to swallow. “Fine,” she agreed.
Cyclops walked over to where Ink stood, and they seemed to be having a heated debate about the two men kneeling on the ground beside them.
They kept looking at them and pointing, and then Cyclops looked back at her.
She wasn’t sure what was going to happen to her father’s men, but she could tell by the look on his handsome face that it wasn’t going to be good.
He walked back over to her and took her hand. “We’re leaving,” he said.
“Wait, what are you going to do with them?” she asked, nodding over to the two men.
“Ink is going to take care of them. Venom and Razor are going to hang back to make sure that no one else is on our trial and you and I are going to the safehouse. The guys will join us as soon as they know that it’s safe.”
“Alone?” she squeaked.
“Yes, now let’s go,” he ordered. Cyclops swung his leg over his bike and looked back at her, waiting for her to follow the orders that he had just barked at her.
She climbed on behind him without hesitation this time, arms sliding around him like they belonged there.
Maybe that made her desperate and needy, but she didn’t care.
She had quickly come to depend on Cyclops, and from the way that he was protecting her, he didn’t seem to mind.
As they roared back onto the road, she pressed her cheek to his back and let the fear bleed out of her.
She had stopped running alone. She had chosen something else—someone else.
And as they thundered toward the compound, Trixie realized something unsettling, something she wasn’t ready to admit out loud—she trusted Cyclops more tonight than she had ever trusted anyone in her entire life.