Diesel's Runaway Bride (Iron Flames MC #2)

1. ELOISE

ELOISE

Iwas seven minutes away from marrying Preston Hale when I heard him promise my family’s freight yard to the Black Thorns.

I had slipped out of the bridal suite because I needed sixty seconds without my mother adjusting my veil, my sister checking the time, or the wedding planner telling me how lucky I was.

Lucky had been the word of the day. I was lucky Preston had agreed to rescue Bradford Holdings.

Lucky he had chosen me. Lucky our marriage would keep two hundred people employed and my father’s name out of the bankruptcy courts.

Apparently, I was also lucky enough to bring a criminal motorcycle club a private freight depot as a wedding gift.

The voices came through the half-open door of my father’s study, hidden beyond the flower-covered corridor leading to the ballroom. Preston’s was easy to recognize. Smooth, educated, and warm enough to charm a room, even when every word out of his mouth made my skin crawl.

“The transfer gets signed at the reception,” he said. “Her father buried it in the settlement documents. By the time she realizes what she signed, the marriage certificate will be filed.”

A second man laughed. “Maddox doesn’t like leaving things to chance.”

“Then tell Rafe Maddox the south yard will be available by midnight. Trucks go through the Bradford gates every hour. No one will look twice at a few extra crates.”

“And your bride?”

There was a pause, followed by the soft clink of ice against crystal.

“Eloise understands what happens when she makes things difficult.”

My hand rose to the fading bruise beneath the makeup along my jaw.

Preston had put it there two nights ago when I told him I wanted to postpone the wedding.

He’d held my face between his fingers, pressed until my eyes watered, and reminded me that my father’s employees had mortgages and children.

Then he had kissed the mark and called me emotional.

The man in the study said something about routes and unregistered weapons, but I was already backing away.

One careful step, then another, lifting the heavy lace so it wouldn’t whisper across the polished floor.

My heart was pounding hard enough to hurt, yet the rest of me felt cold and strangely clear.

I had known the wedding was a deal. I had not known I was marrying a man who planned to turn my family’s business into a weapons pipeline.

The floor creaked under my heel.

The voices stopped.

“Who’s there?” Preston called.

I ran.

There was no plan. No dramatic confrontation, no return to the bridal suite for my purse, no time to warn the guests waiting beneath a ceiling covered in white roses.

I gathered twelve thousand dollars’ worth of silk in both fists and sprinted toward the service stairs while Preston shouted my name behind me.

The kitchen staff stared as I burst through the swinging doors. A tray hit the floor. Champagne flutes shattered. Someone shouted that I was going the wrong way, which would have been funny if I had not been fighting to breathe.

I kicked off my heels and kept going.

The service exit opened onto the rear loading yard, where rain had turned the gravel black and slick.

Preston’s vintage midnight-blue Aston Martin sat dead beside the dumpsters with its hood raised, and beyond it was a battered dark tow truck idling near the open gates.

IRON FLAMES GARAGE was painted across the driver’s door in cracked orange letters.

The driver had one arm hooked over the open window while he filled out a tow sheet.

He was huge, tattooed from his knuckles to the edge of a black T-shirt, with dark hair shaved close at the sides and longer on top.

Grease streaked one thick forearm. There was glitter on his neck, a purple plastic crown on the dashboard, and a leather vest hanging over the passenger seat.

Even sitting down, he looked like the kind of man sensible women crossed streets to avoid.

I had been sensible my entire life.

Look where it had gotten me.

I yanked open the passenger door, threw his vest onto the floor, knocked the crown into the footwell, and climbed in.

He turned his head slowly. Dark eyes traveled from my bare feet to the ruined hem of my dress, over the veil hanging crookedly around my shoulders, then settled on my face.

“Careful with the crown, sweetheart. That’s royal property.” His voice was deep, rough, and touched with amusement. “Usually gotta buy a woman dinner before she climbs into my truck wearin’ white.”

“Drive.”

One black eyebrow lifted. “You plannin’ on tellin’ me why?”

The service door slammed open behind us.

Preston strode into the yard with two men at his back, his tuxedo jacket hanging open and every trace of his polished smile gone. My father appeared behind him, red-faced and shouting. One of Preston’s men reached beneath his suit coat.

“Please,” I whispered.

The stranger looked past me. Whatever he saw stripped the humor from his face.

He threw the truck into gear.

Gravel sprayed behind us as we shot through the gates.

The sudden movement slammed me against the seat, and I grabbed the dashboard while the venue disappeared in the side mirror.

Preston ran after us for three furious steps before stopping in the rain, one hand already pressed to his ear as he made a call.

My driver glanced at the mirror, then at me. “Groom always bring armed backup to fetch his bride, or you do somethin’ special to piss him off?”

“I didn’t marry him.”

“Figured that from all the runnin’.”

“He was going to use my family’s property to move weapons for a motorcycle club.”

His hands tightened on the wheel. The heavy silver rings across his fingers caught the gray light.

“Which club?”

I thought of the name spoken inside the study. “The Black Thorns.”

The truck went very quiet.

The old engine growled beneath our feet, rain struck the windshield, and my breath kept catching in uneven little gasps.

Still, something changed inside the cab.

The man beside me no longer looked like a stranger mildly entertained by a runaway bride.

His shoulders went rigid, his attention sharpening until I could feel it like a blade.

“You’re sure?”

“Preston said Rafe Maddox would have the south freight yard by midnight. He mentioned crates and unregistered weapons. I heard enough.”

“Yeah, sweetheart. You heard plenty.”

My phone began vibrating somewhere beneath the folds of my dress. I dug it out and found seventeen missed calls, most from my mother and Preston, and a message from my father.

COME BACK NOW. You have no idea what you’ve done.

Another message appeared before I could breathe.

PRESTON: Get out of that truck. He cannot protect you from me.

I stared at the words until they blurred.

“Turn it off,” the driver said.

“I might need it.”

“They’re trackin’ it. Turn it off unless you want your groom catchin’ us before we clear the county line.”

I held the power button until the screen went black.

My fingers were shaking badly now, the calm that had carried me out of the venue cracking apart as the reality of what I had done rushed in.

No money. No shoes. No purse. No one I trusted enough to call.

I had abandoned a ballroom full of guests, destroyed the deal keeping my father’s company alive, and climbed into a strange man’s truck without knowing his name.

“I need the police,” I said.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“You got proof?”

“I heard them.”

“And your daddy’ll back you up?”

“That’s what I thought.” He took a hard right onto a narrow backroad, moving the truck with an ease that suggested he knew every broken line of pavement.

“Black Thorns have friends wearin’ badges.

You walk into the wrong station in that dress, you’ll be back with Prince Charmin’ before the paperwork’s warm. ”

“Then take me somewhere public. A hotel. A bus station. Anywhere.”

He looked at me again, and his gaze stopped on my jaw.

The rain had dampened my face. I realized too late that the makeup covering Preston’s fingerprints must have smeared.

“He do that?” The question came quietly.

I turned toward the window. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Ain’t what I asked.”

There was no amusement in him now. No flirtation. His voice had dropped into something low and dangerous that should have frightened me more than it did.

“Yes,” I said.

His jaw flexed once. “Anywhere public’s the first place he’ll look.”

“Where are you taking me?”

He reached down, snatched the leather vest from beneath my feet, and shoved it into my lap. The front fell open. A rectangular patch read DIESEL. Beneath it, stitched in orange and white, were the words IRON FLAMES MC.

My stomach dropped.

“You’re a biker.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Sharp as hell under all that lace, ain’t you?”

I grabbed the door handle on instinct. It was useless at sixty miles an hour, and he knew it.

“Easy, runaway. If I meant to take you back, I’d have done it before you told me Rafe Maddox’s name.” His gaze returned to the road. “Black Thorns don’t walk into Iron Flames territory unless they’re lookin’ to bleed. Right now, that’s the safest place for you.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

He tapped the patch with one grease-darkened finger. “Diesel.”

“That is not a name.”

“It’s the only one you get till I know you ain’t bait.” He glanced at my dress again, slower this time, and heat curled unexpectedly low in my stomach despite the fear clawing through it. “Though I’ll admit, sweetheart, if the Thorns set this trap, they finally put some effort into presentation.”

I should have been offended. Instead, a short, breathless laugh escaped me, so out of place that it almost hurt.

Diesel’s expression softened for half a second. Then his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror and went hard.

A black SUV had turned onto the road behind us.

It was gaining fast.

Diesel pressed his foot down. The engine roared, shoving me back into the seat as the speedometer climbed.

“Put the vest on,” he ordered.

“Why?”

“Because if they get close enough to see you, I want ’em to know exactly who they’re chasin’.”

I stared at the Iron Flames patch in my lap, then at the vehicle bearing down on us.

“And buckle up,” he added, that crooked grin returning even as his eyes stayed cold. “You just made one hell of a getaway, bride. Be a damn shame to die before I find out what else you’re good at.”

I pulled on his vest.

It smelled like leather, smoke, and the man beside me. It swallowed my shoulders, warm from the cab and heavy enough to feel like armor.

For the first time since I had heard Preston say Rafe Maddox’s name, I managed a full breath.

Then Diesel took the next turn hard, the black SUV followed, and the Iron Flames patch settled over my heart.