Chapter Two
Griffin
I came to Enclave éclipse tonight to clean house.
We’d been casing the place for months on the orders of Seth and Antonio Miles.
Kiss of Death did work for the Miles family as their enforcers.
I honestly didn’t give a shit who or what.
If Knuckles said go do something, I did it.
The information I’d been given said the club was nothing more than a front for a trafficking ring.
So, when I saw the woman jump from a second story window to escape the burning building, my curiosity demanded I find out why she’d been there in the first place.
Which meant, she was going back to Kiss of Death with me whether she wanted to or not.
But I’d prefer not to scare the little thing to death until I knew her role in all this so the best approach would be to get her to voluntarily come with me.
“If you try to hurt me, I’ll kill you.” Despite her bravado, the girl trembled visibly and her voice wobbled.
The gun in her grip shook violently. She held it like someone who’d only ever seen a gun in action in the movies.
I doubt she’d ever even held a gun let alone used one.
I had to hand it to her. She met my gaze head-on and didn’t look away.
The cops rolled heavy and fast in this part of the city, especially given the high-end nature of the neighborhood.
Though the club looked plain and unimpressive on the outside, they didn’t advertise because the place was as exclusive as it got.
Only the wealthiest people entered Enclave éclipse so, even though the blocks surrounding the club weren’t exactly in the middle of 12th South in Nashville, it was close enough that the cops responded quickly.
Not only would being seen by the cops in the area make me the most convenient scapegoat in the history of scapegoats, but I especially didn’t want to be here with a half-conscious, blood-smeared woman.
That story would definitely not paint me as the hero of the evening.
She gritted her teeth, trying to find a way to hold her ground.
Blood trickled from her hairline, cutting a rust-brown path through the soot on her cheeks.
She kept the gun leveled at my chest, smart considering I outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds and stood between her and any chance at a clean path out.
“Ten seconds,” I said, and pointed at my bike with my chin. “You want to take your chances with the blue lights, or do you want to live to tell me your story?”
She hesitated and I could practically hear the argument going on inside her head.
The risk of staying versus risk of climbing onto the back of a stranger’s motorcycle with a wound in her hand and no backup.
For a second, I thought she’d try to bolt.
Instead, she took in a couple deep breaths.
Then she moved past me and didn’t look back to see if I followed her.
I’d parked my bike across the one-way street behind the éclipse.
She waited until I’d mounted before she climbed onto the back of my bike and wrapped her left arm around my waist without asking.
She held her other, injured hand to her side in a weird, protective way.
Probably hurt something when she jumped out the window.
I felt the tension in her arm even through the heavy denim.
“Wasn’t expecting company, so I don’t have helmets. My suggestion would be to hang on tight.”
“I’m not giving up my gun.”
“Tuck it in the back of your jeans waistband or toss it.”
She hesitated, then tucked it behind her and pulled her shirt over it as best she could. “Gonna stick out like a beat dick,” she muttered.
I shrugged. “Your call.”
She hesitated, then settled behind me, wrapping her other arm around me. Her bleeding palm stained my shirt, and I felt the dampness under her hand.
Red and blue strobed in the smoke, painting the mouth of the alley in a macabre light show as police and fire arrived.
I killed the headlight as I brought the engine to life.
The girl’s body tensed against me as the engine caught and she clamped her arms even tighter, like the only thing she trusted was her own grip.
We launched out of the alley, the rear wheel slipping a little on the wet asphalt and the pipes barking like we were shot out of a gun.
I risked a glance over my shoulder in time to see two guys on bikes hit the mouth of the alley, one with his hand already on his weapon.
The girl didn’t flinch, didn’t even duck.
She looked straight at them as we blew past, chin up, hair whipping behind her in the stink of burnt insulation and rubber.
“Hang on,” I said, but it was unnecessary. She’d plastered herself against my back and hung on for dear life.
We shot up the block and took a hard right, fishtailing on the wet pavement.
The men we’d passed would have to double back to catch us, but they’d for sure call in reinforcements so I didn’t slow.
We ducked into the service drive behind a print shop and then hopped the curb into the parking lot of a nearby building.
I heard the girl swear once, sharp and muffled.
I took us into the deepest shadows, using the back access road until we were far enough away the air finally cleared.
The fire and all the noxious, burning chemicals were a few blocks behind us now.
The city blurred past. I felt the girl relax fractionally.
We hit a straightaway and I rolled off the throttle for just a second.
“You hurt?” I called back.
“Hand,” she shouted her answer. “Nothing else.”
“Do we need to stop and take care of it?”
She shook her head. “No! Don’t stop. Keep going.”
I aimed for the river. The industrial area near the port was our safest bet -- nobody gave a shit what happened on the loading docks at this hour, and the only other people out there would be more scared of us than the other way around.
It put me in my home territory and, as soon as I made sure we weren’t being followed, we could roll into the Kiss of Death compound and safely out of danger.
We kept moving, taking corners and alleys designed to fuck up anyone tailing us. A block from the river, I finally saw the first sign of a tail. The motorcycle followed at a distance, which told me we’d be having company soon.
I cut right down a service road, using a nearby building to break line of sight. The woman shifted behind me, her head turning to look back, and I felt the moment she spotted the tail. Her whole body went tense.
“Someone’s following,” she said against my ear, loud enough to carry over the engine.
I didn’t answer, just nodded once and opened the throttle.
We shot down the service road into the heart of the industrial district, where the streets narrowed and the buildings pressed close.
This was the part of Nashville most people never saw.
The whole area smelled like diesel and old creosote and the river, that particular mix of mud and industry that clung to everything. Smelled like home.
This was Kiss of Death territory. My brothers would help us if we needed, but I wanted to lead these guys away from our compound.
I could navigate this place blind if I had to.
Every alley, every loading dock overhang, every tight corner that would slow down a heavier bike like the one following us. I used them all.
We threaded through a gap between two warehouses that barely gave us clearance on either side, the woman’s knee almost brushing brick as we shot through. She swore again, colorful and heartfelt, but she didn’t panic. Just held on and let me drive.
The headlight found us again as we came out onto a wider street that ran parallel to the port.
I caught it in my mirror, hanging back but persistent.
Whoever this guy was, he knew how to tail someone without being obvious about it, and he knew these alleys almost as well as I did.
Probably had friends converging from other directions, trying to box us in.
I accelerated into the next intersection and took a hard left, leaning the bike over until the footpegs scraped and sent up a spray of sparks.
The cold wind tore at my face, dried the sweat on my forehead, and carried the smell of the river stronger now.
We were close to the water, close to the port’s industrial edge where the legitimate businesses gave way to less savory ventures.
Behind us, the headlight made the same turn.
I aimed for a section of the district where the loading docks created a maze of overhangs and tight turns.
Used a dock’s concrete overhang to disappear from sight for thirty seconds, took two quick turns in succession, then doubled back on a parallel street.
The headlight lost us for maybe a minute.
Then it appeared again, this time closer.
The woman’s grip tightened until I could barely breathe. Her face pressed against my back and I felt her jaw clench through the leather. She understood what was happening now, understood we weren’t just running from the cops. We were being hunted.
I pushed the bike harder, reading the road ahead and picking my line through the obstacles. I shot through the alley with a hard twist of the throttle. The engine screamed, pipes barking loud enough to echo off the warehouses on either side.
The port’s orange glow lit up the skyline ahead, sodium lights and flood lights turning the low clouds the color of rust. We were almost to the compound.
Another mile, maybe less. As much as I didn’t want to lead this guy straight to the compound, I also knew there would be no shaking him and every possibility he and anyone else with him would outmaneuver me. It was time to go home.