3. Chapter 3
McKenna
The gates surrounding the Damned Sinners clubhouse are high enough to make me wonder whether they were built to keep danger out or secrets in.
Grim slows the motorcycle before we reach them and touches two fingers to my clasped hands. He told me to tap his side if I wanted him to stop. The gesture feels like a question, giving me one last chance to change my mind.
I tighten my arms around his waist, and the gates open.
Motorcycles fill the bays of a converted brick warehouse, and men wearing the same black leather cuts watch us roll across the yard. No one rushes toward Grim. His arrival registers across the entire property, conversations pausing and bodies turning before the engine goes quiet.
A tall man waits beside the clubhouse steps with tattooed arms folded across his chest. His hair is the color of dirty sand, and his rugged face carries the weathered edges of someone who has survived several lives already. Sharp green eyes track Grim, the yard, and me in a single sweep.
Several brothers work nearby, but each glances toward him before continuing.
When Grim kills the engine, the man pushes away from the steps.
“That scarf is doing more work than your definition of a minor graze, Prez.”
Grim removes his helmet. “Razor ready?”
“Medical room’s open, watch is doubled, and Hound has men searching for the sedan.”
Grim gives him a single nod.
The exchange lasts seconds, but I understand something important. Grim trusts this man to carry out an order before he finishes giving it.
The man’s gaze drops to the bruises around my wrist. Every trace of humor leaves his face.
“You must be McKenna.”
“I recognize your voice. You’re the one who laughed when Grim said I shot him.”
His mouth threatens a smile. “Briefly.”
“Striker.”
Grim says his name quietly.
Striker’s expression sharpens. “She’s secure. Every brother on the property has his orders.”
The laughter from the phone concealed something harder. The man standing in front of me misses nothing, and Grim requires only one word to bring his full attention to the surface.
Striker waits until we are closer before lowering his voice.
“We don’t get many visitors who shoot the president before introductions.”
I close my eyes. “I didn’t know he was the president when I shot him.”
Grim dismounts and turns toward me. “Would knowing have improved your aim?”
“It might have improved my decision to accept a loaded weapon from you.”
“There she is,” Striker says. “I like her.”
Grim gives him a look that could strip paint.
“In a respectful way,” Striker adds.
Despite myself, I laugh.
Grim’s attention returns to me, and the hard line of his mouth eases as though the sound belongs to him. He raises his hands but waits until I nod before placing them around my waist.
My body slides down the front of his.
The contact lasts only a second. It is still long enough for heat to sweep from my throat to places that have no business reacting while his blood dries on my scarf.
His hands remain at my waist after my boots reach the ground.
“Steady, Angel.”
I am beginning to suspect he calls me that because he enjoys watching me pretend it does not affect me.
“McKenna,” I remind him, without much conviction.
Striker’s mouth twitches, but he wisely keeps his opinion to himself. He nods toward the suitcase strapped behind the passenger seat.
“Want me to get that?”
The fact that he asks catches me by surprise.
“Please.”
“The transport man’s gun is in the left saddlebag,” Grim tells him. “Get it to Torch.”
Striker nods. “I’ll log it.”
He unfastens the cargo straps and lifts the damaged suitcase from the rack.
“Should I warn Razor there’s a second patient?”
“It has had a difficult day.”
“So has Grim.”
“The suitcase complains less.”
Striker glances at Grim. “She has a point.”
“Medical room,” Grim says.
Striker opens the clubhouse door. “Already waiting for you, Prez.”
The interior does not resemble the dark rooms I imagined during the ride.
Exposed brick surrounds a long wooden bar, worn leather couches, and a massive stone fireplace.
Behind the bar, rows of amber bottles carry the same hooded skull and metallic wings as the men’s cuts.
Matching cases are stacked beside a loading door.
“That skull appears to have a marketing department.”
Striker glances over his shoulder. “Our liquor brand keeps the lights on.”
“I assumed intimidation covered utilities.”
“Unreliable billing cycle.”
“Medical room,” Grim says.
Warm lights gleam across polished floors, while photographs, patches, and club memorabilia cover one wall. Everything feels rugged and lived-in, but nothing is neglected.
Men fall silent as we enter.
My pulse climbs.
Grim moves close enough that his arm brushes mine.
“Stay beside me.”
The instruction should feel controlling. Instead, it feels as though he has made a place for me in a room where I do not understand the rules.
No one approaches. No gaze lingers on my body, and no one tries to touch me. Several men notice the bruises around my wrist, and their expressions harden before they look away.
Grim leads me through an open doorway.
A man with watchful dark eyes waits inside a medical room that would embarrass several rural clinics. Locked cabinets line one wall, and monitors stand beside a padded examination table.
“Razor,” Grim says. “The nurse says it needs stitches.”
Razor inspects the bloodied scarf. “She’s right. Sit down before you ruin my floor.”
I like him immediately.
Grim removes his cut and sets it carefully over the back of a chair. When he catches the hem of his wet shirt with his good hand, pain tightens his jaw.
“Stop,” I say.
His silver eyes meet mine.
I step closer. “May I?”
“Yeah.”
I ease the bloodied fabric away from his skin and lift it carefully over his head.
My nursing education supplies the correct anatomical term for every muscle revealed beneath the shirt. My body dismisses years of Latin and offers one thoroughly unprofessional diagnosis.
He is dangerously male.
Heavy muscle spans his chest and shoulders before narrowing into a hard waist. His body looks built to carry wounded men out of fire and make a woman forget every sensible promise she has ever made.
Dark hair shades the center of his chest before tracing a path over the ridges of his abdomen toward the waistband of his jeans.
Black ink curves around his ribs and covers his arms, shifting with each controlled breath.
I have spent years learning how to examine a body without reacting to it. Grim’s makes me want to forget the clinical version and discover the rest with my hands.
My gaze follows the shallow hollows above his hips before the damage across his shoulder reminds me why his shirt is off. Pale scars mark the places bullets tore through him, each one a brutal interruption in the ink.
The fresh wound cuts across them in an angry red line.
Grim watches me notice everything.
His silver eyes darken, and the medical room suddenly feels too small for both of us.
Heat reaches my face.
“This would be easier if you were less enormous.”
His mouth moves at one corner. “Overgrown, remember?”
“The condition appears more serious without the shirt.”
Razor makes a sound suspiciously close to a laugh before handing me gloves and a bottle of sterile saline.
“So you’re a nurse.”
“Newly licensed.”
“A new license still counts. Irrigate while I prepare the anesthetic.”
Grim sits on the examination table. I pull on the gloves and clean the wound while Razor draws lidocaine into a syringe.
Striker appears in the doorway.
“Hound will have the first report in ten minutes,” he says. “The road team hasn’t found the sedan yet.”
Grim nods.
Striker’s gaze moves to my gloved hands. “You put the hole in him. There’s a pleasing symmetry to you helping repair it.”
“Leave,” Grim tells him.
Striker turns without hesitation. “Report in ten, Prez.”
Razor numbs the wound while I hold gauze beneath Grim’s shoulder. Grim does not flinch when the needle enters his skin, but his eyes remain fixed on my hands.
“Your medical room is better equipped than the clinic where I trained,” I say.
“It serves more than the club,” Razor answers. “The Sinners fund a shelter on the south side for women and children who need somewhere secure. Some arrive without medical records, insurance, or a safe explanation for their injuries.”
My fingers still against Grim’s skin.
“A motorcycle club runs a women’s shelter?”
“We own the building, pay the staff, and provide security,” Razor says. “People with more patience than us handle the daily operation.”
“And you provide medical care.”
“When they need it.”
Razor places the first stitch.
“We contain multitudes,” he adds.
I look at Grim. “You never mentioned the shelter.”
“Helping those women isn’t a story I use to make you trust me.”
The answer settles beneath my ribs.
“The Wolves made women disappear,” I say. “Your club protects them.”
“The Wolves taught you what a club can destroy. We built ours to protect what men like them leave behind.”
Shame warms my face. “I judged you by the cut.”
“You used the information you had.”
“You aren’t going to make me apologize?”
“I want you to judge what I do next.” His gaze holds mine. “Trust earned through guilt isn’t trust.”
There it is again, that unnerving way he takes the ground beneath my defenses without pushing.
Razor finishes the fourth stitch, covers the wound with a fresh dressing, and hands Grim a clean charcoal shirt from one of the cabinets.
“You keep shirts in here?” I ask.
“We keep everything in here,” Razor says. “Bikers are destructive creatures.”
Grim pulls the shirt over his head and settles his cut across his shoulders.
Razor’s attention drops to my wrist.
“Your turn.”
“It’s a bruise.”
“So was his graze.”
He holds out his hand but waits. “May I?”
I nod and offer him my wrist.
Razor checks my range of motion, presses carefully along the bones, and tests the sensation in my fingers. Grim watches every movement. His jaw tightens when Razor’s thumb passes over the darkest bruise.