Chapter Four
The call to the compound took thirty seconds. Titan's response took five.
"North safehouse. Maverick and Anvil will secure her truck. Move."
Grit pocketed his phone and turned to find Bethany watching him with sharp eyes that missed nothing.
"Change of plans," he said. "You're not driving yourself."
"The hell I'm not."
"Hoyt's guys are already looking for your truck.
That pickup of yours is registered in your name, parked at your rented room half the week.
They know what you drive." He stepped closer, and something in her expression shifted—not fear, but awareness.
"Right now, they're circling the area. Looking for you.
If you're in your own vehicle, you're a target. "
"And if I'm with you?"
"Then you're protected."
She didn't like it. He could see that in the stubborn set of her jaw, the way her fingers flexed like she wanted to reach for the knife she'd just sheathed. But she wasn't stupid, and she wasn't so proud she'd die for the principle of driving herself.
"Fine." She grabbed a bag from her truck—go bag, by the looks of it, the kind of thing you kept packed when you lived light and worked hard. "But if you get me killed, I'm haunting you forever."
"Noted."
A black club truck rolled into the lot two minutes later, Maverick behind the wheel. The Road Captain took in the scene with a single glance—the bodies on the ground, the blood on Grit's face, Bethany with her bag and her defiance.
"Truck secure?"
"Locked down. We need it moved."
"Anvil's five minutes out." Maverick's eyes went to Bethany, assessed her with the quick calculation of a man who'd flown into hot zones and made split-second decisions about who lived and died. "Ma'am. I'd suggest getting in the vehicle."
"Is everyone in your club this bossy?"
"Yes." Maverick almost smiled. "It's a character flaw."
Grit opened the passenger door, and Bethany climbed in without further argument. He slid in beside her, putting himself between her and the window, positioning his body as a shield without thinking about it.
She noticed. Of course she noticed.
"I'm not made of glass."
"Never said you were." He kept his eyes on the mirrors as Maverick pulled out of the lot. "But you're not bulletproof either."
"Are you?"
"No." He glanced at her, at the fire in her dark eyes and the tension in her shoulders. "But I've been shot at before. You haven't."
That shut her up. For about ten seconds.
"You were military."
"Army. Two tours."
"And now you're in a motorcycle club."
"Now I'm in a family." The words came out harder than he intended. "There's a difference."
Maverick took a left, then a quick right, weaving through streets that got darker and more industrial with every block. Grit watched the mirrors, tracking headlights, looking for patterns.
There. Two blocks back. A truck that had made the same last three turns they had.
"We've got company."
Maverick's hands tightened on the wheel. "How many?"
"One vehicle. Could be more behind."
Bethany twisted to look out the rear window, and Grit's hand shot out, pressing her back against the seat.
"Stay down."
"I can't see—"
"You don't need to see. You need to not get shot."
Her mouth opened—probably to argue, because this woman argued about everything—but Maverick hit the gas and threw them all against their seats.
The industrial district blurred past. Warehouses, factories, loading docks.
Grit had learned these roads during his prospect months, running errands and making deliveries to places that didn't exist on official maps.
He knew every back alley, every cut-through, every gap in a fence that could take a truck if you didn't mind losing some paint.
"Left at the grain elevator," he said. "There's a gap."
"I see it."
Maverick wrenched the wheel. The truck screamed through a space that shouldn't have fit them, sparks flying as the mirrors scraped concrete on both sides.
Behind them, brakes shrieked. Someone had tried to follow and failed.
"One down," Maverick muttered. "Keep calling."
Grit kept his hand on Bethany's shoulder, keeping her low, keeping her close. He could feel her heart pounding through the thin fabric of her shirt—fast, but not panicked. Scared, but controlled.
Brave.
Mine to protect, something in his chest growled.
He shoved the thought down. She wasn't his anything. She was a civilian caught in club business, and his job was to get her to safety. Nothing more.
But his hand didn't leave her shoulder.
"Right on Fulton. Service road behind the textile plant."
Maverick took the turn so hard the truck went up on two wheels for a sickening moment before slamming back down. Bethany made a sound that might have been a curse, might have been a prayer.
The service road was barely wide enough for one vehicle, hemmed in by chain-link and concrete barriers. Perfect for losing a tail. Terrible for escaping if someone got ahead of them.
Headlights appeared at the far end.
"Shit." Maverick didn't slow down. "They've got someone on the parallel road."
"Go through the loading dock. The one with the blue doors. It's abandoned—locks are rusted out."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
The blue doors rushed toward them like a wall of steel death. Grit braced himself, pulled Bethany tighter against his side, and watched Maverick's face go cold with concentration.
The truck hit the doors doing forty.
Metal screamed. Glass shattered. They punched through into a vast dark space that had been a warehouse before the economy killed this part of town, and Maverick didn't stop—he kept the pedal down, weaving between support columns and abandoned machinery, heading for the loading bay doors on the far side.
Those doors were open.
They shot out into the night, tires finding asphalt, and suddenly they were on a road Grit recognized. Three blocks from the safehouse. Clear lanes. No headlights behind them.
"We lost them." Maverick's voice was steady, but his knuckles were white on the wheel. "Two minutes out."
Grit didn't relax. Wouldn't relax until she was inside, behind locked doors and reinforced walls.
His hand was still on her shoulder. He should move it.
He didn't.
The north safehouse looked like nothing from the outside. A run-down Victorian on a block of run-down Victorians, paint peeling, porch sagging, the kind of place you drove past without a second glance.
Inside was a different story. Reinforced doors. Bulletproof windows. Enough firepower hidden in the walls to hold off a small army.
Maverick pulled into the detached garage and killed the engine. "I'll head back, help Anvil with the truck. Psycho's running surveillance on Hoyt's movements—I'll get you an update in an hour."
Grit nodded. "Tell Titan we're secure."
"Already done." Maverick looked past him to Bethany, who was climbing out of the truck with the careful movements of someone whose adrenaline was just starting to crash. "Ma'am. You're in good hands."
"So everyone keeps telling me."
Maverick was gone before Grit could respond, the truck disappearing into the night. They were alone.
Grit led her into the house through the garage entrance, checking corners out of habit, clearing rooms that didn't need clearing. Old instincts died hard.
The main room was sparse but functional. Couch, chairs, a kitchen in the back. No personal touches, nothing to indicate anyone actually lived here. Safe houses were meant to be temporary—places to weather storms, not build lives.
Bethany stood in the middle of the room, bag clutched to her chest, looking around with eyes that were still too sharp, too wired.
"Water?" he offered.
"Sure."
He got her a bottle from the kitchen, watched her drink half of it in one long swallow. Her hands weren't shaking anymore. Good. She was tougher than she looked.
Tough enough to pull a knife on a man twice her size. Tough enough to stand her ground when most people would've run.
Tough enough to survive this, he thought. If I keep her safe.
"So what happens now?" She set the bottle down, met his eyes with that direct stare that made something in his chest tighten. "I just... hide here? For how long?"
"Until we deal with Hoyt. Figure out how to stop him, not just survive him."
"And my truck?"
"Secured. Sentinel-friendly lot. Hoyt's guys won't find it."
"But I can't work." She said it flat, like she was testing herself against the reality of it. "Can't smoke brisket, can't serve customers, can't make money."
"Not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow." He watched her process that, watched the frustration flicker across her face before she controlled it. "We'll figure something out. But right now, staying alive is the priority."
"Staying alive doesn't pay rent. Staying alive doesn't keep my business running." She ran a hand through her dark hair, dislodging the bandana she always wore while working. It fell to the floor, and she didn't pick it up. "I've got regulars who count on me. I've got a schedule. I've got—"
"Brisket that needs smoking?"
She stopped. Stared at him.
"I was listening," he said. "Earlier. When you told your customers you smoke it fresh every morning."
"You were listening."
"I was watching." The same words he'd said to her in the lot, with Kenny's blood still drying on his knuckles. "You're worth watching."
She held his gaze for a long moment. Something shifted in her expression—not softening, not exactly, but maybe a fraction less guarded.
"When can I go back?"
"Soon." He hoped it wasn't a lie. "But tonight, you rest. Let us handle the threat. Let me—" He stopped himself before he said something stupid like let me take care of you.
"Let you what?"
"Let me do my job."
She studied him like she was trying to figure out what his job actually was. Prospect. Bodyguard. Protector. None of those labels quite fit, and he couldn't explain the thing that was driving him to keep her safe—the thing that went beyond orders and duty and into territory he wasn't ready to name.
Finally, she nodded. Once. Sharp.
"Fine. But tomorrow, we talk about my truck. My schedule. My brisket." Her chin lifted, and there was the woman who'd told Kenny Marsh to go to hell. "Because I didn't build this business to watch it die while I hide in a safehouse."
"Fair enough."
She picked up her bag and headed for the hallway, pausing at the first door. "Bedroom?"
"Down the hall, second on the left. Clean sheets. Lock works."
"And where will you be?"
"Out here." He dropped onto the couch, stretching his legs out. "Anyone comes through that door, they go through me first."
Another long look. Another moment where he couldn't quite read what was happening behind those dark eyes.
"You're a strange kind of bodyguard, Grit."
"Never said I was a bodyguard."
"Then what are you?"
The question hung in the air between them.
Someone who knows what it's like to lose everything. Someone who's not going to let that happen to you.
"Get some sleep," he said instead. "We'll figure out the brisket situation tomorrow."
Her mouth twitched—almost a smile. "You really do care about the brisket."
"Best I've had in years."
She disappeared down the hallway, and he heard the bedroom door close, the lock click into place.
Grit leaned his head back against the couch and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, they'd deal with Hoyt. Figure out how to get her back to her truck, her life, her business. Find a way to end this before it got worse.
But tonight, all he could think about was the way she'd looked at him when he'd said you're worth watching.
Like maybe she was starting to believe it.