Her Broken Biker (Broken Heroes Love Harder #1)

Chapter 1

Reina

My feet are killing me.

That is my first thought when I step out of Lovestone Ridge Medical Center after a twelve-hour shift.

My lower back aches, there’s a coffee stain over the left side of my scrub top, and my hair is escaping the clip at the back of my head one sweaty strand at a time.

I look like I lost a fight with the day.

Honestly, the day fought dirty.

The side door whispers shut behind me. Cool spring air brushes my face, carrying the sharp, clean smell of pine and the faint sweetness of spring grass. The staff parking lot is mostly empty now, just a scatter of cars under yellow lamps and long strips of shadow between them.

I shift my tote higher on my shoulder and dig for my keys. My fingers find the little metal ring, but before I can pull it free, my phone buzzes inside the bag.

Mara’s name flashes on the screen.

You alive?

I smile because Mara asks that after every awful shift, like death is mostly a scheduling conflict.

Barely.

Her reply pops up fast.

Diner? Pancakes heal trauma.

I huff a laugh. My stomach would love pancakes. My body wants a shower and eight hours without anyone saying, “Can you take a quick look at this?”

Rain check. I’m going home to become furniture.

Mara answers before I can tuck the phone away.

Boring but valid.

I slide my phone back into my tote and keep walking.

My car waits near the back of the lot, because this morning I had more faith in my legs than they deserved. The lamp above it flickers every few seconds, making the pavement blink gold, gray, gold again.

I’m halfway there when I hear a sound behind me.

A scrape.

Soft. Quick.

I stop, and for a second, I tell myself it’s one of the hospital cats, the fat gray one that sleeps behind the dumpster and judges everyone. Or a doctor sneaking a cigarette. Or my tired brain turning shadows into monsters because twelve hours on a med-surg floor can make anyone dramatic.

Then a man steps out from beside a parked truck.

He wears a black hoodie with the hood pulled low.

“Nurse,” he says.

The word lands cold in the middle of my chest.

A sound comes from behind me. Too close.

I turn fast, but another man is already there, one gloved hand wrapped around a gun.

My brain refuses to make sense of it. Guns belong in police reports, trauma bays, and the locked little cabinet where security keeps things I try never to think about. They do not belong in the employee lot while I’m wearing cartoon daisy socks under my scrubs.

“I don’t have much cash,” I say.

My voice is thin. Careful.

Too polite.

The man in the hoodie takes one step closer. “Don’t need cash.”

The man with the gun catches my upper arm before I can run. His fingers dig into the soft skin above my elbow and lock there.

“Let go,” I snap.

He laughs quietly, like I’ve said something cute.

The man in the hoodie tips his head toward a dark SUV parked beyond the last pool of light. The engine is running.

“Walk.”

My heart starts hitting too fast.

“No.” I pull against the grip on my arm. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The gun lifts.

The whole world narrows to the black mouth of it.

“We got a man bleeding out,” the man in the hoodie says. “You’re gonna help him.”

“He needs the ER.” My gaze jumps toward the hospital door. “I’m a nurse. I can help until a doctor gets to him, but he needs a hospital.”

“He needs quiet.”

That tells me enough.

Whatever happened, they want it hidden.

The man with the gun shoves me forward. My tote slides down my shoulder, and I clutch at it on instinct.

“My bag,” I say, because my phone is inside. My ID. My keys.

The man in the hoodie snatches it off my arm and tosses it into the SUV.

“Move.”

I think about screaming.

The gun presses close enough to make the thought die before it reaches my throat.

So I walk.

Surviving looks ugly sometimes. It looks like obedience. It looks like silence. It looks like climbing into the back of a dark SUV because someone has decided your life is useful for the next little while.

The man in the hoodie yanks open the rear passenger door.

“Get in.”

My tote is already on the floor behind the front seat where he threw it, spilled half-open with my badge, lip balm, and a pack of gum peeking out like normal things still belong to me.

I climb into the back seat because they leave me no other choice.

The man with the gun slides in beside me, crowding me against the door. His knee presses too close to mine, and the gun stays low in his right hand, angled toward my thigh.

The man in the hoodie slams my door shut and gets behind the wheel.

In the front passenger seat, a third man is slumped against the door, one hand pressed to his side. His breath comes in harsh, wet pulls.

Blood smell fills the SUV, metallic and heavy.

The wounded man’s fingers are slick and dark where they’re clamped over his abdomen. Blood shines between them and soaks into his shirt.

“How long ago was he shot?” I ask.

The man in the hoodie looks at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes are pale and flat. “Keep your mouth shut.”

“If you want him alive, I need information.”

The man beside me shifts the gun closer. “You always run your mouth?”

Fear pinches my throat. I swallow it down because the wounded man groans, and the sound is bad.

“I need to know how long ago,” I say. “I need to know if he lost consciousness. I need to know if he’s on anything that thins his blood.”

Nobody answers.

The wounded man coughs and curses. His head rolls toward the window.

“Twenty minutes,” the man in the hoodie says at last. “Maybe thirty.”

“Did the bullet exit?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Did he pass out?”

“Once.”

“Then he needs a hospital.”

The man in the hoodie’s eyes cut back to me in the mirror. “You keep saying that like I asked.”

My hands are shaking in my lap. I curl them into fists so they stop drawing attention.

I try to track the turns, but panic makes the road smear. Out of the lot. Right onto the main road. Past the closed gas station. Then trees. Curves. Gravel under the tires.

Lovestone Ridge disappears behind us in pieces.

I look at my reflection in the window.

Round cheeks. Hazel eyes too wide. Freckles across my nose. Chocolate hair slipping from its clip. Twenty-three years old and still looking like someone who gets carded for cold medicine.

My stepfather used to call me Mouse.

He had meant it like a joke. He said it when I moved through the kitchen too quietly, when I sat at family dinners without taking up space, when my mother’s new kids got louder and brighter and easier to love.

“Mouse,” he’d say, smiling.

My mother laughed the first time.

After that, I learned to make less noise.

The SUV turns hard, and I slam into the man beside me.

“Watch it,” he mutters.

His hand goes to my arm again.

I jerk away before I can stop myself.

His eyes narrow.

I force myself still.

The vehicle slows in front of a small cabin tucked behind thick pines. One porch light glows over warped boards. The rest of the place sits in shadow, swallowed by trees and the deep blue-black stretch of mountain night.

The man in the hoodie gets out first. The man beside me keeps the gun on me while the driver opens the front passenger door.

“Out,” the man in the hoodie orders the wounded man.

The injured man tries to move and fails. His face twists, and a low sound tears from his throat.

The man in the hoodie curses and hauls him out.

The man with the gun opens my door next.

“Move.”

I step down onto the gravel. My legs feel hollow. My tote stays on the floor of the SUV, close enough that I can see the corner of my phone through the open zipper, far enough that it may as well be in another country.

The gunman nudges my shoulder with the barrel.

I follow.

The man in the hoodie drags the wounded man toward the cabin. Each step pulls a sound from him. A grunt. A curse. A broken breath.

The cabin door groans open.

Inside, it smells like damp wood, stale smoke, and old beer. A lamp burns on a crooked side table. There’s a couch with a ripped cushion, a dusty fireplace, and a kitchen area with stained counters. The light barely reaches the corners. Beyond the open door, the woods press close and dark.

They get the wounded man inside and drop him onto the kitchen table.

His boots kick once. His hand slips from his side, and blood wells fast.

“Fix him,” the man in the hoodie snaps.

I stare at the wound.

For one heartbeat, everything inside me wants to fold.

Then training takes over.

“I need towels,” I say. “Clean ones. Scissors or a knife. Hot water. A flashlight. If you have gauze or a first aid kit, get it now.”

The men look at me like I’ve started speaking another language.

“Now,” I snap.

The man in the hoodie’s jaw tightens. “Do what she says.”

The gunman yanks cabinets open and dumps what he finds onto the counter. A towel. A hunting knife. A flashlight. A sewing kit. A plastic container with a few wrapped bandages, medical tape, tweezers, and antiseptic wipes inside.

It isn’t enough.

It has to be.

The man in the hoodie stays near the wounded man, pressing one hand down over the blood because I point there and tell him to.

I wash my hands in the sink with cold water and a sliver of soap that smells like mildew. My fingers tremble, but they still know what to do.

The wounded man blinks up at me, face gray and wet with sweat. “You a doctor?”

“Nurse.”

His mouth twists. “Good enough?”

“Tonight you better hope so.”

A rasping laugh leaves him, then turns into a groan.

I cut his shirt open with the hunting knife and press a folded towel hard against the wound. He jerks and curses.

“I know,” I say. “I know it hurts. Keep breathing.”

“Feels like fire.”

“That means you’re alive enough to complain.”

The man in the hoodie shifts beside the table, gripping the edge like he needs something solid to hold on to.

“Deke,” the wounded man grits out. “Quit standing there looking stupid and hold the damn light.”