Chapter Four
Nadine should have left hours ago.
The smart move was closing at six like always, going home to her apartment above the hardware store, locking herself in and pretending the world outside didn't exist. That's what a reasonable person would do after strangers threw bricks through her window and threatened everything she'd built.
Instead, she'd stayed until nearly ten, re-pricing inventory that didn't need re-pricing and reorganizing displays that were already organized. Anything to avoid walking out that door into a dark parking lot where anyone could be waiting.
Coward, she told herself. You're being a coward.
The word tasted bitter, but it got her moving. She grabbed her keys, her bag, the baseball bat she'd started carrying everywhere. Turned off the lights. Locked the front door with hands that only trembled a little.
The street was empty.
She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and started toward her car, parked in the small lot behind the building. Her boots echoed on the sidewalk—too loud in the silence, announcing her presence to anyone listening.
No one was listening. She was being paranoid.
The lot was dark, the single streetlight burned out for weeks because the county couldn't be bothered to fix anything in this part of town. Her car sat alone in the corner, right where she'd left it this morning, and for one stupid second she thought she'd gotten away with it.
Then the shadows moved.
Two men stepped away from the wall, positioning themselves between her and her car with the casual confidence of predators who knew their prey had nowhere to run.
The bigger one—Darrell, she remembered, the one who'd blocked her shop door—cracked his knuckles like this was a movie and he was auditioning for the role of thug.
"Miss Combs." The other one smiled, all teeth and no warmth. "Didn't expect to see you out so late."
Nadine's grip tightened on her bat. "Get out of my way."
"Now that's not friendly." He took a step closer, and she took a step back before she could stop herself. His smile widened. "We just want to talk. Have a conversation about your future in the retail business."
"I already told you my answer."
"Answers can change." Another step. "People can be... persuaded."
Darrell moved to her left, cutting off her escape route to the street. They were herding her, she realized. Pushing her toward the dark corner of the lot where no one would see whatever happened next.
She raised the bat. "Come near me and I'll break your skull."
"Sweetheart—"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, low and cold and absolutely lethal.
"She's not your sweetheart."
Nadine's heart slammed against her ribs as a figure materialized from the shadows behind Darrell—shadows she could have sworn were empty two seconds ago. The prospect from this morning. Pitfall. Moving with a stillness that was somehow more terrifying than speed.
Darrell spun, fists coming up, but he was too slow. Way too slow.
Pitfall's first strike caught him in the throat, choking off whatever threat he'd been about to make.
The second took out his knee—a brutal stamp that dropped the big man like a felled tree.
And the third, delivered while Darrell was still falling, wrenched his arm at an angle that made Nadine's stomach lurch.
The crack of breaking bone echoed off the brick walls.
Darrell screamed. Actually screamed, high and thin and pathetic. Pitfall let him fall, already turning toward the second man with an expression that hadn't changed once through the entire assault. Calm. Focused. Like breaking arms was something he did between breakfast and lunch.
The second man ran.
He didn't say a word, didn't try to help his partner, just bolted for the street like the devil himself was at his heels. Smart. Probably the smartest thing he'd ever done.
Pitfall watched him go, then turned to Nadine.
"You hurt?"
She couldn't find her voice. Couldn't do anything except stare at the man crumpled on the asphalt, still making those awful sounds, and the man standing over him like violence was just another language he spoke fluently.
"Hey." Pitfall stepped closer, and she flinched before she could stop herself. Something flickered across his face—not hurt exactly, but close. "I'm not going to touch you. But I need to know if you're hurt."
"No." The word came out hoarse. She tried again. "No, I'm not hurt. They didn't—you got here before—"
"Good." He glanced down at Darrell, who was trying to crawl away with one arm hanging useless at his side. "This one's going to have a conversation with some friends of mine. You're coming with me."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." His eyes met hers, and there was nothing soft in them. Nothing negotiable. "These guys aren't done. They're going to keep coming until you break or they do. Right now, you're not safe at your apartment, your shop, or anywhere else they can find you."
"And I'm supposed to just—what? Go with a stranger because he says so?"
"I'm not a stranger. We met this morning."
"You bought a basket. That doesn't make us friends."
Something that might have been amusement crossed his face, there and gone so fast she wasn't sure she'd seen it.
"No," he agreed. "It doesn't. But I'm the one standing between you and them right now, so unless you've got a better option..."
He let the sentence hang. They both knew she didn't.
Nadine looked at her car, so close and so useless. Looked at the man on the ground, still whimpering. Looked at Pitfall, who waited with the patience of someone who knew he was right and didn't need to argue about it.
"Where?" she asked.
"Safehouse. Twenty minutes outside town. Grit's on his way to handle the scene here." He pulled out his phone, typed something fast, pocketed it again. "By the time your friends come looking for you, you'll be somewhere they can't find."
"And if I say no?"
His jaw tightened. "Then you say no, and I can't stop you. But they'll be back tonight, probably with more guys, definitely with worse intentions. You want to bet your life on that baseball bat?"
She didn't. God help her, she didn't.
"Fine." She hated how small her voice sounded. Hated that she was letting a stranger dictate her choices because the alternative was worse. "But I want answers. Who these people are, what they want, why you're involved. Everything."
"You'll get them." He started toward a motorcycle parked in shadows she hadn't even noticed. "Answers, protection, whatever you need. But right now, we need to move."
Nadine followed because there was nothing else to do. Because the man on the ground was still moaning and any second now someone might notice, might call the cops, might complicate an already impossible situation.
Because some part of her—the part that had built a business from nothing and convinced suspicious artisans to trust her—recognized competence when she saw it. And whatever else Pitfall was, he was competent as hell.
He handed her a helmet. "Hold on tight. Roads are dark, and I'm not slowing down."
"I've ridden before."
"Good." He swung onto the bike, kicked it to life. The engine's rumble vibrated through her bones when she climbed on behind him. "Arms around my waist. Don't let go."
She wrapped her arms around him, felt the solid wall of muscle beneath his cut, the heat of his body against the cold mountain air. He was tense—coiled like a spring, ready to explode in any direction—but his hands on the controls were steady.
"Ready?" he asked.
"No."
"That's honest." He gunned the engine. "Let's go anyway."
The bike surged forward, and Nadine held on for dear life as the town disappeared behind them.
Twenty minutes felt like hours.
The roads twisted through darkness so complete that the headlight seemed like a joke, a tiny rebellion against the weight of the mountains pressing in from all sides.
Pitfall navigated by memory or instinct or something she couldn't name, leaning into curves that made her squeeze her arms tighter and pray to gods she didn't believe in.
She'd stopped looking over her shoulder by the time they hit the first switchback. There was no point. Whatever was behind them, they'd already outrun it.
The safehouse appeared around a bend—a cabin tucked into a hollow, lights glowing warm through windows that looked reinforced. Pitfall pulled up to the front, cut the engine, and the silence that followed felt almost painful after the roar of the ride.
"We're here." He swung off the bike, offered her a hand she didn't need but took anyway. "Inside's stocked—food, water, first aid. Everything you need until we figure out next steps."
Nadine pulled off the helmet, let the cold air hit her flushed face. Her hands were shaking again, delayed reaction from everything that had happened in the last half hour. Adrenaline crash. She recognized the signs.
"You live here?"
"No. It's a club property. Somewhere to put people when their regular lives get too dangerous." He unlocked the front door, pushed it open, stood aside to let her enter first. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll explain everything once you've had a chance to breathe."
The cabin was small but well-maintained—a living area with a woodstove already radiating heat, a kitchenette, a door that probably led to a bedroom. Simple. Functional. The kind of place that didn't ask questions or expect conversation.
Nadine walked to the middle of the room and stopped, suddenly unsure what to do with herself. The last hour played back in fragments: the parking lot, the men, the crack of Darrell's arm, the roar of the bike, the endless dark roads.
"Hey."
She turned. Pitfall stood in the doorway, watching her with an expression she couldn't read.
"You're safe here," he said. "Whatever else happens, you're safe tonight."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to point out that safe was a relative term, that she was in a stranger's cabin in the middle of nowhere with no car and no phone signal and nothing but his word that things wouldn't get worse.
But the warmth from the stove was seeping into her bones. And her hands had finally stopped shaking. And somewhere deep in her gut, in the place where instinct lived, she believed him.
"Okay," she said.
It wasn't much. But it was enough.