6. Tank
TANK
“Take your hand off her.”
I don’t raise my voice, but Harlan hears the promise of violence anyway.
He stands behind Tessa near the broken gallery rail, one arm locked across her middle and the gun shoved into her ribs.
Below us, one of Harlan’s men bleeds beside the stage while another has his weapon trained toward the shadows where Judge waits.
Nobody moves because every man in the ballroom understands that Tessa is the only thing keeping Harlan alive.
His fingers tighten against her stomach.
My sight narrows until there is nothing but the gun, his right shoulder and the strip of black shirt visible above Tessa’s jeans. She’s breathing fast, but she isn’t frozen. Her weight stays forward over the balls of her feet, exactly as we discussed before leaving the compound.
Harlan smiles as if he has mistaken stillness for surrender again. “Lower the weapon, Tank. You were always King’s dog. Kane changed the collar, but you’ve spent your whole life waiting for somebody strong enough to pick up the leash.”
He expects the words to reach something in me. They do, but not the part he wants.
King found a nineteen-year-old who was good at hurting men and taught me not to ask where the target came from. Kane gave me the same patch and expected me to think before I used it. Harlan believes one man made me dangerous and the other made me weak, but Tessa knows better.
I lower my gun a few inches. Harlan’s smile widens, and his attention shifts from my trigger finger to my face. He doesn’t notice the two taps of my thumb against the grip—the signal Tessa and I agreed on if the handoff broke.
Her eyes meet mine.
Harlan orders me to put the gun on the floor and kick it over. I lower the muzzle another inch instead.
Tessa drives her heel into the side of his knee.
Harlan buckles with a shout. She drops her full weight at the same time, twists beneath his arm and throws herself toward the floor. His gun fires as she moves, the shot ripping splinters from the gallery rail where her chest had been.
I fire once.
The round hits Harlan high in the chest. His body jerks backward, surprise replacing certainty before his legs give way and he drops beside the broken rail.
He doesn’t get another shot.
The ballroom erupts below us. Judge steps from behind the stage pillar and disarms the man covering his position before the asshole can turn.
Cash blocks the river doors with his gun leveled while Gray drives another man out of the maintenance passage and onto his knees.
Near the main entrance, one of Harlan’s crew dives for a discarded weapon, but Griz puts a round through his shoulder and kicks the gun away.
Kane walks into the center of the ballroom as the last two men raise their hands. His voice carries over the groans and settling dust when he orders them facedown.
The fight is finished before Harlan’s body stops moving.
I’m already crossing the gallery.
Tessa pushes onto her hands and knees. I put my weapon back in my waistband, lift her to her feet and run my hands over her arms, shoulders, ribs and back, searching for blood.
A red mark is rising where Harlan jammed the muzzle against her side, and his fingers have left pale crescents across her stomach beneath her top.
I turn her toward the light and ask whether she’s hit, then keep checking after she tells me the bullet struck the rail. Tessa closes both hands around my wrists. “Look at me, Tank. I’m bruised and shaken, but I’m not shot. I’m safe.”
I make myself stop searching. Her face is pale and her breathing uneven, but she’s standing. Alive, angry and close enough for me to feel her shaking.
Behind her, Harlan lies with his eyes open.
Tessa follows my gaze. I wait for her to recoil now that she has watched me kill a man without hesitation. Instead, she lifts one hand to my face, thumb brushing the tight muscle beside my mouth. “I knew exactly what you were before I climbed on your bike tonight. I was counting on it.”
The pressure in my chest releases hard enough to hurt. I pull her against me and kiss her in the middle of the wrecked gallery, one hand buried in her hair and the other locked around her waist. It isn’t careful. I need her mouth, her breath and the solid proof of her body against mine.
She kisses me back just as hard.
Kane calls my name from below. I lift my head but keep Tessa against my chest. “We found Morrow and the records,” he says. “Get her out of here. We’ll finish this.”
Cash reaches us. “There’s enough evidence here to keep Sheriff Miller busy for months. You’ve done your part. The rest is making sure none of us were ever here.”
She looks past me to Kane. “Harlan’s men saw you.”
“They came armed to help Harlan bury a murder and burn the evidence,” Kane says. “By sunrise, they’ll be too busy trying to save themselves to tell Sheriff Miller anything about us.”
There’s nothing heroic about the room. Harlan is dead, his men are bleeding on the floor, and Kingdom Come will leave behind a version of events Sheriff Miller can prosecute without ever learning the truth. Tessa sees that too. She nods once and comes with me toward the stairs.
We strip any evidence of Kingdom Come MC out of the hotel and leave Harlan’s crimes where they happened.
Cash collects our spent casings and radios while Gray wipes down every surface we touched along the routes we used.
Griz and the others bind Harlan’s surviving men near Morrow’s body, leaving their weapons, the accelerant, the black case of money and Harlan’s gun exactly where Sheriff Miller will find them.
Once the last bike is behind the gates, Cash makes an anonymous call to Sheriff Miller. He gives him the Rivermark’s location, tells him where to find Morrow’s body, and warns him about the armed men waiting inside. Tessa’s photographs follow from an untraceable account.
By the time the law arrives, Harlan’s whole operation is waiting for them. Kingdom Come isn’t. Harlan’s surviving men can tell whatever story they like. The evidence tells a stronger one.
Tessa rides behind me on the return to Ransom, her arms tight around my waist. Every time I check the mirror, I see her helmet tucked behind my shoulder and her body moving with mine through the curves. I should be thinking about what I just did and how badly Tessa could’ve been hurt.
At the gates, Kane sends Judge and Cash into church while I bring Tessa straight to my room. I pause at the threshold out of habit. She looks back at me.
“Tank, get in here.” I follow, and she shuts the door behind me.
Tessa sets her camera down on the dresser. The body cracked when she hit Harlan’s man, one side hanging loose beneath the lens, but she handles it with the same care she always does. When she turns, I’m still watching the red mark along her ribs and she notices.
“It’ll bruise, but I’ll live. You killed him before he could do worse.”
“Harlan touched you. I would’ve killed him for pointing the gun, but putting his hands on you made me enjoy it.”
There’s no accusation in her face, only recognition. Her fingers trace the ENFORCER patch on my chest. “I suspected that. You aren’t going to become less alarming now the danger’s over, are you? It would ruin the attraction.”
“No chance.”
The dry answer catches at something inside me, but this isn’t a moment I can hide behind wanting her. I take the room key from my pocket and set it beside her damaged camera.
Tessa looks down. “I know it’s a key. I’m less certain what you’re offering with it.”
“It’s yours if you want it.” I force the rest out before she can make the offer easier for me.
“I want to make room for you here. Your gear on those shelves, your clothes mixed with mine, you in this bed after all this is over. You keep your apartment, your work and every part of the life you built before me for now. I’m just asking for a real place in it, and I want you in mine. ”
I can face guns, knives and a room full of men without feeling as exposed as I do waiting for her answer.
Tessa picks up the key and turns it between her fingers.
“Kidnapping me remains an extremely poor first date, and you’ll be making up for that for a long time.
I’m also not moving in with you after forty-eight hours, no matter how good the sex is. ”
“I can work with all of that.”
“No, but your shelves were getting ambitious.” Her mouth curves as she slides the key into the front pocket of her jeans.
“I need to deal with my apartment, replace half my equipment and find out whether the Ransom area has enough commercial property to keep a photographer busy. But I’m staying here for a while, Tank. We’ll work out the rest together.”
Hope hits too hard to show anywhere but my grip tightening on the dresser. “You’re staying?”
“For a while,” she repeats, though the key remains in her pocket. “Try not to scare me off before breakfast.”
“I’m starting to think you don’t scare easily.”
“You’re learning.” She smiles.
I catch her around the waist and lift her onto the dresser.
She laughs once, breathless, before my mouth covers hers.
The kiss is relief, possession and the hunger that hasn’t eased since the motel.
Tessa opens for me, arms winding around my neck while her thighs spread around my hips.
My hand slides beneath the shirt, stopping before the bruise.
I touch the unmarked skin above it instead, and she draws my lower lip between her teeth.
“You’re being careful,” she murmurs.
“You were almost shot. I know you aren’t made of glass and you broke a camera over a man’s face, but I’m still allowed to care where you’re hurt.”
“The camera was insured,” she says, then presses closer and kisses the corner of my mouth. “And yes, you’re allowed.”
I laugh against her skin, the sound unfamiliar in my own room. Tessa stills for half a second, then pulls me closer as if she wants that part too. Her damaged camera sits beside us, the key rests in her pocket, and her arms remain locked around my neck long after the danger is over.
EPILOGUE - TESSA
TWO MONTHS LATER
Tank looks directly into my lens half a second after the shutter clicks.
He’s sitting beside his motorcycle in the compound garage, one forearm braced across his bent knee and a wrench hanging from his other hand.
Black grease marks his fingers. His cut rests over the workbench behind him, leaving the tattoos across his shoulders visible beneath one of his fitted black T-shirts.
Even seated, he looks like the reason sensible men reconsider bad decisions.
“Delete it.”
I lower the camera. “No.”
Tank’s gaze narrows, but there’s a slight softness around his mouth that nobody else would notice. I caught that too.
Six weeks ago, I photographed a murderer and nearly died for the proof.
Now half my camera lenses occupy the shelves in Tank’s room, my equipment has taken over one end of his dresser, and commercial-property clients throughout the Ozarks have learned that their photographer sometimes arrives with a heavily tattooed biker behind her.
Tank claims he only rides with me when a location is isolated, but yesterday’s shoot was a florist in the center of town.
He puts down the wrench and crooks one finger. “Come here.”
“That usually works on your prisoners?”
“It works on you.”
“Occasionally.”
I set the camera safely on the workbench before stepping between his spread knees. Tank catches my hips and pulls me close until my thighs touch his. His thumbs slide beneath the hem of my shirt, rough against my skin.
“Why do you keep taking pictures of me?” he asks.
“Because you hate it.”
“Not the only reason.”
I look toward the camera screen. The photograph shows the club enforcer in his garage, hard-faced and dangerous, but his eyes are fixed on me with his guard lowered by the smallest degree. “I like proof that the truth can look completely different from the story somebody sells.”
Tank studies me for a long moment, understanding exactly which story I mean.
Then he grips the back of my neck and kisses me.
There’s nothing careful about his mouth.
He draws me closer until I’m straddling one of his thighs, and the hand beneath my shirt moves upward with enough purpose to make me forget the open garage door.
A motorcycle engine starts outside.
Tank lifts his head reluctantly.
I glance down at the unmistakable evidence of what I’ve done to him. “You might want to give it a minute before you stand up.”
Tank’s eyes darken. His hand slides higher beneath my shirt, and his mouth finds mine again before I can say anything else.
The side door opens. Judge walks into the garage, takes one look at me straddling Tank’s thigh, stops, and sighs. “Do I need to start scheduling access to the garage around you two?”
Tank doesn’t lift his head. “Leave.”
Judge glances toward the row of motorcycles. “I’m the vice president. I’m not asking permission to enter my own garage.”
I bury my face against Tank’s shoulder, laughing. “I swear, we need our own place.”
“I agree.”
The certainty in his voice makes me lift my head. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
Judge continues toward his bike. “Good. Then the rest of us can use the garage without finding Tessa constantly wrapped around you, and I can stop interrupting whatever you’re doing in that room every five minutes.”
Tank’s hands tighten on my hips. “You interrupt on purpose.”
“Sometimes. I just like to fuck with you.” Judge’s mouth curves as he swings onto his motorcycle.
I look back at Tank. “You really want us to get a place together?”
“A garage for my bike. Space for your work.” His thumbs move slowly against my skin. “A bedroom far enough from Judge that I can touch you without hearing him on the other side of the door.”
“That last part is persuasive.”
“I want all of it, Tessa.” The humor slips from his expression, leaving the same fierce certainty that first frightened me and now feels like something I can trust.
I curl my arms around his neck. “Then I suppose we’d better start looking.” Tank grips the back of my neck and kisses me.
Behind us, Judge starts his bike with considerably more noise than necessary. I laugh against Tank’s mouth, and he pulls me closer as if the whole compound can hear us and he couldn’t care less.