Chapter Two #2
He is buying terrible coffee and a protein bar when he spots me near the ice machine. His whole body goes stiff.
Smart man.
I keep my hands visible as I approach him. “I’m not here to hurt you,” I say.
He stares. “That’s exactly what someone here to hurt me would say.”
That’s fair. “I need to know if anyone followed you from County.”
His face changes. Fear first, then understanding. “Is Harper in danger?”
I like him better for asking that before he asks about himself. “Yes,” I say.
He swallows. “Because of your club?”
“Because someone wanted medics at that shooting.”
His coffee trembles in his hand, and he suddenly looks younger. Not weak. Just human. “Jesus.”
“Did anyone follow you?” I ask again.
“I don’t think so.”
“Think harder,” I bark out.
His eyes flash. “I’m a paramedic, not one of your guys.”
“I know.” I take a step back and give him some space.
“And Harper would skin me alive if she knew I was talking to you.”
“Probably.”
Despite himself, his mouth twitches. “Definitely.”
I step closer again, but not enough to crowd him. I am already learning that from her, which pisses me off. “You care about her?”
“She’s my partner.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He exhales. “Yeah. I care about her. She’s annoying, bossy, reckless when someone’s bleeding, and she steals my good pens. But, yeah.”
“Then watch her back until I can.”
Milo’s expression hardens. “She won’t like that.”
“No, she won’t.”
“She won’t like you either.”
Something in his voice bothers me, like he sees too much.
I step back. “Tell her if she sees anything strange, she should call the number.”
“She won’t.” He knows her better than I do, but I already know he isn’t wrong.
“She will if she’s scared enough.”
His face twists. “You don’t know Harper.”
No, I don’t. But I do know she has steady hands under fire, I know she uses sarcasm like armor, and I know when I grabbed her, she demanded release before she demanded safety. I know I let go, and that part keeps playing in my head. Like a bullet I can’t dig out.
Milo leaves with his coffee and too much worry on his face, and I wait until he drives off before I move.
Station Eight sits quietly under sodium lights.
Two rigs are parked in the bay. A vending machine glowing inside like an altar to bad choices.
I watch from across the street, hidden beside a closed body shop.
I tell myself this is surveillance, protection, club business. Then Harper steps outside.
She has changed out of her bloody uniform into dark pants and a gray t-shirt. Her hair is pulled back tighter than before, and she carries herself as if exhaustion is something she can bully into submission.
She pauses beneath the bay light and looks around, not casually, but searching. My chest tightens. She feels it, the danger. For half a second, I think her gaze lands on my shadow, but that’s impossible. I’m too far back.
Then her hand slips into her pocket, and I remember giving her my card. She doesn’t pull it out and doesn’t call.
Stubborn fucking woman.
A black sedan rolls slowly past the station, and everything in me goes still. Harper notices too, and her spine straightens. Her face goes blank in the way civilians think hides fear but never does.
The sedan keeps moving. The plate is covered in dust, and there are two men inside.
I memorize what matters before I move. By the time the sedan turns the corner, I am already on my bike.
I follow without lights, keeping the engine low, and the distance measured.
They aren’t professionals. Not real ones.
They circle Station Eight twice, slow enough to look, fast enough to pretend they aren’t.
On the third loop, I cut them off behind an abandoned tire shop. My bike blocks the alley exit. Their brakes scream. For one second, everyone waits before the passenger reaches for a gun.
Wrong choice. I cross the distance before he clears leather.
The driver gets one good look at me and goes pale before I rip the passenger out through the open window, because doors are for people who deserve convenience.
He hits the ground hard, choking on air, and the gun skitters across the pavement.
The driver fumbles with the gearshift, and I put my fist through his window. Glass bursts, and he screams when I grab him by the throat and drag his face close enough to smell his fear.
“Who sent you?”
He claws at my wrist, and I loosen my grip enough for words.
“I don’t...”
I slam his head against the steering wheel, and the horn blares once.
“Try again.”
Blood runs from his nose, and his eyes roll wildly. “Vultures,” he gasps. “Broken Vultures.”
There it is. Rage flows through my veins, but I keep a level head, for now. “Why the station?”
“The medic. They said watch the medic. See who comes near her.”
My grip tightens, and his face starts turning red.
Behind me, the passenger groans. “We didn’t touch her, man.”
Not yet.
The words sit between us even though he doesn’t say them. I release the driver and step back. Both men breathe like they’ve been granted something. They haven’t.
I crouch beside the passenger and pick up his gun. Cheap and dirty with the serial scratched off.
“I have a message for you to pass along,” I say.
He spits blood. “What?”
I lean in until he sees the part of me Harper already knows exists. The part with no mercy.
“No one watches Harper Quinn. No one follows her. No one says her name unless they’re ready to choke on it.”
His breathing turns ragged. I unload the gun, pocket the magazine, then crack the weapon across his face hard enough to drop him back to the pavement, and the driver starts crying. I fucking hate crying men.
“You go back to the damn Vultures, to whoever sent you,” I tell him, “and you say Steel knows.”
His eyes widen at my road name. Fear travels faster when it has a name. I let them leave because dead men don’t deliver messages, and I need this one delivered clean.
I sit on my bike in the alley for a long minute, breathing through the thing still clawing inside me. I didn’t kill them, and that should count for something. But it doesn’t feel like a restraint, it feels like a postponement.
My phone buzzes with a call from Saint.
I answer. “Talk.”
“Where are you?” he asks.
“Handling something.”
“Harper?”
I say nothing, and Saint exhales. “Steel.”
“They had eyes on her station,” I say the words even though it feels like spitting out glass.
The line goes silent for a long moment. “Who?”
“The Broken Vultures paid two amateurs.”
“Did you kill them?”
“No.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Well,” Saint says slowly, “that’s new.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’ll send Savage the update.”
“You do that.” I hang up and ride back toward Station Eight instead of the clubhouse.
Because I am a bastard. Because I am not done watching. Because Harper Quinn is inside that building pretending the world has not shifted around her, and I know better.
She is in it now. Club blood touched her hands, my card sits in her pocket, and our enemies know her name. I park in the dark across the street and wait. Around dawn, she comes outside again with Milo beside her. He says something that makes her roll her eyes. She looks tired. Pale but alive.
My hands flex on the handlebars.
She turns suddenly. This time, there’s no mistaking it. She sees me. Across the street. Across the early morning quiet. Across every line that should keep a woman like her away from a man like me.
Her gaze locks on mine. She doesn’t wave, doesn’t smile, doesn’t look scared. She looks fucking furious. She reaches into her pocket, pulls out my black card, and holds it up between two fingers like evidence in a trial.
Even from here, I can feel the shape of her thoughts. ‘I’m not calling you.’
I almost smile, because she doesn’t understand yet. She already called. Not with a phone. Not with her voice. She called the second she walked into my world and survived it.
Now I’m here, and until the threat is dead, I’m not leaving.