But I didn’t.
I slid into the front seat, plunked my backpack on the seat beside me and started up the car. I started to head bang to “Highway to Hell” as it blasted from the speakers then looked up at my rearview mirror to pull out when I saw him.
A huge figure entirely dressed in black wearing a mark sitting directly behind me.
I screamed, a bloodcurdling sound that ripped painfully up my throat and cut through the sound of AC/DC.
One second later the sound was cut off by a large hand wrapping painfully around the side of my throat, the other yielding a wicked sharp blade that was pressed to my throat.
“Don’t scream, bitch. Do as you’re told, and you can end the night nice and safe in your bed, yeah?” The voice was clearly a man’s, muffled, but deep under the hood.
Other than that, I had no idea who this person was.
“What do you want?” I asked quietly, proud that my voice didn’t shake even though my hands did.
My purse was just inches away. If he didn’t have his knife to my throat, I could make a grab for it, but his position behind me would make it nearly impossible to shoot blindly on target.
“Drive, princess,” he growled. “Make any wrong turns, or indicate in any way that you’re distressed, I’ll slice open your throat, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Get on the Sea to Sky, I’ll tell ya when to turn off.”
Even though I was careful to keep still as I navigated the traffic, the blade cut through me like butter, just shallow nicks but the neck bleeds profusely and by the time I took the exit he indicated into Entrance, the entire top of my blue Hephaestus Auto tee was covered in blood.
I knew after only a few turns where he was taking me.
My dad’s house.
It was a Friday. Everyone was at the house by the look of the cars parked outside, by the movement of bodies in the golden-lit rooms. Loulou liked to have everyone over as much as she could, especially after getting pregnant. She called it nesting, Dad called it irritatin’, but everyone knew he loved his brothers, his family, and he loved, even more, having them in his house.
“You see ’em?” the masked villain asked almost conversationally.
“Yeah,” I breathed, fear like a living thing crawling with eight legs up my neck over my face, digging fangs under my skin to poison my bloodstream.
“You wanna keep ’em alive,” he noted.
I didn’t answer, it was obvious he knew my family was my weak spot.
The door to the house opened as if I’d willed it with my mind and my dad stepped out. With his huge body backlit, he looked big as the Hulk, as capable of defeating villains as any superhero. A whimper slid up my throat and I almost impaled myself on the blade in an effort to swallow it.
I could tell he was smoking. He was trying to quit before the babies came, but it was a hard habit to give up and Lou wasn’t a nag, so he was doing it slowly. I wasn’t surprised when a minute later, my brother’s equally tall form appeared, lankier but growing thick with muscle from spending so much time with the brothers at their gym on the compound.
Dad tossed an arm around him and tugged him close, casually, affectionately in that way he did that made you feel warm to the very bones.
“I’ll kill them. Every single one’a them, slow and painfully ’cause, princess, I get off on that shit. I’ll start with Louise Garro, pin her down and fuck her then gut her so she loses those devil spawn and knows it before she loses herself too.”
“God, stop,” I croaked, my eyes burning, so dry, but I couldn’t blink, I had to watch my dad with my brother, had to remind myself every second that they were alive and standing there.
“Don’t care if it takes me ten years, you fuck with Berserkers MC, I’ll kill every last one’a them and save you for last, you get what I’m sayin’?” he asked, wiggling the blade against my throat when I didn’t immediately nod my head. “Thought you were smart enough to get me. Gotta say, it would be a shame really if you stick true, that Garro bitch is worth fuckin’ even fat like she is.”
Fury exploded within my body. I imagined turning on the sick fuck behind me, twisting that knife out of his hand and showing him how I could use it by stabbing him right through his fucking eyes. He didn’t deserve to look at my beautiful family. He didn’t deserve to occupy the same fucking world as them.
“I’ll kill you,” I told him, maybe unwisely.
But I was a wild thing, cornered and desperate. You back an animal into a small space, it’s only in their nature to fight back, however fruitlessly.
The man laughed and even though it was deeply muffled, I almost recognized the sound. “No, princess, you won’t. You don’t get this ’cause you can’t see the whole picture, but this is a game I’ll win.”
I gritted my teeth and refrained, barely, from blindly turning and launching myself at him with just my nails to use like claws.
“I’ll get out here,” he said, again conversational, the fucking psychopath. “But you remember this, remember that I like to sit here at night and watch your daddy and his pretty wife, go over to your brother’s place and watch him fuck his woman on their deck. You remember what I’ll do to them if you fuck with the MC. And know this, I watch them and someone else, always, is watchin’ you.”
A second later, the knife was gone from my throat and cold ocean air blasted in from the open door. A moment after that, it slammed shut and he was gone as if into thin air.
Without missing a beat, I peeled away from the curb and hauled ass back onto the Sea to Sky down to Vancouver. I wanted to go into my house, hug my dad, kiss Lou’s belly, feel Cressida’s hand in my hair and King’s laugh in the air. But I didn’t, because somehow, I’d become an unintentional threat to my family.
I desperately didn’t want to be alone in my apartment, but I needed to get Hero and ditch the car in case anyone was following me. The dog was waiting at the door and he growled when he saw the state I was in. After I locked the door behind me, I allowed myself to drop to the ground and bury my face in his fur. I clutched big handfuls of his silky tresses and cried into his neck for a long time. He let me, whining occasionally in empathy, licking at my face when I finally pulled away to soothe me.
“I’m never leaving home without you again,” I told him soberly, cupping his sweet face in my hands and looking deep into his chocolate brown eyes. “Danner might have to get a new dog.”
Hero yipped softly in agreement and wagged his tail.
I laughed wetly then dragged in a few deep breaths to center myself. I’d just been held at knifepoint in my car, I’d had to kill a man in my own apartment, I couldn’t go home because my family was under threat and I was a big part of that.
I didn’t have many safe places left.
But I had one fortress, one impenetrable safe haven that I hadn’t used in years and if there ever was a time to give in, it was then. I packed up Hero’s stuff and a bag of mine then called a taxi to take us to Danner’s.
He lived in a small house in Kitsilano of all places, a tidy well-to-do neighborhood that didn’t exactly suit his persona of a badass biker. Seeing the little shingled home made me miss the ranch-style house he had on a plot of acreage back home in Entrance.