Twenty minutes later, I waved to Breaker, one of the other enforcers, who was manning the gate. He gave me a chin lift in return, then seemed to do a double take when he realized I had a passenger. Instead of opening the gate and letting me ride through, he just stood there and grinned as he waited for me to come to a stop in front of him.
“What the fuck, brother?” I grumbled.
Breaker leaned in a little closer, and when he got a good look at Lucy, his grin morphed into a smug smile that stretched across his face. “You alright, ma’am?” he asked her with a little too much glee in his tone. “Did this bastard bring you here against your will?”
Lucy stiffened, and I slipped an arm around her waist, holding her tight to me as I scowled at Breaker, silently promising to cut off his balls and feed them to the coyotes. “Open the fucking gate,” I growled.
Breaker shook his head. “Not until I hear this little lady tell me—”
My arm shot out, and I punched the asshole in the shoulder so hard it knocked him off balance. “Open. The. Fucking. Gate.” My tone was deadly, and Breaker’s smirk wavered. After a second, he just shrugged and chuckled as he returned to the guard shack to give us entrance to the compound.
A few minutes later, I pulled into one of the stalls in the private garage behind the clubhouse and put down the kickstand. I shut off the bike, then dismounted and faced Lucy who was sitting still, looking lost in thought. Damn, she was gorgeous. We had some shit to resolve, but I was having a hard time focusing on anything except her ripe body and how badly I wanted her under me.
Her head suddenly twisted toward me, and she breathed, “That was incredible. I’ve always been afraid of motorcycles, but...wow.” I would have smiled at her innocent wonder, but it was making me so hard I could barely see straight.
Instead, I silently grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her off the bike. Once her feet were on the ground, I took her hand and muttered, “Let’s go.” Then I practically dragged her to the back entrance of the clubhouse.
We didn’t pass many people on the way to my room, but the ones we did went hurrying away once they clocked my expression. We headed to a bank of rooms on the first floor at the back of the house and stopped at the fourth door on the left. Keeping a tight hold on her hand, I dug my keys out of the inner pocket on my cut and unlocked the door. Then I quickly ushered her in and slammed it shut before turning the lock.
When I pivoted back around, I glanced at her face and almost winced at how uneasy she looked. Some of her fear had returned, and I wanted to beat the shit out of myself for letting that happen. I softened my expression and canted my head toward the small couch situated against the wall across from the bed.
I glanced around and frowned at what I saw. My room was neat and tidy, but it wasn’t big. It hadn’t been an issue before because I’d never had a woman in here. I hadn’t really been interested in women for a long time. I wanted a family, but it was more of an idea than something I was actually working toward. Now that I’d found Lucy, I knew it was because I’d been waiting for her.
“Let’s talk about what’s going to happen next,” I said softly as I sat on the couch and tugged her down onto the neighboring cushion.
“Um...how exactly do you take care of things around here? Am I going to have to work off my debt as a maid or something?” Her eyes went wide as saucers when she gasped, “You aren’t going to turn me into your sex slave, are you?”
I would have been thoroughly offended except the glint in her eye told me she was mostly joking. Not only that, but she looked as though she wasn’t one hundred percent against the idea, which had my cock swelling to epic proportions. I chuckled to hide my grunt of pain as I tried to adjust myself surreptitiously. “As appealing as that thought is—no, little doll. I think you’ve been reading too many of those books my sisters like.” One corner of her mouth lifted just the tiniest bit. “I don’t care about the wallet, Lucy. I brought you here because you are obviously in trouble, and you’re going to tell me the whole story.”
3
Lucy
I’d spent the past week feeling as though I’d never run far enough to feel safe again. As ridiculous as it sounded, sitting in a locked room inside a biker clubhouse with Dominic was the first time I sensed I was out of harm’s way. All I knew about him was his first name, that he was a part of the Silver Saints MC, and he had enough power for the sheriff to back off. Those things should’ve scared me, but I couldn’t forget how sheltered I’d felt in his arms while we were on his motorcycle. Something about Dominic called to me—and it wasn’t just the sexual chemistry that practically crackled in the air around us.
Whatever it was, I found myself spilling my guts about what had driven me away from the life I’d built for myself. “When I left my apartment to go to work two Fridays ago, my neighbor’s boyfriend was walking into our building. He always skeeved me out whenever I saw him around, so I didn’t say anything and scooted past him as quickly as I could.”
“Did he do something specific to set off your radar?” Dominic asked, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his thighs.
I swallowed down the gulp in my throat as I remembered the first few times I’d run into the guy. “At first, it was just how he had no problem checking me out even when his girlfriend was standing right next to him. But then a few weeks ago, I bumped into him in the hallway when he was leaving her apartment by himself, and he took it up a notch. He scanned me from head to toe, licked his lips, and asked if I was single. When I told him I was seeing someone, he shrugged his shoulders as though it was no big deal, but I swear I felt his gaze on my butt as I let myself into my place.”
“You got a man?” he bit out, his hands fisting hard enough that his knuckles turned white.
I felt my cheeks fill with heat as I shook my head. “No, I lied because it seemed like the quickest way to get him to back off. I’m not sure if it worked or not since I didn’t see him much over the next couple of weeks and my neighbor was always with him. Except for that last time, and he must’ve been distracted because he barely even glanced my way when I went past him. I didn’t think much about it until I scrolled through the local news before leaving work. It was kind of my ritual before heading home, along with checking my social media. But I didn’t get that far because there was an article posted about a murder in my building.”
“Fuck,” he groaned, dropping his head low. “It was your neighbor?”
Tears filled my eyes as I remembered what had happened to her, and Dominic reached out to lace his fingers through mine. I squeezed his hand and continued, “Yeah, someone killed her that morning. They stabbed her a dozen times, and it had to have happened after I left for work because I heard her singing in the shower as I was getting ready. Our bathrooms shared a wall, and she never held back when she was in there. She picked the silliest songs, and it always made me smile.”
His thumb brushed along the side of my hand. “Did the article mention an estimated time of death?”
“The police thought it happened between eight and noon but were hoping to narrow that down after the autopsy.” I shivered at the thought of the coroner cutting into her body.