Page 9 of Branded By Shadow
Thegirlholdsonlike she hates needing to.
I feel it in the grip of her arms around my waist. Tight enough to bruise if I were softer. Loose enough every few seconds that I know she’s fighting herself, fighting the instinct to cling to a man she doesn’t know.
Smart woman.
Too damn smart to have been crawling around Salazar Huntington’s property alone.
But fear makes people reckless. Desperation makes them stupid. And love makes them walk into gunfire with nothing but shaking hands and bad luck.
The bike eats the mountain road beneath us, tires hugging the curves as the villa disappears behind the trees. I keep the headlight low and the speed mean, cutting through the dark with the kind of focus that kept me alive in worse places.
Behind us, the gunfire fades.
Doesn’t mean we’re clear.
Men like Salazar have reach. Money. Cameras. Dirty law in his pocket, probably. He owns half the nightlife in Blissmont County and enough scared people to make himself feel untouchable.
The Saints have been cutting into him for months.
Clubs shut down. Girls pulled out. Doors chained. Files handed to the right people when the right people can be trusted.
Then another club pops up.
Another name.
Another front.
Cockroaches survive almost anything.
Ghost’s call came forty minutes before I saw her. He’s the brother Havoc sends when a situation needs clean violence and colder judgment. If Ghost says a place is dirty, I don’t ask if he’s sure.
Big sale tonight. Huntington’s villa outside Black Pines. I’m too far out. You’re close.
That was all I needed.
I was twenty minutes away, coming back from checking a storage site Havoc wanted eyes on. I wasn’t supposed to hit the villa alone. Wasn’t supposed to do anything but confirm activity, send Ghost pictures, and wait for the club.
Then I saw her.
Little thing in the trees, crouched behind a pine like the whole damn forest wasn’t announcing her every step. Dark hair loose around her face. Curves wrapped in a jacket that didn’t hide a damn thing from me. Soft hips. Full thighs. A body made for a man’s hands.
She made it over the wall, and I knew before she fell into the bush that she was trouble.
Not Salazar’s kind.
Mine.
Talia.
The name sits in my head like a hot coal.
I feel her move behind me when I take a hard turn. Her fingers dig in tighter, pressing through my cut. Her cheek stays between my shoulder blades, helmet tucked against my back.
Good.
Let her hold on.
I want her hands on me.
