Page 7 of Pain

As if the situation hadn’t already been complicated enough. Devil’s crew had been warring with mine ever since I got out of jail five years ago—set up by Devil himself—and they’d been blocking some of our biggest money earners of late. Trying to take over some of our territory. Messing with our best contacts. Getting in the way of some of the suppliers I used. I’d forbidden the Banshees from ever running drugs or messing with anything that might lead to addiction, but we’d made our bones transporting things for our clients, from trucks full of grain to cars that contained the guns our clients needed—all of them with heavy escorts—and we couldn’t afford to let any of those contracts go.

Devil had been doing his best to take it out of my hands. Harassing my clients and outright killing some of them off. Trying to infringe on our territory. Sending spies into the towns we controlled, thinking he was clever.

We’d already been heading for a standoff. I’d come into this town—one that sat right at the edge of his territory—to do some business with someone who was moving to our territory. I’d known it was dangerous when I rode into town, but I’d been sure I could stay under the radar, riding alone as I was.

Sure I could get in, do the meeting, and get back out again without anyone even noticing me.

That was before Saraya Post had been thrown right into my lap, and then begged for my help.

So now I had Devil’s old lady riding on the back of my bike, battered and bruised and definitely broken in more place than one, and begging for my help. Begging me not to leave her where Devil’s prospect could come back and find her.

Looked like flying under the radar wasn’t going to happen. Everyone in town was going to be talking about how I’d rescued her, and I wasn’t stupid enough to think Devil would thank me for having picked her up and made sure she was okay. No, if all the rumors I’d been hearing lately were true, he’d be a whole lot more likely to jump right to assuming I’d taken her for nefarious reasons—or that she’d run to me for equally nefarious reasons.

Hell, he’d probably build this up into something we’d fucking planned.

Idiot.

He’d never been the sharpest tool in the shed, and all the drugs coursing through his system didn’t help. He got stupider with each passing year. More burnt out. More paranoid.

More violent.

Yeah, we were in trouble all right. He might be stupid, but he had the quickest trigger finger of anyone in this area, and pointing out that I’d once been his best friend and currently had his girlfriend in my possession wasn’t going to help.

I needed to get back to HQ and gather my men around me before Devil found out what I’d done. I needed safety and my crew at my back, needed to be in familiar territory and have plenty of guns at the ready.

Because I had zero doubt that he was going to be coming straight at me the moment he heard I’d stolen his girl, thrown her onto my bike, and ridden hell-bent for leather toward the horizon.

His girl. My mind caught on to the idea, and I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. I couldn’t see her, of course—she’d always been at least a foot shorter than me—but I could feel her there, her arms wrapped around my middle, her hands fisted in the T-shirt I’d worn today. She’d stopped shaking, or at least I thought she had, but the grip she had on me, the way she’d grasped at me with her legs as soon as I sat down...

The girl was in trouble, all right. I knew her reputation, and she was known to be as tough as nails. Never complained, never cried, and was the brain behind most of Devil’s heists. If what I’d heard was true, she could manage a timeline and think of all the possible holes in a plan like no one else. I’d never known her, as she’d met Devil after he left my club, but I’d heard all the whisperings.

He was nothing without her. His club was nothing without her.

So how the hell had she shown up, blindfolded and battered, being thrown out of a truck in a town that boasted only 1200 residents? What had she done to deserve treatment like that? Or what had Devil done to turn her?

And why the hell couldn’t I stop thinking about the curve of her hip as she looked up at me, the flash of those unreal green eyes when she saw who I was?

Why had one of my first thoughts been that she’d somehow become even more gorgeous since the last time I saw her? Bruised and battered but somehow still otherworldly, with her dark hair and flashing eyes?

I shoved the thought out of my consciousness, reminding myself firmly that I was already in enough trouble and didn’t need to add to it by having some sort of attraction to Devil’s woman, and hit the accelerator when we got to the edge of town. HQ was only thirty minutes away.

I meant to make it there in twenty.

I didn’t like that I had Saraya Post on my bike, but it would be a whole lot easier to deal with if I was in my own territory. With my own people around me.

***

WE CAME SCREECHING to a halt in front of the Banshees clubhouse, and I dismounted, barely pausing to look back at Saraya before I started walking. “Let’s go,” I muttered. “I want one of my girls to have a look at you and make sure none of that is serious.”

I heard a sputter and a gasp behind me and turned to see that Saraya had gotten off the bike... and then collapsed onto the ground. She was holding her right ankle, her face tense with pain.

“My ankle,” she muttered. “I can’t walk on it.”

I’d spent much of the drive here hardening myself against her, reminding myself again and again that she was the enemy—or if not the enemy, then related to the enemy. This wasn’t a girl I could feel soft toward or even care about.

No matter how gorgeous or strong she was.

But the moment I saw her on the ground, all of those brave words fled. All I saw was a girl in pain. A girl who’d been abused and then dumped, and who might not have a friend in the world right now.