“Let me go.” She shoved hard, forcing him back a step. His pulse kicked up a notch. Although he hadn’t heard any bikes or any rustling in the trees, the Jacks would be coming soon and there was always a risk of the guy who owned the SUV returning with his boat and seeing them near the dead bodies.
“We don’t have time for this,” he snapped. “Look who he sent after you.” He gestured to Leo’s body on the ground. “His fucking VP. You’re not just another piece of tail to him, probably because you aren’t like the women in his club. Even if you leave the state, he’ll track you down. Your only chance of staying alive and living the life you want to live is to stick with me. I’m not going to hurt you. You’ll have to trust me on that.”
She pushed against him, glared when he didn’t let go. “I don’t trust you. Not anymore. I saw your face, Holt. For a moment there you thought about shooting me. I’ll take my chances on my own.”
Her body was warm against him, soft despite her agitation. He lowered his mouth to her neck and kissed the hollow at the base of her throat. “Part of you already trusts me ’cause you’re still in my arms.”
“You have a gun,” she snapped. “And you’re holding me so tight I’m going to have bruises.”
“Where would you go?” he challenged. “How would you hide? Who would protect you?”
“The Sinners.” She stared up at him, her eyes defiant. “If I tell them where you are, they’ll owe me. And if you are thinking of doing something to me, you should know I took a picture of you with Ally’s phone when you were sleeping. If something happens to me, she’ll send the pictures to the Sinners. They’ll know you’re alive, and they’ll hunt you down. We both know what happens to brothers who betray the club. Call it an insurance policy.”
“Jesus Christ.” He pushed her away, torn between anger and admiration. How had he misjudged her? She wasn’t the soft civilian she appeared to be; she’d been forged in a Black Jack hell, and although she professed to be done with that life, it wasn’t done with her.
“I’m beginning to think you don’t need protection,” he said, his voice gruff.
“I need Viper off my back, so it seems we have a mutual goal,” she said. “But I’m not up for being part of a kill-team, or being used as bait, or sacrificed to stick it to Viper. So how about you make a new plan to bring him down that doesn’t involve me?”
“You don’t want justice?” His forehead creased in a puzzled frown. “You don’t want revenge for what he did to you?”
“Like this?” Her voice cracked, broke, and he caught a glimpse of just how hard she was struggling to contain her emotion, her fear. “I can’t handle this. Guns. Shooting. Death. Crime. I just want to go back to my normal life and—”
“Hide.”
“There’s nothing wrong with hiding,” she said.
“There is if it means you’re not living.” He released her and stepped away. “You’re so focused on getting your life in order, you’re forgetting to live it. Donuts don’t need to be cut up. Motel beds don’t need to be made. You don’t always need a plan. People aren’t always going to act the way you expect them to act. Guns aren’t always bad, especially when they save your life. And sometimes crimes are committed for good reasons.”
“Are you trying to justify what you’re planning to do to the Sinners?”
Holt frowned, shifted his weight. “I don’t need to justify it. They betrayed me.”
“Or so you think.” She folded her arms, surveyed the scene. “You know them. They were your brothers. Your friends. Would they really abandon and betray you? All of them? Every single Sinner? Would you have abandoned them? How can you stand there and accuse me of being narrow-minded when you’re acting the same way? You’re so focused on looking back, you’re forgetting to look ahead. And it’s a long road to nowhere if you’ve got no one to share it with you.”
Fuck. He didn’t want to be having this conversation. Not here. Not now. And not with someone who clearly didn’t understand the ties of loyalty, honor, and brotherhood that bound bikers together, and how devastating the betrayal of the biker code could be.
“We gotta get out of here before more Jacks show up,” he said curtly, making it clear that conversation was over. “We’ll take Leo’s bike.”
Naiya looked around the parking lot. “I know we don’t have a lot of time, but this is a crime scene. We’ve left a lot of evidence. No point running from the Jacks if we just wind up with the police on our tail. At the very least, we need to get rid of our footprints, fingerprints, fibers, and any mud we may have tracked from the path. If we have to commit a crime to survive, we might as well do it in such a way that we don’t get caught.”
He would have laughed at the irony if he hadn’t been so pissed off. “So does this mean you’re planning to stick around?”
She tilted her head to the side. Cute as fuck. “Are you going to let me go?”
“No.”
“Then I guess I’m sticking around.”
TEN
TANK