“Darlin’, are you pointing that weapon at Arianne?” Holt asked, his gaze still on Zane and the weapon pointed at his heart.
“Yes. You want me to point it somewhere else? Like at Zane? Because if he hurts you…”
“I want you to put it down,” he murmured, struggling to keep his voice even. Damn brave woman had his back, even though she didn’t know how to shoot a gun. But with her inexperience, she was now the most dangerous person in the room, and that meant he had lost control of the situation. “I get that you want to protect me, but I think there’s a bigger risk of someone getting hurt if you don’t.”
“Zane lowers his gun first,” she said.
“I’ll drop.” He lowered his weapon, and Zane did the same. Holt holstered the weapon and raised his hands in the air, turning to show Arianne he was now unarmed. She nodded and holstered her gun.
“You can drop the weapon now.” Holt gently pressed Naiya’s arm down and pried her fingers off the gun.
“I wasn’t really intending to shoot her,” Naiya said. “I just got angry at how they were treating you.”
“You gotta keep a cool head when you’re handling a weapon.” He tucked the gun back in its holster. Ironic that he was chastising her for being emotional when he could barely contain his own anger. “Otherwise the wrong people get hurt.”
He’d almost lost Naiya back there. Yes, she’d been trying to help, but she’d put her life at risk and taken away his one chance to avenge himself against the MC. No way would Jagger let him anywhere near the clubhouse again. He was surprised Jagger was even letting them walk out the door.
Fuck. How had he got it so wrong? He’d thought the best way to protect her was to keep her with him, be there for her the way he hadn’t been for his sister. But he was a danger to her. If not for him, she wouldn’t have been in a situation where she had to put her life at risk, and the longer he stayed with her, the worse it would be. He was going down a path she couldn’t follow.
A path he had to take alone.
TWENTY-ONE
Naiya tightened her grip on Holt’s waist as he took a sharp corner, his motorcycle leaning so far to the side she was surprised they didn’t tip. She’d ridden with Jeff and a few of the Black Jacks when she was younger, and they’d taught her what was expected of a pillion rider, but except for the ride out to the clubhouse, it had been a long time. Still, she trusted Holt, and the key to a safe pillion ride was trust. If he leaned, she leaned with him. Second-guessing his actions and shifting her weight in the wrong direction could be disastrous to them both.
She glanced over her shoulder at the thicket of trees that hid the clubhouse from view, half-expecting Arianne or Tank or some of the Sinners to come after them. Even she knew you didn’t pull a weapon on the president of an MC and his old lady and walk away. Viper would have killed them both in a heartbeat. That Jagger let them go said a lot about how he felt about Holt.
Holt slowed the bike. Without the cool rush of pine-scented air, her hair fell over her face and she brushed it away, tightening her legs around his hips as he turned off on a gravel road. About one mile off the highway, where the grassy foothills gave way to trees, he stopped the bike and turned off the engine.
“Why did we stop?” Naiya slid off the bike, grateful for the chance to walk off the strain on little-used muscles. A cloudbank had rolled in while they were at the clubhouse, and she shivered in the cool air.
“I can’t fucking believe you pulled on Arianne.” Holt dismounted and flipped the kickstand. Naiya startled at his tone. She knew he was angry when they left the clubhouse, but she hadn’t realized it was directed at her or that he would feel the need to stop on their way back to the hotel.
“She was going to kill you.”
“You don’t ever fucking put yourself at risk again.” He thudded his fist on the seat. “And especially not for me.”
“If not for you, then who?” Naiya folded her arms, annoyed that he would question her choices. She’d saved his damn ass back there. The least he could do was say thanks. “I’ve spent my life hiding in my books, watching the world pass me by. I saw all sorts of bad things happen, but I never did anything. I didn’t tell the police or social services what happened at home with my mother, or about the men the Jacks killed, or the drugs they sold from my mother’s apartment, or how Viper kept her addicted so he could control her. I didn’t try to get her help—“
“You were a kid.”