WRAITH

by Franca Storm

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance; Motorcycle Club Romance; Romantic Suspense; Romantic Suspense; motorcycle romance; action adventure romance

Synopsis

A loyal brotherhood of badass, protective bikers.
They ride wild and love hard.

Cold.
Dark.
Dangerous.
I'm a ghost, living off the grid, never getting involved.
Until the President of the Iron Kings MC comes calling.
My oldest friend. My brother-in-arms.
I'm pulled back in to protect his daughter.
But the mission quickly turns personal.
She tempts me, drawing me too close.
I need to stay away.
I'm a dangerous monster.
I'll ruin her.

But I'm drawn further into the world of the Iron Kings MC.
The promise of brotherhood and a fresh start seems too good to pass up.
She can't stay away and neither can I.
Her light cuts through my dark.
She's everything I didn't know I'd been looking for.
But, can a damaged bastard like me really find peace?

Release date: October 7, 2020

Print pages: 218

Sample

CHAPTER 1

~Wraith~

 

GODDAMN CIVILIANS.

Six months had passed since I’d retreated to this one-horse town.

Even after all that time, the locals still hadn’t gotten the message that I’d been communicating loud and clear. 

I was an anti-social bastard.

I didn’t share details about my life, neither my present, nor my past exploits.

I didn’t want to strike up any friendships with any of them either.

Or, worse, any kind of romantic entanglement.

For some reason, despite my overt standoffishness, the people of Langton still tried. Especially, the women. The come-ons were beyond brazen. Some of them were actually downright cringeworthy. There was a certain partygoing group of them that just wouldn’t let up with their flirtations, their staged run-ins, in an attempt to get a piece of me. Some of them were even married.

It was exactly the kind of trouble that I needed to avoid.

I couldn’t draw attention to myself. The stakes were literally life and death.

Sure, at one point, that high-stakes existence had given me a fucking hard-on.

But that’d been before.

Before the betrayal that’d torn everything apart and turned my life upside down. Before I’d been forced to retreat.

Now I was trying to pass for what I hated. A clueless civilian.

I was living a low-key life. Nowadays, I taught self-defense at a gym I owned in town.

Being a ghost had its limitations.

At least now I’d found a way to have something that almost resembled a life. Even that hadn’t been possible before.

For a year and a half, before I’d relocated here, I’d been holed up in a safehouse.

I’d been on the verge of losing my mind from the inactivity. I’d been going stir-crazy.

I was a man who needed to keep busy. I couldn’t stand still. I had to keep moving.

I couldn’t block shit out otherwise. And then it hurt. It hurt too much.

What a fucking mess.  

Sighing, I pushed through the creaky door into the local hole-in-the-wall, Langton Arms, making my way over to the bar.

I scanned my surroundings. I could never be too careful.

All clear. No threats.

On instinct, I kept my head low, most of my features hidden beneath my gray hoodie. I ignored the glances I could feel directed my way from the half a dozen regulars situated around the place. They didn’t like the mystery I posed. It unnerved them and confounded them all at once. I only spoke when I had to, not out of some sort of mind-numbing social expectation.

Besides, if they discovered who and what I truly was, it’d shatter their fragile little lives.

“Your usual? Bourbon?” the young bartender spoke, as I slid onto one of the rickety wooden stools that’d seen better days.

Just like everything else in the old pub. The owners claimed it was intended, rustic charm and all that. They needed to call a spade a damn spade. The place was falling apart. I cringed as the stool scraped along the hardwood floor, etching yet another dent into it.

“Yeah, kid,” I answered the twenty-something guy, inwardly rolling my eyes at his neon-green mohawk. Normally, I’d applaud someone openly bucking the expectations of the conventional, disturbingly traditional little town in a bid to carve out their own path. But it was too obvious that he was doing it more so to get a rise out of people, rather than for any meaningful reason. If you were going to be a rule-breaker and a badass, it had to be for the right reasons. You had to own it well. Otherwise, you were just a sad poser.

At least he was a good bartender and quick on his feet for that matter. In seconds, he was sliding my glass across the bar top.

I caught it in my right hand.

My fingers trembled violently as I endured the all-too-familiar battle of trying to bring it to my lips. I could’ve used my left, but I was right-handed and no matter how I’d tried, it was still instinctual to act with my right. The struggle only occurred once in a while. The problem was, I could never predict when the old injury would act up and momentarily incapacitate me. Even if it had been possible to shed my ghost status, the unpredictable nature of my right hand these days would’ve barred me from returning to my old life in the field anyway.

I felt the kid’s eyes on me and I eyeballed him over the rim of my glass to see his focus drawn to the brutal scar in the center of my right hand. He’d seen it before, because I’d been in here enough times, but he just couldn’t get past it. It wasn’t the most appetizing sight, honestly. And civilians were so fucking fragile.

“Wayward power drill,” I told him.

A hell of a lie, but revealing the truth would endanger me, pointing towards what I truly was.

A dangerous son of a bitch.

A killer.

A man who used to get paid a mint to deal out death to the worst of the worst, the most despicable human beings to ever walk this fucked-up earth.

I’d been really good at it.

The best.

Fuck. Another life now.

I chugged back all of my bourbon in a couple of gulps.

Slapping down a few bills in front of the bartender, I told him to keep them coming. He nodded and hurriedly served me another, before heading off to deal with a couple that were trying to get his attention at the other end of the bar.

“Rough day, Wraith?”

My fingers tightened around my glass, my body tensing.

That name. That alias.

I hadn’t heard it in a long time.

I was well and truly out. Retired from all of it.

That name had suited me well for a long while now, though. I barely existed. I was rarely visible to the world and not truly a part of it. During my time in black ops, I’d also been the last thing many people had seen before death took them. Hell, I’d been the bringer of their deaths. I was a ghost, a fucking apparition.

“More like rough life, yeah?” the voice continued.

He pulled up a stool right beside me. I heard the squeak of hard leather as he settled himself upon it. The thump of his elbow on the wooden bar top had me drawing in a calming breath to brace myself, before turning to see who the unwanted visitor was.

Well, damn.

Scott “Spartan” Tate.

“Scott,” I ground out, more than a little surprised to see the President of the Iron Kings Motorcycle Club in my neck of the woods, miles from home.

He looked me up and down. My hoodie under my black leather jacket, jeans, and my gray long-sleeved tee visible beneath. He smiled as he took in my motorcycle boots.

“It’s been too long,” he said, earnestly. He clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Missed you, brother.”

Brother.

I knew how much that word meant to him. While I wasn’t one of his club brothers, we went back way further than that, before he’d even founded Iron Kings.

We’d fought together. We’d suffered together. We’d survived together. We were brothers-in-arms and it wasn’t something either of us took lightly.

Pulling my hood back a little, I took him in.

Those odd slate-gray eyes of his got me every time. It was creepy, the way they seemed to pierce right through a man. His dirty-blonde hair, all wild on top, yet closely cropped on the sides. He was normally clean-shaven, but he was sporting some serious stubble. It was more evidence that something was very wrong, because Scott was a stickler for routine. He was still heavy with the piercings with three in each ear and a stud in his nose. He’d added a hoop through his right eyebrow now too. He was going incognito, wearing an unmarked brown leather jacket, instead of his cut with the insignia of the Iron Kings MC. I glanced down past his worn jeans, surprised to see that he wasn’t even wearing his motorcycle boots. Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard the roar of his Harley pulling up outside either.

What was going on? “Spill it, Scott.” If he was bringing trouble my way, I needed to know immediately so I could formulate a plan and minimize the potential damage.

He leaned in, dropping his voice low to tell me, “We got trouble.”

“No shit,” I muttered. “Why else would you come all this way?”

“I don’t wanna be calling in favors and keeping score with you, but I need your help.”

For six months, he’d allowed me to recover at his clubhouse, bringing in the best doctors and nurses on his payroll to see to me. The injuries I’d sustained had been too incriminating to head to a real hospital with. The cops would’ve been called right off the bat and I’d have been done for, given that I’d been in no condition to make one of my miraculous escapes. But, without hardcore medical attention, I wouldn’t have survived.  He’d basically saved my life.

“The situation is that dire?”

“Yeah,” he rumbled. “It’s dire all right.”

 With a heavy sigh, I shifted on my stool to face him head on. “I’m not the guy you knew. Not physically.” I gestured to my hand, then pointed to my side. He knew well about the extent of the damage I’d suffered. “Not mentally either.” I took a large gulp from my drink. “I’m not getting back into all of that.”

“Ain’t asking you to.”

I frowned. Why the hell else was he here then?

He snatched up my drink and downed the rest of it, gulping it back, anxiety rolling off him. “The Rogues are back.”

“Jesus Christ,” I choked out. 

The Rogues, known officially as the Rogue Riders Motorcycle Club, were a rival club to Scott’s. Brutal, down ‘n’ dirty bastards without conscience, without restraint.

The bitch of it was that they hadn’t always been.

Many of the members, including their president, had been part of the Iron Kings MC at one point. But when Scott had settled down with his wife, Andrea, and had a family, he’d made the call to take the club legit. That one decision had been the beginning of the end.

It’d kickstarted a war that’d waged for years, causing brutal collateral damage, widespread carnage, torment, and actual death. Scott’s decision to shakeup the club had infuriated his right-hand-man at the time, Knox Price, now the president of the Rogues. He’d refused to accept Scott forcing them to pull out of lucrative, illicit deals, that he’d engineered in the first place, refused to accept the club’s revised weak, peaceable status. In fact, Knox had started his own club, the Rogues. And then he’d gone after Scott’s wife. He’d murdered her. Scott had gone after him and his new club, risking his legit status to avenge his wife. He’d managed to take out a large number of them, but a few, including Knox, had survived, and gone to ground.

But now they were apparently back, I was sure all hell would break loose again, that Knox would be out for blood.

“What do you need?” I asked automatically.

“Need you to protect my baby girl.”

“What?” I croaked. “That’s my role in this? Running protection detail on Ashley?”

“The club’s gonna be focused on the war coming with them fuckers. All hands on deck. And there ain’t nobody outside the club that I trust, but you. I gotta have her safe.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Like I said, I’m not at my best anymore. And this is your daughter we’re talking about.”

His knockout of a daughter. Jesus Christ, she was something.

Running protection detail, being in close quarters with her, day in and day out for hell knew how long was the last thing I wanted. The last thing I needed.

The girl had a thing for me. She’d made it known when she’d helped nurse me back to health.

The whole situation was fraught with complications. And I didn’t do complications anymore.

Scott’s hand clamped down around my wrist, pulling me from my thoughts.

His eyes burned into mine, a stark vulnerability I’d never seen from him before, hitting me right in the gut.

“I already lost the woman I loved to those fuckers. I ain’t losing my baby girl, Finn,” he said, distraught. “Please, all right? You’re the most dangerous, ruthless fucker I’ve ever met. That’s the kinda man I need watching her back.”

I knew what he was really saying.

He needed the version of me that I’d been trying hard to bury down deep.

The monster.

As much as I wanted to stay as far away from all the bullshit of my old life, I couldn’t deny him.

He needed me.

Goddamn it.

“Fine. She’s under my protection.”

 

 

CHAPTER 2

~Ashley~

 

I CRINGED.

Once again, my phone buzzed in the back pocket of my jeans.

Urgh. It had to be the fifth time in the last hour.

Hadn’t he gotten the hint yet?

He was infuriatingly overbearing. Ridiculously overprotective.

When it sounded yet again, I couldn’t take it any longer.

I blew out a breath of frustration and tossed the stencil I’d been trying to concentrate on down on the table. Pulling my phone out from my back pocket, I slumped down onto the adjustable chair and braced myself as I scrolled to his latest message.

Ain’t playing, Ashley Marie Tate. Call me back. ASAP.

I felt a twinge of nervousness. Using my full name made it clear just how pissed he was and that was never something to be taken lightly when it came to the notorious President of the Iron Kings Motorcycle Club. My father.

I shook it off. I wouldn’t allow him to get to me. I wasn’t at his beck and call like his boys were. I’d gone to great pains to remove myself from his messed-up world, from the domineering influence he’d exerted over my life.

Besides, I had a fairly good idea of what he wanted and there was no way in hell that he was going to get it. He didn’t like me being so far away from him, from the watch of his club. He wanted me back home.

Well, I wouldn’t sacrifice my freedom for his peace of mind. Those days were long past. Going back home was the last thing I wanted.

I’d spent years trying to build a life for myself, going to art school, networking, working as an assistant to two tattoo artists. In the last year and a half, I’d succeeded in acquiring my own chair. I’d built up a reputation as a respected and sought-after designer in my own right. I wasn’t about to give all of that up just so he could sleep easier at night. It was ridiculous. He was easily the most paranoid man I’d ever known.

It all stemmed from what had happened to me as a teenager when his enemies had taken my mom from us and nearly succeeded in dealing me the same fate as well.

Didn’t he get that it was safer for me to be as far away from him and his club as possible? To continue to distance and disassociate myself from it? That brutal world was what had killed her, being mixed up in my dad’s screwed-up life.

I was determined to live my own life. My dad had already screwed with it for long enough as it was. His influence had raged out of control after we’d lost my mom. It had reached the point where I hadn’t even been able to date. As soon as I’d taken an interest in someone, one of his club members had inexplicably been there threatening the object of my affections. Of course, after being threatened by some scary-ass bikers, the guy had scurried away and never risked looking my way again. It was the reason I was so awkward around anyone I took a liking to now. I didn’t know how the hell to flirt, or anything. Hell, I wasn’t just a little inexperienced. I was a fucking virgin. A virgin at twenty-three years old? It hadn’t helped that since I’d moved away, work had been the only thing on my mind. If I went back home, I wouldn’t be able to breathe and I’d be a virgin until the day I died.

I stuffed my phone back into my jeans and returned to working on my stencil.

I was so excited about it. The client wanted a three-dimensional mechanical arm, the design to be near-impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Three-dimensional designs were all the rage at the moment and I’d been dying to snag the chance of creating one. So far, it was going really well. It was definitely one of my best creations.

I was almost done with the first draft when rowdy shouts coming from the waiting room had me jerking my head up. What the hell was going on?

I heard Lucinda’s shrill cries from the Reception desk, two low growling voices giving commands that were unintelligible through the walls separating us. No one else was on shift tonight. Just us two girls.

I had to do something. I couldn’t leave her to face whatever was happening out there all by herself.

I shot to my feet, ready to tear into the Reception area when the door flew open, shocking the shit out of me.

I jerked back as two huge steroid-abusing hulks burst into my studio room.

One of them kicked the door shut so violently that the room shook from the impact.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. “If you think you can just burst in—”

A sharp slap to the face had my head snapping to the side. Groaning at the bitch of a sting, I stumbled back, falling into the wall, and grasping at it for support just to keep upright.

“Shut it, princess bitch!” the bearded one bellowed.

Princess? They knew who I was!

They stomped closer to me, their hefty motorcycle boots thumping loudly on the tiled floor.

“So, this is Scott’s baby girl,” the one with a straggly goatee spoke to Beardy.

“No wonder he kept her locked away in that fucking club compound for so long.” Goatee’s eyes roamed over me lewdly. “Damn, you’re a sweet piece of ass, ain’t ya?”

Beardy stepped up to me and grasped a strand of my vibrant-pink hair. “This match what you got going on in here?” He reached between my legs.

“Get back!” I screamed, batting his hand away just before it made contact.

They both laughed nastily. The insult in it had my initial shock leaving me and ire building quickly. My dad’s words rang in my ear, from the days when he’d taught me how to defend myself when I was younger.

“Don’t get scared, get angry. Anger is power, baby girl.”

Beardy went for me again, looking to grab my arm.

I was ready, reacting faster, thrusting my knee up into his gut. His eyes went wide and he choked, falling back.

I spun quickly and darted to my worktable, snatching up my pair of scissors. Spinning them around in my hand, I narrowed my eyes menacingly as they advanced on me.

“Come any closer and you’ll regret it,” I threatened.

“Bitch likes it rough,” Goatee commented.

Beardy took a step closer, telling me creepily, “Prez said we gotta keep you breathing. Didn’t say nothing about not dealing out some punishment if you misbehave.”

I couldn’t suppress a shudder at the disturbing threat.

“You want the first run at her?” Goatee asked.

A sudden thud startled me and had them spinning around, their fists at the ready as someone stomped into the room. I couldn’t see past the two of them to see who it was.

“The only way you’re getting your dicks wet right now is by me ripping them the fuck off and shoving them up your motherfucking asses,” a husky voice boomed.

Whoa. That was… intense.

“Who the hell are you?” Goatee demanded. “The bitch’s bodyguard?”

I saw them moving inch by inch as the new guy managed to manipulate them into maneuvering 180-degrees, until his back was to me, and they were facing into the room.

The new guy was between me and them, protecting me. 

“All right, Ashley?”

The new guy shot a quick glance over his shoulder at me. He was wearing a navy baseball cap that concealed his features, but he lifted it enough for me to take him in. That shock of thick, black hair. Those deep-blue eyes.

Oh my God. It was him. After all this time, it was him protecting me.

Finn “Wraith” Jones, my dad’s old friend from their Special Forces days. And the man I hadn’t been able to get out of my head for the last couple of years.

“Finn?” I breathed.

“Are you?” he pressed, concern all over his face.

I managed a mute nod, before I was finally able to croak out, “Yeah. Good.”

His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized my face. “Your cheek says otherwise. These assholes do that?”

I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly self-conscious about it, embarrassed that it’d happened at all. “Uh huh.”

“All right. Look away.” He cracked his knuckles.

A shriek burst from me when Beardy lunged at him without any warning.

But Finn was ready. He sidestepped the attack, grasped the psycho’s biceps, and used his weight against him to haul him across the room. I winced as his bulky weight made a dent in the drywall. He groaned as he collapsed onto the hard tile with a nasty thud.

Oh, hell. “Finn, this is my workplace. Them bursting in here and starting crap is bad enough. But if you—”

“You’re done with this place as of right now, so it won’t matter.”

“Excuse me? What are you—”

“Later!” he ordered, holding up his hand to me.

Goatee tried to back away as Finn advanced on him, one long intimidating stride at a time.

“I’m sorry, man. Real sorry.”

“Sorry?” Finn spat. “Her blood’s staining your fucking rings.”

I peered closer at the asshole’s fingers. Crap, it was. How deep had he actually grazed me then? Sure, my cheek was stinging, but I’d figured it’d just been the result of the blow itself, not a cut.

I brought my hand to my face, feeling the burn upon contact. As I pulled it away, blood covered my fingers. It was a hell of a lot worse than I’d thought. The adrenaline coursing through my veins had to be masking the real level of pain.

Finn’s roar startled me out of myself.

“What kinda man hits a lady?” he demanded of Goatee.

“Lady?” Goatee scoffed, clearly done with the apologizing, pleading route. “No way no biker princess of Iron Kings could be a fucking lady.” He pushed it even further when he added with a creepy smirk at me, “I can tell you for damn sure, she won’t be when we’re done passing her ‘round the club.”

I almost physically gagged at his despicable threat.

Finn snarled.

His hand shot out so fast that I barely even registered it until it was wrapped taut around Goatee’s throat. He slammed him against the wall, making the sick bastard choke and splutter.

“You’re a dead man,” Finn boomed.

He spun him around, then gripped the back of his head, and smashed his skull viciously into the wall. Goatee whimpered as Finn released him abruptly. He smacked into the wall and slid down onto his ass, his head hanging heavily as he gazed around dazedly.

The next thing I knew, Finn was back in my space. He gently grasped my shoulders, a stark, jarring contrast to the brutality he’d just exhibited to the attackers.

“Listen, I need you to look away right now, or you’re gonna have a hell of a hard time sleeping from here on out.”

Holy crap. I gulped and turned away, slapping my hands over my ears for good measure.

Unfortunately, my palms over my ears didn’t equate to soundproofing and several back-to-back shrill screams of agony had me jumping, a sickening feeling building in my gut.

A hand to my back a few moments later had me jumping, a shriek erupting from me. I threw up my fists instinctively, only to look up into Finn’s enthralling deep-blue eyes.

His hands covered my fists, holding me tightly to him as he told me, “Keep your eyes down, on my chest. Don’t employ any peripheral vision. Just focus on me. I’m gonna guide us out of here.”

“What did you do to them?” I’d seen some nasty fights in my day. I was the daughter of a MC President for crying out loud. How bad could it really be?

“Just do what I said,” he said, dismissively.

I nodded. I didn’t want to push it. Why would I want to see something disturbing?

Following his instructions, I let him guide me out of the room. Once we were out, he took my hand and pulled me behind him as he pushed out through the back door into the rear parking lot.

He drew me to a black RAM truck and hauled open the passenger door, giving me a hand up into the seat. He rounded the hood quickly, then settled himself into the driver’s seat. He barely took two seconds to rev up the beast of a truck and take off like a bat out of hell from the lot, proceeding to drive like a madman through the city streets.

What the hell was happening?

Adrenaline from the altercation with those guys was still running hot through my veins. Shock at it happening at all consumed me. I was struggling to wrap my head around it all.

It morphed to frustration quickly.

It all came bursting out of me in a disjointed rush as I turned to my rescuer and demanded, “What’s going on? Why are you here? Who were those guys? Why are they after me?”

Finn didn’t say a word, his concentration was directed on the road ahead. He was driving way over the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic like a man with a death wish.

“Finn!” I snapped. “Did you hear a word I just said?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What’s going on? The Rogues have resurfaced and they’re gunning for you. Why am I here? Your father hired me as your protection detail. Who were those guys? Knox Price’s enforcers. Why are they after you? Because you’re the daughter of a MC President who has a shitload of enemies.” He shot a self-satisfied glance at me. “Does that about cover it?”

I slumped back against my seat. “Oh my God.”

“It’s gonna be okay.”

I looked up to see a gentle, sympathetic expression on his face.

Seeing him looking at me with such kindness and caring had warmth blooming in my belly. It was how he’d looked at me when I’d helped to nurse him back to health eighteen months ago. I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head since and experiencing it again now was all-consuming. Such a hardened, damaged man exhibiting such a sweet softness was breathtakingly beautiful.

His brows knit as he took me in. He abruptly broke eye contact and returned his full concentration to the road ahead.

Was he nervous? Was I making him nervous? A big, bad man like him?

“Seatbelt,” he ordered.

I fumbled to put it on, watching his large, manly hands tighten on the steering wheel as he made a sharp turn down a narrow alleyway. He tossed his baseball cap onto the backseat with a grunt and I was finally able to see his ruggedly handsome face in all its glory.

He muttered something about being overheated.

In the next moment, my breath caught in my throat, when he started shaking off his leather jacket. He kept one hand on the steering wheel as he skillfully removed it, then tossed it onto the backseat along with his cap.

He was only wearing a black wife beater underneath, putting his gloriously inked arms on full display. It was some impressive artwork. Unfortunately, my focus on the designs covering the entirety of both arms, from shoulder to wrist, was fleeting. The way his deliciously well-defined muscles bunched and strained whenever he adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, took most of my attention instead. As he adjusted himself in the seat, I noticed the scars on the backs of his arms, the angry, raised, raw flesh of the burns he’d sustained. It was only the start of it, unfortunately. Most of his back was covered with them as well, the backs of his legs too. Pain sliced through me as I recalled those days at the clubhouse when he’d been fighting for his life. He’d suffered so much. And he was still standing, still fighting on. Now he was fighting for my dad, for me. He was one hell of a man.

He scrubbed his hand over the rough stubble on his chin then dropped it with a heavy sigh to his jean-clad thigh. God, he was built. Sure, I’d seen a lot of guys who were muscular hulks around my dad’s club, but there was something about the way Finn carried it and his whole demeanor, in general, that was so frigging sexy. I just wanted to take my tongue and—

“Ashley?”

I jolted from my thoughts, jerking my head his way.

Crap.

I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment over the things I’d been thinking.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. Did he know? Had it been obvious that I’d been fantasizing about him, basically salivating over him?

“Uh… yeah?”

“I asked you a question, but you were spacing out for a bit there. You all right?”

His eyes flicked down my body and I tensed with anticipation. Was he thinking the same things about me?

“Did those assholes hurt you anywhere else, other than your face?”

Oh. That was why he’d been looking me over. “No,” I said, with a shake of my head.

“Good,” he grunted, turning his attention back to the road. “We’ll stop in a bit and I’ll take care of that graze for you. We just need to get some distance first.”

“How much distance exactly? Where are we going?” My fists clenched automatically when I considered the most likely possibility. “I’m not going back there, Finn. Stop this truck right now, if that’s what you’re planning.”

The truck jostled violently as he sped down the highway on-ramp. His eyes glued to the road as he gunned it to merge, he called over, “Not going back where?”

“To my dad’s club.”

“That’s the last place you need to be right now.”

I frowned. “Why’s that?”

“The club is under threat. You’d be a sitting target.”

“Oh. Where are we headed then?”

“My place.”

Well, color me shocked. “Your place?”

“Yes.”

“How far are we talking?”

“Three-hundred and six miles from here.”

Wow. Specific. “That’s… what… a five-hour drive?”

“I’ll get us there in four.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Me staying with you?”

“You’ll be safe,” he assured me.

Urgh. I was going to have to spell it out. “I meant, with what happened between us.”

“You planting one on me with that pretty little mouth?”

I brought my hand to my lips.

He chose that moment to look over at me.

I dropped my hand sharply.

He studied me, his eyes sweeping over my face. “You’re a mission,” he said, his voice cold, his face expressionless.

My gut clenched at his brutal indifference. He’d done that several times when I’d gotten too close, or asked questions he’d considered too personal, when I’d helped nurse him back to health at the clubhouse. He’d shut down and it was so jarringly sudden that I never knew what to do with it, or how to react.

I decided turning away and focusing on the highway rushing by outside the window was the best for right now.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he spoke again, making me jump, as it cut through the long silence like the shocking effect of one of those stupid air horns that people seemed to use far too often these days. “You should get some sleep.”

“I’m fine,” I murmured, my eyes still on the boring view through the tinted window.

“Ashley.”

“I’m not going to be able to sleep, okay? You’d think it would be par for the course with me. I’ve been threatened before. Because of my dad, what he is, what he’ll always be. But it doesn’t get any easier. It freaks me out, okay? I’m not the badass, cold, unfeeling bastard that my dad is.”

“I’m well aware.”

I swung my head his way. “You are?”

“You’re soft and sweet. You feel things deeply.”

“I… wow.”

He shrugged, dismissively. “I’m just a perceptive guy.”

Translation: don’t read into it. “Fine,” I muttered.

“Just try to sleep. It will help with the shock of it all.”

I slumped back against my seat. “Okay.”

Closing my eyes, I tried for several minutes to slip into sleep.

But there was something nagging at me, something that was all the more concerning now that Finn had apparently been assigned as my bodyguard for the foreseeable future. 

“Finn?”

“Yeah?”

I braced myself, having absolutely no idea how he’d react. My voice came out as a weak croak, as I forced the words past my lips. “Did you kill those guys back there?”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

I tensed, sidling closer to the passenger door.

But then he simply shrugged, almost nonchalantly. “Does it matter? They were there to hurt you. Badly, if you recall what they were spouting off.”

“It matters.”

He took a moment, before finally answering me, “I had no choice.”

“What? Of course, you did. There are other ways to eliminate a threat without resorting to murder.”

He scrubbed his hand over his chin, muttering under his breath, “You’re so fucking young.”

“No,” I insisted. “It’s nothing to do with my age. I have a right to know why the man who’s tasked with ensuring my safety and wellbeing thought it was okay to murder two guys like it was nothing, when they were already incapacitated. We could’ve escaped without you taking it there. I mean, should I be worried? Or, terrified, actually? Are you… unstable? Some sort of psychopath? It wouldn’t be the first time my dad’s befriended that type of person. You’d seemed sane enough when we met during your recovery, but I could’ve misjudged the situation.”

“You spoke my name in front of them. Repeatedly.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand. What’s that got to do with—?”

“I had to silence them!” he snapped. “Permanently, Ashley! To protect both of us. I’m a ghost. I can’t have anybody knowing I’m still alive and kicking. A whole slew of assholes would be gunning for me and they’d never stop. While I could outrun them, you can’t. With you under my protection, you’d be put at risk, too. On top of that, if people found out your father was consorting with the likes of me, all hell would rain down on him. Hell from more than the Rogue Riders.”

I struggled to take his words in.

That was why he’d been wearing that oversized baseball cap. He was hiding. From the whole world, it seemed.

Oh God. I felt sick. He’d killed those guys, because of me! “I’m responsible for their deaths,” I gasped, slapping my hand to my chest. I could barely breathe with the knowledge.

“No,” he growled adamantly. “I put them down. You didn’t have a choice in the matter. It’s not on you.”

“It was because of me.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why didn’t my dad warn me you were coming, that you were a ghost now? I had no idea.”

“He tried.” He winced. “You didn’t answer his calls.”

Guilt slashed through me. “Oh my God.”

Looking back and forth between me and the road, he tapped my shoulder. Our gazes clashed and I saw him actually react as he saw the tears in my eyes. He looked… pained. “Hear my words, all right? You aren’t responsible for any of this. I killed them. Your father incurred their wrath.”

“I… I guess,” I eked out.

“The Rogue Riders caused this, Ashley. And, believe me, they’ll answer for it.”

I shuddered at his words. They were far from comforting. I knew exactly what it meant.

Something awful.

Something that would spill blood, take lives, and twist everybody beyond repair.

War.