Page 3 of Saber's Claim
I’m not going outside with him. No way.
My mouth isn’t opening. I’m standing behind the counter with a rag in my pocket, and my chin tucked.
I’m twenty-four years old, and I am right back to being eighteen, sitting in his passenger seat while he tells me what to order for dinner because he thinks I’ll pick something I don’t like.
The bell rings.
Every head in the diner turns. Even Kyle’s.
Two men walk in. But walk in is the wrong phrase; they fill the doorway like they were built to block exits. My biker is in front. And those blue eyes that tracked my hands this morning are locked on Kyle, and there is nothing soft in them. Nothing patient. Nothing kind.
Behind him, a second man. Taller, leaner, with a jaw like a knife’s edge. He’s wearing a leather vest that matchesmybiker’s. He leans against the doorframe and doesn’t blink.
Kyle looks at them, swallows hard, and then looks at me. “Friends of yours?”
My biker crosses the diner in four steps. He doesn’t rush.
He stops at Kyle’s booth. Looks down at him. Kyle is five-ten and gym-fit. He has never looked smaller than he does rightnow, pinned under the gaze of a man who has sixty pounds, five inches, and a lifetime of violence on him.
“Get up.” It’s the only time I’ve heard my biker speak, except for the first time he ordered coffee. His voice is deep and rough.
Goosebumps spread over my skin.
Kyle’s mouth opens. The reasonable voice starts to form. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but we don’t have a problem.”
My biker takes half a step closer. “I said, get up.”
Kyle gets up. His legs are shaking. I can see it from behind the counter—his khakis trembling at the knees, his hand gripping the edge of the table.
My biker doesn’t touch him, but he leans in close enough that Kyle has to tilt his head back, and he says something low enough that I almost miss it.
“She’s under my protection. You leave. You don’t come back. You don’t call. You don’t write. You forget the name of this town and the road that brought you here. Nod if you understand.”
Kyle nods. Fast. Desperate. His face has gone the color of wet paper.
My biker steps back. Gives him room to move. And Kyle slides out of the booth and walks toward the door on legs that aren’t working right. I see a dark stain spreading down the inside of his left thigh, the khakis going dark at the inseam.
Kyle pissed himself.
For six years, this man controlled every breath I took. Six years, he made me believe I was nothing without him. And a stranger in a leather vest just made him wet his pants without even touching him.
The man by the door—the second biker—doesn’t move. He lets Kyle squeeze past, and I hear him exhale through his nose. Not a laugh. Worse. Dismissal. Kyle isn’t worth the air it would take to mock him.
The door swings shut. Kyle’s rental car starts in the parking lot. Tires on gravel. Gone.
Gone.
My hands are shaking so hard the rag falls out of my pocket. My eyes are burning, and my throat is locked. I’m gripping the counter because if I let go, my knees will give out.
My biker turns. Walks to the counter. Sits on a stool across from me, like he didn’t just dismantle six years of my life in under a minute.
The second man stays by the door. Arms loose. Watching the parking lot.
My biker looks at me. Really looks. Not the way he looked at me this morning. He’s checking for damage.
“Did he ever lay a hand on you?”
I swallow. My eyes are wet, and I don’t wipe them.
