Page 7 of Saber's Claim
“Probably nothing. But if it’s more Crimson Warriors, they saw her.” My phone is already buzzing.
Joker:Car peeled east. Too far for plates. On it.
I kneel in front of Shelby. Her eyes are glassy. She’s looking through me.
“Hey.” I’m low and close, but I don’t touch her. “Look at me.”
Her green eyes find mine, and she’s terrified.
“Are you hit? Anywhere?”
She shakes her head.
“Okay. You’re okay.” I pull my phone and call backup. “Front lot of the diner. One body, one zip-tied. Bring the van. No cops.”
I hang up and look at her. She’s shivering in the eighty-degree Arizona heat.
She attacked an armed man to save my life.
This woman hit a Crimson Warrior in the back of the skull with a water bottle because he pointed a gun at me.
I’ve had women throw themselves at me since I patched in. Club girls who’d do anything I asked and half the shit I didn’t. Not one of them ever risked a goddamn thing for me. This woman just cracked a man’s skull open because he pointed a gun at my chest.
What the fuck do I do with that?
I hold out my hand. She stares at it for three seconds, and then she takes it, and I pull her to her feet and don’t let go.
I walk her around the building. My bike is where I left it in the back lot, and Razor can handle the rest.
“You’re coming with me.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere they can’t find you,” I tell her.
She looks at the body on the ground. At Bull, facedown and screaming. At the blood pooling on the ground. Then she looks at me.
She nods.
I put her on the back of my bike, and she wraps her arms around my waist, and I don’t think about how right it is. I don’t think about the way she presses her face between my shoulder blades or the way her fingers dig into my shirt like I’m the only solid thing left.
I think about the Crimson Warriors finding out that she was here, and what she witnessed.
I think about what Nitro will do when he finds out one of his men is dead.
And I think about the fact that I will stack every Crimson Warrior in a ditch and set them on fire before I let anyone put a hand on this woman. I’ve burned shit down for less. For her, I’d burn it all.
The engine catches. Her arms tighten. I don’t slow down.
CHAPTER 3
SHELBY
The lockon the door works from the inside.
That’s the last thing I checked before I went to sleep last night. Not my text messages, not if I had any more blood on my hands. The lock. Because if it locks from the outside, I’m in a cage. If it locks from the inside, I’m in a room.
It locks from the inside.
