Page 8 of Rook's Vow
The morning passed. Lexie's shift, me at the counter, the rhythm we'd built over the past five days holding steady. Truckers came and went. Billy showed up at noon, ate pie, talked too much. The normalcy of it felt thin, a surface over something deeper, and I kept my eyes on the lot the whole time, the highway, and the angles of approach because the Jackals hadn'tcome in five days and that didn't mean they'd given up. It meant they were deciding what to do next.
They decided that they were finally done with waiting that same afternoon.
Lexie had gone out to the dumpsters behind the building and I was at the counter, watching the front. The back door opened. Not her footsteps coming back, different, heavier. A voice I didn't recognize. Then her voice, tight, but controlled
I was moving before I'd finished the thought, I knew there was something wrong. I locked up the place again and then moved through the kitchen, past the storage shelves, and out the back door.
Two of them. Jackals, patched guys, standing in the alley between the dumpsters and the wall. One had his arms folded, leaning against the brick. The other was closer to Lexie, a foot away, talking to her. She was standing her ground, her shoulders squared, her face showing nothing.
They saw me. The one talking to Lexie looked over her shoulder and smiled. He'd been waiting for me to show up.
"There he is," he said. Casual, easy, like we were old friends. "The Angel. You know, sweetheart, we were wondering when your boyfriend would show up." He looked at me. "She's been real brave. Held out longer than we expected. But we figured you'd get here eventually. Your club always does stick their noses in."
I didn't speak. I was reading the situation like I do everything, fast, and automatic. Two men, no visible weapons, bikes in the lot around the corner. This wasn't an assault. This was a message, and I was going to bide my time. Escalating it now, plays my hand too early, and I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.
"Here's the thing," he said, turning back to Lexie. "We don't care about him. We don't care about his club. This stop is on ourroute, and it's going to stay on our route, and having an Angel babysitting you, doesn't change the math. It just makes the math more interesting." He stepped closer to her. Close enough that I moved forward, close enough that my hands went loose at my sides and something in my face made the one by the wall push off the brick and straighten up.
"Tell your boyfriend," the Jackal said, his eyes on Lexie, "that the next time we come through, we're not going to be this friendly. And if he brings his brothers, we'll bring ours. And sweetheart, you really don't want that. Because when that happens, this place burns. We aren’t interested in just breaking a window next time."
They left. Walked around the corner, engines kicked over, and they were gone.
Lexie stood in the alley with her arms rigid at her sides and her face white underneath the composure. She looked at me and I saw the fear, bright and real, but it wasn't fear just for herself.
"You need to go."
"Lexie."
"You heard him. They don't care that you're here. All you're doing is making it worse. They're going to come back with more men and more fire and this place, everything my grandparents built, everything I have, is going to burn because you're sitting at my counter playing bodyguard."
"That's not what's happening."
"Then what is happening?" Her voice cracked. The composure splitting, the thing underneath it pushing through. "Because from where I'm standing, I had a problem I was surviving, and now I have a war, and the war is because of you."
She was wrong, she knew she was wrong, and she was saying it anyway because the fear was talking now, the same fear that had kept her from calling the sheriff, the same fear that’d madeher lie about the window in the first place. But mostly, it was the fear of losing the only thing she had, the truck stop.
I looked at her. She was shaking, furious, terrified, but still magnificent. Fighting me the same way she'd fought the Jackals, and with every wall she had thrown up between herself and the possibility that someone else's presence in her life might be the thing that saved it.
"You're not getting rid of me," I said. Quiet. "You can push, you can fight, you can tell me to leave every hour on the hour, and I will be here tomorrow morning and the morning after that. Because I didn't come here to play bodyguard, Lexie. I came here because I am in love with you and I have been for months. I won't stand by while the Jackals threaten to burn down your life. That's not who I am. I’d hope you know that by now."
She stared at me. The fight went out of her face. What replaced it was worse. Raw, open, and scared in a way she'd never let me see before.
"They'll hurt you," she said. Barely a whisper. "They'll burn this place and they'll hurt you and I can't be the reason for that either. I can't."
"You're not the reason. They are. And they're going to find out what happens when they threaten something that is being protected by the Forsaken Angels. But that's tomorrow. Right now I'm here, and you're here, and nothing is on fire."
She hit me. Her fist against my chest, frustrated, wanting to be angry and unable to hold onto it. I caught her hand. Held it against my shirt, her knuckles under my palm, and I felt her whole body shaking.
"I hate you," she said with barely any conviction.
"I know."
"I hate that you came here and made everything different. I hate that I can't handle this alone and I hate that you knew that before I did."
"I know."
She kissed me. Hard, angry, her free hand grabbing the back of my neck and pulling me down to her mouth, and the anger turned into something else the second our lips met. Heat, desperate and consuming, the kind that came from fear converted into need, from almost losing something and deciding to hold onto it with everything you had.
I picked her up. Her legs locked around my waist, and I carried her through the back door, through the kitchen, up the stairs. Her mouth on mine the whole way, her fingers in my hair, her body pressed against me with an urgency that was making coherent thought impossible. I got us through the apartment door, kicked it shut, and had her on the bed in seconds.
