Page 4 of Phoenix's Rising
"I need help," she says. Her voice is steady despite the fear I can see in her eyes. Brave. She's terrified but she's here anyway, and that takes guts. "Someone told me you might be willing to help people. People running from the Vipers."
The Vipers. Everything in me goes still and cold. Behind me, I hear Judge stand up. The scrape of the barstool is loud in the sudden silence.
"Who are you running from?" I ask, though I think I already know. There's only one man in the Vipers who would put those kinds of bruises on a woman and think nothing of it. Only one man Demon keeps close because they share the same sickness.
She meets my eyes, and I see her weighing something. Trust, maybe. Or hope. Or just the calculation of whether telling me will make things better or worse.
"Cole Briggs," she says finally. "I was… I was his fiancé. I ran the night before the wedding."
Cole Briggs.
I'm not surprised. The name confirms what the bruises already told me. Cole is Demon's senior member, his right hand, the enforcer who takes pleasure in the work. I've heard things about him over the years. Whispers and rumors that made my hands ache to wrap around his throat. A man who smiles at strangersand makes your skin crawl, who treats women like property and violence like love.
"What's your name?" I keep my voice gentle.
"Ivy," she says. "Ivy Mason."
Ivy. The name fits somehow. Soft but resilient. The kind of plant that survives by holding on when everything else lets go.
"Come inside, Ivy," I say, stepping back to give her room. "You're safe now."
She hesitates for just a second, and I realize she's weighing her options. Trying to decide if coming into a strange clubhouse with a man she doesn't know is better or worse than whatever she's running from.
The fact that she steps inside anyway tells me everything I need to know about how bad it must be.
Judge is standing now, his face neutral as she crosses the threshold. To his credit, he doesn't react to the bruises, doesn't let his expression change. But I know him well enough to see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw tightens.
I close the door behind her and throw the locks. The sound makes her jump slightly, and I curse myself for not thinking. She's running from a man who locked her in, controlled her, hurt her. Of course the sound of locks engaging would spook her.
"The locks are to keep people out," I tell her. "Not to keep you in. You want to leave, you can leave. Anytime. No one here will stop you."
Chapter 2 - Ivy
*You want to leave, you can leave. Anytime. No one here will stop you.*
I'm standing in a strange clubhouse at four in the morning with two bikers I don't know, and one of them just gave me permission to leave.
Cole never gave me permission for anything.
I look up at Eli Blake, Phoenix, I remind myself, though I don't know if I'm allowed to use his road name, and try to reconcile what I'm seeing with what I expected.
The Vipers talked about him constantly. Demon especially loved to mock him, loved to tell stories about the president who was too soft to lead, too weak to do what needed doing. They made him sound pathetic. A joke. A man who built a club for cowards who couldn't handle real MC life.
The man standing in front of me doesn't look like any of those things.
He's tall, taller than Cole, broader too, with short dark hair and eyes so dark they're nearly black. Sharp eyes that see everything and give nothing away. He's covered in tattoos, both arms sleeved in ink, more on his neck and disappearing under his t-shirt. The Iron Phoenix crest sits over his heart, and I can see the edge of it through the thin fabric. A scar cuts across his jaw, stark white against tanned skin.
He looks like he's been fighting his whole life. He also looks at me like I'm a person, not a possession. Like my answer to his question actually matters.
That alone is so odd I don't know what to do with it.
"Okay," I manage. My voice sounds small in the big room. "Thank you."
"Sit." He gestures to the bar where the other man is standing. "You want something to drink? Water? Coffee?"
Coffee sounds like heaven. I haven't had real coffee in three days, just gas station sludge consumed while looking over my shoulder every thirty seconds. But I don't want to be an inconvenience, don't want to ask for too much too soon.
"Water's fine," I say.
