Page 2 of Ruin

Saraya, however, was busy arranging Mandy’s clothes like she was positive this was going to work. “If I know him, he’ll be drunk,” she was saying. “This late at night? He’s probably had at least two forties already. Cheap stuff, too. Miller Light or something like that. He’ll be able to walk, but his mind won’t be sharp.”

“Even on a night when he expects you to surrender yourself?” Mandy asked.

Saraya snorted. “It won’t matter. He’ll think I’m going to walk right up to him and turn myself over, no questions asked. He spent the last three years training me to obey his every command.”

Mandy chuckled darkly. “Then I’m guessing he didn’t actually know you that well.”

Saraya looked up and met Mandy’s eyes, and I shivered at the fire I saw in her gaze. “It’s awfully hard to show your true self when someone is doing their best to knock you down every time you dare to stand up.”

Mandy pulled her into a hug, pressing her hands into Saraya’s curls. “Even more reason for us to take him out.”

I stepped back into the shadows, feeling like I was watching something private between the two of them. Unlikely allies, women who could have hated each other, and who I’d seen fighting like cats, ready to scratch each other’s eyes out. But allied now in their enemy.

Allied in the man they wanted to take out.

“I know how vicious he can be,” Mandy continued. “I know exactly how hard it is to stand up to him when he’s in a mood. And that means I know how brave you’ve been. How much it must have taken to face that day after day.”

Saraya’s shoulders shook with either sobs or deep breathing, and I almost went to her then, the idea of her being upset tearing me up inside. Instead of sobbing into Mandy’s shoulder, though, she reared back and offered the other girl a wry smile.

“If you know that, I’m hoping it means you have what it takes to kill him.”

Mandy returned the smile. “Don’t worry. I have a bullet with his name on it.”

CHAPTER 2

KNIGHT

I PACED THE WALLS OF the garage, my eyes on my feet as they walked, my path taking me around and through the various equipment and motorcycles crowding the place. How many times had I walked this exact path, turning and avoiding obstacles by memory?

Too many to count. This was where I came to think and plan. The path I walked when I was waiting for something to happen, good or bad.

Of course, I wasn’t usually contemplating something like what we were about to do. Sure, we often ran hijinks and schemes, money-making plans that required specific timing and more bravery than brains. Those were usually protection schemes or escorting people who were transporting something valuable, though. Situations that required careful planning and timing but very rarely included guns or the potential of murder.

This thing that we were doing tonight, though, this gambit at Devil’s compound...

This was unlike anything I’d ever planned before.

And we were right on top of it, now. We’d have to leave within the next twenty minutes or so if we were going to get out to Devil’s place before the midnight deadline he’d set. That was why I was out here, to be honest. I’d been ready to go for what felt like forever, but I was still waiting for the rest of my men to say their goodbyes to their women and get their bikes ready. And it was easier to wait out here with the bikes than in the clubhouse, watching the women say their tearful farewells.

Hell, this was intense. And it was going to have to be the end of this whole thing. We’d courted war against Devil and his crew by allowing Saraya into our midst, and I’d practically guaranteed it by falling for the girl and deciding I was going to keep her for myself. Once I did that—once I took her to my bed and had her—we were set on our path, no way of turning aside. I’d never set out to go to war with Devil, but circumstances had changed, and now here we were.

And I wouldn’t change it for anything. I would never give Saraya back to him. Never. I’d seen what he’d done to her, and I’d held her in my own arms. I’d had her underneath me in bed, in front of me over the bike, her sweet ass in my hands and her skin burning under my touch...

I clenched my fists on the thought, the muscles in my back tight with rage at the idea that Devil thought he could have her back, and growled to myself. The man had abused her, beating her to within an inch of her life and then sending her out with one of his prospects, blindfolded and ignorant of where she was headed. He’d misused her in unforgivable ways.

He’d broken the code for how we treated our women. And then he’d decided that he had the right to demand her back. He had the nerve to assume she’d come running, like she needed to escape me and go back to him.

He actually thought I’d let her go now that I’d found her.

“Over my dead body,” I muttered, getting to a corner and pivoting, my pace getting faster as my rage increased.

The man had been dogging my steps since we were in our twenties. He’d posed as my best friend and then sent me to jail on false charges, for fuck’s sake. He’d attacked my men. Cornered and tried to blackmail my clients. Infringed on my territory one too many times.

And now he was threatening the girl I’d taken as my own.

Enough was enough. This was going to end.

Tonight.