“Avah,” Keaston rasps, sinking down on his haunches in front of me.
Tilting my head back slightly, I look up into his eyes. “He was right here. I was working and he was inside here,” I whisper.
He nods his head. “Back door was unlocked,” he mutters. “How could everyone here leave and not lock up knowing you were alone?”
Shaking my head, I search his gaze with my own. “I don’t know.”
“C’mon,” he grunts, holding out his hand for me.
Lifting my arm, I slip my palm in his and allow him to help me to stand. He doesn’t tug me closer to him, he doesn’t try to touch me anywhere else, as soon as I’m stable and on my feet, he drops his hand from mine and turns around.
Following behind him, I lock the front door and stick close to his back as he makes his way toward my car. “Tomorrow you’re on my bike, no more driving separate cars,” he growls.
“Keaston,” I warn.
He turns around quickly, his intense gaze focused on mine. “You know what it means, I know what it means, and soon that’s exactly what will happen. But tomorrow you’ll be on the back of my bike for nothing more than protection purposes.”
“Why don’t you just drive my car?” I offer.
He shakes his head, lifting his hand he cups my cheek, sliding his thumb across my bottom lip. “It’s going to be your place anyway, Avah. Just accept that shit and we can move forward.”
I don’t tell him that I don’t have to accept anything, because that isn’t going to happen. He’s protecting me and I know that I’m using him by allowing him to continue to help me, by not shutting him down more forcefully when he says things like this, but I’m terrified.
“Let’s just go back to your place,” I rasp. “I’m tired.”
He hums, dropping his hand, and thankfully doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he jerks his chin toward my car door and stands with his hands crossed over his chest as he watches me open the door and slip inside. Once my car is started, only then does he turn toward his bike.
I follow him to our building, then I follow him inside and into his apartment. My entire body trembles with each step that I take. By the time I walk into the apartment, I almost don’t make it to the couch before my knees go out beneath me again, for the second time tonight, and I fall on my ass but this time onto the cushion.
HAWK
Sitting just outside of the border agent building, the same one I dropped Avah off at just a few months ago. The same building, she walked in and allowed her body to be used to protect the club.
I wait.
I fucking wait for the man who touched her. Permission or not, it was the single biggest mistake I’ve made in a long fucking time, really, the biggest since leaving Trista.
I wonder if I’ll remember him, if I’ll even recognize him as he makes his way toward his car, but I do, instantly. I watch as he slips into his pickup, starts the engine then drives off, oblivious to me following behind him.
He doesn’t live far from his station, just a few miles down the road and in a suburban area. This doesn’t surprise me. I watch as he slams his car door closed, gathers his things, then begins to make his way inside of his small home.
Normally, for a mission like this, I would have done some research. I would have figured out his homelife, if he had a family or roommates. Being angry and impulsive, I did no such thing, so I lie in wait.
Riding down the street, I park a few blocks over and dismount from my bike before I go back to his home. Slipping into his backyard, I decide this is where I’ll end him. I don’t plan on going inside and being surprised by anyone or anything.
Thankfully, I don’t have to wait long, just a couple of hours, which is good because each hour that passes, the less chance I’ll get caught. Leaning against a tree trunk that sits to the left of his back door, I wait.
He walks out, cigarette dangling from his lips and I snort. His house has been quiet, indicating that he lives alone and that’s the best-case scenario for this moment. He doesn’t say anything, but shifts his head and his eyes come directly to meet mine.
His lips curve up into a grin, but he doesn’t say a single word, in fact, he doesn’t even make an indication that he’s seen me. There’s a moment of silence, neither of us says a word, then he turns his back to me.
Walking up behind him, I grunt. “Turn around, fucker.”
He spins around, his eyes widening in surprise and he opens his mouth, but no sound comes out, instead I slide my knife across his throat. He falls to his knees, his mouth moving open and closed, words trying to come out, it doesn’t happen, nothing but gurgling escapes his lips.
I watch as he bleeds out, not willing to walk away until he’s completely lifeless, totally without breath in his lungs. When he doesn’t even twitch, that’s when I walk away, careful not to get any blood on my shoes.
Leaving him in a pool of his own blood, I sheath the knife and calmly make my way toward my bike. Nobody watches, nobody sees a thing and even if they did, good luck proving a goddamn thing.
Climbing on the back of my bike, I ride toward Avah only stopping at a truck stop well outside of the city, in the middle of nowhere, to shower the blood from my body and toss my ruined clothes in the bottom of a dumpster, never to be seen again.
It only takes me a few more hours to make it to Avah’s. It’s dark when I arrive in town, but if
