by Zoey Parker
Or she was dead.
Fuck’s sake.
There was no reason why this should be bothering him so much. She was just some bar chick. Not only did he barely know her, she was a complete bitch to him. Well, that wasn’t the word he’d use to describe her. He might with other people, but there was something about the way that Victoria wasn’t afraid of him that sent almost nervous energy coursing through his veins.
And now he was worried about her.
There was no way she could ever know this. He’d thought she was taking him up on his offer for a booty call when she’d first called, but now he knew the truth and he felt horrible. The way his stomach lurched at the thought of her being hurt shocked him. It wasn’t that he liked hurting people, or imagining them hurt; quite the opposite, actually, but he was usually neutral to it by now. He had to be.
Darren Saylor grew up in as dysfunctional a family as any, and jumping from job to job as a teenager before finally dropping out of high school and getting in with a club hadn’t made his life any better. Maybe Victoria would. Some part of him was imagining that they might have some kind of life together. That didn’t make any sense either; their only interaction with each other had been a fight. Although, could it even be called a fight when the chick was just yelling at him while he smirked at her? He felt bad about that now. He hadn’t then, and why should he? Well, their interactions had been that and a kiss in the parking lot.
That kiss…
Fuck.
Now she was being shot at.
His foot found the gas pedal in his car. Fuck, he was stressed. He couldn’t be stressed. He was never stressed. He had to keep his cool. He revved his way out of the parking lot outside his gated apartment.
# # #
Victoria
The sound of tires peeling into the parking lot made Victoria jump. She couldn’t hold on to her conviction to not move at all from her position, and she had ventured a little bit out from under the dashboard. Now she was on her knees, peeking out from beneath the steering wheel with her hands on the edge of the driver’s seat. Her eyes looked around nervously, trying to peek through the surrounding parking lot without making her position known; the shooter or shooters had probably left, but the way that car entered the lot couldn’t be a sign of anything good to come.
She ran her fingers along the inside edge of the door. Of course she couldn’t tell what the damage was from here, but the door seemed normal enough from where she was. And the bullets had sounded like they were coming from the opposite direction, like they were trying to make their way through the passenger’s side doors and get to her. She was sure the doors were riddled with bullets. If someone shot at her again, those probably wouldn’t hold up too long, if at all. Victoria didn’t know much about cars, but getting shot at probably did some damage to doors, like it did to pretty much anything.
She looked at her hands, her eyes running over her skin to investigate the lack of damage. Damn. She was lucky she wasn’t dead. She wasn’t shaking, though. Where there had been fear earlier, and where there would still be fear for the more average person, there was just anger.
It sounded like the car had parked, or was parking. Its wheels shrieked as the vehicle found its purchase on the asphalt. It didn’t sound like there was any parking space carefully picked out; Victoria could pick up the sound of the concrete screaming in protest as the car’s rubber rubbed up against it. And then Victoria heard the sound of a car door slamming, and footsteps running towards her. Or somewhere close to her. Probably right up next to her car, to make sure she was dead.
She fell back into her spot beneath the dashboard, her limbs screaming at her to just risk being murdered so she could be a little bit more comfortable. Hell no.
The feet were much closer now. Victoria wondered if her pepper spray would do her any good against an assassin, and one of her hands went back to her jean pocket. Of course! She’d forgotten to put the weapon in there when she was hurrying out of the house. That was okay, though. Pepper spray probably wouldn’t do her much good against an armed assailant. And if someone was trying to kill her, she had her nails and her teeth to use anyway.
A thud came from to her right as someone ran their hand over the door. She screamed. And sure, it was cliché, but her life flashed before her eyes. What had she done? All she’d manage to do for herself in her twenty-something years was work in a bunch of run-down bars, trash talk some perverted guys, and sleep a whole lot. She had ambition, but no means to follow it, and she’d never gone after any of her dreams. She still hadn’t gone to college. She didn’t really want to go to college for anything in particular, but the idea that she wouldn’t be able to change her mind about that bothered her.
And now she was dying.
Great. She looked to the sky, wrapping her hands together. She wasn’t really religious, but maybe a quick prayer before her slaughter would make the powers that be kinder to her.
“Fuck,” came the mutter. A male voice.
She heard his voice – it was definitely him – before she saw his face. “Victoria!”
Darren Saylor.
So he had come, after all. She wondered if it was just a blind hope she’d had, or if there was a reason for her thinking he’d come to rescue her. It looked like she’d been right, after all; she wasn’t sure if she should be pleased about that, or if she should take this whole situation out on him. He was definitely no Prince Charming, and it was 100% a fact that this asshole was the reason she’d just been shot at. He had to be. Hell, why else would someone want to kill her? Most everything she did with her life had to do with this shoddy bar, and a murder attempt right after shouting at a king pin of the Bloody Saints couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Here,” she muttered, rising out of her seat. Dealing with this guy couldn’t be in her best interest, but it wasn’t like something worse could happen either. She looked around the car for some wood to knock on at that thought, but there was nothing. She settled on opening the center console and smacking the paper of an envelope in there a few times. It wasn’t wood, but it was close enough, and it would have to do.
She reached for the door. God damn it, moving sucked. Her back hurt from hiding for so long. It felt like hours, even though there was no way that much time had passed. She crawled out fully from beneath the dash, using the driver’s seat as leverage to pull her way up. Then her hand found the lock on her door and she pushed that free, opening it with a scowl on her face.
“Are you going to help me up?”
Darren looked almost relieved to see her, and that sent sparks of confusion through her like wildfire. His face went back to his characteristic impassiveness, though, and Victoria decided that this was the type of guy that was always either neutral or arrogant. He had to be hiding something. No one could be like that all the time, and who wanted to go through their life living out an act?
This guy, apparently.
“I thought you were dead,” he said, his mask slipping before gaining control back in a millisecond. He extended a hand to her and she took it. “Your car is full of bullets.”
She swung her legs out onto the pavement and stumbled shakily to her feet, Darren pulling to help her. As soon as she was out of the car, she withdrew her hand immediately. Something weird had happened the last time they’d touch, and, much as she’d wanted to fuck the guy earlier, it’d be better for her to have her wits about her while she dealt with this.
Whatever this was.
“Thanks for noticing,” she said. She liked to hide behind sarcasm. It was a common enough tactic and she knew full well it didn’t make her unique in the slightest, but it usually did enough to make the average guy back off. All it did with Darren was make him look at her more closely, like he was looking for something beneath all her carefully made-up layers. So they were both playing that game? Fine.
“I’m not the one who shot at you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why don’t I find that surpri
sing?”
Glaring at this guy this often was going to either be the death of her or it was going to give her massive wrinkles. “Probably because you know it’s something you’d do.”
“It isn’t, actually.”
“Well, then it’s something one of your lackeys would do.”
“Did you not believe me when I said one of us couldn’t be responsible?”
She turned her back from him and shut the car door before responding. There was no polite way to say this, and she was running through all the possible replies in her head, trying to find the most sardonic, rude, ball-shrinking response she could muster. Nothing in particular came to mind, unfortunately, so she settled on growling out something that sounded a lot like, “No shit, Sherlock.”
“Hm.” He said nothing else for a second, watching as she opened the car door again and slammed it shut. “You’re not going to do your car any less damage doing that.”
This time, she didn’t bother responding.
Darren wasn’t going to wait for her to decide to talk to him, though, so he just grabbed her arm as soon as it seemed like she wasn’t going to talk. This made her tense up again, as usual; she’d expected the touch this time, however, so she wasn’t beating herself up on the inside for not noticing his hand sneaking up on her. His large hand, his fingers, wrapped around her forearm, pulling her back to him like he had yesterday. She didn’t turn back to face him like she had before, however. Getting her lips in sight of this guy didn’t seem like the brightest move; someone was trying to kill her, and kissing Darren Saylor didn’t seem like the area where she should be directing most of her focus.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m going to fix this. Do you see my car?”
Victoria couldn’t really see over the top of her car from where she stood, so she moved away. Darren’s arm fell away from her, and she moved so that she was glancing out from over the hood of her own vehicle.
A few parking spots – if they could be called that – across from her was a shiny black car. She couldn’t identify the model off the top of her head, but it looked new-ish and like something an irresponsible driver would get into on their way for a few joy rides. Typical. The wheels were uneven and going out in either direction from where Darren had just randomly stopped the car, and Victoria identified that as the awful screeching sound she’d heard earlier.
“Definitely don’t see anything.”
He chuckled beneath his breath, but he didn’t sound too amused when he said, “Get in it.”
“What?” That came as a shock. Sure, her car had just had a few clips unloaded into it (at the very least, but it was probably more than that), but that was no reason she couldn’t drive it. She still had a shift to get to, too, although she didn’t care about that as much as the fact that she just didn’t want to be around Darren any longer. “You’re high.”
“I’m actually not, unfortunately.” He laughed for real this time. “It’s in your best interest.”
His laughter set her off, and she snorted; unlike Darren, her sounds weren’t coming from a place of joy. “Right, so you can kill me without witnesses.”
“First of all,” Darren said, “the cameras in this lot don’t even work anyway. Second of all, I didn’t shoot at you. Now get in the car or I’m going to make you do it.”
“You can’t make me do anything.”
“Probably not,” he admitted. “But that’s not stopping me from picking you up and just placing you in the front seat.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He grinned. “Or the trunk,” he continued. “Your choice.”
He reached his hands out to her like he was about to grab her, since she wasn’t responding quickly enough. She squeaked, hating how it sounded but going with it anyway. What about this man put her so on edge? She backed away from him, putting her hands up in a defensive position.
“Fine! Fine. Give me your keys.”
“I’m not giving you my keys.” He raised an eyebrow at her, for what felt like the hundredth time in the brief time they’d known each other. “Why do you want them anyway?”
“Why do you think I want them?”
A small smile flitted across his face, and then he shook his head. “Passenger’s seat for you, Victoria.”
Sighing, she made her way over to his car, and got in.
Chapter Six
Victoria
She regretted it immediately.
If being shot at by a stranger was scary, being stuck in a car with Darren Saylor was even worse. Especially when that very same man was refusing to tell her anything, except for telling her to get in his car and pretty much swearing that it wasn’t his club that shot at her. Not “his club.” Probably some other club, then, although he hadn’t said as much.
She leaned over the console to look out the driver’s side window. The windows in Darren’s car were dark. She guessed that the tinted glass was to ensure that no one else could see in, and it sent a shiver down her spine. She wasn’t worried he would hurt her, crazy as that seemed, but she also wasn’t totally at ease with everything that was happening in her life today.
She was sitting in the passenger’s seat. It was difficult not to hug her knees up to her chest, but there was no way she could do that. Darren probably already thought that she was some type of weakling. And she wasn’t, really. She had actually been through enough. Not enough to make her tough shit, but enough that she liked to think of herself as that. Regardless of all that, she was damn near shaking in some guy’s car while she waited for him to get in.
She looked out the window again. What was he even doing anyway? Darren was standing outside of the driver’s side door, with his back pressed against it. She couldn’t see his facial expression from here, although she longed to. There was no way she was going to get out and start asking him things, though. He didn’t have his playful demeanor like he’d had on last night, and something was definitely wrong.
# # #
Darren
Something was more wrong than Victoria could know. Darren breathed out angrily, watching the empty parking lot in front of him. If he’d had time to look, he could probably find a bunch of stray bullets lying around on the concrete. Then it would only be about asking a few questions to figure out who was responsible for this, but he didn’t even need to do that. He already had a guess.
Someone must have seen the way they were talking to each other last night. Maybe they thought it was a couple fighting. Either way, it had to be the doings of a rival MC. He just needed to prove it and bring it up to the right people. The Bloody Saints fought with other gangs, and they argued and they made bad coke deals, but shooting at a woman because they thought she was his girlfriend was too far.
He turned loosely so he could look into the car without Victoria seeing the look on his face. She looked scared. Definitely scared. And that meant he was going to have to take care of her. Annoying as that was, he couldn’t turn his back on her. He hadn’t paid this much attention to a woman since his last relationship, and that had ended messily years ago. But now he felt responsible for Victoria. He just hoped he wasn’t about to start a repeat of the past.
He couldn’t think like that. He was done with dating. Done, for good. He’d just have to find a way to take care of this woman without anything happening between them.
He whistled low under his breath. If he could find a way to do that, he could find a way to do anything. But for now, he had to make sure that Victoria stayed alive. That way she could worry about man troubles later in life, instead of dying within the week. He got in the car.
“You know,” Victoria leaned back in the seat as she talked. She wasn’t as at ease with leaning back like she owned the place as Darren was, but he couldn’t fault her for it. If he did, she would probably slap him. “You basically kidnapped me.” She paused, then said, “No. Scratch that, you did kidnap me.”
The car came to life with a purr of the engine as Darren put the keys in the ignition. He didn’t
have to drive that fast now that he knew this chick was alive, but maybe he should anyway, and scare her into shutting up. He didn’t. Instead, he said, “You got in the car willingly.”
“You made me.”
“I think, actually,” he said, backing out and not looking at her as he talked, “that you walked over to the car after demanding the keys, opened the door, got in the passenger’s seat, and waited for me to come get in with you.”
That was exactly what happened. Darren refused to give her the keys, but he’d unlocked the car for her with a quick beep. He didn’t care about Victoria. It just wouldn’t be right to let an innocent woman be murdered to serve as a message to his club. She was a stranger. That was it. A hot stranger, but a stranger nonetheless, and that was exactly how she was going to stay.
