This was met with silence.

I located a pair of shorts, grabbed them, moved to my bag and shoved them in.

As I was doing this, the bag was swept clean out from under my hands and I watched it go sailing across the room where Tack sent it. Then I watched it land.

Then I looked up at him.

“And when I do that,” I went on like he hadn’t acted like the badass, biker jerk he was, “I’ll be doing it just them and me.”

Suddenly, with his hand wrapped around my throat, I was moving backwards across the room. My breath had stopped because my lungs had seized but my heart knew what it was doing, it liked it, so it went into overdrive.

I hit wall, not gently, not hard and Tack didn’t take his hand from my throat so I lifted mine and wrapped them around his wrist just as he dipped his head and got nose-to-nose with me.

Then he shocked the shit out of me.

“Took care ‘a my girl, way you did, I don’t know whether to kiss you or smack your ass.”

I blinked.

That wasn’t what I expected to hear.

“Jesus, fuck me, Tyra. What the fuck were you fucking thinking?”

“Let me go,” I whispered.

“Shy told me, way he went at you, he coulda caved your fuckin’ head in.”

“Let me go,” I repeated on a whisper.

“What were you thinking?” Tack kind of repeated.

I yanked at his hand at my throat which, from the minute he placed it there to now was holding me but it was just like how I hit the wall. Not gentle. Not hard.

What it was, was immovable.

“Let me go,” I said yet again.

The dragon breathed fire and roared in my face, “What were you fuckin’ thinking?”

“Quiet!” I hissed. “Tabby. Rush.”

“Don’t worry about Tab and Rush, babe. Advice, right now, you worry about you. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Let me go!” I snapped, still yanking at his hand.

“Tell me what the fuck you were thinking!” he thundered.

“Fuck you!” I screeched. “And let me the fuck go!”

I yanked hard at his wrist. It went down and I let it go. I quickly slid away only for his arm to hook around my waist and haul me right back where he stepped in and pressed one hand into my belly and curled the fingers of the other one around the side of my neck.

And I was immobilized. Again.

“Tonight, you coulda died,” he ground out.

“I didn’t.”

“Or you coulda been made not you, he did damage but didn’t take your fuckin’ life.”

“That didn’t happen either,” I snapped.

“It could have.”

“It didn’t.”

He got nose-to-nose with me again and clipped, “It could have.”

“He hit her!” I yelled.

“She makes that your problem, you call me, I deal with him. You don’t go into an uncertain situation armed with goddamned, fucking pepper spray. Strike that, you don’t go into an uncertain situation at all!” he ended on a shout.

“Well, next time, I won’t seeing as there won’t be a next time.”

“Damn straight,” he bit off.

“So, if you don’t mind letting me go, I’ll get the rest of my shit and then go.”

“What?”

“Let me go, Tack, so I can go.”

“You’re not going,” he growled.

“I’m not?”

“Fuck no.”

“Wrong!” I shouted in his face and kept shouting. “Let me go!”

“You need to get this and you need to get it right fuckin’ now and you doin’ what you’re always fuckin’ doin’, runnin’ away and lickin’ your wounds means you will not be gettin’ this.”

“Wrong again, Tack. I don’t need to get anything. Not anymore. Badass biker lessons are over because we’re over.”

His head jerked back an inch and he whispered, “What?”

“We’re fucking over!” I shrieked and pushed at his abs with my hands, his middle rocked back but he came right back in.

“Fuck me, not this again,” he muttered.

Oh no.

Oh fucking no.

“Step back,” I hissed.

“Red –”

“Step back!” I screeched, shoving at him, he did the rocking thing again but I got no shot to get away so I was stuck. Therefore I did the only thing I could. I fought my corner (as it were). “In there,” I raised an arm straight out to the side, pointing in the direction of Tabby’s room before I poked him in his chest with my finger as best I could in the room allowed, “you made it clear where I stood. Your brunette,” I snapped and his face got hard, “also made it clear where I stood and where she stood. And I don’t like where I’m standing, Tack, so you need to let me go!”

“What’d that bitch say to you?” he growled.

“Nothing I care to repeat. Now let me go.”

“What’d she say?”

“I answered that.”

“Tyra, babe, what… did… she… say?”

“You can repeat your question over and over, Tack, but this is going to end one way. Me leaving. So give me one last thing, let’s avoid the scary biker dude hassle before I go.”

“I see you’re pissed, Red, but we can’t work this shit out unless you talk to me so I know what the fuck I’m dealin’ with.”

“This is not a problem seeing as we don’t have anything to work out.”

I watched him suck breath in through his nose at the same time watching him get control.

And I knew he had control when he whispered, “Baby,” his hand slid up to wrap around my ear, “we been through this. You don’t get to decide that.”

“Wrong again,” I whispered back, staring him straight in the eye.

Tack ignored that and went back to our earlier topic.

“What’d she say to you?”

“Step back.”

“What’d she say to you?”

“Step… back,” I hissed.

His control slipped and he bit back, “What’d that bitch fuckin’ say to you?”

Right. He wanted to know? I’d tell him.

“We enjoy a tag team with you and, seeing as I’m your old lady, I get your cock or your mouth. In my oh-so-elevated position as a hanger-on of the Club, I get to choose.”

“Fuck, darlin’, she’s fuckin’ with your head,” he stated dismissively.

“She says you like it like that.”

His brows shot together. “Say again?”

I didn’t say again. I shared further.

“And she said she should know since she gave it to you like that.”

“She said she gave it to me like that?” he repeated after me.

“Yep.”

“She said she gave it to me like that.” This was a statement, not a question, but it was still a question, just a question that was a whole lot scarier.

Scary or not, I still answered, “Yep.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know where,” I returned. “Where do you have your threesomes?”

“No, babe, where were you when she said this shit to you?”

“Outside the Compound.”

“Standin’ on Chaos?”

His words didn’t entirely make sense but I still got the jist so I replied, “Yep.”

“Standin’ on Chaos, talkin’ to an old lady, she spewed that fucked up shit at you,” he stated and suddenly, I didn’t know why, but the change in him penetrated my anger and I realized I’d been wrong.

Very wrong.

The dragon might have woken.

But he hadn’t yet breathed fire.

And I was about to learn that when a dragon breathed fire, it wasn’t about noise, heat and flames.

It was about quiet, control and annihilation.

“Yes,” I whispered, staring into his eyes.

He stepped back, his hands moving from me but one went to his back pocket and he pulled out his phone.

Stunned, freaked and now a little more than scared, as the heavy air in the room pressed into my skin, I stood pressed against the wall and watched him hit buttons. I then watched him put it to his ear.

I then watched him speak.

“Dog, find BeeBee. I don’t know where the fuck she is but find her. When you do, tell that bitch her ass doesn’t get near Ride or Chaos. Not again. Not ever. Make that clear in a way she does not mistake it. Then you share that shit wide, brother. BeeBee is gone. She shows her face again, you or any of the brothers, make a statement.” He paused to listen to Dog as I caught my breath at his words. “She got hold of Tyra. Filled her head with shit. Lied about what she gave me. On Chaos. To Tyra’s face.” This was an explanation that led to another pause. “Yeah, brother, on Chaos direct in the face of my old lady.” Again a pause then, “Right. Later.”

He disconnected, shoved the phone back in his pocket and locked eyes with me.

“You will not see Beebee again,” he declared and I sucked in dearly needed breath.

When I accomplished this feat, I asked, “What does ‘make a statement’ mean?”

“It means, that bitch is stupid enough to come back, shit will rain down on her and she will not be stupid again.”

Oh boy.

“What does that mean?” I whispered.

Tack did not whisper. “Whatever it needs to mean to get that message across.”

It was then I realized I was shaking.

But Tack wasn’t done. Far from it.

I knew this when he kept talking.

“Earlier, you pissed me off because you made assumptions and you hung up on me. I don’t like to get hung up on. Don’t do it again.”

I didn’t move except to keep shaking.

Tack didn’t care. He kept speaking.

“I already told you once, no good woman deserves that shit. I’ve fucked BeeBee, you know it, we do not need to go back there and you sure as fuck are not gonna drag me back there every time something crawls up your ass. Now, with the shit she did, that will not be a problem. She didn’t corner you on Chaos without someone at your back, which, if you had someone taking your back she would not have said dick or even fuckin’ looked at you, you’d see her again. Now, you won’t. And I’ll be havin’ words with Hop about takin’ off and leavin’ you behind, knowin’ he left you open for that bitch to get at you.”