As I listened to the familiar deep voice, I stared into the shadowed face of Hawk.

Then I shut it and cooled it. Then I found myself back over his shoulder.

Once we made it to the bar, shadowy commandos flanked him. I also saw shadowy biker bodies littering the floor. The lights were out, no power at all, not even on the beer signs.

We made it out the door and Hawk and his troop jogged to SUVs.

Yes, even with me over his shoulder, Hawk jogged to an SUV.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t one step down from a superhero. Maybe he was a superhero.

Then Hawk opened the door of the passenger side of one and I was tossed in. Hawk rounded the hood as he holstered his weapon and I watched his other hand do hand motions as the commandos disbursed. He folded in beside me, started up the SUV, reversed like a speed demon so I quickly belted in and then we shot out of Ride’s premises and onto Broadway.

I took a deep breath and then started, “Hawk –”

“Do not speak,” he growled and I felt my breath catch.

He didn’t sound pissed. He sounded pissed.

He dug into a pocket of his cargos and pulled his cell out. He flipped it open, hit some buttons and put it to his ear.

A couple of beats and then, “Bax?”

Oh shit. Dad.

“She’s fine. I’ve got her.”

Shit!

Hawk stopped at a light. “Don’t know but she was in a safe place. Probably just freaked.”

“Can I talk to him?” I asked, my hand extended for the phone.

His head turned to me and I saw his face in the streetlights.

Then I pressed my lips together and dropped my hand.

Okay, so, I couldn’t talk to my Dad.

And also, I was in trouble.

Good to know… or not!

“Yeah, let me talk with her, see if she’s had food, get her shit together. Yeah?” Pause. “Right. Later.”

He flipped his phone shut and threw it on the console with just enough strength to make it clatter angrily.

I sucked in breath. Then I gave him a few moments to calm down. Then I tried again.

“Hawk –”

“Swear to God, Gwen,” he replied on another growl and didn’t finish but that was enough. I clamped my mouth shut. He clearly needed a few more moments.

He drove and I knew where he was driving. To his lair.

I stayed silent the entire way. I also stayed silent when he stopped outside the big rolling door to his big garage. I also stayed silent and stayed put when he got out, went in a door to the side of the big rolling door and then the big rolling door slid up. Further, I stayed silent when he climbed back in and drove into the garage, parked, grabbed his phone and got out.

I got out too.

He went to the box on the cable and closed the door. I waited. Then he went to the inside door, pushed it open and strode in. I sucked in a calming breath while I heard him beep in the numbers on the security panel and then followed.

I moved and stopped under the platform. He moved around and turned on lights. The one by the chair in the corner. Two standing lamps in the seating area. He hit a switch and lights I hadn’t noticed that hung on long cables from the ceiling lit the kitchen.

I leaned against an iron column that held up the platform.

“Can you explain to me why you’re so angry?” I asked quietly and I thought it was a good question. I mean I didn’t lock myself in the Chaos Compound. I didn’t do a drive-by on my house. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and unfortunately that place was my own house.

“First,” he replied, walking slowly to me and I knew it was not a good sign that he started by counting, “you just forced war.”

I blinked. Then I asked, “War?”

“War, me and my boys against the Chaos MC.”

“What?” I asked. “Why?”

“Babe,” he stated and stopped a few feet away from me. “You were locked in Tack’s room at the Compound. That’s a declaration. My boys and I had to infiltrate it to get you out. This will not go over well.”

“Um… I think you may be misinterpreting things. See, Tack was there when someone shot up my living room and I think he was trying to protect me.”

It must be said, though not to Hawk, that I thought this and I did it hopefully so I wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown. I thought other things too, things akin to what Hawk was saying but I didn’t let them have too much of my headspace considering they’d give me a nervous breakdown. I’d never had one but I was pretty sure nervous breakdowns were things to be avoided.

“Even Kane Allen, he decides to play a Good Samaritan, is gonna drop the victim of a drive-by at the police station. Not claim her as his and ride out to hunt down the perpetrators unless he’s,” he leaned forward, “claiming her as his.”

Uh-oh.

“Okay, I can see that as bad but he’s doing it. I made no such declaration.”

“Then you wanna tell me why Tack was there during the drive-by?”

“He was at my house when I got home this morning.”

“So?”

“He wanted to talk.”

“So?”

“So, he promised not to say anything to freak me out so I agreed to talk.”

“All right, Sweet Pea, let’s go back to why you weren’t somewhere else this morning, for instance,” he took a threatening step forward, “here.”

Uh-oh.

“Hawk –”

I stopped talking when he took another threatening step forward and seeing as his legs were so long, this meant he was close. Too close. Really scary close.

“Yesterday,” he said in a terrifying, quiet voice and got closer so I slid away from the column and took a step back. “I left here,” he kept coming at me so I kept stepping back, “and when I left here,” I kept moving, he kept coming, “you were sweet and cute.”

I hit bookshelves and was forced to stop. Hawk didn’t stop. He pinned me in, his head tipping down to look at me but he didn’t touch me. He pinned me in with the sheer force of his badassness.

“Then,” he went on, “yesterday afternoon, I get this fuckin’ note with a fuckin’ check. The note, I don’t get. The check, babe, the check is a smack in the fuckin’ face.”

Hmm. Maybe I didn’t think that out very well.

“So I check the device on your car and see you’ve holed up with a cop,” he continued.

“You have a device on my car?” I whispered and his scary, angry face turned scarier and angrier so I shut my mouth.

“I come home,” he stayed with his subject, “and I got a message from Gayle. So I get the note because I get that you heard her message and then you listened to some bullshit that your friend fed you and you didn’t pick up the phone or get your ass to my place so you could talk to me. You went off half-cocked and, doin’ it, pissed me way, the fuck, off.”

All right, so we were on this subject then we had to talk about this subject.

“I know about Your Days,” I whispered.

“Yeah? You do?”

“Yeah,” I kept whispering, “I do. And I know I’m filler.”

“No,” he returned. “You know a bunch of cops with shit for brains and nothin’ better to do with their time called you that. And somethin’ else, babe, that shit is totally made up. It’s complete bullshit. Gayle calls herself Thursday because she’s got another man who doesn’t do it for her and he goes out and gets shitfaced on Thursdays and doesn’t come home until the bars close so I feel like her, I visit her. I don’t have a schedule. The only woman I’ve investigated with any thoroughness and the only one I watch is you.”

“But you said when you make a woman yours, you do your –”

“No, Gwen, forget about what you thought you read into what I said. I’m tellin’ you now, straight out, how it is. And I’m not gonna feed you shit about there not bein’ others, there are others. And I think you get that I’m not a man inclined to waste my time doin’ precisely what I’m doin’ right fuckin’ now, explaining myself.”

Oh shit. Now I was getting mad.

“I see,” I stated quietly. “We’re right back where we started.”

“No, if we were back where we started, somewhere in the last couple of days I’d have had a piece of your sweet ass.”

My mouth dropped open.

He could not be believed!

“I don’t believe you!” I yelled.

“It’s not true?” he asked.

“No, see, the last couple of days my sister’s shit has leaked into my life. Did I do anything wrong? No! I don’t live in your world. I knew Dog. I knew he was good for Ginger. I figured he’d sort her out. I didn’t know what would happen when I went to Ride! How the hell would I know? I didn’t open the door to the guy who broke in! I didn’t guide the firebombers to my parents’ house and hurl a flaming bottle through the window! I went home today, that’s it. I just went home and got caught in a hail of gunfire! But after that was over, I just did what I was told. I’d never been shot at before. Tack seemed to know what he was doing so I figured it would be good to be with someone who knew what they were doing. I didn’t know he was going to lock me in his Compound and start a war! I’ve just been doing the best I can do in a seriously bad situation. No! In multiple seriously bad situations!”

“Gwen –”

“And I don’t need you to be a jerk on top of it.”

“Gwen –”

I threw my hands out to the sides. “My living room was shot up today. With me in it!” I screeched.

His hands came to my jaws. “Baby, calm down.”

“You calm down! You can walk through walls and silently down bikers. I don’t have those abilities, Hawk. I was in another situation where I needed a crowbar! That sucks! And after that, I need cookie dough. Or at the very least really good Chinese food, from Twin Dragon or, better yet, Imperial.”