Us.
Stumbling in the doorway, I twisted to watch him. “I don't get it. Why, suddenly, are you going to help me?”
Cupping his own throat, the biker leaned his weight to one side. There was blood on his clothes, a dark bruise on his face from where Roach had hit him. By all rights, he should have been a mess, but somehow—even now—the man managed to look confident and relaxed.
I told myself that my heart was only pounding because I was relieved.
“For some insane reason, you're not going to stop,” he finally said. “And part of that is on me. So, I owe you one. I'll get you to where you need to go but... that 's where all this ends. After that, you're on your own.” Ronin looked around and gave a resigned chuckle. “I've got my own world of shit to deal with.”
He was doing his best to make it clear; his help came with an expiration date. Ronin had his own agenda, but the thing was, so did I. For now, I was getting what I needed.
A deadly escort.
My own personal guardian angel.
Angel, I thought, nearly laughing at the word. Ronin wasn't an angel, not even close. No matter what, I needed to remind myself that—even if he'd rescued me multiple times—the guy wasn't on my side. Not truly.
Yes, I thought, watching the biker's forearms as they flexed when he checked his gun. I have to remember what I'm doing here. And I have to remember who he is. In the kitchen sunlight, Ronin's jaw was sharp, regal.
He looked every bit like a hero.
Except he wasn't
Danger and death slept in the same bed with Ronin. I only had to look around to see what he was so perfectly capable of.
The man was a killer... but for now?
He was my killer.
I didn't dare let him become anything more.
Chapter Nine
Ronin
The days that slipped by after the massacre were nirvana in comparison.
I'd used the Serbian's cell phone to find out what I could about the girls' location. Almost everything club related was coded, but we did confirm the crossroad location that had been mentioned.
But that wasn't all.
There was also a reference to a 'cruise ship' that was leaving in a few days. The Knights didn't strike me as the coed spring break type, so that must have been in regards to when they needed to get the slaves ready for shipment.
Flora, of course, wanted to drive through the night to get there as fast as possible, but that wasn't happening. We'd be exhausted by the time we got to the site where the girls were. I didn't want to imagine how anyone would handle something so risky with no sleep in their system.
No, if Flora truly wanted the best shot at saving her sister, then we'd have to be reasonable. She'd need to be rested... and she'd need the element of surprise. On my bike, we'd fly beneath the radar.
This also meant slowing down, avoiding most of the main roads, and in doing so, something unique happened.
We had time to breathe, to experience the ride itself.
Something I hadn't done in far too long.
The weather was unseasonably nice. It felt like a vacation. All through the Carolinas, we carved a path down back roads that I'd never heard of. The defiantly warm sun ducked in and out of sparse, wispy clouds that hung lazily in a calm blue sky.
I picked up a map at a one-pump gas station in a town so small that I'm not sure it even had a name. It took us past endless, tree-lined farms and through other similarly slow, modest towns. Lush, beautifully dying fields that were topped with stubborn shocks of purple and white flowers swayed at our passing.
People waved from porches with lemonade in their hands and a shotgun leaning against the door. This was a different world, it was docile and steeped in tradition—some good and some bad—but all genuine.
The landscape was infinite, gorgeous, and breathtakingly serene. The face of God blanketed the countryside, it was easy to see why most towns were centered around immaculate looking churches.
Neither of us planned on the sense of commonality that had been reinforced every time we compared what we'd seen along the way during our stops for food, gas, or to use the restroom. We had a joint sense of bewilderment at the shared experience of seeing truly foreign sights, like the mildly racist Bingo-Bongos' restaurant chain, or the quintessentially southern Pig & Wiggles supermarket.
We were forced to go at the speed of the trip itself, no faster. So with long rides that were too loud to talk, it left both of us with time to reflect, to just feel the road beneath the wheels and to live in the moment.
I'd rode down south before, but never like this.
From the way Flora nestled into my back through it all, hugging me, I was willing to bet that she hadn't either.
Flora...
The experiences we'd shared together had intertwined so thoroughly that it was hard to separate Flora from the moment itself.
I knew it was dangerous to let myself get caught up in her, but I couldn't help it. At the rare traffic light, when I'd lean my head back to ask if she needed a break, I could smell her hair and feel her breath on my cheek. The more she squeezed me, the more I wanted to languish in her.