"I promised your father I would make sure you don't get your stupid a.s.s killed, and I'm going to keep that promise. I don't give a f.u.c.k about anything else." Jase lowered his voice and stepped up to her again, backing her against the SUV door. He bent low to her face and she could smell the whiskey on his breath. "I don't care who you f.u.c.k. I don't care about you anymore, period. But you're not getting killed on my watch. Understood?"

More than anything else that night, Maggie knew she would replay those last few lines in her worst dreams for months to come. I don't care about you anymore. I don't care who you f.u.c.k. I don't care about you anymore. She was just buzzed enough that she couldn't stop the pain from radiating out to pulse through her whole body. It must have shown on her face, because for a split second, she saw Jase's expression soften, worried.

I don't care about you anymore. She felt tears begin to burn her eyes.

"Yeah, I get it," said Maggie. She yanked her car keys out of her pocket and turned to climb in the SUV as Jase moved back to dodge the door opening. She didn't look at him again as she started the engine and headed out of the parking lot.

Maggie let the GPS guide her mindlessly back the way she came. The head-start gave her time to a.s.sess her surroundings once she got back to her makeshift home. Drake was gone, but he had left a six-pack of beer and a pack of smokes for her. She saw the outline of furniture in the dark of the living and dining room, but didn't investigate. She grabbed two beers and the smokes and ambled into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. The bed wasn't so much a bed as it was a brand-new set of box spring and memory foam mattress that had been put on the floor. A new pair of sheets and two pillows had already been made up.

Maggie undressed and sprawled out, cracked a beer, and lit a cigarette. Tears from crying on the drive home had stained her puffy face with mascara, but she was too tired, and too hurt, to bother herself with washing it off.

She heard Jase's bike pull up and park in the drive; heard the front door open and close quietly; heard the sounds of heavy footsteps and the squeaking of springs as Jase, her quasi-faithful protector, made himself comfortable on her newly delivered couch in the living room.

Maggie smoked and drank for another hour, trying to forget how close Jase was, and how far.

~ Five ~

At exactly 7:13am, a beam of sunlight strong as a laser came through a window and sliced across Jase's sleeping eyes. He woke with a start. Half his large body tumbled onto the floor before he could gather sense of his surroundings. The room was empty, unfamiliar, and distant. The light was all wrong. Was he still wearing his cut-and his boots?

The night fit back together in pieces. Maggie's couch, in her weird little house: that was what he had just fallen from. The light looked wrong because he wasn't in his bedroom. He remembered trying to stay up on watch for as long as he could the night before, but Maggie's place had no television, and his smart phone died an hour into his night. The couch was uncomfortable as h.e.l.l. He was surprised he managed to fall asleep on it. Jase stood and most of the muscles in his body began to scream in pain, thanks either to the d.i.n.ky couch, or to his rampage the night before.

s.h.i.t... he thought, as memories began to rise in his mind like alligators from a cloudy bog. He was sure to get an earful from Beck about kicking in that bathroom stall door at the roadhouse; one of his old buddies was the owner. He tried to conjure the state of mind he had been in when he did it, but it was like he had been possessed by some crazy emotional haze. He wasn't the kind of dude to kick in doors looking to defend his claim to a woman. He had never wanted for women; he had never had to fight for one.

Jase realized that he was admitting to himself that Maggie had been right. He was jealous. The sight of Maggie in that den after all these years had been one kind of pain. The sight of some other dude's hands all over her, his lips on hers - that brought a whole different version he had been completely unprepared to face.

One of the hardest years of his life had been the one after Maggie left him. So much drinking, drugs, mindless s.e.x... a few stints in County for picking fights just so he could feel alive. It had been a hard, slow climb out of that abyss. He'd sworn off everything but pot and booze and smokes; he got his physical aggression out at the gym; and he didn't bother wasting any more time with long-term women. When Jase felt lonely or hot, he would find a solution to that temporary problem, and then go back to his normal life. He had found a sort of peace this way.

And he had actually fooled himself into thinking he was healed from feeling things for her.

Jase felt a headache pulsing quietly at the bottom of his temples. He groaned to himself and tried to stretch some of the tension out of his body. Down the hallway, he heard the creaking of a door and the sound of socked feed padding on hardwood.

Maggie came from around the corner. He could tell she was fresh out of sleep. She always had a look like a grumpy kid whenever he used to wake her up too early. Her curls were still a little wild, and Jase saw the dark trails of makeup swirled around her eyes. She wore the t-shirt from the day before, but her legs were bare; she only had on her dark blue underwear. The moment was as pleasant to his eyes as it was upsetting to his heart.

Jase said nothing. He hadn't had time to even consider what he would say to Maggie after last night.

Maggie had one arm wrapped around her belly. She held out the other, handing Jase her phone. "It's for you."

Jase looked instinctively at his own phone on the floor and remembered it was dead. He took the phone from Maggie. She turned immediately and shuffled back down the hallway to her bedroom without another word.

Jase put the phone to his ear. "Yeah, this is Jase."

"Where the f.u.c.k have you been? I'm supposed to be able to check in on you!" It was Henry.

The headache pulsed. "Sorry, boss. I've been with Maggie all night, like you asked. She's fine. I just left my charger in my saddle bag last night."

"For G.o.d's sake, Jase-"

"It won't happen again."

"-things are not fine. There was a shooting."

Jase froze. He turned to look towards Maggie's bedroom. "What happened?"

"Someone tore up Hot Tamales last night just after midnight."

Jase slumped back onto the couch. "Jesus Christ."

"Take Maggie to the clubhouse and make sure it's understood that she remains there. Then I need you to meet me and the sheriff at the club."

Jase got off the phone with Henry and rushed down the hallway. He knocked on Maggie's door. "We have to go, now. Get dressed."

"What? It's like seven in the morning! f.u.c.k off!" came her m.u.f.fled reply.

"Maggie, there was a G.o.dd.a.m.n shooting. Will you do something without a fight, for once?"

There was quiet. Then he heard her rustling out of bed with a grumble. He waited impatiently until she emerged, dressed, her hair pulled back in haste, huge dark sungla.s.ses obscuring her eyes. She stayed silent and brooding as she followed Jase to the SUV, which he insisted on driving to the clubhouse. She smoked in the pa.s.senger seat and didn't look at him. She didn't put up a fight when he dropped her off and told her to stay in with Tommy and the others. Like a fed-up zombie, she simply shuffled off wherever he pointed without a word. He didn't have time to a.n.a.lyze it.

The police had set up their tape and crime scene equipment by the time Jase arrived. The sheriff worked often with the MC on issues of mutual interest, and no doubt Henry had gotten a call as soon as signs of the Black Dogs were found on-scene. Jase found Henry and Beck conversing with the sheriff on the porch. They brought him inside to show him the scene. It was surreal to see the dance hall from the night before flooded with daylight and dust; the floor scattered with shoes and cups and overturned tables. Blood from the victims still hadn't been cleaned up.

"Witnesses put this at three or four guys, career criminals from the sounds. This type of thing isn't usually for first-timers," said the sheriff. He read slowly off a small spiral notebook he always kept in his pocket. "There was a lot of chaos, but multiple people seem to think they were targeting groups with bikers in cuts. Bartender says they were definitely looking for something, but they never once asked for money or the safe."

"Do we think it was a hit out on the Black Dogs?" asked Jase.

Henry shook his head. "A few clubs were here, so it's possible. But this was also very sloppy, which our enemies tend not to be."

"We must have just missed it..." said Jase, more to himself than to anyone. If I hadn't kicked that bathroom door open and started that fight, would Maggie and I have still been here when the shooting happened?

"What's that now?" asked the sheriff.

Jase said turned to Henry instead, ignoring the sheriff. "This was for Maggie, I can feel it. We were here last night. She wanted a drink. But we didn't... we didn't stay long." He couldn't help but avert his eyes, no matter how much of a tell it was. He was still boiling with shame. "Maggie gets back into town, and this happens? That's no accident. Someone knew we were here."

Henry and Beck exchanged heavy glances.

"You didn't see anything?" asked Beck.

"The place was packed, but no, there was nothing suspicious. A few parties, plus the usual Friday night crowd... no one ha.s.sled us or seemed out of place." Even as the words came out of his mouth, Jase doubted himself. Had he really been on point last night? Had he taken good stock of the crowd, or had he been far too focused on Maggie? Did someone tail them to the bar and he missed it, too busy rehearsing angry speeches in his mind?

"Well, that complicates things," said the sheriff. "We'll need to talk to your daughter, Henry, if you think she's a target here."

Henry looked unhappy about it, but he nodded anyway. "She's at the clubhouse. Let me go speak with her now, and then I'll have her come down to the station."

As the men piled out of the roadhouse, Jase took one last look around. He made himself memorize the pattern of the blood spatter on the floors and walls. He wanted them to be a stark reminder that his job for the MC came before anything-before his feelings, and before Maggie's. Otherwise it was likely to be her blood spatter he was memorizing next.

~ Six ~

Maggie was on her third cup of coffee when Jase and her father returned from Hot Tamales. She waited with a large group of men from the MC, all gathered to hear updates and receive orders. It had been a very long time since the quiet din of LeBeau had been shattered by anything more than a drunken fist-fight; Henry worked hard, and sometimes with the police, to keep it that way. It was as much self-preservation as it was philanthropy. Large-scale violence, no matter the real cause, always blew back on the MC.

Maggie felt emotionally-and a bit literally-hung over from the night before, and did her best to sink into the crowd unnoticed. Between the painful pulses of the headache brewing at the back of her neck, she could occasionally hear Jase's voice, clear as a bell. I don't care about you anymore. When it would echo through her head, she would rub her face and eyes like she could wipe the thought out of existence if she found the right spot. Henry's arrival acted as a welcome distraction from the broken record of heartbreak in her mind.

Leader that he was, Henry came right into the den with Beck and Jase at his back. Henry launched immediately into it.

"We've got six wounded locals from the shooting at the roadhouse last night. Witnesses said they were masked, three or four of them, and that they came in after midnight. Plenty of armed folks were there, but no one was ready for it. Tamales never got hit this bad, even in the old days." Henry cleared his throat before he continued." No one is totally sure what they were after, but they definitely ran around like they were looking for something, and they didn't take a single bill from the registers. Witnesses say they were targeting bikers wearing cuts. And we have some suspicion that this is related to my daughter."

Every pair of eyes in the room turned to look at her, this newly arrived stranger hunkered over her cup of coffee at the bar, looking a hot mess that hadn't seen a mirror or a hairbrush that morning. She felt her exhausted heart skip a beat.

"Related to Maggie? Why?" asked Tommy from the crowd.

"That's a good question, Tommy," said Henry as he took a few steps towards her. "You tell us, Maggie. Why does someone want you dead bad enough to open fire on a packed roadhouse?"

Everyone was staring at her. She was grateful she had kept her sungla.s.ses on; at least they couldn't see the fear in her eyes. "I told you why, Henry."

"You want me to believe a couple of street-rat opiate pushers had the time or money or f.u.c.ks to give to follow you over three-hundred miles to your hometown, just because you wouldn't play ball with them? I might have believed that story yesterday, young lady, but today there are folks in the hospital right now who tell me you're holding back."

The room fell quiet and still as the grave. Like any good predator, Henry had layers to his anger, and the one he was revealing now came straight from the core. He was many men in this instance. He was a citizen distraught by violence. He was a soldier upset at a tactical error. He was a general on display for the morale of his troops. And he was a father, disappointed in his offspring, yet driven to defend her regardless.

Maggie took a deep breath and turned on the barstool to face him. She recognized what he was doing. She knew she had to be honest with him now or lose his respect forever, even if that meant having this conversation in front of Jase and the entire MC. Henry had always reacted to her rebellion by forcing her to prove herself in the most vulnerable of ways. Throwing her into the fire now, at this moment, didn't faze her; it just felt like old times.

At the rear of the room, Jase couldn't see the quick glances of him she stole from behind her sungla.s.ses. Like everyone else, he made no attempts to hide his own staring.

She found a spot on the floor to stare at as the spoke. "When I ran from here, I ran because I felt like I didn't belong," she said. "So when I got to Eagleton, I tried to do what you had told me I should do my whole life. See if maybe I did belong somewhere. I found an apartment and got a job at a pharmacy. I found new, boring friends to do normal things like go to the movies and have dinner parties. I paid my bills and wore my seatbelt. I did everything you were always trying to push me into, Henry. I tried to rise above this life that was always good enough for you and mom, but never for me." She stopped for a second to quell her rising anger. "But I guess I'm your daughter no matter what either of us wants, because before I knew it, I was hanging out at dive bars and making dangerous friends."

Henry moved to speak and she stopped talking. But he swallowed whatever he was going to say.

She continued. "The crimes started small and harmless. They got the s.h.i.t I snuck them from work, and I got my thrills, and extra money too. I started getting romantic with one of them. Things were fine until the pharmacy caught on to my scam and fired me. We blew through my savings in a couple of weeks and started doing riskier robberies to make up for it. Everyone was crashing at my apartment by this point, and Evan... my ex... as soon as I lost my connection to the pills, he dropped any act that he had ever cared and started beating me."

If there was one way to make a roomful of tough-guy bikers tense up in discomforted rage, it was wife-beating. Nearly every pair of boots in the room shifted at the sounds of that confession. Wood creaked under their feet. Maggie looked up and saw Jase biting his lip, gaze on the floor.

"When I realized he was planning to force me into prost.i.tution as a new way to make money, I knew I had to get out. It took some maneuvering and longer than I wanted it to, but I was finally able to sneak out one night. At first I didn't know where I would go even if I did leave... but where else could I go? I had to come back here."

The room was heavy and tense after she finished. Henry spoke first. "Your ex and his cronies, do you think they could have done the roadhouse shooting? Does it seem like their MO?"

Maggie frowned as she thought. "Evan is certainly crazy enough to not care about killing innocent people... he popped off rounds during robberies before just because he could. And he was controlling enough to want to get back at me for running. But they've always been small-timers, easily distracted. Maybe I just underestimated them."

"Or maybe they've got big friends," said Beck.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you all this before. I thought I would be safe once I was out of Eagleton. I really didn't think they would follow me."

Henry watched her for a few moments. "You're going to need to give the names of these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to the sheriff, but I'm going to make sure it's us who finds them first."

"Something doesn't make sense though," said Maggie. "Evan and the gang didn't know anything about my life before Eagleton. I never talked about the MC. If they were the shooters, how would they know to be looking for bikers at the roadhouse?"

"I don't know," said Henry. "But however they found out, it sounds like they know you're getting protection with an MC." He turned and addressed the group. "Everyone needs to be on high alert. These b.a.s.t.a.r.ds might shoot at any one of us if they think it will get them to Maggie. Keep an ear to the ground about any out-of-towners. Tommy, run up to my gun cabinet and grab the 12-gauge and the Bersa 9mm with some rounds."

Jase finally spoke from the doorway. "What's the plan?"

"Maggie's going to give us all the info on these a.s.sholes she has, and we're going to send it out through our contacts until we track them down. This just turned from a friendly chat into something else," said Henry. When Tommy brought him the guns he requested, Henry took them and walked over to where Maggie still sat at the bar. He held them out for her. "Take both of these. The shotgun stays by your bed, and the handgun is on you at all times. No discussion."

She carefully lay the 9mm on the counter before using both hands to take the shotgun. It was heavier than it looked. "I never got to actually use the guns in our robberies, Henry."

"Jase," said Henry, and waved his fingers. Jase hesitated only a second before he pushed through the group and came to stand before Henry. "Our arrangement remains-you stay with Maggie at all times, day and night. And you need to make sure she gets practice with these." He pointed to the guns.

Jase and Maggie looked at each other. He seemed to look as tired and resigned as she felt. His anger from the night before was completely washed away by something new, something deeper, but just as dark.

"I'll take care of her." The words dropped from Jase's lips sincere and quiet. Maggie was glad he couldn't see her eyes behind her sungla.s.ses.

~ Seven ~

After Henry had handed out some individual a.s.signments to the MC, he adjourned the meeting and all Maggie wanted to do was get back to bed. She had even procured a few joints from Tommy, and she was looking forward to a day of lying around, napping, and seeing Jase as little as possible.

She waited at the bar, smoking and finishing off her coffee until Jase came to get her and the new weapons Henry had gifted her. She had no energy to deal with what had happened the night before, or even to be feisty with him. She knew control of this situation was no longer hers-if it ever had been. To be frank, she was almost relieved to be letting someone else strong and decisive take the wheel. Where had her own decisions led her to, anyway?

A few other bikers followed Maggie and Jase out to the parking lot, lighting up cigarettes and rumbling generally about the shooting. Maggie let Jase take the shotgun and shoved the unloaded 9mm into the waistband of her pants. Still feeling the general vulnerability of telling her story to all the men, she tried to distance herself from the group when she noticed a woman walking to the porch from the parking lot along the driveway. There was something familiar about the pattern of clothes she was wearing, like Maggie had seen the outfit before. The woman held a box in her thin arms.

"Hey, state your business!" came a gruff male voice from somewhere in the group. Instantly all the men turned and faced this potential threat. The woman froze in her tracks, her eyes wide.

Maggie started. "Oh my G.o.d-- Julie?" She said as she took a few steps forward.

"Maggie, stay back," said Jase.

Maggie ignored him and continued towards her friend. Julie stared at her in half-confusion, half-fear. She was a waif of a woman with gorgeous bone structure and a sweet personality. Maggie hadn't seen in her in months. "Julie, what are you doing here?"

Julie's eyes began to flit from Maggie, to the gang of bikers looking ready to pounce, and back. The shotgun in Jase's hand couldn't have been comforting. "I-I brought you some of your stuff... your landlord called me to pick it up. He said he hadn't seen you in a while and your... friends... they weren't paying the rent."

Of course, Maggie thought. Her whole focus had been on escaping Eagleton. She hadn't thought of what she was leaving behind-like poor Julie, her emergency contact, having to pick up the slack. The landlord's threats of eviction in the week prior to her escape had been the last thing on her mind. It occurred to her that this wasn't the first time she had made such a mistake. Judging by the feeling of eyes burning into the back of her head, it was probably occurring to Jase at that moment, too.