“I gathered that much,” Rambler says, his jaw tightening. “Why are you running from him?”
“He... he hurt me. We met at a bar in Miami. He was nice at first, charming even. But then he changed. Started getting controlling, jealous. I broke up with him, and he showed up at my apartment drunk one night.” I’ve tried so hard to forget that night.
His eyes plead with me to tell him the rest. “Keep going, baby.”
“I told him to leave.” I shrug, like it’s nothing, like it didn’t happen to me. But it did happen to me. “And he hit me. Knocked me unconscious.”
Rambler’s face darkens, his hands curling into fists on the table.
“When I came to, he was... “ I look away, ashamed that I hadn’t seen the signs of who he really was sooner. “He was on top of me.” Tears pool in my eyes, and my voice breaks. “He raped me, Rambler. And then he had the balls to tell me it was my fault for upsetting him.” I laugh bitterly, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Jesus Christ,” Rambler mutters, his knuckles white.
“I knew better than to report him,” I continue, the words spilling out now that I’ve opened the flood gates. “He’s Dirty Devils. They’d kill me if I went to the cops. I was going to move—get as far away from Miami as I could, but he came back the next night. I didn’t open the door, and he threatened to kill me if I didn’t talk to him.”
Rambler’s fists are balled, his face a mask of fury.
I swallow hard, the memories overwhelming me. “Someone must have called the cops because he took off. And then Iran. I was heading to New York, but my car broke down in Jacksonville.”
“That’s how you ended up at the clubhouse.” His voice is hard.
I shrug. “I didn’t have any money. Nobody to ask for help.”
I can feel the tension rolling off Rambler in waves. His body is shaking. “I’m going to kill that motherfucker!” he suddenly roars, climbing off the table, and moving like he’s ready to get back on his bike and track down my ex.
I grab his hand desperately. “No! You don’t understand. Eddie’s crazy. Like really freaking crazy. He’ll hurt you.”
Rambler cups my face in his large hands, his eyes intense and determined. “You’re coming with me to St. Louis.”
His offer catches me completely off guard. “What?”
“St. Louis,” he repeats. “With me. I can protect you there. He doesn’t know about St. Louis, and even if he finds out, the Bastard Saints will have your back.”
I blink at him, stunned. “You want me to come to St. Louis with you?”
“Yes.” There’s no hesitation in his voice. “I’m not leaving you here so that piece of shit can find you and hurt you again.”
I consider my options quickly. Staying in Jacksonville where Eddie now knows I am is out of the question. I could try to run on my own, but I have no money and nowhere to go.
Or I could go somewhere completely new with this man I barely know, but who makes me feel safer than I have in years.
“Okay,” I hear myself say, surprising us both. “I’ll go with you.”
A look of relief crosses Rambler’s face, and he pulls me against his chest. “Good. We’ll leave tomorrow.”
I close my eyes and breathe him in, wondering what the heck I just agreed to.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Almost there.”I glance in my side mirror at Pinky huddled against my back. Her small frame is barely visible behind me.
“Thank God,” she replies, her voice crackling through the Bluetooth speaker in my helmet. “I’m freezing my ass off.”
I chuckle, though there’s nothing funny about how hard she’s shivering against me. Florida didn’t prepare her for this shit. The temperature difference here in St. Louis is downright brutal. “Welcome to Missouri in November, butterfly.”
An Arctic wind cuts through my hoodie as we follow Klutch’s bike through the streets of St. Louis. Thirty degrees isn’t that cold by Midwest standards, but compared to the almost eighty-degree weather we left behind in Jacksonville, it’s a fucking shock to the system.
“How much longer?” Pinky asks, her teeth chattering loudly.
