I don’t expect her to.
The clubhouse is the safest place for her.
Getting there is the problem.
Lovestone Ridge sits forty miles east, and Salazar knows every main road between here and Saint territory. We’ve hit too many of his clubs, burned too many of his routes, taken too many girls out from under him. Men like that learn your habits.
No backup. No second bike. No cage running shield.
Just me, Talia, and a dark road full of places to die.
I’m not handing him a clean shot at us on a mountain road.
So I pick the motel.
I take the next turn off the main road and kill the headlight for thirty seconds, letting the bike glide through a narrow stretch between pines before bringing it back low. If anyone follows, they’ll miss the turn unless they know it’s there.
Five miles later, the neon sign of a roadside motel bleeds red into the dark.
VACANCY.
Half the letters flicker like they’re thinking about giving up.
Good enough.
The place is ugly. Anonymous. Good enough.
Tonight, temporary keeps her breathing.
I roll past the front office, circle around back, and park behind an old maintenance shed near the back row of rooms. The shadows sit thick here, and the security camera above the ice machine has been busted since the last time I came this way.
I kill the engine.
The sudden silence hits hard.
Talia stays pressed to my back for half a breath too long.
Then she jerks away like she’s been burned.
I climb off and hold steady while she swings one leg over, wobbling when her boots hit the gravel. She yanks the helmet off. Her hair tumbles around her face, wild and dark, and a leaf falls onto her shoulder.
She glares at me like I put it there.
“Absolutely not,” she says.
I take the helmet from her. “You don’t know what I’m asking.”
“You parked behind a motel after dragging me out of a gunfight. I can make an educated guess.”
The mouth on her.
God help me.
“Talia.”
“No. Don’t Talia me in that voice.”
“What voice?”
