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God, that’s what I wanted for her. For her to be able to live some semblance of normal when she’d been born into something she’d never signed up for.

I didn’t blame Silas for the choices he had made.

Hell, I’d signed up for that life, too.

When things had gone to shit here in Crimson Creek, I had followed him to California and joined the Iron Owls MC.

I had devolved straight into its indecency like that’s what I’d been bred to do.

Guess that type of life hadn’t sat right for either of us, though by the time we’d been finished with that bullshit, the scars had already been carved.

Blood drawn and souls tainted.

We’d chosen to do the only thing we could with it, and we had formed the Crimson Crows MC.

Brutal as fuck, yeah. But the cruelty we cast was only on those who’d earned it.

It wasn’t like we were going to end up on the straight and narrow since we knew nothing else but living outside the law.

But when you made those choices, the innocent ones closest to you got tangled in your mess.

Unwittingly and unwillingly.

Fuck, I wanted more for Elena, but I didn’t think that even if she was given the opportunity to get out of this place, I’d be able to let her go.

Terrified of her being out on her own. Facing the horrors of this world.

Doubted much that she’d leave, anyway.

She was entrenched every bit as much as the rest of us.

Believed in it. In our calling.

But I also understood the aching for normalcy, and I hoped this new situation might at least give her a taste.

Heavy metal vibrating below me, the power of my bike rolling through me like a storm, I followed close behind her as she wound up Cutter Lane in the direction of her apartment.

Twisting through the smattering of cabins and houses on the winding road before she slowed to make the left into the complex parking lot.

I didn’t know exactly what it was that set me off as she pulled into her reserved spot and I edged my motorcycle up beside it.

But a cold chill slicked down my spine.

Awareness coming on in a slow slide that curdled into dread.

I was off my bike and my hand was on the grip of my gun where I had it hidden in a holster at my back before she had the time to put her truck into park.

I could feel the energy flashfire out of her, too.

Whether she was sensing it on her own or feeling it radiating from me, I couldn’t tell.

Only thing that mattered was we were in sync. The training I’d insisted on her having kicking into gear as I edged to the front of her truck.

I rose up like a fortress of protection that would stand in front of every threat, every oppression, every danger that might befall her.

I would never allow her to be harmed again.

The soft click of her door echoed through the dense air as she unlatched it, and I could feel the shaky edge rippling out of her. “Do you see something?”