Kendal POV:
It was Jayson. He stumbled out of the driver's seat, his face a mess of shock and fury, eyebrows bunched together in that pathetic way of his. "Kendal! Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what you just did?"
"I know exactly what I did." He reached for my arm, but I jerked it back, then swung my palm across his face — crack, sharp and clean, echoing like a firecracker in the silent night.
His head snapped to the side, and a red handprint bloomed across his cheek in seconds.
"That one's for your dick that can't keep its pants on."
He stood there holding his face for a second, then lurched forward again. "It was a mistake, I was drunk…" The words tumbled out, tangled and desperate, each one squeezed through a throat that kept catching. "Kendal, please, just let me explain — I love you!"
I laughed, short and cold. "You don't know what love is. Your love is no different from a stray dog pissing on every corner it passes. You see a hole and you go for it — and you call that love?"
He reached for me again. I kicked him square in the knee. He grunted and dropped to one knee, palms slapping the gravel, hunched over like a dog begging for scraps.
"Don't touch me. That thing of yours makes me sick just thinking about it."
"Don't be like this…" His voice came out raw, scraped thin. He looked up at me from the ground. "Let's go back. We can pretend none of this ever happened—"
"Pretend none of this happened?" I looked down at him, every word dropping like a hammer. "You can't keep it in your pants, and your brain went along for the ride? Was Brandi's mouth that good? Did her legs wrap around you so tight you forgot my name?"
"Kendal—"
"Shut up. You look more pathetic begging me right now than you did on your knees in that stockroom pulling her pants down." I let out another laugh, one that even I could feel was hollow. "Don't ever touch me again with those hands. Give them to Brandi — she seemed real fond of whatever scraps you were handing out."
I turned and kept walking. Behind me, the headlights stretched my shadow long across the road, and I stepped on it with every stride, crushing it underfoot.
I heard him scramble up, heard him call my name. I didn't look back.
I walked until my ankles ached, until my breath came out hot and thin. Plans, futures, everything I'd been so sure of — gone in one night. No money, feet torn up, not a single place to go.
Then I heard it. A low, oppressive rumble that vibrated through the asphalt. It wasn't a car. It was the sound of pure, untamed power.
I looked up.
A massive, all-black Harley-Davidson motorcycle slowed to a stop in front of me.
The man riding it was huge, his frame encased in a leather cut adorned with a coiled serpent and a crown. 'Serpents of Redemption MC' was stitched across the back, above the word 'President.'
He took off his helmet, revealing a face so sharply handsome it was almost cruel. The faint light caught in his deep blue eyes, making them look cold and dangerous.
I recognized him. Braxton "Brute" Wood. The King of the Serpents. He'd been sitting at the front during my little performance, watching me with an unnerving, analytical gaze.
"Need a ride?" His voice was a low growl, like sandpaper over fine wood.
I stared at him, my guard instantly up. Getting involved with a 1%er of his stature was a death wish.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "That kid from the Iron Lizards didn't deserve a performance like that."
His words weren't mocking. They sounded like... approval?
"Get on," he said, nodding toward the seat behind him. It wasn't a request.
I hesitated. Getting on that bike was like making a deal with the devil. But my other option was to walk until morning.
He seemed to lose patience. He swung a long leg over the bike and stood, towering over me. The sheer size of him was suffocating.
Before I could protest, he bent down and swept me into his arms. A small gasp escaped my lips as I instinctively grabbed onto his leather cut.
His arms were like steel, his chest a wall of solid warmth that smelled of leather and faint tobacco. My heart hammered against my ribs.
He placed me on the back of the bike, then put his own helmet on my head, securing the strap under my chin.
"Hold on," he commanded, swinging back onto the seat in front of me.
The engine roared to life. My hands shot out, wrapping tightly around his hard waist.
The bike launched forward like a black arrow, the wind screaming past my ears. In the side mirror, I watched Jayson's car shrink to a tiny dot and then disappear completely.
My cheek was pressed against the solid expanse of his back. Through the thick leather, I could feel the heat of his body, the vibration of the powerful machine beneath us.
I had no idea where he was taking me, or what he wanted. But in that moment, abandoned by the world, I felt a strange, terrifying flicker of safety in the arms of the devil himself.
