Page 28 of Dark Biker Protector

I made my way towards the door, and I was about to press my finger to the buzzer when something stopped me in my tracks. It took me a moment to clock what had slowed me, but then, I realized it was a smell. The same smell that had been at the compound when I had gotten back and found that image scrawled on the door in front of me.

I froze before slowly turning to look around. What was going on? Was he here? I rushed to the side of the building, checking for any more sign of him, any more pictures that might have been painted on while I was out.

There was nothing, yet that smell hung in the air, strong and insistent. Spray paint.

I glanced around, searching for the source, and just before I turned to head back to her apartment, I spotted a duffel bag dumped at the corner of the apartment block, next to one of the trash cans.

A spray can was spilling out of the top of it –freshly-used, judging by the smear underneath the nozzle. I reached down to touch it, and when I pulled my fingers back, hey were smeared with fresh, red paint.

The same red paint that had been used along the image of Abbey on the building. Shit! It had to be his. But if it had just been dumped here, that meant he didn’t feel like he had use for it anymore.

And that could mean he had made his move on Abbey.

I sprinted back towards the main entrance to her building, shaking the handle and slamming my foot into the doorway a few times – it flew open, crashing off its hinges, and I rushed to her doorway. It was closed. I slammed my fist into it, calling her name. She had to be okay, right? She had to be okay.

I heard a noise inside –a muffled cry. Was it her? Had he already broken in? I slammed my shoulder into the door, yelling out for her – and, finally, I heard the lock shift, and the door flew open underneath me.

I sprawled into her apartment and found her being dragged away from the door by a man who had to be Franco. He matched the description that she had given me of him to a T, but somehow seemed even colder and more callous than I could have imagined. His eyes were devoid of emotion, like all his humanity had been sucked out of it, leaving nothing but darkness behind.

"Get the fuck away from there," he growled to her, wrapping his arm around her neck and yanking her backwards, away from the door.

"Don’t fucking touch her," I warned him, reaching for the gun at my side. She was clawing at his hand, trying to get him off her, but his grip was firm. I could see this dark madness in his eyes, like he would have done anything to get what he wanted right now. He was tired of waiting for her, tired of holding back – whatever patience he had been able to cling on to while he bided his time, it was well and truly gone now. He had finally struck, and I didn’t even want to think how dangerous he was now he had broken out of stalking and made the move to take her.

I aimed my pistol at him, and his eyes widened. I was clearly the last thing he was expecting. Abbey squirmed out from under his grip, trying to throw him off, but he hung on to her like she was the one thing keeping him pinned to planet earth right now.

"Step away from her," I ordered him. "Now. Or I’ll blow your fucking brains out."

I wasn’t kidding. My finger was on the trigger. Adrenaline pumped through my system, and memories flooded my mind: the memory of walking into that hospital, knowing that my sister would never leave it. Feeling that grief, that pain, that anger, feeling it coursing through me. I now aimed all those feelings at Franco, ready to take the shot at a moment’s notice.

He slowly lifted his hands, and I knew he realized I wasn’t fucking around here. Abbey dived away from him, sliding in behind me and ducking down for dear life. She grabbed on to my waist, and I could feel her trembling hard, her whole body wracked with terror as she tried to navigate what the hell to do now.

And then, all at once, Franco’s demeanor shifted. All the anger and fury that he had been pouring in to this moment, dissipated in a second, and he sank to his knees in front of me, clasping his hands below his chin like he was begging for it, begging for grace.

"Please," he murmured, his eyes widening, the blackness starting to shift. I held on to the gun, steady, not moving. I wasn’t going to let him throw me off my game. It didn’t work that way.

"Please, you have to understand – I – I'm not well," he begged me, and his eyes darted over to Abbey. "I would never have done this if I was able to get the help Ineeded. I know I was wrong, I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I...I can do better. I can be better. I need a chance, please, that’s all I’m asking for..."

I heard Abbey suck in a sharp breath behind me, and I lowered the gun slightly. I wasn’t going to do this if she didn’t want me to. I knew she would never be able to come back from seeing me as a killer, if I took him out when she wasn’t ready for it to happen. I had to be careful about how I went about this.

"What do you want me to do, Abs?" I asked her softly. This was her choice. She was the one he had tormented all this time, after all. She was the one who he had hurt, who he’d come after as hard as he had. If anyone got to decide if this man was worthy of forgiveness, it was him.

"Abbey, you know me," He pleaded with her, crawling towards her on his hands and knees. "We were together for so long...you know that this isn’t me. You know I’m not really this kind of guy..."

She stared down at him as he continued to talk, and I could see her calculating – trying to figure out if any of this was real, if any of it could be.

She took a step towards him, and I reached out for her hand, brushing against her fingers for a moment to let her know that I was still there. I didn’t want her to think she was going through this all alone.

"You could have gotten help after what happened with the last girl, Iris," she pointed out. "You could have started then. But you didn’t, did you?"

"Iris...?" he muttered. It was clear he hadn’t expected her to throw his exes in his face. But she was right. He’d had ample opportunity to start working this shit out if it really mattered that much to him, but he hadn’t wanted to. He had wanted to use and abuse the girls in his life because he clearly got off on it, got off on having this kind of power over them – got off on making them suffer, making them second-guess themselves and everything that happened around them, so he could keep that control over their lives.

"I spoke to her," she told him, her eyes narrowing. "I spoke to her about what you did to her. And I told her that you’d been doing the same thing to me, too. Because you never gave a damn about any of it, did you? You never gave a damn about getting better. You just wanted to control us. And you would have done anything to make that happen."

His eyes were still pleading with her, but he could tell that he was starting to lose the conversation. Whatever bullshit he was trying to spin to her, it wasn’t going to fly, not now she could see through him with everything she had. She had seen how he operated – she had said it to me himself, that the only reason he would ever have eased up on her was if he had found someone else to aim this all at.

All at once, he rose to his feet again. The anger was written all over his face - fury that he hadn’t been able to get this across to her, hadn’t been able to fool her into believing the shit that he spun to her.

"You fucking bitch," he snarled. "You should be grateful that I even care about you. Nobody is ever going to love you the way I did, nobody-"

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