Page 77 of Savage Guardian

He chuckled. “Carrie has a big mouth and a bad habit of living above her means. She saw you, what you were doing, and figured out a way to cash in. She approached Jimmy—who was an out of work sports agent who’d been canned for embezzling—and they cooked up an idea of how to steal you blind. All it took to reel you in was the promise of making Aoibheal big…and a bit of something special in the whisky.”

“They drugged me?” she shrilled, clearly upset.

“Apparently, it didn’t take much.”

“Then how is that legally binding?” she asked, her tone hard. He wanted to laugh at her. There she was, tied to a chair, the shit beaten out of her, and she was pissed at her sister.

Lord, but the talented simpleton definitely needed a keeper. Good thing he was taking on the job.

“It isn’t.”

“And the two-hundred-grand?”

“That was just the beginning. He would get you to break the NDA, but he would still own the rights to the new album. He’d get all the royalties, sharing a small percentage with Carrie, who would carry on being Aoibheal while still racking up debts on your credit. All the while, you’d be penniless, homeless, and Aoibheal-less.”

She took a shuddering breath, tears gathering in her pretty eyes once more.

“Why?” she cried, though it came out more as a croak.

He heaved a sigh, sympathy not an emotion he had ever felt before, and certainly didn’t feel right then.

“I know…and on top of being used and abandoned by Hawk, then tricked and stalked by Teddy, then kidnapped and held hostage by me….” He tsked. “What a fucked up few months, right?”

Rather than cry at the reality of what he was saying to her, she glared at him, fire in her eyes.

Ooo, he loved it when they had spirit.

“I can see the daggers in your eyes, my treasure, but be glad your hands are bound. If you ever laid a hand on me, I’d take it off. Just like I took off the head of that flute-fucking perv, J.P.”

A humorless laugh sounded from her chest, making the hairs on the back of his arms stand on end.

“The daggers in my eyes are nothing compared to the bullet that’ll be between yours once the Raiders find you.”

“Those losers wouldn’t have the first idea where to find us. That video I took of you, I sent to them, encrypted with proprietary government anti-hacking software. And this place…it belongs to a local gang with no ties to anyone even closely related to you or the Raiders. It’ll take an act of a god I’ve never believed in for your filthy bikers to save you.”

Fae opened her mouth to, no doubt, say something stupid, but whatever she said was drowned out by an inhuman roar and the sound of a steel door crashing against the wall.

Fae couldn’t believe her eyes. Tyler must have hit her really hard because she thought she was seeing Hawk standing just inside the room, dressed in his Savage Raider uniform, a handgun in his grip, and a snarl on his lip. His chest was heaving, sweat was beading on his forehead, and the muscles beneath his black t-shirt and kutte were bulging with suppressed tension.

He looked delicious. Angry but yummy. Yum-gry?

Movement on her left jerked her from her deliriousness.

“Hawk!” she screamed, desperately pulling at her wrists, trying to get free. But the press of something cold and hard against his head made everything inside her seize up.

Tyler was behind her, squatting so his face was right next to hers, but she dared not turn to look at him, only seeing him from the corner of her eye…at least the one that wasn’t swelling shut.

“Motherfucker,” Tyler growled low, the smell of his breath an odd combination of cinnamon and apples. It was strange that she was taking the time to notice that, but at the moment, her mind needed to focus on something other than the gun barrel making an indent in her skull.

“It’s okay, baby. You’ll be out of here soon.”

Hawk? She blinked. That’s right. Hawk was there. She blinked again, trying to smile, but something was wrong with her. How hard had Tyler hit her? The shot of adrenaline from seeing Hawk burst into the room was making her blood race, which was only making it rush to her injured head that much faster. The blood had slowed while Tyler had been gone, but the wound was still fresh, the pain still painful. The tissues only getting more injured beneath the press of Tyler’s gun.

“Hawk?” she whimpered, trying to focus her gaze, but everything kept getting blurrier.

“Let her go,” Hawk demanded, his voice deep and filled with malice. Strong. Capable. Hawk had come to her rescue.

But why?

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