Page 33 of Wizard

Baylor didn’t waste any time getting us to his truck, but that didn’t stop him from calling out to a couple of his brothers on the way through the clubhouse. We ended up with Ash and Kevlar trailing behind us on their bikes.

“Don’t you think this is a little bit of overkill?” I asked when we parked in front of the production company’s office. “I didn’t even remember I had this meeting, so there’s no way my stalker could’ve known.”

“Not gonna take any risks when it comes to your safety, baby,” he growled.

“We got your backs,” Ash confirmed as he got off his motorcycle.

Kevlar nodded. “Yup.”

At first, I felt a little weird walking into the meeting with three bikers, but then I decided to just own it. I wrote steamy romance novels, and Susan’s company handled the recording of them. A few hot guys listening in shouldn’t distract us from discussing business. Not that I really noticed Ash or Kevlar when I only had eyes for Baylor.

The same couldn’t be said for the receptionist, whose gaze darted between all three men while she tripped over her words. Luckily, Susan came to her rescue and ushered us into the conference room without blinking an eye over my unplanned entourage.

When I spotted Mark waiting at the table, I realized she had a surprise for me of her own. Swiveling my head toward her, I asked, “Why is he here?”

Her reply about wanting to revisit the topic of duet narration was drowned out by Mark’s roar. “The better question is why the fuck is that fucking biker here?”

Everything happened so quickly. I wasn’t sure how he got out of his seat and over to me so fast, but before I knew it, Mark was holding a knife to my throat.

Baylor shoved Susan out of the way and demanded, “Let her go, Johnson.”

“So you’re not as dumb as you look,” Mark snarled. “I didn’t think you’d figure out who I was before I made Thea understand how badly she was fucking up, messing around with you when she’s mine.”

It was a good thing Ash and Kevlar had followed us because they barely managed to restrain Baylor when Mark tried to claim me.

“Calm down, man. You gotta get your head straight so we can save your woman,” Kevlar urged, gripping his right shoulder while Ash held the left.

“Fuck,” Baylor groaned, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

“She’s not his woman,” Mark screamed. “Thea just went with him because she was confused by my notes. If she’d realized they were from me, she never would’ve gone on a fucking date with him for burgers in the first place, let alone let him talk her into staying at your dirty biker compound.”

I really wished I’d taken Baylor’s warnings about my lack of situational awareness to heart much sooner. Maybe then I would’ve realized that my favorite male narrator was also my stalker.

“If you saw us together, then you gotta know she’s not yours,” Baylor pointed out, his gaze locked on my terrified one.

The confidence in his dark eyes helped ease some of the tension in my body. At least as much as it could when there was a knife pointed at my throat. The downside to all of the research I had done for books over the years was that I knew how close that sharp tip was to my jugular vein. One wrong move, and I would bleed out too quickly for Baylor to save me.

“You’re wrong,” Mark yelled, tightening his hold on my arm.

“Mark, please. You’re hurting me,” I pleaded.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but sometimes we have to use tough love to help the people who are most important to us.”

There wasn’t an ounce of apology in his tone, just anger. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of this. Not until Baylor mouthed, “The Spy’s Return.”

Reading my books hadn’t just convinced me to go out on a date with him, it also allowed us to speak in code with each other. All it took was the title of that particular book for me to understand what he was getting at.

After taking a deep breath, I let my body relax so I wasn’t struggling against Mark’s hold. Then I whispered, “You’re right.”

“C’mon, Thea. You can’t listen to this guy,” Baylor argued. “He has a knife to your fucking throat.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Mark screamed. “You’re the one she shouldn’t listen to because you’re just confusing her.”

“Stop, Wizard.” I deliberately used his road name in the hope that the other guys—who’d only ever heard me call him Baylor—would understand that I was just playing along. “You need to leave.”

“Leave?” he echoed, clenching his fists at his sides as he shrugged Ash’s and Kevlar’s hands away from his shoulders. “Just walk away and let this guy hurt you?”

“Mark won’t hurt me. He loves me.”

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