Page 7 of Knotting With A Stranger

“What the hell did you—” The words die in my throat as I spot the duffel bag, catching the glint of metal—a gun—beneath his jacket. My stomach drops. “Fuck, tell me you didn’t.”

“Shut the hell up and drive, man!” He’s sweating despite the cold, slamming his palm against the dashboard. “You’re my ride, remember? That’s what you fucking promised!”

“A ride home, Rick! You said you were picking up?—”

“Move!” he shouts.

I’m jittery, knees bouncing, my gaze swinging to the store he just rushed out of. No sign of anyone running out after him! Did he use the gun?

I’m already shifting into gear because that’s what I do—I protect, I help, I fix things. Even when every instinct screams that this time, this time, I’ve walked into something I can’t fix.

We tear down a residential street, houses looming dark against the rain-heavy sky.

“Pull over now. Fucking now!” Rick suddenly jerks forward, snatching the wheel with his gloved hand and jerking us over the damn curb, and I hit the brakes.

“What the—” I grip the wheel tighter, shoving him away. “I’m not moving until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

Rick is already grabbing his duffel, the door half open. “Sorry, bro. Had to be you. You’re the only one they’d believe.” His grin is something dark, something that makes my blood run cold. “Needed someone to take the fall. You know how it is.”

Ice freezes me.

He vanishes between the shadows of the houses before I can react. That’s when I see it—the gun he left on the passenger floor, just as the red and blue lights explode across my rearview mirror, turning the rain into a chaos of color.

A thundering knock at my door drags me out of my thoughts. Footsteps sound outside my door, their shadows appearing underneath. “You got visitors.”

I have to go,I type quickly.But... same time tomorrow?

It’s a date. I mean, not a DATE date, just... you know what I mean.

Her flustered response makes me smirk. She’s fucking adorable.

I know what you mean. And hey... for what it’s worth? I like our not-date dates.

Me, too. Even if you’re probably a serial killer.

Says the woman who started this with a body disposal text.

Touché. Stay dangerous, mystery man.

Stay sweet, baker girl.

The familiar jingle of keys comes, and I lift my head to the door. Frantically, I move to the bed and slide the phone into the hidden compartment I’d carefully hollowed out in the wall down by the bed’s feet—worth every pack of cigarettes I’d traded for someone to help me carve it three months ago. The burner has already proved invaluable, even if getting it in here had cost me more favors than I care to count.

I adjust my shirt collar. The lock clicks, and Mike appears in the doorway. I meet his gaze steadily as I step into the sterile hallway. Our footsteps echo against the white-washed walls as he leads me through the maze of identical corridors. The air here is stale, heavy with industrial cleaner and resignation.

He gestures to a door, and I enter to find a few other locals already with their visitors. My gaze lands on my buddies, Hunter and Archer, and I immediately grin. Bastards are smirking just as hard. Their presence fills the white room with something that doesn’t belong here—hope, maybe. Or a reminder of the world beyond these walls. A world I’ll be returning to soon.

My lawyer made sure Hunter and Archer got on my pre-approved visitors’ list early on, right alongside my attorney and counselor. The paperwork wasn’t fun, but it means they can skip half the security circus when they come. And thank God this place lets approved non-family do contact visits in the common room—none of that glass barrier bullshit. Makes it feel almost normal. Almost.

I settle into the hard plastic chair with the ease of a man who knows his sentence is just a temporary inconvenience. Just a few more weeks… then freedom.

Hunter towers over most of the guards, his broad shoulders and rugged build marking him clearly as an Alpha, even if his scent doesn’t give it away. Today, his black hair is windswept from the storm raging outside, and there’s a fresh scrape above his right eyebrow—probably from another mountain adventure. He scans the room automatically, a habit from years of search and rescue work, before he takes a seat across from me at the table. The leather jacket he wears still carries traces of snow across his shoulders.

Beside him, Archer looks like he just stepped out of a business meeting, which he probably did. His golden-brown hair is perfectly styled, and his casual clothes are anything but casual. The kind of simple sweater that looks fucking expensive. But the amber eyes that meet mine belong to my buddy from when we were kids, running wild on Hunter’s grandfather’s land.

“Looking cheerful this morning,” Archer notes as they both lounge in their plastic chairs. “Finally excited about freedom?”

“Something like that. Seriously, it can’t come fucking quick enough.” They are the only family that matters anymore, if I’m honest. Hunter’s grandfather took us all in during our roughest years—me running from my family’s expectations, Archer escaping his family’s criminal empire, Hunter reeling from losing his parents. The old man treated us all like grandsons, though only Hunter shares his blood. Even now, years later, we all still call him Grandfather. “What did you find?” I ask.

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