Page 4 of Surrender (Angels Halo MC Next Gen)

Reid and Chance were both going to bitch about that. We’d bought the property, built the apartments, and took one each for ourselves. The other twelve, we rented. The one next door to mine had only been vacant a few days. We had a wait list, but none of us had had the time to go through it yet.

“Well, that does sound like a great offer,” she hedged. “But I still need a few days to consider all of my options.”

“I can give you twenty-four hours. I need to know by tomorrow night. Otherwise, I’ll have to extend the internship to someone else.”

“That’s fair,” she agreed. “I’ll call you back tomorrow to let you know what I decide.”

Squeezing the back of my neck in frustration, I gritted out, “I look forward to your call, Samara.”

Hanging up, I dropped my phone facedown on the table, my chest practically heaving. She had to pick Barker & Reid.

I needed her to pick me.

CHAPTERONE

samara

Volume cranked up,I blasted my playlist as I started on my run. My leg was throbbing like a sonofabitch, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me from getting in my daily five. One of the first things anyone should learn was that running could and would save your life.

It was the first rule I had been taught—and one that still stayed with me, no matter where in the world I was.

Running was what had saved my life when I was in Budapest two weeks ago, taking care of a little favor my mom had asked me to fulfill for her. She was still on my shit list because of it. Luckily for her, my instincts were keen, or I would have been nothing but a splatter on the side of the Hungarian Parliament Building. Which would have been a shame. I loved that beautiful, Gothic, Renaissance-style architecture. It was too gorgeous to ruin with brain matter.

I didn’t need the thump of the bass to make my heart pump as I discreetly surveyed my surroundings before taking the curve in the road. Under the tutelage of my mother, I’d been put through training while blind, deaf, and even half frozen. I didn’t need all of my senses to identify danger, but speed and endurance were everything when it was life-or-death. Sweat soaked through my sports bra, a mixture of exertion and a little remembered fear.

Dying wasn’t what scared me. That was the one thing not a single person on the planet could outrun. My biggest fear was not getting to experience the things I craved with a hunger that had been gnawing at me for years. I just wanted a little taste, and then the angel of death could drag me to hell.

Until then, I would fight to stay in this world until the last drop of strength and blood drained from my body.

Lungs burning, pain slicing through the wound in my thigh, I reached the halfway point and turned, flying back toward the apartment.

With the sun coming up, my entire body was begging for mercy, and I breathed through the burn squeezing every muscle. It wasn’t my first bullet, but it was the one that had done the most damage. The scar was going to be gnarled and ugly. Whoever had put a hole in me better hope I never found them, because if I did, I would make them taste their own liver.

Needing to cool down, I slowed to a walk. As I did, a redhead in yoga pants and a Trinity University hoodie passed me. Her long ponytail swung as she gave a chin lift but otherwise kept running.

I watched her for a minute, trying to place her. She was familiar to me, but not a local. I was sure I had seen her before, though. Red looked younger than me by a few years, and the university hoodie suggested she was a student. It niggled at my mind, yet I couldn’t readily place her.

An urge to follow her, make sure she was safe, nearly overwhelmed me. It stole my breath, made my muscles ache in a way that had nothing to do with the five miles I’d just run, my crazy itching to be set free so I could protect Red. I almost gave in, but at the last second, I was able to rein in the urge.

Elias.

He was so close. What I wanted—needed—was within reach. But if I followed Red, all my plans could be ruined.

Hands on my hips, I let my head drop back onto my shoulders, closing my eyes as the music continued to pump in my ears, and I mentally shrugged off the redhead. My song of choice matched my mood. Corpse always spoke to me. My sister-in-law called me a freak, and she wasn’t wrong. She just didn’t know to what extent.

Baring my teeth at the sky, I sucked in gulps of oxygen and climbed the stairs to the third floor. I hadn’t bothered locking the front door of my new apartment that was supposed to be home for the next twelve weeks. Creswell Springs wasn’t like NYC. No one was stupid enough to break in to a building owned by a member of the Angel’s Halo MC. Mine just happened to be the property of three of them.

As soon as I walked in, my phone synced with the speaker I’d placed in the kitchen. It blasted through the entire apartment, and I groaned. “Shit. The neighbors aren’t going to be happy.”

I doubted any of them would appreciate being startled awake to “E-Girls Are Ruining My Life!” at any hour, let alone first thing on a Monday morning.

Turning it down, I started a pot of coffee and was about to pull my sports bra over my head when someone pounded on my door. Adjusting the top back into place, I called out a “Hold on a sec!” as I jogged over to answer.

Pulling the door open, I stared up into a pair of blue eyes that never failed to make me feel like I was drowning. Brow cocked, he tilted his head to the side, amusement teasing his lips upward. “I’m a little afraid to ask, but do you start every morning like this? ’Cause, baby girl, if so, I need to warn my tenants.”

Leaning against the door, I laughed. “Sorry. My phone clicked over from my earbuds to my Bluetooth speaker when I walked through the door. The beat has killer motivation for a good, hard workout.”

Pupils dilating, he dropped his gaze, trailing over the tops of my tits and down my bare middle before shooting back to the sports bra flashing a good bit of cleavage. Elias was a breast man. I knew that and planned on thoroughly exploiting it.

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