Page 12 of Knuckles

“Before Carol, there was Marissa. And before her, a woman named Geri. Pretty sure you know why I couldn’t talk to her.”

Dillon went white, his mouth opening and shutting before he swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She smiles sweetly. “Even if you don’t admit what you did to the others, I know what you did to me. So do several people in that club. I also made sure we were in the direct line of a security camera before you hit me.”

“Please, Hannah.” Dillon wept as he begged. “I can’t take any more. Please.”

“Let me ask you something.” Dillon lifted his gaze to hers. “What did you do to me when I begged you to stop?”

Dillon’s face crumpled, and he sobbed and sobbed. Hannah moved to the edge of the tacks on the floor and waited. The shock pad went off again and she moved forward. I glanced down at her feet to see she had on thick-soled boots at least. The second Dillon’s body relaxed after the shock, she lunged forward and plunged a knife into the side of his back five times in rapid succession, going for his kidney and the renal artery. The abdominal aorta if her knife was long enough. She twisted her knife before jerking it out the final time and stepping back.

Dillon looked at her in shock as he clamped his hand over the wound. Blood poured through his fingers. “Oh, God.” He gasped. “Oh, God!”

“God doesn’t give a shit about you, Dillon. No one fucking does.” Her words had no heat in them. She delivered them in a “so sorry for you” voice that made me smile, especially when Dillon started sobbing.

He tumbled off the stool and onto the roofing tacks with a strangled cry. He was definitely bleeding out. Just not very quickly.

Dillon rolled over with a groan and a cry, finding and clinging to my gaze, pleading with me. “Please, man. Call an… ambulance.” He was already gasping for breath with the blood loss. “Don’t let… me die.”

“Sorry. We’re ex-cons and refuse to carry cell phones so no one can track us. She’s the only one with any way to call help and, if I heard correctly, you took her fuckin’ phone.” I shrugged. “Them’s the breaks, pal.” I almost thought the smartass was more fun to play than the eat-your-face-off monster. Almost.

Dillon sobbed out another breath, gasping once. Then again. Then he was still.

“Well. That was fun.” Hannah’s bright smile was genuine. “You guys wanna grab a beer after I clean up the mess?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Come on, little hellion. You’re in a heap o’ trouble.”

Chapter Six

Hannah

I knew Knuckles would follow me. I had hoped I’d be done with Dillon before he got there, but everything worked out for the best. And, as an added bonus, I didn’t have to clean up the mess myself. Turned out that was a very good thing because the roofing tacks had seemed like a good idea, but they made cleanup a bitch.

“You do realize that could have gone a whole other way, right?” Knuckles. God, could the man not give me a moment’s peace? And not because he was a thorn in my side, though he was. The man was sin on a way fucking off-limits stick. He kind of worked with my dad, so it would just be all kinds of yucky for me to fantasize about his big body and what he looked like under that tight T-shirt and his colors. My dad would have a fit. And not because of the ex-con part either.

Dad was kind of protective of me and Suzie. Me more than Suzie because my sister had her own protector. Her husband, Stunner. Whose ass Dad had kicked. In the literal sense. Dad was funny like that. He’d intimidated or otherwise run off every single boyfriend I’d ever had. Except for Robert. Dad had only met him once and his dislike of him was more than vehement. It bordered on outright hatred. Guess he either knew or suspected what I was too stupid to accept. So, given the fact Knuckles was a guy -- no matter how much older than me he was -- and I was dad’s youngest daughter? Yeah. Nitroglycerine was less explosive than my dad faced with a man in my life.

“I had everything under control.” I shrugged. “I mean, I should have reconsidered the roofing tacks, but I enjoyed the shit outta him not wanting to get away from the shocking by stabbing himself in the feet.”

“Roofing tacks might have been the less painful route.” Knuckles grinned and sweet God in heaven, how could a man so gruff, grizzled, and basically shit-yourself-scary look so Goddamned gorgeous when he fucking smiled?

“Dillon was all about psychological games.” I turned what I knew was an evil smile on Knuckles. “I beat him at his own game.”

A sharp laugh escaped Knuckles. “Yeah, baby girl, I guess you did. Now. You and I have unfinished business back at the compound.” He held out a hand, fully expecting me to take it. I surprised myself when I did. “Come on.”

He took me out to the garage and his bike. I knew what it meant for a biker to put a woman on the back of his bike. Most of them avoided it for any reason unless the woman was theirs. I’d seen Trucker take a cage instead of his bike when he knew there was a chance of someone having to leave with us. So when Knuckles tossed me a helmet before straddling his bike, I gave him a confused look.

“What?” I looked from the helmet to him and back.

“Put the fuckin’ helmet on, Hannah. Your daddy might let you ride without one, but not me.”

“I got here myself, I can get back myself.”

“You got a ride here?”

I shrugged. “Don’t need one.”

“You do now, honey. You just killed a man in there. Yeah, we’re cleanin’ it up, but if we miss something, we don’t want your ass on the line.”

---