Page 5 of King's Claim
And standing in the middle of it all, pacing like a caged animal, was Rick.For once, the absentee owner had actually shown up.His usually slicked-back hair was a mess, his shirt wrinkled, his eyes wide and frantic.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered when he saw her.“Jesus Christ, Lena, what the hell am I supposed to do about this?”
She stared at him.“You’re asking me?”
“You were here last night!”His hands flailed toward the wreckage.“You saw those bastards.You know what they’re capable of.What the hell do we do?”
Lena bit back a bitter laugh.What did he expect her to say?He was the owner.He was supposed to have answers, supposed to protect what was his.Instead, he looked to her like she was some kind of savior.
But she wasn’t.She was just the girl pouring drinks to keep her mother’s hospital bills barely afloat.Then, like a stone sinking in her gut, she remembered.
The folded scrap of paper in her jacket pocket.King’s number.He’d handed it to her before he left last night, his voice low, rough.“Just in case.”
She had told him she wouldn’t need it.She didn’t need his protection.He hadn’t argued, hadn’t tried to convince her.He’d just looked at her with something dark in his eyes, something that said he knew better.
Now, standing in the middle of shattered glass and panic, she realized he had been right.Her hand trembled as she pulled the scrap from her pocket, staring at the heavy, deliberate numbers written there.
Rick noticed.“Who’s that?”
Her voice came out tight.“Someone who might be able to help.”
“Then call them!”Rick snapped.“For Christ’s sake, call them before those bastards come back and finish the job.”
Lena’s throat was dry.Calling King Maddox wasn’t something she could take back.Once she invited him in, there would be no undoing it.He was the kind of man who left marks that didn’t fade.
But her mother’s face flashed in her mind.The hospital bills.The Serpents’ laughter.With a deep breath, she pulled out her phone and dialed.
The line rang once, twice.Then clicked.
“Maddox,” came the low, steady voice on the other end.
For a second, Lena couldn’t breathe.
“It’s Lena,” she managed, her voice catching.“From The Pit Stop.I think I need that help after all.”
****
King Maddox had seena lot of things in his years.Blood, betrayal, brotherhood, and every kind of woman who thought she could handle a man like him.But damned if he could remember the last time someone had gotten under his skin the way Lena had the night before.
She shouldn’t have.She was just a bartender, standing behind the sticky counter of a two-bit dive.But when the Serpents had rolled in and spat their poison, Lena hadn’t cowered.
She’d stood there with her chin tipped up, her voice steady, eyes burning with defiance.Not a hint of fear.What a woman.
Most people folded under that kind of heat.Hell, even grown men had pissed themselves when facing down an MC.But Lena?She hadn’t flinched.She’d looked him in the eye afterward, too, as if daring him to say he’d saved her.Like she didn’t owe him a damn thing.
That had been the part that hooked him deep.
Now, hours later, as dawn crept pale across the sky, King leaned against the bar at the clubhouse, watching the women drift around the room.Club girls, hang-arounds, the eager bodies who came sniffing around the Devil’s Crown for scraps of attention.
Normally King didn’t mind the distraction.He didn’t get attached, didn’t let anyone close, but he was still a man with needs.These women were more than happy to fill the gaps when he wanted them to, but not this morning.
Their painted lips, their wandering hands, their high-pitched laughs, all of it washed over him like static.Meaningless.None of them held his focus and none of them made his blood stir the way Lena’s sharp tongue had, or the way she’d looked at him like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to slap him or kiss him.
King tightened his jaw as he pushed away from the bar.He ignored the calls of his name as he strode down the hall, away from the noise and the perfume, out toward the garage attached to the clubhouse.
The repair shop was theirs, one of the few legitimate businesses the Devil’s Crown ran, a clean front for money and a place to keep their hands busy between jobs.King pulled open the rolling metal door, the scent of oil and steel greeting him like an old friend.He needed that, the steadiness of engines.
Machines made sense in a way people didn’t.His phone buzzed in his pocket.He frowned, pulling it free.An unfamiliar number lit the screen.
