Page 9 of Knox (The Devil’s Luck MC #6)

KNOX

I hadn’t been in so much physical pain in a long time—or maybe ever. Whoever that bastard was watching Caroline, Bates hired him for a reason.

Definitely the biggest guy I had ever gotten into a brawl with, he was fucking huge. And he had multiple weapons on him. Honestly, it was a miracle I made it out, even if it was by the skin of my teeth at the expense of some bruises and cuts.

But it wasn’t me that mattered. It was Caroline Bates, who was now on the back of my bike, arms wrapped around me like she wanted to snap me in half.

At a red light, I glanced down at her hands and wrists.

They were rubbed raw from rope and sliced up from all the broken glass.

Her fingers were trembling, fisting into my shirt as she clutched on for dear life.

The woman was as tough as me, but the intense relief she had to be feeling was only natural.

Carloine might’ve gotten out on her own, considering she was damn near an escape artist like her father, but would it have been unscathed?

My blood boiled at the sight of that guy stalking toward her with clear, despicable intent.

Enemy or not, I would never let a woman be subjected to that.

I rested my hand over hers. She stiffened but didn’t pull away.

By the time we got to Grant’s shop, it was eight at night but it felt like the middle of the ungodly hours.

Every part of me hurt like a bitch. My body felt like one giant bruise, and I probably looked like hell. Caroline definitely did. But I wasn’t stupid enough to tell her that, and surprisingly, neither was Gabriel.

We parked in the garage. Gabriel and Grant made sure neither of us would keel over as I helped Caroline off the bike.

Then I went to grab a first-aid kit and some beers.

She didn’t protest when I guided her through the house and to the backyard.

She collapsed into a chair. I knelt and started stacking firewood to get some warmth into our bones.

Caroline watched my every move, dead-eyed and limp, but when the guys came out, she looked like a caged animal ready to bolt.

The mistrust on her face when Grant offered her a beer struck a nerve I didn’t expect.

Maybe because I knew what a badass she was, and to see her brought this low because of her own sadistic father?

Again, enemy or not, no one deserved this mistreatment.

To my surprise, she glanced at me, almost as if asking for permission. I nodded slightly. She hesitated, then snatched the bottle and chugged it.

Our eyebrows shot all the way up.

“Woman can drink,” Gabriel muttered.

Caroline heard him. She tossed the half-empty bottle on the grass and jerked to her feet, glaring with the fury of God in her piercing blue eyes. “I can drink you under the table five times over, dickhead.”

Gabriel raised his hands in surrender. “Go easy, Bates?—”

“Don’t call me that.”

My brothers and I exchanged looks. It was Grant who was brave enough to dare ask, “What do you want us to call you?”

She didn’t answer immediately, just glaring at each of us, lingering on me. She looked like she was going to bolt—or pass out—whichever came first. Caroline had been held hostage for who knew how long. My guess was at least two days—since we parted ways at the poker den.

A bruise seemed to be forming on her forehead, but her unbound hair covered most of it, thanks to her messy bangs. Something about her hair not being in that tight ponytail was disarming. It made her seem almost not untouchable anymore.

Right now, she wasn’t Walter Bates’s daughter. She was a woman who survived.

“Nothing,” she snapped finally, harsh but edged with exhaustion. Her gaze flicked to the gate enclosing the backyard. Of course she clocked an exit. And she was about to use it.

Faster than I could catch her wrist, Caroline bolted.

“Hey!” Gabriel shouted. “Slow your roll, blondie! At least clean those cuts before you disappear into the night!”

“Fuck off!” she shouted back, throwing the gate open and making it through. “I don’t need your pity, dick lickers.”

I caught up to her before she could get halfway down the path to the front of the house. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Caroline looked at me like I was curdled milk. “Wherever you and yours aren’t.” She sidestepped me and mumbled, “As far from here as I can get.”

I sidestepped and cut her off again with a bark of laughter. “How hard did you hit your head? Just stop and take a breath.”

“Stop?” She laughed bitterly. “I need to keep moving right now. It isn’t safe.”

“Right here might be the safest place in the city, when it comes to being Wolverine-proof.” I shrugged. “You’re not a prisoner, but if you’re smart, you’ll keep your skinny blonde ass right here where we can keep an eye on you. And tend to your shredded arms.”

She seethed through her teeth, which were smeared with blood, and shoved her palms into my chest hard enough to send me back a step. Skinny but mighty.

“I can take care of myself, thank you very much,” she growled. “You can’t.” Caroline pointed fingers at Grant and Gabriel. “ You can’t. None of your damn club can! So just stay away.”

“Actually,” Gabriel said, despite Grant’s warning shove, “Abel’s a doctor. He can?—”

“Gabe,” I snapped in equal warning, so sharply I made him flinch. “Minimal contact with the club. You two said it yourself. Black Jack will kill us if he finds out.”

That stopped Caroline short. Her animosity flickered as she looked between the three of us. “Black Jack doesn’t know about this?”

I shook my head, then smirked. “We went rogue for you, princess.”

Her defensive walls went right back up. “Do not call me that, or I’ll kick you in your balls again.”

Heat flushed my neck while the other guys howled with laughter. Fuckers.

This is getting out of hand. I took a deep breath. “Listen, Caroline?—”

“Don’t call me that, either.”

I took a deeper breath. “Alright, if nothing else, you shouldn’t go anywhere until you’re not covered in blood, okay? We have extra clothes. You can shower, too, if you want?—”

Caroline looked madder than a spitting cat. “I’m not showering with three men loitering around.”

I winced. Don’t lose your cool, Knox. Deescalate her.

“It’s not like we’re trying to hose you down in the yard, you lunatic,” I said, ever the smooth talker. Well done.

“Pardon me for not expecting you Devils to have manners,” Caroline continued scathingly, though at least she hadn’t run yet. “You idiots know my father will come looking for me, right? And he’ll know you dumb pricks took me, so he’ll rain merciless hell on you even if it drowns all of Reno!”

The silence that followed her words was deafening. Crickets barely chirped. The city went on in the distance.

Caroline’s chest started heaving with labored pants, and I could tell her panic was rising fast .

She was starting to really freak out as her mind caught up to all the events of the last hour.

The porch light bathed her in yellow-orange light.

She looked small and vulnerable for a change, and I couldn’t look away from her.

I wouldn’t. Not when she was in so much pain.

Caroline exploded. “ You should have just left me there! ”

The crickets went silent. My heart sank not in pity but sympathy.

She was still glaring defiantly, but now it was at the ground, not at me as if she couldn’t bear to meet my gaze.

Gabriel, who couldn’t stand awkward silences, had to break it up with humor. “Yeah, that’s what we tried to tell him. But as you’ve already pointed out tonight, Knox is kind of a dumb ass.”

“I think she said dumb prick , and she included all of us,” I clarified.

Caroline didn’t see the humor. “I definitely included all of you. You’re all stupid, egotistic, savior-complex cockroaches who think they can save every woman in mild danger and expect them to fall to their knees in worship.”

She looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes threatening to fall. Fuck, she looked like hell.

So why the fuck was I turned on?

I had no place being aroused, not when Caroline Bates was losing her shit.

But she was heated, and fearless, and defiant, and I loved it.

I knew she thought she could go toe-to-toe with us right now if she had to, with bare fists and no weapons.

And she’d probably give at least one of us a run for our money. She certainly had before.

But I saw beyond that. That forehead bruise. Her split lip. Her raw wrists. Her sliced-up arms. Her hands were still trembling. She’d been through hell, and still, she was fighting tooth and nail to put on a tough face.

I uncrossed my arms, hoping she’d see it as letting down my guard and as an invitation for her to do the same. I wasn’t Prince motherfucking Charming but I wasn’t like all the Wolverines she’d grown up around. None of the Devils were.

“Listen,” I said to her, looking her dead in the eye. “You and me don’t have to be best friends, okay? We’re not asking you to join the crew and get matching fucking tattoos. We’re just saying you should take a moment before you run off somewhere your dad can find you.”

“He’ll find me no matter where I go,” she said, eyes narrowed at me like I was just another liar like every other guy.

“I have a place,” I said gently. “No other people. No cameras watching your every move. You’ll be safe there. Just to regroup and figure out your next moves,” I added quickly. “I won’t hold you hostage.”

Caroline stared me down, eyes now searching mine as if looking for ill intent. I felt like I was taking a lie detector test, and if I failed, she’d claw my face off.

But she must have found me innocent because her shoulders sagged in resignation. I felt like I’d won the damn lottery.

“Regroup,” Caroline said quietly, almost to herself. Then she nodded. “Fine. For one night. Then I can figure out my next steps. By myself ,” she added fiercely.

Like Gabriel, I raised my hands in surrender. “No argument there.”

After a beat of hesitation, Caroline returned to the backyard. She snatched the beer bottle that she had tossed on the ground, chugged the rest of it, and pressed it to her bruised forehead. It must have been cold still because she sighed in relief.

I walked over to the guys with one eye on her. I assumed she wasn’t going to bolt, but I couldn’t be too sure. Her survival instincts were cranked up to eleven, and one more surprise might send her scampering into the night like a jack rabbit.

“One night is one too many,” Grant said. He was watching Caroline with a detached wariness. He probably felt like he had let a stray cat with rabies into his house. After what Bates did to Sam’s pub, what if his daughter torched his shop next?

“But if she hits the road tomorrow,” Gabriel reasoned, thankfully serious now, “we can keep our hands clean of this. If Jackson finds out, we’ll all have the devil himself to answer to.” Gabriel clapped a hand on my shoulder, tone lightening. “For now, brother, we’ll cover Caroline’s tracks.”

Caroline was eavesdropping—of course she was—and didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?” she demanded. “Why not hand me over to your president?”

“Because you’ve had enough trouble for one day.” Gabriel turned to her. “And the Devils aren’t like the Wolverines.”

Caroline blinked, dumbstruck. She met my eyes. I gave her the smallest quirk of a smile, then turned back to Grant. “Still got an extra helmet in there?”

“Yeah. Take the first-aid shit with you, too.” He shot her a look, fully aware she could hear him. “Sorry I don’t have anything for her shitty attitude. But at least you can disinfect those cuts.”

We went into the garage. I strapped the kit to my bike bag, Caroline close behind.

She hesitated to let me put the helmet on her but then gave in.

She watched my every move, clipping the chin strap and ensuring the visor worked.

If it were a less tense moment, I would have slapped it shut to annoy her, but she might literally break my fingers for it right then.

As it was, she swatted my hand away when I tried to help her on the bike. I shook my head in exasperation and got on in front of her. I revved the metal beast to life, and with a short wave to the guys, I backed out of the shop and headed onto the road.

From there, we left the city limits behind.

It was a long ride to the safe house. I should have been focused on stop signs and intersections. But my attention whittled down to the way she wrapped her arms around my torso and the pressure of her thighs against mine.

God fuck, man, I thought savagely, you interact with one emotionally unavailable woman, and now you’re whipped as a high school jock? Where are your balls?

It kept me on edge the entire half-hour it took to reach Galena Forest. The parking lot was empty, but Caroline tensed as if she had expected a Wolverine to be camped out waiting for her. But like I promised: no people, no cameras.

I pulled the bike onto the walking path, rumbling down a ways until I veered off through the mostly flat stretch of forest. It wasn’t the terrain a motorcycle was meant for, but I knew how to maneuver through it to the spot where I could hide the bike.

Caroline muttered something about refusing to die in the middle of the forest.

“I won’t let Big Foot get you, sw—” I refrained from calling her sweetheart lest I die in a ditch at her hand. “Secret camp. Nice and illegal.”

We rumbled to a small clearing tucked far into the park where no one could stumble upon it accidentally.

Just enough space to house the branch-littered trailer hooked up to my old man’s Ford pickup truck.

If he knew I would park it illegally in the middle of the forest, he never would have left it to me in his will.

He was probably rolling in his grave, which was more exercise than he ever got in life.

I parked the bike next to the picnic table I had set up, then got off. I offered a hand to Caroline. Instead of taking it, she pulled off her helmet and thunked it into my palm.

“Right.” I sighed under my breath. Then, louder, “Home sweet temporary home.”