Page 27 of Protected By the Bikers Next Door (Never Just One #4)

Harper

I can’t believe I left them behind.

Every fiber of my being wants to turn the car around and go back to help them.

When the distant sound of an explosion rips through the air, I pull the car to an abrupt stop, almost causing a pile-up. Behind us, I can see the smoke from Katie’s apartment. A strangled scream bubbles up from my soul as I realize what’s happened.

“They’re inside. Oh my god, they’re inside!” I wail. I grab the walkie, fumbling in my haste to connect. “Bear, Bear, can you hear me? Please, god, Bear, tell me you’re all okay, tell me you weren’t inside when it went off!”

Static silence answers me, and my heart shatters into a million fragmented pieces.

“We’re okay, Wolf, Hawk, and I are okay. We got out before the bomb went off. Where are you? Are you okay?”

I’m so relieved that tears spring from my eyes, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “I’m okay, yes, I’m okay.”

“Where are you? Are you on your way to the safehouse we told you about?” I can hear the hope in his voice.

In the background, I can hear the sounds of gunfire and shouting, and my stomach knots in fear, they’re not out of danger yet.

The agreed-upon plan was that, should anything go wrong, I was meant to drive to safety and wait for them.

Of course, they think that’s what I’m doing.

I should let them continue to believe it. To keep them safe.

“Tell him yes,” Paul hisses.

I can’t bring myself to lie. “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

I turn off the walkie and lean my head against the steering wheel, trying to think about what I’m doing. This is madness. I can’t face Viktor alone. But if I don’t, Katie will die. I don’t know this woman. I owe her nothing. But I can’t let an innocent person die because of me.

“Harper, please, we have to go,” Paul urges.

When Bear told us about the message Vik left behind in Katie’s apartment, Paul knew immediately what it meant, what he had to do.

If I’m not at the warehouse on pier 47 before sunrise, Katie dies.

If anyone other than Paul turns up with me, she dies too.

If I told Bear now, nothing would stop them from protecting me, even if it meant letting Katie die.

They might be willing to make that decision, but I’m not.

If I can get there first, I can get Katie out of harm’s way.

As a precaution, I fire off a voice note to Pam, telling her everything. By the time the guys realize I’m not sticking to the plan, and she hears the voicemail to warn them, it will be too late to stop me.

I know that Viktor won’t kill me straight away. He’s waited too long for this. He’s going to want to take his time, which gives me an advantage. I can save Katie and put an end to this once and for all. Tonight, I plan to kill Viktor Volkov.

I put my foot on the gas. Already, the sky is lightening with the first signs of dawn. We’re running out of time.

***

We arrive with minutes to spare. I don’t have time to think things through. I untie Paul, praying that I’m not wrong to trust him, aware of the irony that the man who has been terrorizing me for weeks is now my only ally.

“Remember the plan?” I ask him, my voice steady and determined.

He nods, taking the gun from me as if it’s a live grenade. We’re aware that it’ll be immediately confiscated, and that there’s no point in hiding it, as they’ll no doubt search us, so it may as well serve as a prop.

“Help me tie this,” I say, struggling to tie my own hands together in such a way that it seems secure at first glance, but I can break free should I need to.

With shaking hands, he does as I ask. Just like me, Paul didn’t deserve any of this.

He’s just an innocent bystander trying to help his sister.

How many people has Viktor tormented? How many lives has he ruined?

Let alone how many people he’s killed, or been responsible for their deaths?

So much blood on his hands, yet he gets out of prison after serving only five years on a technicality.

Viktor needs to be stopped. We have to try.

I double-check that the safety is on the gun and, with more confidence than I feel, I say to Paul, “Let’s go save your sister.”

Paul nods. “Thank you, Harper. Thank you for doing this. You’re a good person. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything I did to you. I should never have—”

I cut him off, worried that if I let him say any more, he’ll lose it. He’s barely hanging on by a thread, and I need him to be strong to pull this off. “It’s okay, Paul. You were just trying to protect your sister. I need you to be strong again for her now. This will all be over soon.”

He nods, holding back tears. “Okay, let’s go.”

He points the gun at me, his pretend captive and we walk toward the warehouse.

It’s eerily deserted. If Viktor has men stationed around, they’re doing a good job of making themselves invisible.

Paul pushes the warehouse doors open. “Katie,” he cries as he sees his sister tied to a chair, blood matting her dark hair and obscuring her face.

He automatically tries to run to her, but Viktor’s men step in, striking him in the gut with the butt of their rifle and disarming him.

He doubles over in pain, and I have to force myself not to cry out in concern.

He’s meant to be my stalker, my enemy. There are at least half a dozen armed men in the room.

I’d counted on there being less, on Viktor’s arrogance, meaning he wouldn’t think we’re a threat, so that he wouldn’t need much backup.

I hear Viktor before I see him. His voice turns the blood in my veins to ice.

“Well, well, well, Paul, I didn’t think you’d actually be able to pull it off.

” He appears from another room, clapping slowly.

He’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his cold blue eyes.

“Hello again, Haley,” he says, using my former name.

“Viktor.”

“Finally, we meet face to face. Such a shame they hid you from me on the witness stand,” he muses.

“I had to imagine your face in the flesh from a photo one of my men managed to take for me. Five years I’ve spent looking at it while I was locked away, alone in solitary confinement.

I was like a man at war yearning for his sweetheart. I almost feel like I know you, Haley.”

I don’t know what his angle is, what he wants from me. Clearly, it isn’t to kill me. I observe him, channeling Hawk. He told me that when you don’t speak, people fill the space and open up more.

“The woman who finally did what no one else could do. Are you scared of me, Haley?”

I can’t hold my tongue any longer. “My name is Harper.”

I much prefer Harper. Harper is brave. Harper doesn’t take shit from anyone. Harper is loved.

I am not Haley anymore.

I will never be her again.

Viktor inclines his head. An indulgent parent conceding to a child’s whim.

“Okay, Harper. As you wish. You know, Harper, you intrigue me. On the witness stand, you sounded scared. I thought you were simply a pawn, used by the feds to catch me. A nobody who got caught up in something they had no business being involved in. I sent Paul here to find you, to terrorize you a little before I killed you.” He says this so casually that it makes the hair on my arms stand to attention.

My life has no value to him. Killing me would be as mundane as taking out the trash.

“But then he tells me that you’re fucking the president of the Shadow Pack MC, and then, even more incredibly, you start a relationship with his VP and Sergeant at Arms,” he says with incredulous delight.

“It made me curious. Perhaps you aren’t the pathetic creature I thought. Perhaps you are strong, a survivor, a warrior, someone who belongs in my world. You fit so seamlessly into it, taking to the Shadow Pack like you had been raised in this life of blood and violence.”

“They’re nothing like you,” I hiss with fire in my eyes.

It only seems to confirm his suspicions. He smiles at me, his teeth sharp and brilliantly white. A shark, circling when there’s blood. “Photos don’t do you justice. You’re quite captivating in the flesh.” The way he says this makes my skin crawl, as if he’s physically touching me with his gaze.

“Let Katie go. Paul brought me here, it’s time to keep your end of the bargain. Or are you not a man of your word?” I bait, sensing this will rile him.

His eyes narrow, a sign of his irritation. “Why should you care? He’s the man who brought you here. You should want them both dead.”

I shrug, feigning indifference, though my heart is pounding. “What I want is irrelevant. Aren’t you the one in charge here?”

Viktor snarls, his genial mask slipping to reveal his monstrous self underneath. “Don’t forget it. I would watch your tone if you don’t want me to send you in pieces to your fuck buddies.”

I don’t say anything further, bowing my head in deference.

His attention shifts to Paul, who is desperately trying to wake his sister, tears and snot streaming down his face.

Viktor’s lip curls in disgust. He gestures to his men and says, “Take her to see the medic. Don’t let them out of your sight. ”

Paul looks up in surprise. “Thank you,” he gushes in amazement.

Viktor shrugs. “She has value to me, not much, but a little.” I think for a moment that perhaps he genuinely cares for this woman who has been his girlfriend for the last six months. But then he speaks again. “She’ll make a good whore.”

“No. You promised!” Paul exclaims as he realizes the fate that will soon befall his sister.

“I promised not to kill her. I did not say she could leave. She is mine to do with as I wish. So are you. You’d be smart to remember that.

If you’re useful to me, life can be good for you.

If you’re not…” he shrugs, the implication clear.

“Harper here saw me shoot my own flesh and blood, my dear cousin who had betrayed me to the FBI. If I killed my cousin without blinking, what do you imagine I will do to you, Paul?”

Paul balks, cringing, helpless. He looks over at me desperately. Things are not going to plan. I feel a wave of helplessness wash over me in the situation. What the hell was I thinking? That I’d ride in here and defeat Viktor and his men single-handedly?

As Paul and Katie are led away, I realize I’ve made a terrible mistake.

I pray that the guys know where I am and that they’re coming for me.

But the reality is, I’m all alone with a dangerous psychopath.

I’m tempted to plead to him that I’m pregnant, to spare my baby, but I know it won’t make a difference.

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

I look into his soulless, mad eyes, and I realize some fates are worse than death.

I thought I knew what I was facing, that he wanted me dead.

But in his solitude, his hatred of me has turned into an even darker, more terrifying obsession.

I realize that the unhinged notes he made Paul write to me reflected his intentions all along.

“I want you, Harper. You are mine.”