Page 3 of Razor (Road Reapers MC #4)

He pulled into the underground parking garage at the station and found his spot. She read the sign in front of his truck, “Detective Henry Kling,” she whispered. “Is that you?”

“You told me that you are a cop,” she reminded.

“I did, and I am,” he said.

“I was a uniformed police officer, but that all changed when—” he stopped mid-sentence, realizing that he was about to spill his guts to a total stranger. His problems were his own, and right now, Ella needed his help. He needed to get his head on straight and do his damn job.

“When what?” she asked. He could feel her dark eyes on him, and he knew that he had already said too much but telling her that today was the anniversary of his wife’s brutal murder wasn’t happening.

“Never mind,” he breathed. He spotted Spade’s truck a few spaces down and hoped like hell that he was in the office.

He quickly shot his friend a text to meet him in his office, knowing that Spade was a wildcard.

He still worked undercover, and there were stretches of days and even weeks that he’d disappear for.

Razor just hoped that Spade wasn’t on a case because he had a feeling that he was going to need his friend’s help with Ella’s case.

He was giving her the benefit of the doubt because he had a strong feeling that she had a case against the Devils—the problem would be proving it, but judging from the look of her, they’d be able to.

Her leg seemed to have stopped bleeding, and the dried blood on her jeans looked as though she had lost a lot of blood.

“Listen, I think that my buddy is here, and he’ll be able to give us a hand.

Plus, you need to have that leg checked out and get a good meal in you after the doctor gives you the go-ahead,” he said, changing the subject.

“I’m fine,” she lied. She looked as though they had nearly beaten the life out of her, and he was pretty sure that the last man she was with had raped her.

She said that she had stabbed him, but he could see the truth in her eyes.

When she told him about the fourth buyer, her eyes were sad and gave away the ugly truth.

For now, he’d let her think that he believed that she was fine, even if he knew differently.

The Devils were ruthless and would do whatever they wanted with the women they considered to be their property.

He helped her out of his truck, and she hesitated to let him wrap his arm around her waist. “You need some help,” he insisted. “Your leg looks bad.”

“It’s fine,” she lied again.

“You really don’t like to have anyone helping you, do you?” he asked.

She sighed, “I’ve already told you that I’m an ER nurse. I know how to assess my injuries, Razor.”

“Got it,” he grumbled, “you don’t need any help and can take care of yourself.

You still need to be checked out by a doctor.

” She didn’t look very happy about that idea, but there was no way that he’d let her off the hook.

She needed to be completely checked out—especially if she was raped.

It would only strengthen her case if there was one.

He believed that she was abducted and abused by the Devils.

So many women had been but proving that was going to be the issue.

“Now, you’re just acting like a man-child,” Ella grumbled. “I’ve known enough of those to steer clear of them.”

“Well, for now, you’re stuck with me.” Razor left out the part about her possibly being stuck with him for longer than just the day. If the Devils were looking for Ella, she would need to lie low for a while, and that would mean putting her into protective custody, whether she liked it or not.

“Lucky me,” she sassed. He watched as she pulled the door open and hobbled through it on her own, just shaking his head at how stubborn she was.

“Are you always this stubborn?” he asked, following her into the precinct.

“Not usually, but being abducted, sold off at auction four times, and then having to kill a man—well, that kind of changes a person. How about you let me worry about myself and you take my statement so that I can be on my way?” she asked.

He held the door to his office open for her, and she stepped in. “Where will you go?” he asked.

“Um, I’ll call my dad and find out what happened to my apartment and all my stuff,” she said.

He nodded to the chair in front of his desk, and she sat down, grimacing a little when her leg hit the seat.

“If he had to let my lease go, I’m sure that I’ll be able to stay with him for a bit until I can get back on my feet. ”

Spade stuck his head into Razor’s office and gruffly asked what he needed. “I’m glad that you’re here,” Razor admitted.

“Well, I’m heading out soon, so how about you tell me why I’ve been summoned to your office?” Spade said, getting right to the point. It’s the reason why Razor liked the guy so much. They had the same get-it-done mentality.

“Right, this is Ella, and she claims to have been abducted by the Devils,” Razor said, introducing her.

“What the hell do you mean by ‘Claims’?” she asked. “I’m not claiming, I’m telling you that the Devils took me against my will and sold me off at auction—four times. It’s not a claim, it’s a fact,” she spat.

Spade sat down on the edge of the desk and smiled at Ella.

The guy always laid on the charm with the ladies, and Razor often wondered how his wife felt about that.

“How about you tell me what happened, and Razor can sit behind his big, important desk and take down your statement?” he asked.

Ella smiled smugly at Razor and nodded her agreement.

“Great,” Razor mumbled under his breath.

He didn’t invite Spade down to his office to give him crap, but at least he was going to get Ella to talk.

That was more than he’d been able to do since picking her up on the side of the road.

She had told him the gist of her story, but he was sure that there was so much more to it than she was sharing.

He sat down and grabbed his laptop out of his locked desk drawer. “I’m ready,” he said, opening it. “Whenever you are, Ella.”

She took a deep breath and nodded again. Spade stood and sat down next to Ella in the adjacent chair. “How about we start with your full name, Ella?” he asked.

“My name is Ella Rainwater,” she almost whispered. It was as though saying her name out loud was like giving away a piece of her soul.

“How old are you, Ella?” Spade asked.

“I’m twenty-six,” she admitted. Razor could feel himself grimace at how young she was.

For someone still in her twenties, she had been through a hell of a lot.

“I missed my last birthday,” she admitted.

“When they took me, I was twenty-five. They held me for almost six months, and when I realized that I had missed my twenty-sixth birthday, I was a mess.”

“I’m sure,” Spade said. “Where were you when they took you?”

“I had gone out with some of my friends—you know, went dancing and had a couple drinks, but I had to call it an early night because I had a shift the next morning.”

“A shift,” Spade repeated.

“Yes, I’m an ER nurse,” she said, looking around Spade at Razor. “Some people in this room think that I’m not a very good one because they keep insisting that I’m not okay—and I am.”

Razor rolled his eyes and cleared his throat at being called out by Ella. “I never said that you weren’t a good nurse, Ella,” he corrected. “I just said that you’re going to have to get checked out by a doctor. You are covered in blood.”

She looked down at her body and back up at Razor. “I’ve told you that it’s not all mine. Some of it belongs to the man that I killed.”

“Fuck,” Spade swore. “Why didn’t you tell me that she killed a man? I thought that this was a kidnapping investigation.”

“It is,” Razor assured. “The Devils kidnapped Ella and sold her off four times. She killed the last guy to escape, and here we are.”

“Is he telling the story, or am I?” she questioned. Razor had to admit, she was sassy, and he loved a woman with a bit of spunk.

Spade shot Razor a look that told him to back down, and he sighed. Geeze, what was this—pick on Razor Day or something? “You are,” Spade insisted. “Go on.”

“As Razor pointed out, when he rudely butted into my statement, I was taken and sold off four times, but that wasn’t what you originally asked me.

You wanted to know where they took me, right?

” Spade nodded, and Ella smiled at Razor as though she had just won the game—not that any of this felt like a game.

“I was outside of my apartment building when two men cornered me. I tried to fight them, but they were just too big. It was so late that no one was around to hear my screams. They put a rag over my nose and mouth, and if I’m not mistaken, they used chloroform to knock me out.

When I woke up, I was in that God awful cage that they kept me in for six months. ”

“I’m so sorry that happened to you. It’s awful,” Spade said. “What happened next? You said that you were sold off four times,” he reminded.

“I was,” she admitted. “The first three times, I acted like a raging bitch, usually hurting my buyers, and they ended up returning me. By the fourth auction, the Devils had caught onto my game and warned my buyer that I was trouble. I had no choice but to have sex with him and make him believe that I wasn’t going to give him any problems. When he finally let his guard down, I stabbed him in the lung and ran. ”

“Shit,” Spade grumbled, “so, now we have a homicide to investigate, too. Are you sure that you killed him?”

She smiled politely at Razor, and he knew that she was about to give Spade the same shit that she had given him over the past hour or so.

“As I’ve already said, I’m good at my job.

Nurses know how to save lives and how to take them, too.

I worked the knife in through the guy’s ribcage and hit his lung.

I could tell by the hissing noise that I had hit my mark.

He’s good and dead by now,” she promised.

“Has anyone called in the murder yet?” Spade asked.

“Let me check,” Razor said. He looked through the incoming 911 calls from that morning, and there was nothing about a stabbing being reported. “Nothing yet,” he announced.

“Good, I’ll swing by there and check things out as soon as we are finished here,” Spade offered.

“Am I in trouble for killing him?” Ella almost whispered.

Her tiny voice was almost Razor’s undoing.

All he wanted to do was round his desk and pull her into his arms to comfort her—but that wasn’t a part of the job, and right now, Ella was his job.

He’d have to keep her safe, and that meant keeping his hands to himself, even if he did have a thing for damsels in distress. Not that she was one.