Page 19 of Reaper & the Lioness (Lone Star Mavericks MC #1)

I downshifted hard, gravel spitting under my tires as I tried to shake off the restless energy gnawing in my gut. I didn’t like feeling off-balance. She wasn’t scared of me, which made her dangerous in a way I couldn’t pin down.

As I strode into the clubhouse, I hoped Linc could offer more answers about this enigma of a woman who had barreled into my life with her pint-sized furry piranha.

The stale beer-and-gun oil stench of the clubhouse did nothing to ground me as I sat beside my brother.

The air hung heavy with cigarette smoke, curling in the dim light.

“What do you have?” I asked Linc, cracking open the beer he’d slid across the bar, condensation spreading across the obsidian countertop.

“This woman’s a walking Molotov cocktail,” Linc said with a grin. “Want the long story or the short?”

“The fucking short.” Linc’s long stories had an irritating number of irrelevant details.

Linc laughed. He’d expected that answer. “I’ll do my best, but some of these were just too good to leave out. Eva has more than a record. This pretty little vigilante has left a trail of broken bones and blood behind her since she was just a kid.”

He spread the contents of Eva’s folder across the clubhouse bar.

“Freshman year of high school—a classmate bragged about how he’d roofied a girl at a party. Eva followed him to the bathroom and beat the shit out of him.”

A slow smile tugged at my lips as I imagined this woman facing off against a boy probably twice her size.

“She broke two of his ribs against a urinal,” Linc continued. “But they couldn’t prove it, and her friends claimed she had been with them. It was his word against hers, and she hadn’t been in trouble before. She was a straight-A student.”

I almost felt sorry for the bastard. Almost.

Linc flipped the page, showing another high school record.

“Sophomore year—she caught a senior harassing a freshman girl. She broke his nose. Got suspended this time because a teacher caught her.”

“I thought you said she had a sealed record,” I prodded.

Linc’s grin widened. “I’m getting there. At sixteen, shit really hits the fan. This youth pastor has been groping her and some other girls. Eva reports it, but no one does jack shit.”

My grip tightened on the bottle as a familiar anger stirred in my gut.

“So, one night, she waits for him in the parking lot. Takes a bat to him. He gets a few hits in, too, but she puts him in the hospital.”

He slid the police report over. Even in her mugshot, I could sense her simmering fury. Her chin remained high despite her split lip and the bruise forming under her cheekbone. She’d been arrested and taken to a juvenile detention facility.

“The prosecution pushed for a more severe punishment because it had been a pre-meditated assault—not exactly self-defense. But the judge took her side, especially after other girls came forward. Gave her community service and sealed her record.”

“What else?” I asked as I flipped through the pages. Linc had pulled everything he could find.

“In college, she caught the president of a frat trying to take advantage of a drunk girl. She broke a beer bottle over his head and pushed him down the stairs.”

A laugh punched out of me. “Fuck. I’d have paid to see that.”

“She was gone before the EMTs arrived. When the police showed up at her door, her roommates vouched for her. They said she’d been watching movies with them all night.”

“Smart. Always have an alibi.”

Linc’s expression turned serious. “The last incident is … well, it’s an assumption. Circumstantial. Few years back, she went on a date with a guy. Turns out he’s a stalker. Restraining order doesn’t work. Cops are useless. Said she was being dramatic.”

My jaw clenched as a protective rage rose within me. “What happened?”

“One night, he cornered her after work with a knife to her throat. He whispered all the ways he was going to hurt her. She got away and reported it to the police. They arrested him, but he was back on the streets the next day. A week later, someone broke into his house and slit his throat in the middle of the night.”

I raised my brows. “You think it was her?”

Linc shrugged. “I don’t not think it was her. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Or maybe she took justice into her own hands. She had a solid alibi, but …”

“But it fits,” I finished. A new respect for Eva settled in my bones. “She’s got teeth, that’s for sure.”

Linc’s lips curled into a knowing smirk. “You’ve got a thing for her, haven’t you?”

I shot him a warning glare but didn’t dignify it with a response. “What else did you find? What about her family life?”

Linc’s face went grim. “A sad story. Her parents divorced when she was three. Lived with her mom until her piece-of-shit stepfather stabbed her to death. Her mom was four months pregnant.” He tapped the police report. “Eva witnessed everything. She called 911 from a closet. She was thirteen.”

I stared at the crime scene photos, bloodstained floral wallpaper and a pink backpack visible under the yellow tape. “Fuck.” Her childhood had been shattered in an instant.

“She and her brother moved to Maryland to live with her dad. Career military. Working dog handler. Took the … practical approach to grief.” Linc flipped to military records. “He started training Eva in Krav Maga. Her brother enlisted the next year.”

“Where’s the brother now?”

“MIA.”

Linc tapped a deployment photo of Jace Harland.

“What about her dad?”

“Retired. They catch up every week, according to her phone records.”

I shook my head as I processed the weight of Eva’s past. I’d sensed her dark side the moment I met her, but I never imagined she’d been through so much. She’d been tempered by tragedy and loss at an age when most kids worried about school dances and homework.

“Shit,” I muttered, running a hand over my face.

The image of young Eva calling 911 while her world shattered around her twisted something in my chest. I’d experienced my share of horrors, too. But she’d been just a kid.

“She’s been fighting her whole life. I bet she doesn’t even know how to relax or trust anyone at this point.”

Linc raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

I shot him a warning glare, but the comparison stuck. Maybe it explained my inexplicable draw to her. Life had cut us from the same cloth—survivors, fighters, people who’d seen the darkest parts of humanity and chosen to stand against it instead of succumbing.

“We need to end this Abell situation. Not just for her safety, but because it’s the decent fucking thing to do.”

Linc nodded, a hint of his usual grin returning. “Never thought I’d see the day when you became a white knight.”

I flipped him off. “Fuck off. Track the bastards down.”