Page 41 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

But it doesn’t feel like enough. It will never feel like enough to make up for the years she spent suffering while I was working my way out of my father’s grip, building myself, telling myself I was getting strong enough to deserve her.

“Can we take this boss lady for a spin now?” She puts on the helmet, and it brings the first time she rode with me to memory, when I had to put it on her and buckle it myself. “Or will I have to wait for road security protocol measures first?”

“Now that you mention it, we need a vehicle tailing us with at least two details.”

She blanches. “What? What about Brandon? He can be enough, right?”

“Brandon has to stay on floor duty to secure the rooms. Maybe if you can go over the lists and clear a couple of details from the team, make sure they have no ties to anyone from the school, then I’ll fly them over here and we can go for a ride.”

“Oh my God. Then why did you say that we could go for a ride now if I—”

I chuckle. “Relax. I’m just messing with you. When it comes to bikes, I’m all you need.”

She stares at me for a beat. Then her eyes narrow dangerously. “Oh, you…concha de…la…lora.”

A wholehearted laugh bursts out of me as she stumbles through Argentinian cussing. “You’re adorable when you’re trying to be mad at me.”

“I’m not trying,” she hops on the bike and settles on the back, making room for me at the front, “I am mad at you.”

“Remember our first ride, when you fought me every step of the way, and I had to practically carry you and put you onto the bike myself because you’d rather have faced your stalker than trusted me enough to get on?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

I snort. “Well, I remember it like it was yesterday.” How rigid her body was, how she felt when I lifted her anyway, how furious she was right up until the moment we hit speed and the world cracked open around us.

That sound she made—half shriek, half laugh—is burned into me like my own first breath. “ That was mad at me, but now…”

Now, when I climb on, her arms wrap around my waist voluntarily, and fuck if that doesn’t mean everything.

“Remember how to hold on?” I ask.

Her chest presses into my back. Even through my jacket, her warmth seeps through me. The heat of her thighs cages me in. “What do you think?”

I bite down a groan. “Perfect.”

The engine thunders, and I roll us out onto the street. Jacksonville rushes past us in blurs of palm trees and strip malls. The air smells of salt and asphalt. Humid air lashes our faces, the Florida heat shimmering everything like a mirage. The city hums like it knows we’re escaping.

I weave through streets like I’ve lived here all my life, but she’s the one who guides me without speaking.

The way her grip shifts when I turn one street over another—it’s her telling me where to go.

She leans into the turns with me, fluid, trusting, her laughter muffled but real against my shoulder.

That sound—her laughter—undoes me more than anything.

She hasn’t laughed like that since this nightmare began.

I could ride like this forever. Just her and the open road and the choice to go wherever the hell she wants. Her arms holding me like she will never let go, her body molded to mine, my heart not my own anymore.

For a few miles, I believe in miracles.

But gas doesn’t. The needle on the gauge glares red at me. I curse under my breath. To think when you pay one hundred thousand dollars plus tax, they’d fill up the tank. I pull over at the next light and cut the engine.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Need gas. Sorry, should have checked before we rode on.” I twist around to face her, pulling out my phone to open the GPS. “Any gas stations nearby?”

Her eyes dart around. Her shoulders hunch up under her jacket. Prey that has wandered too close to danger. “Not here.”

My instincts flare. I scan the area. A small church on the left. A grocery store on the corner. A few kids, squealing, awestruck by the bike. It’s just an old neighborhood. Nothing stands out as alarming. “Okay.” Even though the GPS shows a gas station four blocks from here. “How far?”

“Anywhere but here.” Her voice cracks.

“Hey, are you okay? Is something wrong with this place?”

“Please just go. There’s another station about ten minutes out,” she says quickly. “We can make it.”

I glance at the gauge again. “I don’t think we have ten minutes, Birdie.”

“Please, Tristan. We’re too close.”

Close to what? Her childhood home? Is that why she’s so nervous? She is afraid of being recognized? I want to ask, but how she’s pressing her sunglasses against her face, how she’s coiling behind me, making herself small, unseen.

“All right,” I say, even though every protective fibre in me screams something is off.

This is Jacksonville, not Miami. No one here knows about Aaron.

If someone realizes she’s Reagan, so what?

That panic is beyond the fear of recognition.

“I’ll try to make it to that other gas station, but if we don’t, we’ll have to walk there and get the gas ourselves because waiting for a tow service will take much longer. Is that okay with you?”

“Yes.” Her voice is barely a whisper now. “Just get us out of here.”

I shove my phone in my pocket and fire up the engine. “Tell me where to go. I’ll follow your directions.”

Her directions come in clipped yells over the engine. Left here, straight ahead, avoid that street. But the Ducati has other plans.

The engine sputters. Her grip tightens desperately around my waist. “Tristan.”

“I know. I’m trying.” We make it maybe two more blocks before it starts grinding so loud I know we’re done. I coast to a stop on a side street, my jaw clenched. “Birdie, I’m sorry, but—”

A pack of motorcycles roar past in formation.

“No.” Birdie is off the bike before I can finish, backing away like it’s betrayed her. “No, no, no.”

I’m beside her in a flash, pushing her behind me, hiding her rather than protecting her. The bikers slow down in tight single file and glance in my direction. I’m on high alert, assessing the threats, hands ready for guns.

One of them flashes his teeth at me. One is gold, two are missing and the rest are brown. “Nice ride.”

It's normal for bikers to admire a good machine when they see one, but Birdie’s reaction can’t be ignored. Until I decide if the compliment is genuine or if they’re here for trouble, I nod, hand on hip, closer to my Glock. “She’s a rare breed.”

“She giving you trouble?” His Southern accent shows.

“Not this beauty, no.”

“All right,” he drawls, heavier on the accent. “Get home safe.”

“You too.”

He revs the engine and motions for the rest of them to move. Their stares linger on us for a while until they all follow him and tear down the road.

“What the fuck was that? Do you know these guys?” Behind me, Birdie is shaking like a leaf.

“Hey, it’s okay. They’re gone. I’m right here with you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“We have to leave.”

“Sure. Scratch the gas station. Let me call an Uber back to the hotel. I’ll tell Brandon to come get the bike.”

“No. You can’t leave it here for long. It’ll get stolen.”

I point a thumb back at where those bikers went. “By them?”

She nods once.

“I don’t give a shit about the bike. You’re spiraling. Your safety is my top priority, Birdie. Who are they anyway? What did they do to you?”

“Did you not see their cuts? It’s an MC.” She swallows. “Shane’s MC.”

“Holy shit.”

“They usually run on the other side of town. I didn’t expect…” Her breathing accelerates. “I don’t know if they recognize me… This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have left the hotel.”

“Hey, hey, breathe. They can’t hurt you. You’re safe. Do you hear me, Birdie? You’re safe here with me.”

She nods, trying to even her breath. “Thank you, Tristan, but we really need to get out of here. Can you push the bike until we get to the gas station?”

“Forget about it. I’ll figure something out.”

She starts pushing the Ducati herself. “If they recognize me, not only will they take the bike but they’ll find out it’s you who bought it and track me down through you.”

The bike doesn’t budge. I take it from there before she pulls a muscle. “Then we’ll go to another hotel. I know how to cover our tracks, Birdie. Don’t worry. They can’t know who you are. Why the hell are you so scared of them?”

“Because if you think they shunned Shane for the atrocity of his crimes, you’re wrong.

” She walks next to me as I haul the beast in the other direction of the street.

“They shunned him because he left the MC, for me. They blame me for everything. I took Shane from them, and if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be where he was now. ”

Every muscle in me tightens. It makes a lot more sense, her panic. It runs deeper than just being recognized. This neighborhood—this whole city—holds something darker than just bad memories of a terrible childhood.

I peer down the road right and left as I angle the Ducati toward the curb and keep us moving, my body between her and the street.

We round the corner and I guide the bike into the lee of a shuttered barber shop, half-hidden behind a busted soda machine tagged with old stickers. The gas station looms from a distance.

“We’re almost there,” Birdie announces.

I’m scanning the area, looking for threats, when I see boots coming out of a flower shop. They’re heavy on the concrete. Confident. The kind that announce themselves.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Birdie turns to stone at the voice. The boots belong to a woman walking toward us—leather vest, worn jeans, graying hair pulled back in a ponytail.

The woman stops a few feet away, hands on her hips, studying Birdie like she’s a ghost made flesh. “Reagan, is that really you?”

Birdie goes white. Completely, utterly white.

I step forward, ready to intervene, to get Birdie out of here before this gets any worse. “No, she’s not. Sorry, ma’am. You’ve mistaken my wife for someone else.”

The old woman steps closer, squinting. “No, no, I’d know that face anywhere.

You’re little Reagan Fletcher.” Her face crumples with sympathy.

“Oh, sweetie, I was so sorry to hear about what happened. Such a tragedy. Your mother, Shane…and Mason. And then you just disappeared. We heard you were dead.”

“You’re mistaken.” Birdie utters. “My name is not Reagan.”

But the woman isn’t buying it. She’s coming closer.

I step into her line of sight. “Ma’am, she said you’re mistaken.

” My tone is polite. My body isn’t. I widen my shoulders, give Birdie my left side so she can tuck in under my arm, and angle my stance to block the woman’s view from the street.

“Now if you’ll excuse us. We’re in a hurry. ”

The woman’s gaze lifts to mine. There’s no fear in it, just a weary recognition of men who take up space on purpose. “You’re her husband, you say?”

“Yes.”

Her head shakes slowly, and then she gazes back at Birdie. I incline my head to tell Birdie to get behind me so I can handle that woman, but, for a moment, I hear Birdie whisper, “Please,” and then she mouths something to the woman.

Suddenly, the woman drops her head, backing away.

“When they told me they saw some girl who looked like little Reagan, I had to come down and see it for myself. Too bad they were wrong. Some things are too good to be true. I’ll make sure those old farts know that poor girl is still dead.

” She throws another glance at me. “You take care of your ol’ lady. She deserves a good man.”