Heart in my throat, I hurried down the hall. I heard Barge hollering. “Get in your rooms NOW!”

Fear stilled me in my steps. I’d have to walk through the main room to get to the staircase to the bedroom. Fuck. What if the intruders were there? What other choice do you have?

I shakily rushed down the hallway and into the main room where Barge, Fritz, Broom and Vince were. They were spread out around the entrance doors, and Broom was unloading a duffel bag full of guns. I looked around the room, hastily searching for the threat.

“What’s going on?” I yelled over the alarm.

Barge turned to me and his face darkened. “Get in your fucking room, Sara!”

“Where are they?”

“Outside,” Broom answered me. “Within the walls.”

“Get in your room!” Barge repeated.

“Who are they?”

Barge, looking beyond pissed now, stalked toward me. He gripped me by the arm and then pushed me back roughly in the direction of the staircase.

“Get your ass up there right now,” he growled. “I’m not gonna be explaining to Remy that you died because you were too fuckin’ dense in the head to listen to one command.”

I gulped in surprise and nodded. “O-okay.”

“Lock your door.”

I turned around and hurried up to my room, so jumpy I ended up tripping once along the way.

What the fuck was a door going to do? If whoever was shooting got inside they’d just break the doors down. The one day most of the men aren’t around, shit has to hit the fan at the one place I thought we were safe in.

I ran aimlessly down the hallway, and when I reached my door, I halted immediately. The fear in me multiplied. There was a man with a balaclava mask on and a black gun in his hand. My footsteps had alerted him to me, and he turned around to face me. I tensed in terror and then took an uncoordinated step back, tripping over my feet. I fell hard on my ass, but the pain that rocketed up my tail bone was barely felt.

Screaming and hoping someone might hear was out of the question. The alarms were deafening, and even if I did scream, what might this man do to me?

I scurried back and he took a step forward. “Please, stop!” I whimpered. “Do what you came for. I won’t be in your way.”

He stopped suddenly and, to my surprise, threw the gun down on the floor. I looked down at it in confusion before returning my gaze to him. He brought a hand to his balaclava and pulled it all the way up.

My terror washed away in an instant, but my surprise only rose. Jaxon’s eyes raked me over slowly from where I lay and then he extended his hand out. I took it and he brought me up on my feet.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

This was really bad. He shouldn’t be here. There were cameras everywhere. How the fuck did he even get in? I stepped away from him until my back hit the wall next to my bedroom door.

“I came here for you,” he replied softly. “I told you I was going to make it right.”

“How is breaking into this place making things right?” I scolded him, fighting the urge to push him back at his stupidity. “You shouldn’t have taken your mask off. They’re going to kill you for this!”

“I wore my mask in case I didn’t bump into you. Now listen, we have one opportunity, Sara. Decision is yours. Either you come with me, or you don’t.”

Come with him? “How are we going to walk out of this?”

He smirked coolly. “You gotta trust me on this.”

This was crazy. There was no way. “Jaxon–”

“Decide now! You’ve got ten seconds, Sara. Do you want me or not?”

I felt sick to my stomach. This was too out of nowhere for me. I was just buttering toast, for fuck’s sake! My whole being was cut into half. Smirk long gone now, he put out his hand for me to take. I stared at it, dumbfounded and unsure. While everything in me pushed to take it, I couldn’t. I just stared at it thinking only of Remy and how wounded he would be if I did this. This kind of deception would be irreversible. There would be no going back.

I panted hard, resting a hand against my battering heart as he gazed into my eyes with determination. He’d done all this for me. He was risking his neck to have me.

“Do you want us?” he asked again. “Because I swear to God, Sara, there’s no going back after this. Once you’re mine, that’s it. So decide.”

A few seconds passed. My internal battle had stupefied me into silence. This was my hope coming to life: the decision to choose whether I wanted to stay or go. It was real, and it was happening right now. And yet I was terrified…

I couldn’t…

I couldn’t just…

The hope waned from his eyes and his hand wavered.

His next words were rougher than before. “Do you or do you not, Sara?”

Seventeen

Remy watched the footage about a dozen times. How could this have happened five hours ago under everyone’s noses? How did he even get into the clubhouse? Fucking Houdini.

They raked over every frame of every camera taken that morning. Nowhere on any frame did he see Jaxon slip by. The man just emerged out of nowhere on the second floor, as if he’d crept in through hidden places they didn’t even know were blind spots. Not only that, but he knew exactly where he was going. He marched down the long hallway until he was at Remy’s door. He opened it, peered in, and then shut it.

He was looking for her.

The whole shooting outside was a distraction from a few masked men who were mostly shooting up at the sky. No harm or destruction physically done, and it’d been over in fifteen minutes time.

Remy, continuing to watch the footage, gritted his teeth, his anger multiplying faster when Jaxon turned to find Sara running to her door. She fell back, and Remy could only imagine how terrified she must have been.

With the alarms going off, he could hear absolutely nothing in the video. He watched Sara take the douche’s hand, and then she was up, looking as if she was scolding him for something. They talked, but about what he couldn’t tell. He leaned closer to the screen, trying to lip read what Jaxon was saying. Shame their cameras were gritty and old. The quality was crap, but it wasn’t as though there’d ever been a reason to upgrade them within the walls of the clubhouse. Everyone here hated them as it was for intruding on their privacy. The only places they weren’t installed in were the bedrooms, and that pacified them just barely enough to be okay with their presence.