burdened by my baggage at all. As my apartment complex came into view, I responded to his wry statement: “I wish it was just a story. I hate that I had to live any of it.”
The large man in leather and denim next to me offered a soft chuckle. “The key is the living part. As long as you’re living your life, she hasn’t won.”
I faltered a step and blinked for a moment. “What do you mean?”
Shot stopped walking and gave me a sharp look with his swollen eyes. “You mentioned more than once that you’re worried she is going to keep taking what’s most important away from you, but that’s exactly what you’ve let her do. You’re avoiding your new family. You haven’t gone back to work and cleared your name. You haven’t done anything to find closure where your mother is concerned. You are letting this woman control your life. She’s living in your head rent free and I bet she knows it.”
I let out a startled sound because of his brutally honest words—and because he reached out and tapped the tip of my nose with one of his fingers. The move was playful and surprisingly sweet. He was touching me in the same familiar way I’d touched him to keep him from rubbing his eyes. I was never that comfortable with a stranger, or even someone I knew casually. I had no clue what to make of it.
“If you really want to draw this woman out into the open, go back to your life. Go back to work. Get to know the Lawtons better. Get out of that shithole apartment. Take. Control. Of. Your. Life.” Shot bit out the words, and I felt the impact reverberate all the way down to my bones.
Collecting my composure I took a step away from him and started to head for the apartment building. “Easy for you to say. You have an entire gang of guys ready to lay their lives down for you. You aren’t out there facing the world and your enemies on your own.”
He growled low under his breath and reached out to catch my shoulder. “We’re a club, not a gang. And you don’t know me well enough to know what kinds of things I’ve had to face on my own.” There was a dangerous thread through his voice which made me instinctively want to put some serious space between us.
I cleared my throat nervously. “You’re right. I don’t know, and I have no reason to. Getting involved in one of your club’s messes was enough for me.” I made sure to emphasize the word club to avoid poking at an obvious sore spot.
I yelped when he used his hold on me to spin me around so we were fully facing one another. His impossibly dark eyes were intent and probing even with the whites being more of a rosy pink color.
“Since you brought it up, why did you jump into the fray that night? From what you’ve told me you’re a straight shooter and a rule follower. Why do something that might endanger your medical license?”
He sounded genuinely curious about my decision to get involved and I couldn’t blame him. My actions that night had been very out of character.
I shook loose of his hold and cleared my throat again. “I couldn’t tell Kody no when she begged for my help. And once I got there, I couldn’t let you die. I was admittedly in way over my head with you guys, but once I was in, I was all in.”
Shot chuckled at my response. “Guess it was my lucky day. But why didn’t you report the gunshot wound?”
I froze and tried to recall why I’d talked myself out of following protocol that night. When I couldn’t come up with a valid reason for acting so out of character, I muttered, “Well, I wasn’t currently working in the ME’s office, so I wasn’t on duty of any kind. So it wasn’t really required or a breech of policy or ethics.” Which was true, but the real reason I didn’t report the wound was because I didn’t want to make things more difficult for him when he was already fighting so hard for his life. I was also slightly terrified that his club would do something horrible to me if I had reported it like I was supposed to.
Before he could grill me any further, I turned to head toward my apartment, telling him, “You didn’t hesitate