Shakedown (Souls Chapel Revenants MC 8)

He had a long-sleeved black t-shirt covering his upper body, shoved up to his elbow to reveal his forearms. He had on a pair of faded denim jeans that looked like they’d been found in the dumpster outside considering how dirty they were.

Then there were his scuffed boots.

He was wearing the same stuff that he’d come into the hospital with.

Surprisingly, none of it had been cut off of him because of his refusal to allow the ER staff to cut them off of him.

Bruno’s nurse had also offered to have them laundered—I secretly think she had the hots for him but was too intimidated to go past offering to do things for him—but he’d refused.

Which led us to now, walking out of the hospital, two security guards escorting us.

It took me two steps with Bruno’s hand in mine to show me that this wasn’t going to go how I’d planned.

It was only as the security guards were in the elevator, holding the door, that Bruno let them in on his plans.

“I’m going in my own elevator,” he murmured. “What floor are you going to?”

The security guards answered, their eyes curious and watchful.

“I’ll meet you down there,” Bruno muttered.

They nodded and went down—I wasn’t sure that was protocol, but who would argue with a grown man that looked like he could take on mountain lions and bears barehanded if he needed to?

Only after the doors completely closed and the next elevator opened did Bruno turn away from the elevator doors and start moving.

“Ummm.” I paused as I watched him turn us down the hallway directly to our left, go down two flights of stairs, and then take an immediate left into what looked like a long hallway that led to nowhere. “Where are we going?”

Bruno glanced at me, reached for my hand, and then tugged me toward him.

I went willingly, loving the way his hand practically engulfed mine.

I loved it even more that, despite not remembering who I was, he wasn’t letting me go.

“Back way out of here,” he answered, words clipped and carefully neutral.

He wasn’t moving fast, but he was still moving us faster than what I imagined was comfortable for him.

More importantly, he’d just woken up from his coma two days ago. He was still sore—that would happen when your head was practically ran over, helmet or not—and he probably shouldn’t be doing anything this strenuous.

“But what about the security guards?” I asked curiously as he continued.

He looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes going to where our hands were connected as a little frown filled his face, and then turned back around without answering.

I sighed and went with the flow, following him dutifully out of a side entrance that spit us out, not at the back or the front of the hospital, but across the damn street after we crossed over the skybridge.

He led us to a nondescript black sedan in the middle of the parking lot, parked me directly at the front driver’s side door, and then walked all the way around the car.

Just as he made a near complete circuit, his phone rang, and he reluctantly pulled it out and put it on speaker before saying, “Yeah?”

“Bruno, what the fuck?” Lynn barked into the phone. “That was for you!”

Bruno looked at the phone. “Don’t care. If you say don’t trust anybody, I’m not going to trust anybody. Even you.”

He had a point.

What did I know about Lynn?

Obviously, I’d asked my father about him.