Salvation (Angels Halo MC Next Gen 1)

“What the fuck is going on in here?”

I jerked at the rage-filled sound of my father’s voice, and Tiny stood up a little straighter. From under his arm, I spotted Dad, Uncle Spider, and Uncle Jet. They walked through the parting crowd like biker gods in their aged leather cuts, while people looked on with total and complete awe at the deities they were.

A groan alerted me to Matt again, and he stood up, his cough a horrible sound as he rubbed at his chest. “Fucking pussies couldn’t take a little heckling. Broke his pool stick on me.”

“Tanner, take him to the hospital.”

Matt groaned. “Damn it, Bash. Rory is going to kick my ass if I call her from the emergency room again.”

Dad didn’t even blink at his younger cousin. “Then maybe you shouldn’t end up there so much.”

“Truth,” Tanner said with a laugh as he pulled his brother’s arm over his shoulder. “I need a car.”

“Lexa,” Dad called out. “Give Tanner your keys.”

Sighing heavily, I nudged Tiny, and he stepped aside, letting me pass. I gave Tanner my keys, then started to walk past Ben to my dad.

His hand grasped my wrist before I could make it an inch by him. “I’ll give you a ride home, baby.”

I tried to jerk out of his hold, but his grip only tightened. Not painfully but enough to let me know he wasn’t going to let go anytime soon, so I needed to give in. I glanced at my dad for help. “Dad—”

“Davis is going to take you home, Lexa,” he informed me with that same hard bite to his voice. “Don’t give him any lip.”

“But—”

“What about these two?” Dad asked Ben, speaking over any protest I would have voiced.

“I’ll have one of my deputies pick them up and book them. That one is getting the full treatment for assault on an officer.” Ben tucked me against him, his other hand stroking down my spine. “Any paperwork I need to file can be done in the morning, though. I’ll be at your house.”

Dad only nodded as Ben walked me out of the bar, and I couldn’t keep my mouth from gaping a little at the bizarreness of the whole incident, thinking maybe I’d stepped into some weird twilight zone or something.

Chapter 18

Ben

Lexa’s silence was worse than nails on a chalkboard for me as I drove toward her house. With each mile that she continued to ignore me, my hands tightened a little more around the steering wheel until the stitches began to protest and blood leaked around them.

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to relax my grip. “Is that the type of date you’re used to?” Turning my gaze from the road, I glanced at her, but she continued to glare out the passenger window. “That guy, what’s his name…Tiny? You like him?”

Again, no answer, and it only spiked my blood pressure higher.

“Lexa, you are killing me right now,” I told her. “Why are you pissed at me? I’m the one who found you out with that Tiny asshole.”

“Tiny’s a good guy,” she said without looking at me. “And if you must know, I wasn’t out with him. The reason I was even at the bar was because I was doing the books for my mom.”

“Then what’s going on? What did I do now to make you mad?” Because I was coming up with nothing, no matter how hard I racked my brain for an answer. Sure, she still could have been upset about hearing Paige on the phone with me earlier, but I thought she’d gotten over it after the texts I’d gotten earlier from her thanking me for the T-shirt I’d left in her car when I’d dropped it off that morning.

Her shoulders shifted, and she finally turned her head in my direction, but the expression on her face was cold, emotionless, and I almost preferred when she was glaring out the window. “Tell me something, Ben. Are you and your grandmother close?”

Unsure where this was going, I shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, sure. She and my grandfather are all the family I have left. The three of us are pretty tight.”

“And would you say she knows you better than anyone else?”

“She’s my grandmother, Lexa, of course she knows me—”

But she cut me off just as I was pulling up in front of her house. “Yeah, I thought so. That’s all I needed to know.” Opening the door, she jumped out. “Thanks for the ride, Sheriff.”

The door slammed before I’d even gotten my seat belt off. She ran up the driveway to the front door, and I took off after her. Something was going on. The look on her face as she’d glanced back at me before shutting the door had nearly broken me, and I didn’t understand what had put that kind of sadness in her beautiful eyes.