Chapter 2: I DONT SAVE PEOPLE

Jax

I don't save people. That was the first rule I made after my sister bled out in my arms when I was seventeen. The second? Never let a woman into your world unless you're ready for her to ruin it.

So why the hell did I tell them she belonged to me?

I stared at the girl—Sarah—through the thick, reinforced glass wall of the garage office. Her small form was curled up on the torn vinyl couch in the common room, like she expected the world to strike at any second. And maybe it would. My crew wasn’t made of saints. We ran guns. Moved shipments the government would arrest us just for whispering about. And I sure as hell didn’t run a safehouse for strays.

The garage, usually a place of greasy comfort and roaring engines, felt off-kilter with her just outside my view. The smell of oil and gasoline was usually all I needed; now, I kept sniffing for the faint trace of her floral soap.

But she looked at my bike like it was her last prayer.

And I hated that I noticed.

“Don’t do it, brother.”

I turned. Riot leaned against the grimy office wall, arms crossed, a smirk on his face like he was born with it. The dim light from the single bare bulb overhead caught the glint of his piercings.

“Do what?” I asked, exhaling a plume of smoke.

“Whatever the fuck this is. You haven’t brought a woman upstairs since Lana.”

I stiffened at the name. “Don’t talk about her.”

“I’m just saying,” Riot went on, unbothered. “You don’t bring broken girls into the den unless you plan to fix ’em. And you don’t fix what was meant to stay shattered.”

“She’s not my problem,” I said, even as the words felt like a lie in my own mouth.

“You made her your problem the second you said she was yours.”

I exhaled through my nose and flicked the ash off my cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. “She’s under protection. Not in my bed.”

“Yet.”

I ignored him, turning my gaze back to Sarah. The truth was, I didn’t know why I’d claimed her.

Maybe it was the way she refused to cry even though she looked like life had beaten her every step of the way. Maybe it was the fact that when I looked into her eyes, I didn’t see fear.

I saw fire. Buried, drowning maybe—but still there.

A raw, untamed spark that reminded me of how I built this whole goddamn club. That fire could be shaped, could be useful.

I turned away and headed back to the office desk, the worn wood cool under my hand.

The next day, I found her in the garage again.

Sitting on the oil-stained concrete ground like it was safer than a chair, hugging her knees. She had my hoodie on, sleeves hanging off her fingers, making her look even smaller. Her hair was still damp from a shower, clinging to her neck, and her skin looked too pale in the stark morning light filtering through the grimy windows.

“Thought I told you not to get near the garage,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended.

She didn’t jump this time. Just looked up at me with that same quiet intensity that made my jaw lock.

“I didn’t touch anything.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?” she asked, her voice soft but steady.

“You’re not one of us. You don’t get to loiter where I keep my life’s work.” I gestured vaguely at my matte black bike, gleaming under the single hanging bulb, a silent extension of myself.

She tilted her head slightly, her gaze flicking between me and the machine. “Is that what your bike is? Your life’s work?”

I stepped closer, until my shadow covered her.

“You don’t get to ask questions either.”

Something in her gaze flickered. Not fear. Not quite defiance.

Worse. Curiosity. A hunger to understand.

“I don’t think you brought me here to protect me,” she said, her voice dropping, gaining a surprising edge. “I think you brought me here because you saw something you didn’t like. Maybe something that reminded you of yourself.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me.” My voice was low, a rumble of warning.

“No,” she said softly, her eyes unwavering. “But I’ve seen pain before. And you wear it like armor.”

I grabbed her by the arm, pulling her up to her feet. Not hard enough to hurt her, but enough to make my point. Not gentle, either. “Listen real close, Sarah. This isn’t therapy. This is a gang compound. Men in this place kill for fun. We bury secrets in the desert, and the cops don’t ask questions. If I say you’re off-limits, it’s because I don’t want to deal with a war when one of the boys decides to use you as a way to piss me off.

You understand?”

She nodded, her chin barely moving. But her eyes didn’t break away from mine, holding my gaze with surprising strength.

That damn fire was still burning. Stronger now.

I let go of her arm, feeling the warmth of her skin linger on my palm. I turned away, because I didn’t like how close she was getting under my skin. One day in, and I already hated the way her silence haunted my thoughts long after she’d left the room.

Later that night, I stood outside the garage, cleaning the chrome on my bike, polishing away the day’s grime. She didn’t show. I almost hated that I noticed, my eyes automatically scanning the dark club entrance.

Riot appeared beside me again, a ghostly figure in the dim light. “She asked me today if we keep files on our enemies.”

I tensed, my grip tightening on the rag. “What did you tell her?”

“That we don’t keep paper trails. Which is true. Too messy.”

“She asked for names?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She asked how we make people disappear.”

I straightened slowly, wiping a smudge of grease from my thumb. A cold awareness spread through me.

“She’s not just broken, Jax. She’s planning something.”

“She want revenge?” I muttered, testing the words.

Riot shrugged, a casual movement that belied the weight of his words. “Maybe.”

That made sense. Most people like her didn’t walk away from shit like Black Snake without wanting someone to pay for it. I should’ve felt relieved.

That she had some kind of purpose. But all I felt was tension crawling up my spine.

She was starting to wake up. And when a broken girl starts plotting revenge, you either get out of the way—or make damn sure you’re the one standing next to her when the fire starts.

That night, I knocked on her door.

Three soft raps. She didn’t answer.

I opened it anyway.

She sat on the floor again, back to the wall, a threadbare blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a small island in the quiet room.

“I thought I wasn’t one of you,” she said, her voice flat.

“You’re not.”

“Then why are you in my room?”

“Because I need to know if you’re planning to kill someone while you’re under my roof.”

She smiled then. Barely. A ghost of a smile, but it was there, a spark of defiance.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

“That’s not a no.”

She looked up at me, her eyes, that fire in them, locking onto mine. “Would it matter to you if it was?”

And that—right there—was the problem.

It should’ve been a simple answer. No. It shouldn’t matter. I didn’t get involved. I didn’t care about sob stories or revenge fantasies.

But I stared at her, sitting there like a bruised ghost, and for some goddamn reason all I could say was—

“I’ll help you. When the time comes.”

She blinked, her breath hitching just slightly, a tiny catch in her chest. “Why?”

“Because I hate men who treat women like trash.” The words tasted like ash, remembering my own past, my own failures.

“And because,” I added, my gaze hardening, seeing the potential in her, the way that fire could scorch, “I think you need someone on your side who’s not afraid to burn everything down.”

Her hand gripped the blanket tighter, knuckles white. “You don’t even know what they did.”

“I don’t need to. I saw your wrists. I saw the look in your eyes.”

She said nothing, just held my gaze, her silence speaking volumes.

And I didn’t move any closer.

But something passed between us in that silence. A shift. A contract without words, forged in the tension of the room. A promise, even though I swore I made no promises.

She wasn’t mine. Not really.

But God help anyone who tried to touch her now.