“She’s mine,” Waylon tells him, his voice little more than a feral growl. “You shouldn’t have ever dared to touch her.”

The prospect makes a sound that could either be a bloody cough or a death rattle.

Then Waylon unfists his hand, releasing him as if their “conversation” is done.

And the prospect collapses to the ground as soon as Waylon stops holding him up.

I hope he's just unconscious. All the terrible possibilities, from brain damage to death, flash through my mind as I rush forward to help him.

But Waylon catches my arm before I can drop down to my knees beside him.

“Don't you even dare think about helping that fuck,” he growls in that feral animal way of his.

“Are you crazy?” I say, trying to tear my wrist away from his vice grip. “He could die!”

“He touched you,” Waylon answers, his expression flat with violence. As if that's a reasonable and final answer to my worries about the prospect’s possible death.

I open my mouth to argue, but Waylon's eyes suddenly switchblade to something over my shoulder, and he reaches inside his jacket.

What is he—

A gunshot rings out before I can finish forming that question.

Then the taller prospect joins his buddy on the bar’s concrete floor with a gun clenched in his hammy fist—he must have been about to draw it. Unlike the other guy, though, his eyes are popped wide open, and there’s a hole in the middle of his head surrounded by black burn residue.

Waylon shot him….I dimly realize with the sound of the gun blast still reverberating in my ears.

Waylon shot him point-blank in the face. Without blinking an eye, and with his hand still wrapped around my wrist.

Two wads of one-hundred-dollar bills land then bounce off the big guy’s chest. I don’t see who threw them down, but somehow, I know it was Waylon. And somewhere in the horrified recesses of my mind, I also know the exact amount of money in each folded-up stack. Five thousand dollars. Enough to cover the fee for each body on the floor. Guns, knives, and five-thousand-dollar wads— those are the kinds of things Waylon carries in his jacket pockets.

My stomach heaves.

Before I can fully process what's just happened right before my eyes, Waylon pulls me away.

His hand is manacled so tightly around my wrist. I have no choice but to stumble after him, my shorter legs barely able to keep up. Everything and everyone becomes a blur as he tugs me through the crowd.

I don't realize there’s a stage in this place until Waylon pulls me up a short set of steps.

When he stops us in the middle of the dais, I find myself standing above the crowd of bikers. They're not so raucous now. They all stare up at us, silent as a graveyard.