Burning Rubber Broken Vows

Chapter 5: Burning Rubber BrokenVows

The gunshot still echoed in Lila’s ears as she slipped out of the office right behind Jax, the heavy wrench gripped tight in her sweating palm like a promise she intended to keep.

He shot her a hard glare over his shoulder but didn’t waste time arguing with her. They moved fast and quiet through the dimly lit hallways, boots barely making sound on the concrete floor. Outside, the compound had already erupted into controlled chaos brothers shouting orders, engines revving to life, powerful floodlights sweeping the tall perimeter fence.

Another shot rang out. Closer this time.

“Perimeter breach!” a voice yelled from near the front gate.

Jax broke into a run. Lila matched his pace easily, heart slamming against her ribs so hard she could feel it in her throat. The angry kiss from minutes ago still burned on her lips raw, hungry, and completely impossible. She shoved the memory down deep. Survival came first.

They burst out into the main yard. Dark shadows moved beyond the fence line. Iron Fangs? Or the inside traitor Jax had warned her about?

A bullet pinged off a metal post only inches from her head. She ducked low on pure instinct, adrenaline sharpening every sense to a razor edge. The sharp smell of gunpowder mixed with cool night air and exhaust fumes.

Jax returned fire with two precise shots that dropped a dark figure scrambling over the far section of the fence. Loyal Vipers poured out of the clubhouse, weapons already drawn, forming a fast defensive line.

“Get her back inside!” Jax barked at Tank.

“Like hell,” Lila snapped back. She wasn’t some fragile thing that needed protecting. She had raced with cracked ribs and ridden through storms that felt like needles on her skin. She could fight her own battles tonight.

Another intruder appeared near the garage bay dressed in dark clothes, no visible patch. He raised a gun and aimed straight toward the office wing where she and Jax had just been standing.

Aimed straight at Jax.

Lila didn’t hesitate for even a second. She hurled the wrench with every ounce of strength and pent-up rage she carried. It spun end over end through the air and cracked hard against the man’s forearm. The gun flew from his hand. He howled in pain.

Jax was on him in seconds, fist connecting with a sickening thud. The intruder crumpled to the ground.

But more shadows were still moving at the edges of the floodlights. This wasn’t a random hit. Someone wanted her or the files in that locked office badly enough to attack the very heart of Viper territory.

Jax grabbed her arm and pulled her behind a row of parked bikes for cover. His body shielded hers completely, warm and solid even in the middle of flying bullets. “You should have stayed put like I said.”

“And let you take a bullet alone?” she shot back, breathing hard. “Not happening.”

Their eyes met again in the flashing lights. The same dangerous heat from the office flared bright between them raw, unwanted, and impossible to ignore. For one suspended second the gunfire and shouts seemed to fade into the background. It was just the two of them. Enemy. Ally. Something far more terrifying.

A bullet whined past, shattering the moment into pieces.

“Stay low,” Jax ordered. He rose and returned fire, covering his brothers as they pushed the attackers back toward the fence.

Lila crawled quickly to the fallen intruder’s dropped gun and checked the chamber. Still loaded. She tucked it into the back of her waistband. Old survival habits from too many nights when the garage had felt too exposed and too quiet.

The fight ended as suddenly as it had begun. The remaining shadows melted away into the darkness outside the compound. Loyal Vipers secured the perimeter, dragging one wounded attacker inside for questioning.

Jax wiped fresh blood from a split knuckle and turned to face her. His chest rose and fell rapidly. Sweat and gun smoke clung to his skin. “You threw a wrench at an armed man.”

“He was aiming at you,” she said simply.

Something shifted deep in his expression surprise, then a reluctant heat that made her stomach tighten. “Careful, Voss. People might start thinking you actually give a damn about me.”

“I don’t,” she lied, her voice coming out shaky. “I just don’t want to owe you any more than I already do.”

He stepped closer, voice dropping low. “That kiss earlier”

“Was a mistake,” she finished quickly, even as her body remembered every second of it in vivid detail.

“Yeah.” But he didn’t sound convinced at all. His hand brushed lightly down her arm, the touch light as a spark. “This whole situation is a mistake. You being here. You getting inside my head like this.”

Before she could answer, Tank jogged over, breathing heavy. “One of the bastards talked before he passed out. Said the order came from inside the club. Someone high up doesn’t want you or the girl digging any deeper, Reaper.”

Jax’s face turned to stone. He looked at Lila, the heavy weight of secrets and danger hanging thick between them.

“Go back to your room,” he said quietly. “Lock the door. I’ll post a prospect outside.”

She wanted to argue. She wanted to demand he tell her everything right then and there. Instead she gave one sharp nod, the borrowed gun heavy and cold against her spine.

As she walked away across the yard, she felt his eyes burning into her back the entire way.

Inside her small room she locked the door and leaned back against it, trying to catch her breath. The compound suddenly felt much smaller tonight. Much more dangerous.

She had come here hunting revenge.

Now the lines were blurring fast hate mixing with unwanted desire, old lies cracking open to reveal even darker truths.

And someone inside these very walls wanted her dead badly enough to shoot up their own clubhouse.

Lila pulled the gun from her waistband and checked it one more time, fingers steady despite the storm raging inside her chest.

Whatever came for them next, she refused to be the helpless girl anymore.

She would fight.

Even if it meant fighting right beside the man she was never supposed to want.

And if that kiss was any warning at all, the real war was only just beginning because the next bullet might not miss, and the traitor’s face could be the one she woke up to every morning inside these walls.