Angel's Halo: Guardian Angel by Terri Anne Browning

home.”
    His smug smile turned cold in the blink of an eye and he straightened to his full height. “Oh yeah?”
    The way he said it, the look on his face, and the new tension that felt thick in the air made me nervous. I was anxious to get out of there, away from this guy that had seemed so harmless hours ago. I’d been so wrong earlier. Hawk could never make me feel like my dad had made my mom feel. Weak. Defenseless. Terrified.
    This guy? That was an entirely different story. I knew that look and swallowed hard as I tried to keep my calm. That was the look my dad had gotten in his eyes right before he would hurt my mother.
    “Gracie, I’m on my way,” I heard Hawk yelling from my phone and was quick to turn the thing off before Harley heard him.
    “Yeah, I can barely keep my eyes open,” I smiled brightly, hoping to hide my new fear of the man standing just feet from me. “But I’ll see you at the garage on Monday.” I reached out blindly for the gearshift. “Bye.”
    I should have just put it in drive and put my foot on the gas. I should have never even rolled down my window in the first damn place to talk to him. There were a thousand ‘I should haves’ that ran through my mind in the instant that Harley’s fist went through the driver’s window and he caught hold of my hair in a grip that made me scream out in pain.
    His grip on my hair tightened and I tried to fight free, my nails scratching at his wrist. The next thing I saw was an up close and personal view of the steering wheel as he slammed my head into it…

Chapter 8
    Hawk
    My heart had never pounded so hard in my life. My hands clenched around the cellphone in my hands as I stared down at the silent piece of technology. I knew I should be moving but I felt like everything was frozen.
    This was fear like I’d never felt in all my twenty-nine years.
    Raider pulled my phone from my hands and I realized my hands were shaking. The screen to my phone was cracked, but I didn’t care. “Go,” Raider ordered, pushing me toward the door. “I’ll call Bash and Spider.”
    All I could do was nod once before my brain finally rebooted and I made a run for the door. Behind me I heard my brother yelling for everyone to listen up. Since church earlier, most of the guys had hung around with the exception of Bash and Spider…
    And Harley.
    My gut twisted as rage boiled in my veins. I jumped on my bike and burned rubber as I tore out of the parking lot. Aggie’s was five miles away so there wasn’t a second to lose. The quiver I’d heard in Gracie’s voice made me want to hit something.
    I was going to end Harley. End. Him. I didn’t care if my club brothers didn’t approve, that I could be kicked out if I ended him without their voting on it. If he touched one hair on her head and I was going to chop him into so many pieces and scatter him across the state so that they would be putting him back together for decades.
    The ride over to the diner passed in a blur. I saw nothing of the scenery that I passed. Couldn’t tell you how many other vehicles I’d met along the way. My mind was on autopilot as visions of what I could possibly find when I got to the diner flashed through my mind, making me half insane with a pain and rage that were beginning to consume me.
    I pulled into the parking lot to find the Chevelle still running, the driver’s door wide open and glass from the door’s broken window scattered on the ground. Blood was dripping down the door and it covered the glass on the ground. Someone was hurt and there was no sign of Gracie or Harley.
    Was it Gracie’s blood? Was she hurt and scared? I wasn’t used to the fear that was making my stomach churn. I didn’t normally let my emotions get in the way when shit needed done. This was different, though. Gracie was my heart, the goddamn air in my lungs. Fuck! I was going to kill Harley and take my time to maximize the pain before ending him. Yesterday I’d thought that the biggest threat to