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in the jaw. The cracking noise could’ve been the guy’s bone or his head against the cement. Either way, his dull eyes rolled back in their sockets and his mouth slackened, a dribble of blood seeping from the corner.
    Dylan shoved his arm against Vick’s throat to make sure he was out cold, and then reached for his cell phone to call for backup.
    “What’s going on, Dylan? Who is he?”
    After speaking into the phone, he cranked his head toward Mia’s pale face. She was hugging herself and had one leg crossed over the other.
    “He’s some dirtbag from a motorcycle gang. Dangerous and on parole. Did he hurt you?”
    “Didn’t have much of a chance. He knocked on my door, I…I answered it, told him he had the wrong room, and he started making advances.”
    “Advances?” His mouth was so dry he had a hard time speaking.
    “You know—started with the lines and tried to shove his way into my room.”
    “My God, Mia.” Dylan pushed to his feet, keeping one shoe on the unconscious man’s throat. “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah. I had no intention of letting him in my room. I was just about to knee him in the…well, you-know-whats.”
    Dylan shook his head, the tension seeping from his back and shoulders as the sound of a siren permeated the air.
    “Why was he here, Dylan? Do you know him?”
    He shifted his gaze to Vick’s face and raked it across the numbered tattoo on his forearm. He increased the pressure of his foot on the man’s neck.
    “Yeah.”
    The patrol car squealed to a stop, and Gladys’s reedy voice filtered down the path. “What’s happening?”
    Two officers with Gladys bringing up the rear hustled into the courtyard. “Where is he, Chief?”
    “Under my foot. I knocked him out. Check him for priors and a parole violation.” Dylan nudged the intruder’s leg with the toe of his shoe. “He has a knife on him, too.”
    As the officers worked to bring the man around, Dylan backpedaled Mia into her room and slammed the door behind them. “You don’t need to see that.”
    She grabbed the front of his shirt, bunching the material in her fists. “Okay, stop dancing around now. Who was that guy, how did you know he was here, and most important, why do the two of you have matching tattoos?”
    “You noticed that, huh?” He rubbed his hand over the ink on his arm. “I knew I should’ve tried to have it removed before showing up here.”
    She dragged him to the bed—not that he hadn’t fantasized about this since the minute he laid eyes on her in town—then she pushed him down, dropping next to him on the mattress. “Spill.”
    For safety’s sake, she deserved to know why she’d been accosted, but he didn’t have to tell her everything. Now was not the time to spoil his image in her eyes.
    “That dude is a member of the Fifteenth Street Lords…and so was I.”
    She sucked in a short breath and squeaked it out. “Were you undercover or something?”
    “Exactly.”
    She traced the lines of the tattoo and he shivered. “Pretty dedicated to the assignment to get this ink job. You couldn’t have gotten a henna tattoo or something?”
    “I don’t think that would’ve gone over too big with the Lords.”
    “At least you didn’t have to kill someone to prove your loyalty…did you?”
    A spasm of pain twisted his gut, but he stretched his lips into a smile over his clenched teeth. “No, but my cover was blown and…some bad stuff went down.”
    She pointed an unsteady finger at the door. “Is that why that Neanderthal showed up?”
    “Yes.” The tightness in his belly increased when he realized he’d brought danger to Mia’s doorstep…more danger. Could the Lords have been responsible for the brakes going out on her rental car? They would have liked nothing more than to get revenge on him for infiltrating their little party—and Vick harbored a special hatred toward him.
    Even though Dylan had already paid big-time for all of it.
    Scooting closer to him on the bed, Mia asked,