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He reached into his waistband and drew a gun.
He fired a warning shot into the pavement — close enough to spit gravel onto our boots. Customers ran in every direction. The clerk sprinted to trigger the silent alarm. The girl — Brandi, I later learned — stood frozen, shaking so violently I thought she might collapse.
And then, just when everything was about to implode, highway patrol cruisers screeched into the lot. Officers leapt out with weapons drawn. The boyfriend dropped the gun and hit the ground before they even reached him.
Within seconds, he was in cuffs.
Brandi, still trembling, finally exhaled as paramedics checked her injuries. She looked at me through red, swollen eyes and whispered, “You saved my life.”
But I shook my head. “You saved your own the moment you stopped protecting him.”
The officers connected her with a domestic-violence advocate who could get her somewhere safe — truly safe — for the first time in years. Before she left, she hugged me with all the strength her shaking body could manage.
“I used to think bikers were scary,” she said.
I laughed. “Most of us are just old men who love the open road.”
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