Contents

Copyright

dedication

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

Callie

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REBEL

Callie Hart

Copyright © 2015 Callie Hart

copyright © 2015 Callie Hart

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places and characters are figments of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. The author recognises the trademarks and copyrights of all registered products and works mentioned within this work.

ISBN: 9780992597153

For Jess, for always having my back.

For CJ, for being sweet and adorable, but also being secretly evil like me.

For Lilliana, for being hilarious and making me laugh when I should be crying.

For Astrid, for drinking wine with me and putting up with my crap.

ALEXIS

A brief thought on death.

I never thought I’d die on the streets of Seattle. I never thought I’d be the kind of person to wish for death, either. You ask people what frightens them most in this world and nine times out of ten, you’ll get the same universal answer: death. The Great Unknown. That one last wild ride. I used to be one of those people, paralyzed by the mere thought of non-existence. Seems a lot has happened recently to adjust my outlook, though. Now, I’ve realized there are more frightening things than simply ceasing to be. Living, for example. Continuing to breathe, even though it feels like your heart is shattered into a million pieces and you can’t possibly go on another moment. Continuing to feel, even when your nerve endings are so frayed and overloaded from pain inflicted by others. Continuing to hope, despite the odds of rescue growing smaller and smaller each day.

I never thought I’d die on the streets of Seattle. I never thought I’d want to die. Beg for it. Wish for it constantly. I suppose my ingratitude for the great gift this life poses might be hard to comprehend. Perhaps if I started from the beginning, you might understand.

Here.

Let me explain.

ALEXIS

2012

St. Peter’s hospital looms over the city, the building a crouched, disapproving sentinel blaring light and sound into the night. Fog blossoms on my breath. Curled around my takeaway coffee, my hands are finally beginning to thaw out. I’m listening to Led Zeppelin on my busted iPod with the cracked screen, watching people stream in and out of the hospital, and imagining their stories. Filling in the blanks from the expressions on their faces.

Broken leg.

Chest pain.

Only one more shift before the weekend, thank god.

New baby.

Lost loved one.

It never ceases to amaze me how a person’s face alone can convey so much of what they’re feeling, especially when they don’t know they’re being watched. I’ve seen the whole world crumble and be reborn at least five times before the cell phone, in the pocket of my thick Parka, rumbles against my stomach. It’s my dad.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Are you still on the bus?”

I smile. I smile because the old man is clueless. “No, I’m outside. I’ve been waiting for you for half an hour.”

He groans. In my mind I can see him pressing his fingertips into the creases of his brow, trying to figure out the problem he’s presented with. Because there’s a problem. There’s always a problem. “Ah, okay. All right, I’ll be out in a moment. A little girl just came in. She was in a car accident. Her whole leg’s shattered. They asked if I could stay behind and monitor her while they operate, but I’ll just tell them to—”

“Dad?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“It’s fine. I can catch a bus back to your place. It’s not a big deal.” This is not the first time I’ve said these words, nor will it be the last. Since I decided to stay in Seattle and go to college here, it’s been tradition to go back home every Sunday to hang out with my parents. They’re big on church, big on Jesus. They like it when I spend Sunday nights with them. Most of the time, Dad’s working, though, and Sloane, my older sister, is following in Dad’s footsteps, training to be a doctor, so she’s hardly around either. Usually it’s just Mom and me, and I’m used to that. Used to the endless cups of tea and church gossip. Used to doing the dishes after dinner and sitting in comfortable silence while we watch whatever inane reality TV show Mom’s hooked on at the time.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Dad asks. This is a script both of us have repeated countless times; we barely need to think before the words slip out of our mouths.

“I’m sure, Dad. It’s okay. Go and anesthetize the crap out of that kid.”

Dad tuts—is crap a curse word? Dr. Alan Romera sure thinks it is, but then again, the old man thinks shoot is a curse word. His disapproval is, as always, mild and affectionate, though. “Love you, sweetheart. I’ll see you when I get home. Tell your mother not to put dinner in the oven for me, okay? I’ll heat it up when I get back.”

No dinner in the oven means he won’t be back until well after midnight. I tell him I love him too and hang up the call. My role as voyeur is at an end. I drain the remnants of my coffee, shove my ear buds back into my ears, and begin the long walk across downtown Seattle to the bus depot. It’s not often that snow sticks here since it’s so wet. I feel like a little kid again as I trudge through the four-inch covering that carpets the sidewalk, tucking my face into my jacket, trying to keep warm as I listen to Robert Plant sing about letting the sun beat down upon his face. I pass a homeless guy hunkered over in a shop doorway, the only person out on the streets in this frigid weather.

I come from a family where giving is second nature. The ten-dollar bill I pass to the man vanishes quickly into the many folds of jackets and shirts he’s wearing as protection against the cold, his quick, distanced eyes blinking thanks at me as I hurry down the street. I’m almost halfway to the depot when I can no longer hear Robert Plant singing anymore, and the ground feels like it’s shaking apart beneath my feet. A convoy of motorcycles sweep down the street, engines snarling, drowning out all other sound. You don’t get many packs of motorcycles traveling through the city. The sight is bizarre enough that I stop and watch them pass, until the very last of them disappear around a right-hand turn at the intersection behind me. They’re gone from sight, but the sound of their rides echoes off the tall buildings for at least another twenty seconds.

Dad calls men who ride motorcycles temporary citizens. He’s seen so many fatalities over the years, so many decapitated heads still inside crushed helmets. He swears blind if he ever catches me on the back of one of the things he’ll ground me for life. The patients he’s dealt with in the past are usually riders of sports bikes, though, aerodynamic things designed for going way too fast. The men who just passed me—at least twenty of them—were on machines constructed from polished chrome and exposed engines, handlebars way too high, exhausts way too fat. Society tells me they are criminals. Perhaps they are.

I carry on toward the bus depot, my iPod shuffling through songs. The streets are clear by the time I find myself closing in on my destination. Everyone’s playing it smart tonight, already inside, enjoying the warmth and a hot meal. That’s exactly where I’ll be soon, and I cannot wait. I’m getting ready to cross over the street when a tall man with silvered hair staggers out of the darkened side alley beside me.

I don’t hear him—the music blocks out any sound he makes—and the sight of him suddenly emerging from nowhere has me jumping out of my skin. My heart slams against my ribcage, adrenalin fires through me. There’s blood in the snow. He’s bleeding. I tear the headphones out of my ears, and then he’s lurching toward me, one hand outstretched.

“Help…please help…me,” he gasps.

I skitter away from him, clutching my hands to my chest. It’s a natural reaction most people would have, I think. A terrifying old man, dressed in a torn great coat, and covered head to toe in blood comes flying at you from out of nowhere, and your first instinct is to run. Not people like my father or my sister, of course; they would run straight toward someone like that. It takes a heartbeat to get myself together before I realize this guy needs me to be like my dad. Or like Sloane.

“What…what happened?” I hurry forward, unravelling the scarf from around my neck, preparing to use it to staunch the bleeding, wherever it’s coming from.

The old man’s eyes grow round. Suddenly he’s not staggering toward me anymore; he’s backing away. “No…” His voice comes out in a ragged, wet rasp. “No!” The look on his face is sheer terror. And he’s staring at something behind me.

I’ve seen enough films to know what comes next. The hand that clamps over my mouth. The iron grip of the arm that wraps around me, pinning my arms to my sides. The weightless, stomach-churning sensation of being lifted off the floor by someone much bigger and much stronger than me.

I try to scream. Pain rips down my throat, but I barely make a sound. The hand covering my mouth captures my cry and shoves it back inside me, effectively putting me on mute. My heart’s racing. I can’t…I can’t see properly. Black spots dance in my vision. I’ve never been good with small spaces, and being trapped inside this person’s arms is a very small fucking space. I react. I’d like to say I remember the training I received from the on-campus security team, showing us how to protect ourselves when out walking alone late at night, but that’s not what this is. This is the panicked flailing of a twenty-one-year-old girl gripped in the deepest throes of fear.

I bite down on the hand and taste blood. A loud hiss from the man behind me lets me know I’ve caused him some discomfort, but the bastard doesn’t let go. My feet are still off the ground. I lash out, kicking backward. My heels hit shinbone and strong muscle, but the grip around me doesn’t falter.

“What the fuck you doing with that bitch, hijo?” a voice demands. The accent is strong and thick. “Get her off the fucking street.”

I’ve been too terrified to take in much, but now I see the bloody man, on his knees, staring off up the street. He looks devastated, like he knows this is the end. His abject hopelessness hits me like a wave; this man, whoever he is, knows he is alone right now and no one is coming to his rescue. Which means no one is coming to my rescue, either.

He looks up at me, his mouth hanging open, and shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he tells me. I try screaming again, with just as much luck. My captor tightens his hold on me and then we’re moving, heading into the darkness of the side alley. Fuck. I know it instinctively: if I disappear into the darkness of this alleyway, I will never be seen again. And pinned to this stranger, struggling with every last ounce of strength I possess, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. I see the face of another man, a Hispanic guy with a shaved head and a spider tattoo underneath his right eye, as he moves forward and grabs hold of the bloody old man under one arm. He spits on the old man, takes hold of him, and drags him behind us into the alleyway.

Dumpsters, trash, broken wooden crates; there’s nothing back here to indicate someone is going to come along at any moment and save us. The sound of footfall—many pairs of boots—rings off the walls on either side. We reach the iron railings of a tall gate in the middle of the alleyway, dividing it into two, and this is where my captor stops. He spins us around, and for the first time I see exactly just how much trouble I’m in.

Seven men, all with guns drawn, stare back at me. The same cold, indifferent look marks most of their faces; only one man wears a different expression—the guy who dragged the old man behind us. His victim is laying face down on the concrete, shoulders shaking, and now he has turned his attention to me. And he looks…excited.

My stomach drops through the floor.

He’s wearing a black Parka with grey fur trim, which strikes me as odd fashion sense for someone of his…standing. It’s also strange that I should be thinking things like this when he’s stalking toward me and sticking his face into mine. Regardless of his fashion sense, I know with certainty I’m looking into the eyes of a killer.

“You scream…and I’ll cut your tongue out with this.” He draws a narrow, six-inch knife from the pocket of his jeans, sharp and cruel-looking, and I know he’s being very, very serious. “You hear me?”

I can’t tell him yes. I can’t even nod. I’m far too scared to have any sort of control over my body. Instead, I manage to blink at him. The Hispanic guy accepts this and nods to his friend. “Uncover her mouth so she can speak, fuckhead.”

The hand lets go of my face, though the arm around my chest doesn’t loosen any. “You know this old guy, puta?” Spider asks.

I shake my head straight away. I don’t want to give him any reason to get angry. His boys all look bored, but this guy…this guy looks like he could get riled up, and easily.

“Let the girl go. She doesn’t know me,” the old man on the ground groans. He shouldn’t have opened his mouth; one of the other men boots him in the chest so hard I hear a snapping sound. Without looking over his shoulder, Spider guy says, “Don’t worry, my friend. We’ll get to you in a moment. But in the meantime…” He strokes the back of his hand down my cheek, running his tongue over his top teeth. “You swear you don’t know this guy?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I swear.”

With little more than a blur of black material, Spider pulls his hand back and lashes out. Pain rockets through my head, surprising and sharp. I open my mouth, trying to gasp in a breath, but it won’t come. He hit me. He hit me, and he looks like he enjoyed it. He smiles at me, nodding. “I think I believe you. But I have to be sure. What did he say to you, pretty? Did he tell you something, huh?”

I’ve never been struck before in my entire life. I can’t even remember my parents striking me for misbehaving as a kid. A tiny part of me is roiling with anger at the treatment, but the rest of me is shocked, paralyzed with fear. “He didn’t tell me anything. He asked for my help,” I whisper. Spider laughs at this.

“He asked you for help, pretty? That’s kind of ironic, no?” The question is rhetorical. He nods to the man holding me, and the hand comes descending over my mouth again. Spider presses the tip of his knife into his index finger, turning around so he’s facing the old man on the ground. I catch the glint of a gold wedding band on the old guy’s finger—somewhere out there this man has a wife who is probably worried about him. It’s late, and it’s dark. He could have been on his way home when these guys jumped him. He could already be late for his own family meal.

“So, what we gonna do with you, ese?” Spider asks. “That was some crazy shit you just pulled. You seriously thought running was a good plan? And I thought you guys were supposed to be smart. Educated and shit.” He spits on the ground. I can’t see the expression on his face, but I’m betting his eyes are glinting with that same poorly concealed depravity he fixed on me a moment ago. This man thrives on power. He thrives on blood, and from the way the old man on the floor is shrinking away from him, I think he knows it, too.

“I…I can’t help you. You know there’s nothing I can do,” the old man says. His voice catches in his throat. “Just…just let the girl go. Please.”

Spider looks over his shoulder at me, one eyebrow arched into a bemused black line. “Her? You’re begging for her life?” With a shrug, Spider crouches down, still playing with the knife. “What about your life, Conahue? Not worth begging for?” he asks.

The old man—Conahue—swallows. The action looks painful, as though he’s swallowing razor blades. He looks up at me and I see the last flicker of fight in his eyes fizzle out and die. “You’re going to kill me anyway. Begging is probably a waste of what little breath I have left.”

Spider barks out a sharp blast of laughter. “Your life’s been in your hands for a long time, my friend. We gave you plenty of warning. When my employer asks for something, he gets it. There are consequences if he doesn’t. Hence this little…meeting, my friend. You could always change your mind? Do as he asks?”

Conahue gives a brief shake of his head, breathing heavily. His face, underneath the congealed, drying blood, is mottled and ashen. “I’ve never lied. I’ve never taken bribes. I’ve never let a piece of shit gang lord get away with murder.”

“Ah, so you’re a man of morals?” Spider asks this, twisting the knife over in his hands.

“Yes,” Conahue gasps. “Not that Hector would understand that. He hasn’t suffered a guilty conscience a day in his life.”

Most of the men snort at that. It appears as though the majority of them agree, and they’re proud of the fact that this mystery man, apparently their boss, isn’t inconvenienced by a functioning moral compass. Conahue struggles to push himself upright, but Spider tuts at him, wagging the knife back and forth in front of his face. The action is enough to stop the old man in his tracks.

“You do realize,” he says, “that the whore Hector’s accused of killing was a junkie, right? She was a drain on your country’s precious resources. You’ll die for some cracked out bitch you don’t even know?”

Resolve flashes in Conahue’s eyes. “I will.”

“So be it.” Spider acts slowly, extending his arm with deliberate purpose so Conahue can see what he’s doing. From my vantage point, still a foot off the floor and unable to turn away, I witness the point of the weapon press down into Conahue’s chest and travel slowly, slowly, slowly, into the man’s body. Conahue’s eyes widen, a look of mild disbelief coming over him as he starts to convulse.

A pool of thick, dark red blood begins to rise up out of the wound, around the blade of the knife, and then around the hilt when Spider has driven the weapon all the way into the other man’s body.

I scream, but there’s no sound—only a high-pitched out-rushing of air from my lungs. The vice-like grip around my chest tightens, and a sharp pain lances through me—my shoulder, burning, suddenly on fire. Spider draws the knife out of Conahue’s body; the old man is still alive, but the muscles in his face fall slack. He’s not got long left. He reaches up a shaking hand and clutches at the wound in his torso, his feet twitching. Spider watches him, back still turned to me, with such stillness that I get the feeling he’s mentally recording this—the life slowly slipping out of his victim, absorbing every fine detail of the moment so he can replay it again later.

A violent crash of sound roars down the alleyway, and I’m suddenly hit with the sensation of it—a wall of noise slamming into me, rattling my bones. I don’t know how I didn’t hear it before. It can’t have registered through the fear, the horror of watching that knife disappear into a man’s body. The guy holding onto me turns along with everyone else to see what’s going on; a motorcycle has pulled into the alleyway behind us.

The high wrought iron railing is all that stands between me, trapped with this group of killers, and the single biker on the other side. The bike’s headlight spears through the darkness, lighting us all up and eliciting a chorus of Spanish curse words from Spider and his friends. “What the fuck is he doing?” one of them hisses.

Spider snarls, pacing to the railings, knife still in hand, though it’s now dripping with blood. “You’re too late, ese!” he hollers. “It’s done. Run back to your cabron and tell him he’s fucked. And so are you!”

The growl of the engine cuts off abruptly, so that Spider’s last words sound outrageously loud against the following silence. The guy holding onto me clucks his tongue derisively when the figure on the bike climbs off and lowers the hood on his sweatshirt—a handsome guy, late twenties, with dark hair and dark eyes. From the way he walks toward us, I can tell he’s built like a tank. He’s wearing gloves. He reaches to the back of his waistband and produces a gun.

“Are you fucking kidding me, ese?” Spider laughs. “There are eight of us and one of you. You gonna shoot us all through the railings before one of us gets you?”

The biker on the other side of the gate doesn’t say anything. He has quick eyes. He takes in the scene before him—the old man on the floor behind us; me clasped tightly in someone’s arms, my mouth covered; blood splattered on the top of my Converse shoes; the other men behind me. He sees all of this, and his face remains completely blank.

“You realize what you’ve done,” he says. He doesn’t look at anyone in particular, though it’s clear he’s talking to Spider. He looks down at his gun, snaps back the action and then frees the clip containing the ammunition.

Spider takes hold of one of the railings, the steel of the knife in his fist clanking against the steel of the gate. “I did what had to be done, pendejo. You’re a man who gets things done, I’ve heard. You should know all about that.”

The biker on the other side of the gate casts his eyes upward from under drawn brows, apparently not even remotely fazed by the situation. He presses the first bullet out of his clip into the palm of his hand, and then fits the clip back into the gun. The gun goes away, back where it came from. “Borrow your knife?” the biker asks.

Spider shrugs. An evil smile spreads across his face. “Sure, hijo. Why the hell not?” He reaches his hand through the gap and drops the weapon into the snow. The biker comes closer, bends and collects the knife. He’s only three feet from me now. I can see the club patch stitched onto his hoody over the right hand side of his chest—Widow Makers—along with the small separate patch underneath that, which says V.P. The club’s emblem—a fleshless skull flanked by two guns and surrounded by stitched roses—is so close I could reach out and touch it, if only my arms weren’t being pinned to my sides.

The biker glances at me quickly—an assessing, curious look—and then he bends over the contents of his hand and begins scratching the tip of the knife against the bullet. A rustling whisper runs around the group behind me.

Is he really doing it?

He’s marking that round?

No way.

The biker finishes whatever he’s doing and then holds the bullet between his index finger and thumb for Spider to see. “You want this?” he asks. From the eager look in his eyes, Spider definitely does want the round. I just don’t have a clue why. In fact, I have absolutely no clue what’s going on. Everyone else seems to know what the biker’s actions mean, and all I can do is wonder.

“I do believe it’s customary to hand it over,” Spider says, amusement thick in his voice. He reaches through the railings and holds out his hand. The biker slowly shakes his head. He looks at me.

“I’ll give it to her,” he says.

Spider’s face twists into a scowl. “As you can see, my friend is a little tied up at the moment.”

The Widow Maker tips his head to one side, casting dark eyes over me and lifting both eyebrows. “Something tells me this woman isn’t your friend, Raphael.” And then, to me, “Are you his friend?”

I don’t know what the hell to do. My mouth is still covered, but I could probably shake my head. And then the guy holding onto me would probably snap my neck for pissing them off. My eyes widen, my tears blinding me. How the hell can this guy be so calm when it’s clear I’m being held against my will? It’s fucking obvious Spider, this Raphael person, whoever he is, isn’t my friend.

“Huh. I don’t think she’s feeling very talkative,” Raphael muses.

“Still. I’ll give it to her, if it’s all the same to you. This is worth it, right?” He curls his fingers around the bullet, making a fist. “You’ve been waiting for it for a long time. Pushing buttons, involving yourselves in shit you have no business involving yourself in. And now you’ve gone and done something entirely irreparable—” His eyes travel over my shoulder, back toward the man on the ground, whom I presume must be dead by now— “and you’re finally getting what you want. A blood bath. All you have to do is let her take this from me.”

Raphael seems to consider this for a minute. He then sucks in a sharp breath, gesturing an impatient flick of his wrist at the man holding me still. “Put her down, Martin.”

The grip around me is instantly gone, and my feet are on solid ground. My legs don’t feel like they’re going to hold me, though. I feel like Bambi taking his first steps. Raphael produces a gun of his own and thrusts it into my face. “Go on. Go and take it,” he snaps. A hard shove from behind pushes me forward, and Raphael moves to stand behind me. I then feel something I never imagined I would ever experience in my lifetime: the muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of my head. My limbs lock up; I can’t fucking breathe.

“Walk, bitch, or I’ll put a hole in your skull.”

I lock eyes on the biker through the railings; he gives me an almost imperceptible nod, like he’s willing me to come forward. I do as I’m told. My heart’s kicking wildly against my ribs as I put my right arm between the railings and hold out my open hand. The biker steps forward, closing in on me and taking hold of my wrist. He places the shining, tarnished gold piece of metal into my palm and curls my fingers around it tight.

“Tell them you’re a virgin,” he murmurs. “Whatever happens, make sure Hector knows that.”

“The fuck you saying to her, ese?” Raphael snaps. Before I can register what the guy has said to me I’m yanked backward, away from the stranger and away from the gate. I almost lose my footing. I hear the soft clicking of a gun being cocked behind me. “Open your hand. Tell me what you’ve got there,” Raphael snarls in my ear.

My fingers barely work; it takes serious effort to stop shaking and open my hand. Inside, I can see the slightly scuffed bullet, see the scratched marks on its surface.

“What is it?” Raphael demands, jabbing the gun in my back.

“It’s…it’s a bullet.”

“And what does it say on it?”

“It says…” I turn the metal over in my hands, trying to focus through my tears. “It says WAR.”

Howls of raucous laughter explode behind me; Raphael reaches forward and snatches the bullet from me, holding it up for his friends to see. “War!” he shouts. “Fucking war!”

The bullet is clearly a declaration, and Raphael and his men are overjoyed by it. The biker gives me a firm, meaningful look; he holds my gaze for a long moment, and then he turns around and pulls up his hood. Somehow, through all the laughter and rough housing going on around me, I hear the creaking of the snow under his boots with every step this stranger takes away from me. The Widow Makers club emblem is emblazoned in white across his back; it’s the last I see of him as he climbs back onto his bike, starts the engine and rides away.

Hands take hold of me again. Raphael’s still grinning from ear to ear as he squeezes my arm. “We’re done here,” he says.

“What are you going to do with me?” Strangely, I almost feel like laughing. People ask that question in movies, when they’re kidnapped and taken from their homes and their lives, stolen away from everything they know and hold dear. I never thought that it would one day be me asking that question.

Raphael smiles a cold, dead kind of smile. “Oh, Chiquita, we’re not going to kill if you if that’s what you’re worried about. No, you’re much too pretty for that.” He strokes the back of his hand down my cheek again, the same hand he hit me with before, and a wicked light sparks in his eyes. “You’re going to come with us. My name is Raphael...but from now on, you will call me master.”

ALEXIS

Three of Raphael’s men disappear and return shortly after in a beaten-up panel van. The windows are so dirty I’m surprised the driver can even see the road. I may be powerless against so many of them, but that doesn’t stop me from fighting like a hellcat when they try and make me get in the back. I’m reminded of a poem, a famous one by Dylan Thomas, ‘Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night.’ The title in itself is comment enough for the situation I find myself in. The poem demands the reader kick and scream against death, and that’s exactly what I do. I kick and I scream, because getting in the back of that van is the same as dying, and I don’t want to die. I want to go home and listen to my mom gossip about her church friends. I want to do the dishes, and I want to watch TV. I want my sister, always so strong and distanced from everything, to come and find me and save me. I thrash so hard that another of the men has to take hold of my legs in order to restrain me.

“Let me go! Let. Me. G—” I choke on the last word. My head spins as something hard and blunt impacts against the back of my skull.

“Get her in the fucking van,” Raphael snaps, and then another heavy thud connects with my head. No spinning now. No fighting or screaming or clawing furiously for my life. Only a sinking sensation and blackness.

Only blackness.

The void envelops me, whisks me away from the events of the last half hour. I sleep, or lose consciousness, I don’t know. It feels like I’m still awake; I can feel the side-to-side rocking motion of the van as it takes corners. My ears still hear talking, distant and muddled, but I can’t make out the words.

We travel for a long time. I have no idea how long. It could be hours; it could be mere minutes. Everything is a blur. I’m in pain and I’m wet, chilled to the bone.

When I fully regain consciousness, there’s no pretending I’m still out cold. I throw up onto the bare metal flooring of the van, my stomach fiercely rejecting everything inside it. My head is killing me. I want to cry, but I can’t. I simply don’t have the energy.

“Fucking stinks back here,” a male voices complains. “Open the window, asshole.”

There are more comments about the smell I’ve created by puking. I feel like informing them that they shouldn’t hit people so hard over the back of the head if they don’t want to deal with the side effects of concussion, but my tongue feels fat and swollen and I can’t breathe properly.

Fuck.

What the fuck am I going to do?

This is the part where I think about who’s going to be looking for me. Mom will have called Dad to see where we are, and he won’t have answered because he’s in the OR. She’ll maybe have called Sloane, but my sister will be out with her friends, celebrating another day’s survival as an intern. Mom can’t have called Matt, my boyfriend, because she doesn’t even know he exists. None of my family do. Too many questions. Does he go to church? What is he studying? Where is he from? What are his prospects? Is he being respectful?

The answers—doesn’t go to church; not studying anything; from Mount Rainier; no real prospects; and hell no, most definitely not being respectful—would not go down well. So, long story short, my family will have no clue where I am, and neither will Matt.

I throw up again, and this time it’s not from the concussion. It’s from the overwhelming sense of dread cycling through me, feeding on itself, growing by the second. There’s one question playing on repeat inside my head, and I’m too much of a coward to face it yet. It’s there if I stop thinking even for a second, though:

Are they going to rape you?

Are they going to rape you?

Are they going to rape you?

I’m more afraid of this than I am of dying. I’m more afraid of something I have only thus far shared with two people in the whole world being forcefully taken from me than I am of losing my life. If I die, I’ll just be dead. If they do unspeakable, horrific things to me, I will relive that experience every time I open my eyes each morning. Every time I close my eyes at night.

“Left up here, brother. Not far now,” a gruff voice says.

The van’s suspension is shot to hell. My head bangs painfully against the floor as the vehicle swerves and leaves the road, turning onto what must be a dirt track. Someone snickers, and I get the impression it’s at my expense. I’m sure to evil bastards like these, a skinny girl, hands bound behind her back and lying in a pool of her own vomit, is a highly entertaining sight.

I try not to think about how vulnerable I am. I try not to think about what’s going to happen when the van’s engine stops spluttering and we reach wherever we’re going. All I can concentrate on is my breathing, trying to keep it even. I’m dangerously close to hyperventilating, and I don’t want to pass out again, which is what will happen if I let my panic take hold of me.

I breathe in. I breathe out. I breathe in. I breathe out.

“She’s got some great tits,” a different male voice says. I haven’t heard this guy speak before, and I’m shocked—he has no accent. He sounds like he’s from Seattle, though I know whoever he is, he must have some Mexican heritage. Each and every one of my captors appeared to be Hispanic. I barely register that they’re talking about my chest until a hand suddenly grabs hold of one of my breasts. I try to open my eyes at this stage—being manhandled wins out over my splitting headache—but I can’t see anything. They’ve blindfolded me. I kick out with my legs and manage to shove myself away, out of the reach of wandering hands. It still feels like the hand’s there, though, squeezing and kneading my breast; my skin is crawling, prickling with the intensity of my disgust. Matt’s never touched me like that before. Whenever he’s touched me, it’s been to bring me pleasure. Whoever just grabbed hold of me did so for their own pleasure, a fact painfully clear by the way they pinched and rolled my skin.

“What the fuck you two doing back there?” Raphael demands. I know his voice. He sounds suspicious, but then I’ve yet to hear Raphael sound anything but. “Don’t touch that girl, motherfuckers. You heard me lay claim, right? I’ll cut out your fucking tongues if you so much as look at her.”

Two disappointed grunts follow after that.

Someone in the front cranks up the radio to obnoxious levels, and the sound of Taylor Swift’s, We Are Never Getting Back Together blasts from the rear speakers. My head must be right next to one of those speakers, because it feels like it’s on the brink of explosion. I used to like the song, but now? Not so much. The situation descends into outright weirdness when someone in the van, I can’t tell who, begins to sing along. Enthusiastically.

My body is singing in pain. My shoulders are throbbing from the discomfort of having my wrists bound tightly behind my back. Thankfully my hands themselves have gone numb from lack of blood supply, so at least I’m now being spared that particular agony.

Less than fifteen minutes later, the van pulls to a jerky stop. Raphael is the first out; I can tell from the way his voice fades and then cuts off altogether when his door slams shut. The music is still blaring, though it’s not pop music anymore. It’s Mexican rap music. Angry. Hostile. Violent.

The rear doors open, and suddenly someone has hold of my ankles. I’m pulled from my cowering position in the back of the van, and I hit the ground hard. The drop from the vehicle to the ground must only be two feet, but my shoulder impacts first, sending a white hot flash of pain charging through my back and neck.

I cry out, but no one says a word. Hands find me, more than one pair, and they lift me roughly to my feet, pulling me forward. I hear nothing but Mexican rap music and the frantic staccato of my own heartbeat. I stumble after whoever is dragging me behind them, tripping on unseen obstacles and rolling my ankles. The music fades away, and my heartbeat grows even louder.

“Now, you’ll keep your fucking mouth shut, you hear me?” a voice commands. Raphael. Of course, Raphael. “If you want to live, you don’t breathe a fucking word.” He yanks on my arm, unbalancing me, and I drop to one knee, only to have my arm almost wrenched out of its socket as I’m tugged to my feet again.

Without being able to see, my other senses have come alive. A saccharine sweet smell hits me—the smell of sugared almonds and cotton candy. There’s a screeching sound—a screen door opening?—and then I’m jerked to a halt.

“And what is this?” a male voice asks. The timbre of that voice is low and rumbling, husky with a thick accent. Spanish, but not Mexican Spanish. It’s softer, more muted than Raphael’s hard intonation.

“This is mine,” Raphael replies. “I picked her up along the way. The judge is dead, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t wondering. I gave you a job to do, and I expected you to do it. What I didn’t expect you to do is bring a stranger back to my home.”

The way this person speaks makes something very clear; he is pissed. Seriously pissed. It’s the quiet, careful way he parts with his words that gives me that impression. I’ve had a severe case of mouth sweats ever since I threw up back in the van, but now my throat is miraculously dry.

“She’s been blindfolded the whole time. She doesn’t know anything,” Raphael says.

A cracking sound, and then the dull, slow thudding of feet against wood. One step. Two. Three. The voice is closer now.

“Has she seen your face?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know your name?”

There’s a brief pause. And then, “Yes.”

“Does she know…my name?” The malice in this question makes my palms break out in a sweat. I’m beginning to get the feeling Raphael’s fucked up in kidnapping me, and I’m going to be the one paying the price.

“Yes,” Raphael answers. “She does. But she’s never gonna be out of my sight, Padre. She won’t be a problem.”

“The girl isn’t the problem here, Raphi. You are currently the problem. You do shit without thinking, and that is a really fucking big problem for me, you understand?”

So I know this guy’s name? That must make him Hector, surely? He is Raphael’s boss. Raphael doesn’t say anything to him in return, though his hand tightens around my arm, fingernails digging into my skin. I squirm, trying to free myself, but it’s a complete waste of energy.

“Take the blindfold off her,” Hector commands.

A piercing light stabs into my head, making me gasp. Daylight? Daylight? It was eight thirty in the evening when I first came across the unfortunate Judge Conahue. I blink up at the sky, horrified when I see the sun’s position directly overhead. That would make it almost midday, or around that time anyway. How the hell is that possible? I was dazed after being hit on the head, but I thought I’d been mostly conscious. Obviously I was wrong, otherwise I wouldn’t be surprised by the fact that at least eighteen hours have passed since I was taken.

Eighteen hours. That means I could literally be anywhere. Definitely out of Washington State. Any hope of rescue I might have been harboring plummets.

“I see why you risked pissing me off, Raphi,” Hector says. I lower my gaze and I see him—a tall, dark-haired man with startling green eyes. He’s clearly of some Latin descent, though his skin is more golden than olive. Maybe in his mid forties, he reminds me of the pediatrician I used to see when I was a kid. Except there’s an air of something not-quite-right about this man that Dr. Hereford didn’t have. Something that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

He holds out a hand to me, his cool mint-green irises locked firmly on my face. I don’t know what the hell he expects me to do. My hands are still firmly tied behind my back. Hector doesn’t even turn his head; his eyes simply travel from me to Raphael, and then my captor is moving quickly, hands fumbling to pull a small knife from his belt so he can free me. I’m in instant pain. It’s like my hands are on fire. Blood rushes back into my fingers so quickly and intensely, the piercing sensation takes my breath away. Hector reaches down and takes my right hand in his, and massages his fingers over mine, making a clucking sound at the back of his throat.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend here. He can be very uncivilized when the mood takes him.”

Raphael’s getting antsy in my peripheral vision—he clearly doesn’t like anyone else playing with a toy he considers his—but something primal within me is warning not to look away from Hector. He’s beautiful in an odd way.

And terrifying in every other.

Despite his consideration for my screaming wrists and his apparently sincere apology over my treatment, I haven’t forgotten what I heard back in that alleyway. This man is suspected of murder. The murder of a woman. And I am currently at his mercy.

“What’s your name, sweet girl?” he asks, smiling, head tipped to one side, as though I’m a delightful mystery he’s looking forward to unraveling.

I clench my jaw, torn for a moment. I shouldn’t tell him my name. I shouldn’t tell him who I am. I don’t know why, but I know it with a certainty that makes my heart race in my chest. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not say,” I inform him. Hector’s smile fades. A flicker of disappointment flashes across his face—I have been a bad girl. Hector’s focus flits to Raphael again, this time accompanied with a single arched eyebrow.

“Sophia Letitia Marne,” Raphael reels off. “Twenty-one years old. Student at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.”

I can’t avoid my reaction now; my head whips around so I can look Raphael full in the face. He’s lying to his boss. Sophia isn’t my name. I sure as hell don’t study at Cornish. I recognize the information, though. Raphael’s almost black eyes are glinting with a barely suppressed fury that confirms my suspicions: he hates having to answer to someone else. Hates it with a vengeance. Hector holds out a hand to Raphael; he seems to know what his employer is requesting from him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an intimately familiar object —my wallet.

He snaps the clasp open and fishes out a card, which he hands over to Hector. I’m hardly a party girl, but last year a group of my friends wanted to hit a club to see a DJ play, and I was the only one underage at the time. Luke, the boyfriend of one of the other girls, made up a fake driving license for me. I’d memorized the card’s details before going in, chanting my borrowed name and date of birth over and over again in case any of the doormen asked me, only to be let in without even having to produce the damn thing. I then proceeded to forget my fake persona altogether.

My real driving license is sitting on my bedside table at home, snapped in two. I broke it at least a month ago, and since I’m living on campus and don’t have a car at the moment, replacing it has been very low on my list of priorities. There are no credit cards in my wallet, either. Nothing else to give away my real identity. A cold sweat of relief breaks out across my face. Hector studies the license, studies me, studies the license again. He grunts, handing it back to Raphael.

“Well, Sophia,” he says, giving me a small smile. “It would appear you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of a situation. Are you content with Raphael as your new master?”

Am I content with Raphael as my…? I’m at a loss for words. I’m pretty sure I’m covered in my own blood from where I was hit over the head. I reek of vomit, and my wrists are banded with a deep purple ribbon of bruising. I hardly look like the sort of person who came willingly to their newfound servitude. My mouth opens, but I struggle to find the right response to the question.

“Let me put it this way,” Hector says. “Are you going to make trouble inside my home, Sophia? Because I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to trouble within in my home.”

I haven’t given much thought to the building Hector is standing in front of, but now I take a closer look at the place. The two-story Colonial, white weatherboard with green shutters, looks like something out of Little House On The Prairie. It’s quaint, with its wrap-around porch, swing bench, and multitude of potted flowers balancing on the windowsills. I’d expect this place to belong to some frail, little old Southern lady. I can picture her rocking slowly on the swing, drinking her endless glasses of sweet tea. There are no bars on the windows, and no security gates or armed guards. But…there is also nothing else out here. Not a single building for as far as the eye can see. Just desert. A burnt, alien landscape with no roadways, no stores, or any way of making contact with civilization.

“Well?” Hector asks.

“What if I say yes? What if I am going to make trouble?” I don’t really need to ask this question, though. I know all too well what he’s going to tell me before the words have a chance to leave his lips. Raphael snickers, a wickedly sharp, crackling laugh. Hector just shrugs his shoulders.

“One of the many bonuses of living out in the desert, so far from prying eyes, is that shallow graves are easy to come by, my dear. Should you wish to incite chaos here, to disrupt my peaceful life, you can bank on finding some permanent real estate of your own out here.”

Somehow, I’ve strangely been holding myself together since I was grabbed from the side of the street. I’ve cried, yes, but I haven’t completely lost it. Until now. My legs buckle out from underneath me, ditching me in a heap at Hector’s feet.

“I need to go home. I have to go back to Seattle. My family...my family will be worried about me. The police—”

My head is kicked to one side, pain slamming through my already delicate skull. I didn’t see the hit coming, but I can certainly feel the echo of it relaying around my body. I can’t breathe. I can’t see through the tears welling in my eyes.

“You’d be wise not to mention the police in my presence again, Sophia. They aren’t a group of people I like to discuss.” Hector sinks down into a crouch. He reaches into his pocket and then holds his hand out to me, offering me something inside—almonds. I was right about the smell. Candied almonds. “Why don’t we just say…no kind of law enforcement should be spoken of from this point forward? It will make a happier life for you, and a happier life for me. Don’t you agree?”

I nod, cautiously touching my hand my face, trying to cup the stinging sensation. To make it go away. Hector’s eyes narrow at me. “Why don’t you take an almond? They’re delicious. Don’t you find them delicious? And then Raphael will take you inside so you can speak to Ramona. If you’re polite to her, she may find you some fresh clothes.”

This man is insane.

Certifiably insane.

He flipped so quickly, violence surging out of him like the unexpected eruption of a geyser. He’s unstable, and I don’t want to risk pissing him off again. I get the feeling he wouldn’t flinch away from killing me if he thought I wasn’t going to be compliant. I reach out and take a sugared almond between shaking fingers.

“Good girl. Eat it,” Hector coaxes.

I force the small almond past my lips, and the explosion of sugar that follows makes my mouth ache.

“That’s it. Perfect.” Hector nods appreciatively. He stands, the action so quick and fluid that he makes me jump. He strokes one hand against the top of my head, shhhing me, and then turns his attention to Raphael.

“Get her inside. Make sure she’s given a room on the south side of the house.” He turns and climbs back up the steps that lead up to the wrap-around porch, opens the screen door, and disappears back inside the house.

That leaves Raphael and me, with my stomachful of knife-wielding butterflies. “On your feet, girl,” he snaps at me. The insanity is back in his eyes again. I want to turn and run. I want to blindly flee this malevolent, charming house and run until my legs can’t carry me any further. I would do it too, if it weren’t for the group of grim-looking men leaning up against the van I arrived here in. They all have weapons—a vast array of differently shaped guns and knives, small and large. But mostly, I don’t do it because of the baiting edge in Raphael’s words. It’s almost as if he’s willing me to disobey him, to run, to try and free myself…so he can have the pleasure of capturing me all over again and teaching me a lesson.

I get to my feet.

I go inside the house.

I think, perhaps, I will never see my family again.

REBEL

SEVEN YEARS AGO

“Get down, get down, get down! Watch your fucking head, Duke. You nearly caught that round to the face.” Hands pull at me, bringing me to the ground. I’ve been trained, but boy am I fucking green. My lungs are burning with adrenalin and dust and the shitty realization that I nearly just died.

Cade is on his back beside me, choking on the dirt. Overhead, the powerful blades of the helo that just dropped us into the middle of this shitfight thump at the air, blasting us with even more dirt and dust as it gets the hell out of dodge.

“On your feet, boys. Keep low!” Richter hollers. So far, I’ve followed Richter from the academy, through basic training, all the way across to the other side of the world, and now it would seem I’ve followed him straight into hell.

They warned us how bad it would be. We believed them, too, but the reality of what we’re facing is beyond anything we could possibly have comprehended. Richter’s grabbing at my flak jacket, jerking me upright. He’s signalling to me, tipping two fingers to my right. “Got company, Duke. You’re on right flank. Shoot anything that moves. You okay, son?”

“Five by five.” I nod frantically, my finger on the trigger of my M4 Carbine, but I’m screaming inside my own head.

“You’re on point,” Richter yells. “Take a deep breath and accept this.” That’s his thing—accept that you are where you are. Accept that only you are in control of whether you come out on the other side alive. I push myself up onto my feet, my boots scraping against a fallen street sign half buried in the dirt road. Then we’re moving. Cade’s at my rear, gun aimed over my shoulder, protecting me. That’s our way. We always protect the man in front. In this instance, my heart is in my throat and my dick is hard, and I am in charge of protecting everybody. There are seven men at my back, counting on me to choose a safe passage for them through this madness.

We’ve navigated our way down three streets, choked with burned out cars and building rubble before we make contact. Gunfire rains down from overhead, immediately making my job almost impossible. “Down, down, down,” I yell. I can’t see a fucking thing. The narrow street we find ourselves in is being used to dry sheets—the stained white and yellow and salmon-pink cotton barely shifts on the slight breeze, blocking whatever may lie at the other end of the street from view.

Could be anything back there. We can’t pull through this way. I hold up my closed fist: freeze. All eyes will be on me back there. I know they’ll have already stopped moving and are crouched low behind me. More shots fire overhead, really fucking close. Like right on top of us, close. I hold my hand up in the air, my index finger raised, and I circle it over my head: rally point. Move back to the rally point. We need to find another way. I’m backing up, crouched low, scanning to find the shooters on the roofs over our heads when we hit smoke.

Smoke on the ground means another unit must be close; they’re trying to conceal their whereabouts, too. Couldn’t have come at a better time. I see Cade’s pack in front of me, PRESTON in big black letters across the material. There’s shouting up ahead, along with the rattle of more shots fired.

A cloud of smoke blows across our path, and then I’m stumbling, tripping, falling forward. I’m cursing myself out when I hear the metallic zip of a round firing no more than two feet over my head—exactly where I was standing a second ago.

“Fuck.” Get up, get, up, get up. You need to move. Get your ass up now. I push myself back, onto my feet and I can just about make out the faint shapes of my unit ahead of me. They haven’t realized I’ve fallen behind. I’m less than a second away from calling out to Cade when a darker, more solid shape is rushing toward me, materializing out of the smoke.

Non-American, military age male. He’s holding something in his hands. Takes me the length of a heartbeat to recognize it as a weapon—an AK47. And he’s pointing the fucking thing straight at me. My training kicks in, and I’m lifting, aiming, firing my own weapon before I can think straight. The guy who was rushing toward me falls back, not making a sound. I hear his weapon clatter to the ground, but aside from that the only noise comes from up ahead, from people shouting in English and Farsi. And from their guns.

My blood is raging through me as I hurry forward, my cheek pressed up against the sight on my M4. I keep low, and I stay on my toes. I don’t know where I hit him. Could have been in the heart. Could have been in the shoulder, for all I know. The last thing I need is for him to sit up and start shooting as soon as I draw close enough.

The guy doesn’t sit up, though. He’s flat out on his back, eyes fixed upward, his chest hitching up and down as he chokes on his own blood. I got him in the neck. The motherfucking neck. Jesus. He’s holding both hands up to the raw wound across his throat, trying to stem the blood that’s pumping out of him, but it’s a futile task. He might as well be trying to hold back an ocean’s tide. I’d nicked his carotid, barely scratched it, but it’s enough to be the reason why he dies. His eyes swivel in his head, staring at me, showing way too much white.

He says something to me in Farsi, his voice gurgling out of his mouth, and then he drops his right hand, patting loosely at his side for something. He’s looking for his gun.

“Don’t even fucking try it, asshole,” I snap out. The guy on the floor—he’s a young guy, maybe twenty-two, can’t be any older than me—doesn’t heed my warning, though. He hands scrabble in the dirt, groping, and then he’s holding a handgun. Fear radiates off him as he aims the thing at me.

“Drop it,” I tell him. “Put it down.”

He has tears in his eyes now, blood pumping rhythmically through the gaps between his fingers. He knows he’s about to die. He says something else in Farsi, something I don’t understand, and I can see the moment he decides he’s going to do it. He’s going to shoot me. There’s a split second in time between that moment and me firing my rifle.

Crack!

I shoot him in the head, almost right between the eyes. We’re trained for hours as we become riflemen, laid out on our stomachs, to always go for the head. Always go for the heart. But seeing a real human being, eyes glassy and still filled with tears staring blankly back at you with a gaping hole in his forehead, is very different than being proud of the tiny tear in a paper target on some range in a US Army base. Seeing that hole in his head makes me feel like I’m gonna fucking throw up.

The worst part? The worst part is that my dick is still fucking hard inside my pants. They warned us about this, too. The cocktail of hormones and adrenalin pumping around your system in a situation like this has the most fucked up effects on the male body. I thought they were joking. I sure as hell didn’t think it would happen to me.

I look down into the eyes of the man I’ve just shot and killed, and I know I’ll never forget his face. I’ll never be able to rid myself of the horror I’m feeling right now.

“Jay! Jamie! What the fuck, man?” I look up and Cade’s standing there, the butt of his gun pressed against his chest, a wild look in his eyes. He sees me, sees the guy lying on the ground. Shock transforms his features. “Holy fuck, man. Do you know who that is?”

I just look at Cade, unable to respond.

“Dude, that’s fucking Aarash Zubair. He’s Ahmad Zubair’s son.”

Of course, I know who Ahmad Zubair is. He’s the head of all Taliban activities in this area. He’s been on our watch since before we even arrived. Cade takes out a small point and shoot camera and takes photos. It struck me as some cold shit when we were given the cameras and told to do this, but it makes sense. We need to identify people. And in this case, prove it is who Cade thinks it is.

“Did he say anything to you before you shot him?” Cade asks.

I nod, feeling my body come back to me. My cheeks prickle, feeling odd and strange. “Yeah. Something like, enen waheen.”

“Enen waheen? What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Back at base, Cade shows his picture to Richter and it’s confirmed. The man I shot was Aarash Zubair, son of Ahmad Zubair. One of our translators also confirms what the guy was saying before I shot him:

Enen waheen.

I am alone.

REBEL

NOW

Three years ago, my best friend went missing. Three years ago, my whole life changed. It’s amazing how dramatically the foundations of your very self, the very basis of what makes you you can tilt on its axis, and you can become something other. Something dark. Something disreputable. Something bloodthirsty and violent.

Suffice it to say, I am not the man I used to be.

I am no longer good.

As president of a motorcycle club, I find I’m presented with daily opportunities to prove just how bad I have, in actual fact, become. A beating here. An armed robbery there. That’s the small stuff. The shootings, the gunrunning, the drug dealing—that’s the stuff that scandalizes the ghost of the man I used to be. But guess what? Fuck. That. Guy.

He let his family walk all over him. He had his heart ripped out when the one bright element in his life was taken from him. He was the weak bastard that cowered in the dark when he should have fought. If I’d have been the man I am today back then, on the night Laura was kidnapped, I might have reacted more quickly. I might have found her. I might have saved her. I might have saved me.

But I didn’t. So now I’m the guy who steals and breaks shit, and I’m the guy who enjoys it as I’m doing it.

“Put him on his ass, Carnie,” I say, snapping open my Zippo. Carnie, our one and only Widow Makers prospect, does as I tell him. He shoves the man he’s holding at gunpoint down onto the ground. Meet Mr. Peter Hartley, forty-three, severe gambling problem, and a penchant for beating small, defenseless Asian women.

Do I care that he gambles too much? Not particularly. I care an appropriate amount, since Mr. Hartley is really fucking bad at gambling, and it’s my money he’s been losing.

But, do I care that Mr. Peter Hartley likes laying his fists into the bodies of small Asian women? That would be a resounding hell yes. I probably would have let poor, blubbering, snot-nosed Mr. Peter Hartley off with a couple of black eyes and a week’s extension on his loan repayment, had I not seen the black eyes on the girls who run his massage parlor. A real man does not hit a woman. A real man does not hurt a woman. Fuck, even sorry-ass, pathetic attempts at men do not raise their hands against women while I’m around. Not unless they want to lose their balls in the most painful manner possible.

“Pl—please, Rebel. Please! I swear, I’ll have the money to you by the end of tomorrow. I can sell—I can sell—”

Mr. Hartley has nothing left to sell. He knows it, and so do I. “I don’t care about tomorrow. I care about the phone call I just received. I care about my boy here having to bring me down to this shithole to see what you’ve done, Peter.”

A look of confusion transforms the guy’s face. “What—what do you mean?”

I grab hold of his arm, lifting it up so I can take a look at his hand. His right hand. The one that carries the full force of his blows when he swings. His knuckles are red raw and covered in half-healed scabs. “You’re a fucking mess, Pete. What on earth have you been up to?”

He lifts his shoulders slowly, an uncertain shrug. “Oh, y’know. I like to box.”

“Who you been boxing with, Pete?”

“Just—just the guys, y’know.”

“No, I don’t know. Which guys?” If there’s one thing I hate on the face of this planet more than weak men, it’s weak men who are also liars.

“Just some guys, some friends of mine. I train down at O’Rourke’s every Thursday. What have my knuckles gotta do with the five grand I owe you, man?”

I glance up at Carnie, who is still thrusting the muzzle of his gun into the back of Peter’s neck. “He train at O’Rourke’s?” I ask. Carnie gives me a nod. A lot of my guys train at the permanently sweat-soaked fighting gym down on Fourth, though personally I choose to do my workouts in private. I let go of Peter’s hand, shaking my head. “So you know how to punch, then, Pete, huh?”

He looks up at me as though this is a trick question. “Yeah? I guess I do.”

“See, now that’s bad. Very bad. That means when you hit those girls downstairs, you’re not just some asshole loser who takes his insecurities out on women. You’re an asshole loser who takes his insecurities out on women, and who knows how to make it hurt while doing it.”

His eyes go wide—it’s like a light bulb’s just gone on somewhere inside that thick skull of his. “What? No, man, I don’t hit my girls. I would never do—”

I smash my fist into the bastard’s face. Peter isn’t the only one who knows how to hit, after all. I pull back my right arm again, considerably more powerful that Peter’s, and I power my fist straight into his jaw a second time, this time knocking him over. A welt of blood sprays from his mouth, raining down on the threadbare carpet of his tiny office. It smelled of stale sweat and Cheetos in here, but now it mostly smells of blood—that metallic tang never fails to set my heart racing in my chest.

“What the fuck, man? I said I never hit them!” Peter spits on the ground, ejecting a small, white pearl of a tooth from his mouth. “Fuck, man, you knocked out one of my—”

I hit him again. And again. And again. I hit him until I break out into a sweat. The motherfucker is out cold and lying in a pool of his own blood, and I can barely raise my arm by the time I’ve decided he’s had enough. Carnie laughs under his breath; he’s lowered the gun and is leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest with an amused look on his face. Makes his slightly crooked, many-times-broken nose appear even more off center.

“Well. Saved me a job there, boss. You know he’s gonna be out of commission for weeks now, though, right? You aren’t gonna see that money the end of the month at least.”

I heave in a deep breath, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead. “If that motherfucker’s even walking before the end of the month, you come back here and go round two on his ass, you hear me?”

Carnie gives me a mock salute. “Loud and clear.”

I’d stick around and wait for Mr. Peter Hartley to wake up, just so he knows the deal here, but Carnie and I are suddenly accosted by four small, defenseless Asian women. Turns out they’re not so defenseless. None of them are over five foot five, but that doesn’t stop them from charging into Peter’s office, screaming at the top of their lungs in Chinese. They split up, two of them hammering their fists into Carnie’s back, the other two heading straight for me.

I duck around the overflowing desk, putting some space between the charging women and myself, but it’s a wasted effort. They come straight over the damn thing, still hollering and shouting.

“What the fuck they saying?” I shout over the top of them.

“You’re asking me?” Carnie yells back. One of the women bites his shoulder through the white T-shirt he’s wearing; he howls in pain, and that’s enough for my boy. He pivots around and grabs hold of the two angry masseuses by the hair, one in each hand. “I’m gonna start breaking some of your rules if we don’t get the hell out of here, dude,” he yells.

I admit I’m losing patience, myself. So far my attackers have managed to scratch my face, and the most furious of the two is currently trying to go for my nuts. There’s one quick way to resolve this. I reach into my waistband and pull out my own gun, an AWR Hawkins 4.

The screaming women fall instantly silent. They back up, shooting both Carnie and me hateful glares as we sidestep out of the room. Once we’re out of the office and charging down the stairs, they start up with the screaming again, barreling at breakneck speeds after us.

“How fast can you start your bike?” Carnie calls over his shoulder.

“Faster than you, brother.” We burst into the main room of Hartley’s massage business—the legal, non-brothel part—and even more women start screaming. From there it’s a short distance out onto the street. The door nearly rockets off its hinges as we slam through. True to my word, my engine’s snarling before Carnie’s. We leave the women in the dust.

******

We reach the clubhouse just after nine, our faces still aching from laughing so hard. Set back off the road, surrounded by high fences, the clubhouse is a squat, industrial-looking building from the outside. The front yard is crowded with bikes—rows of shining motorcycles, old and new, lined up like a pack of guard dogs. Every MC has a business front—a necessary evil when trying to explain to the law where your money’s come from and what you get up to all day long. The Widow Makers are ink monkeys. We’re the guys who mark you up with that pretty little butterfly you’ve always wanted, seductively placed just above your hip. We’re the ones who tattoo the name of your boyfriend onto the curves of your cleavage one week, only to be the ones to cover it with someone else’s name the next.

A neon sign—Dead Man’s Ink Bar—sends electric blue reflections across meters of polished chrome as it blinks off and on in a steady pulse. Dead Man’s never closes, so that light is never switched off. We pull up and park underneath it, kicking back our stands, and swinging off our bikes.

“Hey, lookit,” Carnie says, pointing back over my shoulder. “V.P’s back.”

And so he is. Cade Preston, Vice President of the club, went on a recon mission for me three days ago with some of our boys. His bike, a dirty great big Star Bolt with an olive green tank, is propped up in its usual spot against the side of the building.

We had news that a club friend was being leaned on by Los Oscuros, a mixed breed cartel. And not just a club friend—my uncle. The fact that he’s a federal judge is something I overlook on account of the fact he made his house my own whenever my father got sick of beating my ass as a kid.

“Sweet. He must have squared everything away quicker than expected.” We rap my knuckles against the tank as I pass Cade’s bike—still warm. Inside the clubhouse, there are no celebratory shots of Jack being passed around. The place is full, nearly every single member of the club seated at tables, some parked on the edge of the pool table. There are a lot of stern looks on faces. Arms folded across chests. I spot Cade immediately, leaning against the bar. The look on his face speaks volumes.

“What? What happened?”

Cade speaks three words:

Raphael Dela Vega.

Before he’s finished saying them, before he’s had a chance to personally bring my world crashing down around my ears, I already know it. I already know my uncle is dead.

REBEL

“I called it. I didn’t have any other choice.” Cade closes the door to my den behind him, shutting out the steely looks of the Widow Makers crew—there are twenty-three people gathered out in the bar, because they all knew before I did: we are at war with Los Oscuros. Cade saw my dead uncle’s body lying in the snow, and he handed over that bullet, just like I would have done. Except I would have given it to Raphael straight between the fucking eyes. “You okay?” Cade asks, as I slump into the seat at my desk.

No other member of the club would ask me if I was okay right now. They’re hard men, who deal with their issues the hard way: silently. Cade, on the other hand, has known me since I was eight years old. He knew me before all of the goodness got torn out of me. He knows I am not okay.

I just shake my head, staring down at the gun I’ve drawn from my belt without realizing and am now holding in my hands. “How did he die?”

“I don’t know.” Cade’s ominously silent for a moment. “But there was a lot of blood.”

I close my eyes, trying to fill my lungs with some air. It’s not working. “Okay.” I inhale. Exhale. Nod my head. “Okay.” The second time I say it, I’m closing a door. Ryan Conahue is dead. There’s nothing I can do to bring him back now, but there are a number of things I can do about his death. My first instinct is go take this fucking gun, climb onto my bike, ride all the way from New Mexico to Seattle, and torture that motherfucker until he begs to die. “Do you know where they’re staying?” I ask. “Hector and the others?” It’s not just Raphael that needs to die. His boss is the one who ordered Ryan’s death. He is as guilty, if not more so.

“They’ve left Seattle,” Cade says. He places his hands on the back of the chair he should be sitting in, leaning forward. “They’re back in L.A.”

Back in L.A. That means Raphael’s hightailed it straight to his boss to tell him the good news. Hector’s been pushing for bloodshed ever since he moved up into the States. He wants our business. Well, that’s not strictly true. He wants our gun and drug business. He’s done everything in his power to take that business from us, but our clientele is loyal. And paranoid. They don’t trust new faces. Now we’ve drawn swords, as it were, Hector must think he’s going to wipe us out. Give the gang lords we deal with no other choice but to deal with them instead. This whole clusterfuck of a situation is political, mixed in with the fact Ryan was in a position to send Hector down the line for a very long time.

“You know this isn’t your fault,” Cade says softly.

I somehow manage to tear my gaze away from the gun, so I can look up at him. “And how the hell have you come to that conclusion? I told him to stand his ground. I told him we’d fucking protect him!”

Thankfully Cade doesn’t say another word on the subject. He knows the dangerous glint in my eye. He knows when I’m on the very brink of a total meltdown, and he knows better than to give me the final push. This is my fault. No two ways about it.

My friend drops his head between his braced arms for a second, sighing. “This might be nothing to concern ourselves with, but Raphael had a girl with him.”

“What do you mean, a girl?”

“Just some young thing off the street by the looks of things. Nice clothes. Had that moneyed look about her.”

“She wasn’t one of his crew?”

Cade shakes his head. “She was terrified. I told her to say she was a virgin.”

That’s potentially one of the only things that will save a girl once Hector’s guys get their hooks in them. Hector may want my guns and coke, but his main area of interest lies in human trafficking. A beautiful virgin is worth more than a whole shipment worth of AKs if you sell to the right buyer. “I wanna see this girl. You got footage?”

“I got something. Not a very clear picture, though.” Cade pulls a thumb drive out of his pocket and tosses it to me. I slot it into my computer, opening the file as soon as the device registers. Cade is right—the picture is for shit, but it’s good enough to make out the shape of a woman, walking down a darkened street.

The woman stops, turns, watches something farther down the street.

“That was us,” Cade tells me. “We knew Ryan was in the area. We were looking for him.” His face creases into a look of remorse. A look that worsens as Ryan’s figure appears on the screen, a meter from the girl. He frightens her. She staggers back, and he falls to his knees in the snow.

My heart rises up into my throat. I understand why Cade looks so fucking guilty now. They missed my uncle by mere seconds.

My eyes feel dry; I don’t think I’ve blinked since the footage started playing. Ryan holds one hand up to the girl—a plea for help if ever I’ve seen one. The stance of the girl, the way she’s holding her own hands to her chest, makes me think she’s going to run from him. But she doesn’t. She surprises me and takes a step forward. More dark shapes appear on the screen—Raphael and his friends. I watch the girl getting grabbed. I watch those fuckers dragging Ryan back into the alleyway. And then there’s nothing.

“She was going to help him.” I hear myself say the words, but they don’t really register. Not until I find myself saying them again. “She was going to help him.” I take a deep breath. “So now we need to help her.”

ALEXIS

Ramona is a tall, slender woman with the traces of what might once have been a hair lip. If it was, her surgeon was very talented. Raphael hands me over to her with a clipped and considerably angry burst of Spanish, and then I’m whisked away. The woman has to be in her late twenties, though the tired look in her eyes gives her the appearance of someone much older.

“What you done to piss him off?” she asks, though she doesn’t really sound like she’s interested. A good job, really, since I have no intention of making small talk with her. The sugary sweet smell I caught outside is even thicker inside the house. We walk down a long, narrow corridor, and Ramona stops at the end, opening a door on the right. Inside, a confusion of pastel tulle awaits—dresses upon dresses, hanging on rack after rack. An entire room full of forgotten prom dreams.

“What size are you, girl?” Ramona asks. She smacks some gum. I don’t answer. She rolls her eyes and storms into the room, yanking a yellow dress off the closest rack and thrusting it out at me. I can see the label—size six. My size. I take it from her, because I sense she’ll only go get Raphael if I don’t and I do not want that.

“How long have you been here?” I ask.

“Five years,” she replies. “Five loooong, boring-ass years. Come with me.”

She takes me upstairs and down another long, corridor, right to the end again. She opens the door to the room that must be directly over the prom room. Most worryingly, she opens it with a key. “Go on. Inside.”

Inside, I go.

“Get washed up. I’ll be back in an hour to do your hair and shit. Don’t go trying to jump from the fuckin’ window or nothin’. Had a girl do that one time and her damn legs exploded.” With that very cheerful parting word of warning, Ramona closes the door, locking it behind her.

I am alone.

Despite what I was just told, the first thing I do is dump the hideous dress on the bed, and run to the window, checking to see if it’s open. My jaw nearly hits the floor when I find that it is. Why the hell would they leave the windows open if they were planning on kidnapping people and holding them hostage?

Because you’re in the middle of nowhere, a small voice in the back of my head reminds me. And how would you get down, anyway? That’s a big drop. A really big drop. It could be my eyes playing tricks on me, but I think I can actually see a patch of rust-colored dirt directly under the window. Do people’s legs actually explode when they hit the ground after a fall? I have no idea, but my stomach is balking at the prospect of giving it a shot. There’s no handily placed downpipe to shimmy down like in the movies. Nothing to gain any purchase on at all. Fuck.

I give up the jumping from the window idea, and decide on searching for another means of escape. The room is markedly bare, though. There’s a double bed, freshly made by the looks of things. A dresser against the far wall, though when I open the drawers, they’re all empty. A sink complete with dripping tap stands in the corner—the kind the Victorians used to put in every bedroom back before the introduction of the en-suite bathroom. My heart leaps in my chest when I see the mirror mounted on the wall above it. I could smash it and use one of the shards as a weapon. But I’m not even halfway across the room when I realize the mirror isn’t actually a mirror at all. Instead, it’s a highly polished piece of metal, screwed tightly into the wall. I try to prize the screws out, but I only succeed in making my fingers bleed. The nails don’t budge an inch.

A weak desperation sets in after that. I stalk the perimeter of the room, eyes scanning for something I may have missed. Something, anything, I can use to get the hell out of here. There isn’t anything. Once that really hits home, I curl myself into a ball in the corner of the room and I cry. I cry so hard I make myself sick, my stomach muscles trembling from the second round of purging. I’m rinsing out my mouth, my legs trembling underneath me like two frail stalks of corn, when the door opens and Ramona walks in. She doesn’t seem impressed that I’m not decked out in the yellow dress yet.

“Fuck’s sake,” she hisses. I move away from her so that my back’s pressed up against the wall, but she doesn’t seem to care. This whole thing feels a little rote on her part. With quick, rough hands, she takes hold of my soiled  T-shirt and forcefully removes it from my body. I’m too stunned to struggle. She unbuttons my jeans next, and drags them down. My legs get a good hard slap when I refuse to lift my feet at first. I relent after the third strike, miserably raising them one at a time so she can bully my dirty, wadded-up jeans free from my body.

She leaves me in my underwear while she fills the sink with water. I’m made to remove those too when she’s done, though—if you don’t do it, I will. I cover my breasts with my hands, awkwardly trying to make myself smaller as Ramona uses a clean, white face cloth to scrub at my body. The water’s warm, but it might as well be freezing cold. Every time she touches me, I nearly jump out of my skin. My humiliation is complete when she thrusts the cloth between my legs, forcing my hand out of the way.

“You want to make him unhappy?” she snaps. Him being Raphael, no doubt. I do not want to make him unhappy—the bastard is unhinged—but I don’t particularly like the way my lady parts are being prepped for some unknown event, either. Ramona tuts as she plucks with her fingers at my pubic hair. I’m not a particularly hairy person, but she seems revolted by what I’ve got going on downstairs.

“This needs to go,” she informs me. “You look like a fucking virgin with that fuzz going on.”

I’m hit with a sudden memory—the mystery biker’s words to me as he gripped hold of my wrist. Tell them you’re a virgin. Whatever happens, make sure Hector knows that. Even the firm look he gave me as he walked away was reaffirming what he’d said to me. I haven’t even considered what it might mean for my situation right now, but he seemed so insistent. And he hated Raphael; I could see that in his eyes, too. I open my mouth and tell Ramona what he told me to say, choking on the words. “I am a virgin.”

Ramona rockets to her feet, taking a step back. “What?” She looks like I’ve just slapped her.

I contort my arms around my body again, trying and failing to cover too many parts of myself. “I’m a virgin. I’ve never been with anyone before,” I say in a small voice. This is a flagrant lie. I lost my virginity when I was eighteen to the first guy I ever loved, Joshua. We’d been dating for two years through the final years of high school. We’d finally committed ourselves to each other the week before he left for college in Oklahoma. We’d known it was over but we still loved each other. It was a final, gentle moment, one last gift that was shared between us before we said goodbye. Since then I’ve only had one sexual partner, Matt, but we’ve hardly been shy about what we’ve wanted from each other.

Ramona casts a doubtful eye over me. She doesn’t believe me. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Ain’t no white college girls virgins at twenty-one,” she tells me, as though she’s an authority on the matter.

“My family’s religious. I’m religious. No sex before marriage.” My cheeks burn like charred ember when I go to Church these days—there’s never been a woman so wanton sitting in the pews of St. Augustus Catholic Church. When I’m feeling particular penitent, I’ll go to confession and take my Hail Marys on the chin, along with the partially visible scandal that marks Father Richmond’s face.

Ramona stares at me some more. I’m probably blushing—I’ve never been manhandled like a piece of meat before. Hopefully the woman’s taking my rosy glow as embarrassment over my confession to her. “You never been touched by a boy? Ever?” she asks.

I shake my head.

Ramona tosses the face cloth back into the sink with a wet splash, tutting under her breath. “Put the dress on anyway. I’ll be back in a moment.” She leaves me, naked and shivering, wondering if I’ve done the right thing or if I’ve just made things infinitely worse for myself. I have no clean underwear, so I climb into the pale yellow dress without any. The thing is a frou-frou monstrosity, all ruffles and pleats. There’s even a satin bow that ties just under the bust line. I tie it, all the while wondering if the strand of ribbon is long enough to hang myself with if it comes down to it. I wasn’t joking back in the van; I would rather die than be violated by a bunch of strange men.

Twenty minutes pass. I sit on the edge of the bed, counting my heartbeats. It’s strange that the treacherous organ in my ribcage insists on skipping along so steadily, when it seems as though the intensity of my fear should have stopped it dead by now. I hear voices after a while—loud ones—and then the thunder of boot steps out in the corridor. The door rattles as the key is fumbled, inserted, twisted, opened, and then Hector, Raphael and Ramona storm one by one into the room. Raphael’s face is twisted into a rictus of rage. Hector simply looks like he’s being inconvenienced.

“Lie back on the bed,” he says.

I lock my ankles together, my arms clamped firmly around my body. “No.”

Hector laughs, looking at Raphael. “You always bring the spirited ones back, huh?”

“She’s not a fucking virgin, Hector. No way. She’s lying.”

“And why would she do that?” he asks softly. “I’m presuming you didn’t tell her of our business here?”

The creases in Raphael’s face deepen. “No,” he admits.

“Then the girl is probably a virgin.” He turns back to me, walks over to the bed, and places a hand on top of my head. I cower from his touch, which seems to displease him. He grabs hold of my chin in one hand, lifting my face so I’m looking up at him. “Lie back on the bed, sweet girl, or I’m going to make you. And I don’t want to have to do that, because I don’t want to hurt you, you see. Do as you’re told and I’ll be quick. I promise.”

My tears return, blurring out the world. Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t want to see their faces as I slowly lie back down onto the bed. Hector throws back the skirts of the yellow dress, and I bite back a cry of shame. His hands are cold. They push my legs apart, and then his strong, thick fingers are investigating, parting the folds of my flesh, demanding entry.

I start to sob. I should have thought of this. Centuries ago, they used to confirm a maiden’s virtue before she could be sold off to a husband. And now Hector is going to find out I’ve lied to him, and I’m going to pay the price. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I cry out as Hector’s finger probes deeper inside me. It hurts. The horror of my situation has my whole body clenched tight, locked up and rigid, which makes what Hector is doing to me pinch and burn even more.

I hold my breath, my fingernails cutting into the skin of my palms as I wait for it to be over. For him to call me liar. For more pain to arrive. I’m praying for Matt to come in here and save me, but he won’t. He can’t. No one can.

“She’s telling the truth,” Hector announces. What? I can’t…it takes a moment to register what he’s saying. He believes me? He withdraws his finger from inside me, and even that stings. Lifting his hand, he takes his index finger and slowly slides it into his mouth. “She’s sweet, too. She has a sweet pussy.”

My stomach roils, making dark threats. If I had absolutely anything left inside me, I would throw it up all over the bed.

Hector gives Raphael a conciliatory slap on the shoulder. “You know the rules, my friend. Virgins belong to me. Maybe next time you should fuck them before you bring them home, huh? That way there would be no doubt.” Raphael’s lips are pulled back into an ugly sneer.

“Hector, she is mine! I—” Hector snaps his right hand out, backhanding Raphael across the cheek. It probably didn’t hurt all that much, but the action silences Raphael in an instant.

“I don’t repeat myself for anybody, Raphi. You know that. Please, remember yourself.” Raphael clenches his jaw. He nods once, staring the older man directly in the eye. Hector ignores him; he faces Ramona, maintaining a cool, effortless calm. “Get some pictures taken. Post them immediately. Make sure she gets sent to one of the cartels. I don’t want her opening her mouth about the judge to any of our other clients. Highest bidder wins out. I want her gone within twenty-four hours.” He storms out of the room, wafting a sickly sweet cloud behind him as he goes. I close my legs slowly, pushing down the layers of the dress, crying silently.

I’m to be sold. Like a piece of meat, an object, nameless and unimportant, I am going to be sold.

ALEXIS

Ramona disappears and comes back a while later with a small point-and-shoot digital camera. I’m less than compliant when she tells me she wants to take photos of me. I start kicking and screaming, and she counters my refusal with two heavy set women, who hurry into the room and pin me down on the bed while she forces something—a pill—down my throat.

The two women keep me pinned to the bed, grunting as I try and wrestle free of them, until Ramona’s happy that whatever she’s given me will be taking effect soon. They leave, then, and Ramona smirks as I try launching to my feet, only to find that my arms and legs are made out of rubber. I hit the ground hard, but it doesn’t seem to matter. In actual fact, nothing really matters anymore.

She makes me pose in my yellow dress, dead eyes staring straight down the lens, and then she makes me strip. She tells me how I’m to stand or sit, how I’m to hold myself, and she snaps off picture after picture of me, the flash burning another flare of color into my retinas each time. When she tells me to sit on a wooden chair and open my legs for her, I come to my senses long enough to refuse, and she slaps me around the face.

“You’d better just do it, white girl. You don’t want to make this hard on yourself,” she says to me, her voice softening. It’s as though Ramona is both the good cop and the bad in this scenario, which makes it hard to know how to react to her—I never know which side of her I’m dealing with at any one time. She gets her way in the end. I open my legs and close my eyes, and the flash doesn’t bother me this time. I think maybe she’ll tell me she wants to take the shot again, eyes open this time, but she doesn’t. Maybe the people who will be viewing these pictures like when a girl’s shame is evident, along with the most private parts of her body. Maybe that’s what excites them.

“Don’t worry,” Ramona says, as she hovers in the doorway, half in, half out, her job done. “You’ll be out of here really soon. The men who are gonna bid on you, they take good care of their possessions. If you’re good to them, do as your told, you won’t want for anything. It’s a better fucking life than you would have had here with Raphael.”

She says this as though she might know from personal experience what a life with Raphael might be like. I have no choice but to put the yellow dress back on. Ramona leaves me alone in the bare room, my clothes, the clothes I wore in another life still quietly stinking of vomit in the corner, and me curled up in the middle of the bed, too empty and too nothing to even cry anymore.

I eventually fall asleep. I don’t dream, which is a small blessing. It’s dark when I’m woken up—by a silhouette standing in the doorway. Raphael. “You fucking lying whore,” he spits.

I sit bolt upright on the bed, my head spinning. The drugs from earlier have mercifully worn off, but now I feel sick. Adrenalin washes through me in a powerful tide that jumpstarts my heart, sending it into overdrive. Where is Hector? Ramona? Without them here, I don’t feel safe. Not that I’m safe with them here, but at least they would protect their goods, as it were. “You’ve been touched before. I know it. I can fucking smell it on you,” Raphael snarls.

He takes one step into the room, and I push back on the bed, my hands and feet scrambling for purchase against the sheets. “I’ll scream,” I whisper. My voice cracks—so much fear, so much adrenalin—and I think perhaps he might not have heard me. “I’ll scream,” I say again, this time louder, more confident. Raphael snorts.

“Scream all you like. It won’t get you anywhere. You’ve been bought and paid for now, bitch. And from what I know of your new owner, you’re gonna wish you’d never been born. Get ready. They’re already coming for you.”

Ramona’s warning—be good and your new owner will be good to you—was apparently a waste of breath. If Raphael thinks whoever’s bought me is a bad person, then I am totally fucked. “Come with me,” he commands. I get to my feet, my head spinning from lack of food and panic, and follow after him as he leads me back down the stairs. In the corridor, he stops abruptly, turning on me. My head smashes against the wall as he pins me by the throat with one powerful hand. “You should know, Sophia Letitia Marne, that I have a very long memory. And I hate being fucked around, especially by whores. I don’t like not getting what I want. You got a sister, huh? Any family? I am going to find your family, Sophia, and I’m gonna make them pay for your little lie. You hear me? And then, when I’ve fucked and killed your mother and all of your sisters, I’m going to send you pictures. And you’ll know that their deaths were because of you.” He spits in my face, then—a huge, wet ball of saliva and phlegm that hits me on the mouth and cheek. “Just wait and see if I don’t,” he whispers.

A door next to us opens, sending a rectangle of orange light spearing through the darkness, and Hector appears in the doorway, hands on his hips. “Thank you, Raphael. That will be all,” he says. My legs almost collapse out from underneath me when it doesn’t look like Raphael is going to let me go. But he does. He squeezes my neck one last time, fingers crushing my esophagus, and then pushes away from me, growling under his breath. He charges down the corridor and then out the front door, slamming it hard behind him.

“Why don’t you come and wait with me, Sophia?” Hector asks. I’m too paralyzed by what just happened to even contemplate answering, let alone following after him. He takes hold of my elbow and guides me into the lit room he just appeared from, where he sits me down on an overstuffed wingback chair and hands me a tissue. I wipe my face mechanically, too numb to do anything but breathe.

“I should kill you.”

My head snaps up to find that Hector has sat himself down opposite me. I see the room properly now—the rows and rows of shelves along the walls, jammed with books. The writing desk. The fireplace, in which a fire is crackling enthusiastically. This must be his study. Hector bridges his hands together and crossed his right leg over his left, studying me with those green eyes of his. They looked sharp and calculating in the sunshine earlier, but in the muted light they now look watery and inconstant. Like they aren’t any one fixed color and could easily change with the man’s mood. “I hate being lied to, sweet girl. Why did you tell me you were something you weren’t?”

It suddenly feels like I’m choking on my tongue. He knows. He knows I’m not a virgin. “I don’t know what you mean,” I say. Hector tuts disapprovingly, shaking his head.

“I’ve slept with hundreds of women, my girl. I know what an intact hymen feels like. And yours is most definitely broken.”

I don’t answer. It’s better to keep my mouth shut than to confirm or deny the fact. Hector shifts in his chair, apparently getting comfortable. “So really, I should kill you. I would never normally risk such a liability out there, walking and talking, mentioning my name in places it ought not to be breathed. But, you see, I’m currently under investigation for murder. You may know a little something about that, given Raphael’s interaction with Judge Conahue, perhaps? No?”

He dips his head, mouth open, clearly waiting for me to say something. I don’t. “You can imagine how awkward it would be if the authorities chose to visit my home while one of my men was burying a body out the back, of course. They have very unique ways of finding buried bodies these days. Freshly disturbed earth is a bit of a giveaway. A lucky thing for you, Sophia. A very lucky thing.” A clock on the wall chimes, making me jump. Three a.m. Hector sucks on his teeth, tapping his fingertips together, as though he’s thinking on something. “Selling you is the easiest option for me right now, so yes, I have played along with your little ruse. Raphi’s a hot head. He can’t be trusted to have nice things unfortunately. He breaks them, and then refuses to clean up after himself. You leaving this place is best for everyone all round. But let me tell you, Sophia. I heard what Raphi said to you just now. Raphi is a man of his word. He will look for your family, and he will kill them if he finds them. I am in a position to prevent that from happening. All I require from you is that you keep your mouth shut. You don’t talk about me, ever, to anyone. You don’t talk about my home or my employees. Does that sound like a fair trade to you, sweet girl?”

My throat is as dry as the Sahara, but I still manage to croak out an eager, “Yes.”

Hector nods. “Then we have an agreement. I would advise against breaking it, Sophia. I have eyes and ears everywhere. I also have an uncanny knack of discovering if people have been opening their mouths, when they should be keeping them firmly closed.”

“I won’t say anything, I swear.” I almost can’t believe he’s letting me go with another cartel. Seems to me that it would be easy enough to send me out with Raphael a couple of miles into the desert and have him put a bullet in the back of my head, but I am not stupid enough to question him. He stands up and takes me by the elbow again. “Time for us to wait outside. I don’t particularly like the man who has purchased you. I’d prefer he didn’t have to step foot inside my home. Come.”

Hector is weirdly protective about his home, but then again he’s weird all round. I let him take me outside onto the veranda, where he sits me down on the bench swing. “Please don’t move from this spot.” Hector paces with that deliberate, unhurried gait of his down the steps to where Raphael is standing, staring out into the desert. I’m left to do the same. Without any light pollution out here, the dark black velvet of the night sky glitters with an explosion of stars. I have no idea where the rusted van I was brought in here has gone, nor the men that traveled with us. No vehicles, no other people, nothing. Just us, the house, and the stars. Yet again, I’m tempted to slip silently off. The men’s backs are turned. It would easy enough to do right now, but the fear of what they will do to me when they catch me—because there is no if—is enough to keep my bottom firmly planted on the bench.

I hear the rumble of engines before the lights come into view. It’s hard to tell how far away the convoy of cars is in the darkness, but it seems as though there are many of them. I count one, two, three, five different sets of headlights. My whole body is begging me to get up and run, to flee, to see how far I can get at least, before I’m trapped with yet another group of insane, violent men, but it’s too late for that. Too late for anything but to sit and watch the approaching armada of cars float toward us on the horizon. It’s a full five minutes before they’re close enough to make out the great plumes of dark dust and sand being kicked up behind the vehicles in their wake. There are seven cars, not five. Why so many? Hector said he didn’t like the man who’d bought me. Maybe the feeling is mutual. Maybe the extra muscle is to ensure there’s no trouble as the deal goes down.

I’m on the verge of hyperventilating by the time the cars, a mix of sedans and dirty four by fours arrive in front of the house. Hector walks out to the lead car. A window buzzes down, and he shakes hands with the dark figure inside. Men begin to pour out of the cars. Every single last one of them is Mexican. Covered in tattoos and sporting a variety of weapons, they don’t look any friendlier than Hector’s people. The last person to get out of the cars is grossly overweight, dressed in a cream suit, complete with panama hat. And he’s wearing sunglasses. At three thirty in the morning.

Hector slaps the man on the shoulder, grinning and shaking his hand. They speak in rolling, loud Spanish together, and the men standing around them burst into laughter. The fat man signals one of his guys forward. He’s carrying a brown paper bag—the kind Mom used to put my lunch in back when I was in elementary school. Hector doesn’t touch the bag. It’s Raphael that takes it from the other guy, perhaps his counterpart within this other cartel, and begins withdrawing bundles of money from inside. I can’t see what denomination the money is in, but Raphael lines up ten stacks side by side next to each other on the hood of the fat guy’s car.

Hector casts his eye over the stacks, nods once, shakes hands with the obese man one last time, and then climbs back up the stairs toward me. “You go with him now,” he tells me. “And remember what I said. You open your mouth…” He doesn’t need to finish his sentence. “I hope I never see you again, Sophia Letitia Marne.” And with that, he vanishes back inside the house.

When I turn to face my fate, there are at least fifteen men staring up at me in the dark. The majority of them are leering, eyes already eating up my skin, devouring me whole, though the fat guy doesn’t appear to be even half as interested in me. He steps forward, gesturing me forward with an impatient beckoning motion of his fingers. “Come on, child. I have guests arriving at my home shortly. We have to hurry.”

Another thick Spanish accent. I think doing as he asks is probably the smartest thing I can do, and yet I just can’t force myself. My body will not comply. I want to go home. More than anything in this world, I want to be back in Seattle. The idea of voluntarily leaving with these men makes me sick to my stomach. If I do that, my whole world is going to change. I know that without a shadow of a doubt.

“Juan, go and fucking get her,” the fat guy says, talking to one of his men. I see the sneer spreading on Raphael’s face as a tall, thin man with one hand firmly gripped around a gun stalks toward me. I don’t have the courage to back away. I freeze to the spot, my mind racing. Juan climbs the steps, hooks one wiry arm around my waist and then half-drags, half-shoves me back down the steps after him.

“Put her in my car,” the fat guy says.

And that’s what Juan does. I am unceremoniously bundled into the back of the lead car—a dark sedan with blacked-out windows. Juan climbs in the front driver’s seat, and then the rest of his crew helps the fat guy lower himself into the back with me.

The doors slam, the sound of a shotgun ringing out into the night, and that is it—I am sold. People have taken longer to buy a pack of cigarettes. Juan starts the engine, and we’re moving within seconds. I swivel in my seat, turning to watch as the black, black outline of Raphael grows smaller and smaller behind us.

“So. You’re the piece of pussy who’s been causing all this fuss?” the fat guy asks. He lays a meaty hand against the bare skin of my thigh, grunting with approval. “You may call me Mr. Perez,” he informs me, as though entertained by the use of the English address, instead of the Spanish. “And now, I have some friends who would very much like to meet you.”

REBEL

Being the president of an MC is a lot like being the president of a small country. There are things to consider. Firstly, traffic laws. Convince your constituents to not ride around in their cuts. If they ride around wearing their cuts, people will be able to identify them. And where’s the common sense in that? Secondly, diversity is king. If your entire club is made up of white guys with shaved heads, you start to look suspicious. And besides, no one Widow Maker is better than another, regardless of the color of his or her skin. The only hierarchy we subscribe to is this: Prez’s word is final. If Prez isn’t around, V.P.’s word is final. Thirdly, gender equality. Ain’t a single man born on this planet without the good graces of a woman. Clubs that refuse women in their ranks are fucking retarded. After the cuts, what’s going to attract more attention than a bunch of angry-looking dudes riding around on motorcycles? Nothing. Throw a couple of women in the mix and suddenly you’re a hell of a lot less conspicuous.

The Widow Makers are black, white, Asian, Hispanic, male, female—you name it, we got it. Our bikes aren’t the kind of things you’d see being built on Orange County Choppers. Yes, a good percent of the Widowers’ rides are monstrous cruisers built out of chrome, exhaust pipes fatter than they have any sane reason to be, but we have street fighters too. Sports bikes built for speed and cornering quickly. Tourers built for comfort. Road-legal dirt bikes that can turn on a hairpin and jump a fucking mini van if they have to.

The Widow Makers aren’t your average MC. We’re a bit of everything. We blend into the background. We’re covert. We fly under the radar. We’re the only MC in the United States of America that operates like this. You may be asking yourself why we hide who we are from the prying eyes of the public. The answer to that question is simple:

We’re not just a motorcycle club. We’re criminals. And we’re really fucking good at not getting caught.

******

Julio’s Compound

Rebel

I hear the cars pulling up around four am. Carnie hears it, too. He was sleeping, silent, not one muscle twitching, but the low rumble of tires on hard-packed earth has jolted him awake. His Beretta—he calls her Margo. After his mother—is in his hand, ready to shoot. One of Julio Perez’s employees lifts his semi-automatic, aiming it at Carnie’s face.

“Calmate,” the Mexican says. He has the look of a stone-cold killer about him. There’s nothing going on behind those blank, dark eyes of his. Carnie winces up at the guy, shifting in his chair. Margo goes back into the waistband of his jeans.

“Do I not look calm to you, asshole?” he asks. Carnie hasn’t been prospecting for us for long, but he’s got fucking stones like bowling balls. He’s never really looked the part—tall and gangly, glasses, side parting. He’s basically a thirty-three-year-old hipster redneck. I found him half beaten to death just outside a bar in Midland City, Alabama. I wasn’t going to waste my time scraping him off the ground, but Cade went through his pockets and found out he had his light aircraft license. Not surprising, given that Midland City’s the location of Dothan’s regional airport. He was a crop sprayer for a living before we picked him up. Spent his time dusting fields with enough weed killer to deform an entire county.

After we hauled his ass to the hospital and kept an eye on him for a while, he became our prospect. When we’re outside the clubhouse, the guy is on my hip at all times, learning how the fuck to behave himself. Other times, he’s also a runner. What he runs at any one time depended solely on how we are making our money that month. Pot. Guns. Stolen goods. If it’s illegal, odds are Carnie’s hauled it across state lines in the back of his Cessna 208. There’s only one thing we don’t touch, and that’s girls.

Until now.

Andreas Medina, Julio’s right-hand man, makes a low tutting sound, looking up from the bank of security cameras he’s studying. “What you want with this bitch, anyway?” he asks.

I remain slouched in the leather armchair of Julio’s security center, eyeing the two punks that have been left behind to keep watch over us. Just because Julio’s doing us this favor doesn’t mean he trusts us. Especially since I’m bribing him. “She’s hot,” I tell Andreas. “I saw Hector’s post go live and thought to myself, ‘Now that’s the kind of pussy I need in my collection.’”

Andreas grunts. It’s plainly clear that he doesn’t believe me. News about what happened in that side street in Seattle is spreading fast. Los Oscuros and the Widow Makers are at war. Everyone with enough common sense is battening down the hatches, preparing for the storm to hit. Julio and all of his men must know that this girl we’re paying them to fetch for us was involved in my uncle’s death somehow. That’s why I’m paying the fat old fuck a hundred grand to do this job for me.

The sound of approaching vehicles grows louder. Andreas doesn’t ask me any more questions about the girl; he’s too busy verifying that the cars slowly rolling into view on the security cameras are the same seven cars that left the compound four hours ago. A burst of static erupts from the radio sitting on the desk in front of Andreas. “La tenemos. Abre la puerta,” a voice advises. We got her. Open the gates. Doesn’t sound like Julio, but Andreas does as he’s told. On the grainy, pixelated screen, a set of huge, high gates swing outwards, letting the cars drive slowly, one at a time into the compound.

Carnie shoots me a stern look, and then stands. “Time for us to be going then.”

We should probably stick around inside and observe etiquette. After a business dealing with Julio, it’s customary to sit with the man and have a beer. We can’t afford that luxury tonight, though. I’m bone tired, and we need to get this girl as far away from California as possible. If we loiter here too long, the likelihood of her being murdered by Los Oscuros grows by the minute. I get to my feet, stretching out my body.

“Been a blast as always. Boys.”

Andreas jumps up too, holding out a hand. “Why don’t you just slow your roll, ese? Julio might want to confirm the exchange.” I pull out my cell phone and pull up the transaction confirmation. One hundred thousand dollars, cleared into the account details Julio gave me.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” I say, pushing past him. The guy who threatened Carnie with his semi-automatic a moment ago steps in front of me, blocking my way. He lifts his chin, daring me to do something. “What do you think happens if I don’t walk out of here?” I whisper. “What do you think happens if there’s even a scratch on me when I leave?”

The guy blinks at me. He doesn’t move.

“It’s okay, Sam. You can let him by.” Andreas places a hand on the guy’s shoulder, which seems to descale the threat level somewhat. They both move out of the way so I can exit, swiftly followed by Carnie. “Hey, Rebel,” Andreas calls after us. I glance over my shoulder. “There will be an end to this, y’know. You can’t hold it over him forever. Julio ain’t just some punk you can fuck with. We will get the files back.”

I give him a lazy smile, flashing teeth. I’m not afraid of you. “As always, such a pleasure doing business with you, Andreas. I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.”

As Carnie and I hurry out of Julio’s villa, three half-naked women run down the corridor in front of us, screaming. They vanish through a side door, tits and ass flashing everywhere, and then they slam the door closed behind them. “Working girls?” Carnie murmurs.

“I doubt they’re here for the free tacos.”

Carnie spits on the ground, shaking his head at another guard as we exit though the front door. Outside, Julio Perez is heaving himself out of a dark sedan, groaning with the effort. He’s wearing fucking shades at night. Carnie elbows me, jerking his head at the fat fucker, as though he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

I laugh under my breath. “Right?”

Julio catches sight of us—must see us snickering at him—and flips us off. He finally manages to pull himself out of the car. “Motherfuckers,” he growls. “You should think twice before laughing at my expense. What you think this is, a fucking circus?”

“Something like that,” I answer. “Where’s the girl?”

“I slit her throat and left her ass out in the desert,” Julio snaps. The driver of the dark sedan climbs out of the car and stands there, staring at us like he expects us to start shooting or something. I know it’s a bluff, though. I have dirt on Julio. The kind of dirt even an Untouchable like him wouldn’t want getting out. He’d never risk the files I stole from him being made public knowledge. The cops already wanna lock him up; it’s not them he’s afraid of, though. It’s other gangs that would come after him if they caught wind of some of the stuff he’s been up to. Double-dealing. Skimming. Flat out stealing from the skinheads. Bad shit.

“How ’bout you stop wasting my time and hand her over, Perez? That way we can get out of your hair and you can get your ass to bed.”

Julio grunts, clearly unhappy. He pulls the door of the car open wider and moves aside, and there she is, sitting on the back seat. The blurry girl from Cade’s security footage. The girl who witnessed my uncle being murdered. Her hair, thick and dark, has been pinned up into fancy twists and knots. Dark eyes peer out of the darkness, fixed on me, wide and round—she’s afraid. I can see it on her the moment our gazes lock. She’s wearing some sort of dress, looks like a fucking prom dress. All poofy and flouncy. That’s the last thing I fucking need.

Julio jerks his thumb at her, gesturing for her to get out of the car. She slides forward, gathering up the dress so she can clamber out into the night. She’s taller then I expected. Still a foot shorter than me, but taller than she appeared in that video as Hector Ramirez’s men tossed her in the back of that van. She doesn’t move. Looking from me to Carnie and then back to Julio, she doesn’t seem to know who to be more afraid of. I take a step forward.

“What’s your name?” She looks at me, throat bobbing, eyes shining brightly, and shakes her head. “What, you’re not gonna tell me your name?” I ask.

She shakes her head again.

“All right. Suits me fine.” I turn to Julio. “Andreas has proof of funds. We’re done here.”

Julio paces toward me, his wide body swinging as he walks. He speaks so only I can hear him. “You may have me by the balls, but you know me. You know the type of man I am, Rebel. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“You’re telling me that you’re working on a way to kill me, I’m betting.” Julio just stares me in the eye, neither confirming nor denying. I slap him on his shoulder. “Good luck with that, man. You know where you can find me.”

But Julio won’t kill me. He won’t even fuck with my club. He knows there are measures that have been taken. He knows the repercussions, what will happen to him and his familia if he does.

His men have gathered in front of the villa, glaring at us, as Carnie and I begin walking toward the gates. As we pass by the car, Carnie takes hold of the girl’s wrist and tugs her along behind him. He’s firm but not rough. She looks like she’s about to have heart failure, though. She pulls back, trying to wrestle her arm free. Carnie doesn’t let go. He doesn’t give her any other option but to follow us. She stumbles, crying out, but Carnie simply pulls her to her feet and carries on walking.

If Julio’s gonna shoot us in the back, now’s when it’ll happen. But as we reach the gate, the high wrought iron barricade slowly swings open.

“If you know what’s good for you, you won’t come back here,” Julio calls after us. I don’t look back. Neither does Carnie. We walk right out of the compound, the girl in tow behind us, to where we’ve left our rides.

Carnie starts the engine of his bike, revving it so we can’t be heard. “What we gonna do about the dress?” he asks. He’s having the same thoughts I did as soon as I saw what she was wearing. The girl can’t get on the back of a motorcycle wearing something so big. It’ll get caught in the wheels or something. I turn to the girl, scanning her from head to foot. She’s started to cry low, exhausted, barely there sobs that shake her whole body.

“What are you wearing under there?” I ask her.

She looks up at me, and bam. It hits me at possibly the most inopportune of moments: she’s fucking beautiful. Even when she’s crying, face covered in running mascara, she’s breathtaking. I can’t afford to be standing around like an idiot in the desert, checking her out, though. “Did you hear me? What are you wearing under that ridiculous fucking dress?’

“Nothing,” she whispers. Her lip trembles, making her look really young. In fact, how old is she? She looks like a kid. A kid in a bullshit dress, wearing nothing underneath.

“Carnie, give me your knife,” I say.

Carnie hands it over, slapping the well-honed blade into my palm, handle first. It’s a serrated, mean-looking thing—great for scaring the ever-loving shit out of people when they’re not behaving themselves. The young woman standing in front of me turns a ghostly pale white when she sees it.

“Please. Please don’t hurt me. I—”

I grab the hem of the long dress she’s wearing and I begin to hack at it. The girl stops talking. I work quickly, cutting the skirt of the dress so that it rests about mid-thigh, throwing handfuls of tulle and other lacy shit onto the ground. When I’m done, I straighten up and the girl’s arms are locked around her body, her eyes clenched tightly closed. Her legs are on show now, and they are mighty fucking fine.

“Which bike you wanna ride on?” I ask her, pointing to them. She looks at me like she doesn’t understand what I’m asking her. “You pick which bike, which means you pick which one of us you’re trusting to carry you.”

“What if I don’t trust either of you?” she asks carefully.

“Then I pick you up and put you on the back of my bike anyway,” I tell her. She lets go of herself long enough to wipe the tears out of her eyes. “That one, then. The bigger one.” She points to my bike. I grin so hard it feels like my face is gonna split apart.

“Good choice.” I’m aware of the fact that Julio hasn’t closed the gates after us; he’s still watching us from the entrance of his villa, bulky form silhouetted against the light spilling out from inside. I start the engine of my Ducati Monster, snapping my wrist as I gun it, warming up the cylinders. I climb on, turning my attention back to the leggy girl at my side. “Get on,” I yell over the roar of the Ducati.

She just stands there, shivering.

“I mean it. Get on this bike, or I’ll have to come get you.”

The girl shrinks in on herself, her shoulders rounding, pulling up to her ears. For a moment, I think I’m actually gonna have to do it. I think I’m gonna have to get off my bike and forcefully put her on it. I’m seconds from doing exactly that when she cautiously steps forward and throws her leg over my ride. I can feel her looking for something to hold onto, a handrail at the back like the street fighters have. She’s not going to find anything, though. I reach back until I find one of her arms, and then I pull it around me. “Now’s not the time to be shy, sweetheart. Hold onto me and you’ll be fine.”

I’m not stupid; I know the last thing she wants to do is wrap her arms around me and get all up close and personal, but we don’t have time for me to explain why holding on is a good idea. We really need to get the fuck out of here.

“You been on a motorcycle before?” I ask over my shoulder.

“No.” She answers very quietly, but I can still hear her over the roar of the engines.

“Then the smartest thing you can do right now is hold onto me and not let go until I tell you. Unless you want to die, of course?” Slowly, very carefully, her other arm snakes around my waist. “There’s a good girl.” I gun the engine again, jerking my head to Carnie. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before they change their minds and kill us after all.”

“Copy that.” Carnie takes the lead. He burns off into the desert, and the only thing I can see as I charge after him, an unknown woman clinging onto me for dear life, arms growing tighter and tighter as we go faster, is the red flicker of his taillight.

SOPHIA

I’m going to die.

The cool desert air whips through my hair as we burn the night, ruining the intricate style Ramona created so that I’d be pretty when my new owner came to collect me. My heart is in my throat. I press my cheek into the back of this stranger’s back, and I stare out into the abyssal darkness¸ not seeing anything. Not caring. Practicing at stilling the screaming panic in my head.

This can’t be happening.

This can’t be happening.

This can’t be happening.

This is happening.

This is happening, but it will be okay.

Everything will be okay.

Eventually, we come to a highway—god knows how these guys knew which direction to head in—though everything is still pitch black. No streetlights. No other cars. Nothing. I loosen my grip around the guy’s waist, not that I don’t feel like I might be tossed out of my seat any second. The seams in the blacktop make regular thrum, thrum, thrum noises as the motorcycle’s wheels travel over them. I think about jumping.

What are the chances of me seriously damaging myself if I throw myself off this bike? What are the chances of me dying? It’s almost as if the guy in front of me guesses what I’m thinking. The motorcycle speeds up, tearing up the open road, the engine roaring in my ears. No chance I can do it now. I’d be road-kill the second my body hits the ground.

I allow myself the luxury of a few tears as we travel on, on, on into the night. There seems to be no end to this journey. It feels like I’m going to be trapped here on the back of this motorcycle forever, forced to hold onto a man who paid a huge amount of money so he can do god knows what to me. So he can own me. That thought makes me feel sick. My head’s still spinning from where Raphael’s men hit me, which doesn’t help.

I can feel the last reserves of my energy draining from me, my body falling limp, as the sun begins to peek over the horizon. We pass a Winnebago at first light, the driver honking his horn at us in greeting. He obviously hasn’t seen another person on the road for a long time, either. As we pass the souped-up vehicle, I catch a glimpse of the guy behind the wheel—he’s grinning, wearing a bucket hat, the kind people only ever wear on vacation, and there’s a small kid in the front seat beside him. They both look so damned happy, flashing their middleclass smiles at us. I wonder if they can see the terror in my eyes as I whip by them in a blur.

Probably not.

The guy with the glasses on the other motorcycle revs his engine, and suddenly the front wheel is off the ground. He’s pulling a wheelie. I can hear him hollering as my guy pulls forward to catch up with him. Underneath my now very lax grip, I can feel his stomach muscles contracting as he…as he laughs. I hate him. It’s wrong that he should be laughing at the stupid, reckless behavior of his friend after he’s basically just kidnapped me. Tertiary kidnapping—that’s what it was. Raphael first, then that Julio guy, and now this one. I’ve been passed from pillar to post like lost property. The worst part of now being bought and paid for by this new guy is that he’s really good looking. There’s no way he would have a problem getting any girl he wanted, which makes me think scary things. Maybe normal women won’t let him do the things that he wants to do. Maybe his sexual proclivities run so dark that he can only act out his fantasies on people who have no choice in the matter. That could be part of it, too—the sense of power he’d feel as he took something precious from someone who didn’t want to give it.

An hour after we hit the highway, the guys pull into a diner at the side of the road—Harry’s Place. My body is aching from sitting on the back of the motorcycle for so long; my back, my butt, my shoulders, my legs—all of me is throbbing or complaining in one way or another. It hurts even more when the guy kills the engine and makes me get off, my limbs protesting at being straightened out after remaining in one position for so long. The guy swings off the motorcycle and kicks out the stand, letting the heavy machine rest.

I quickly look around, wondering if I should run. Now that it’s light and I can see where we are, that doesn’t seem like a good plan. Arid desert stretches on endlessly in every direction, the landscape without life or vegetation. Orange rocks and dirt forever.

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” I snap my head around. The guy I rode with is standing in front of me, hands in his pockets, mouth pulling up at one side. It’s almost a smile, but not a friendly one. He looks amused. “People die out there without trying very hard. That’s why our good friend Julio built his compound out there. No chance anyone’s gonna stumble across him, if you catch my drift.”

I glare at him, wrapping my arms around my body. This dress is not the kind of thing I want to be wearing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, with the sun really starting to heat up. I have far too much skin on display, especially since half the skirt was hacked away by a really sharp knife.

The guy standing in front of me tips his head to one side. “We’ll find you something a little more appropriate to wear soon.”

He’s wearing a black  T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and worn-out jeans, white sneakers on his feet. Tattoos cover every available inch of his skin from the shoulders down—colorful sleeves that I only allow my eyes to skim over before quickly looking away. I have no idea what a person like him would consider more appropriate attire for me, but I’m not looking forward to finding out. “Where are you taking me?” I demand.

The other guy, joining us, laughs. “Pissy, ain’t she?” He spits on the floor.

“Seems so.”

I want to get smart with them. I want to ask them if being witness to a murder, kidnapped, assaulted, violated, and sold would make them pissy, but I don’t know much about these people yet. They’ve yet to show me who they are. Whether they’re violent people. They look like violent people.

The one I rode with smirks at me. “I’m Rebel. This is Carnie. We’re taking you back to our clubhouse. If you have any further questions, you can direct them straight to Cade.”

“Who’s Cade?”

Rebel—obviously not the name his parents gave him when he was born—points a thumb over his shoulder. “Cade’s the guy sitting in that Humvee behind me. I believe you’ve already met.”

Sure enough, there is a black Humvee parked in the lot, twenty feet away from where we’re standing. I can’t see much through the dark tint on the windows. The car’s massive—looks like something that belongs in an army convoy, not sitting in a diner’s parking lot. The door opens and a broad guy in a black hoody jumps down from the driver’s side. I don’t recognize him at first, but as he gets closer I see more and more of his face. It’s the guy from the side alley, the one who gave Raphael the bullet. The one who told me to say I was a virgin.

His face is expressionless as he arrives next to Rebel. “Went off without a hitch?” he asks.

“Surprisingly. You got everything prepped?”

Cade nods. “The guys have been warned. We should arrive back early evening or so.”

Rebel nods. “Okay. Don’t let her out of your fucking sight, you hear?”

“You know it.” Cade steps closer to me, and that’s it; I’ve been transferred over to yet another person. Rebel climbs back on his motorcycle and he doesn’t look back. He and Carnie burn off into the early morning without even acknowledging me again. I stare after them, wondering what the hell is going to happen next.

Cade takes hold of me by the arm, pulling me in the direction of the Humvee. Eyes fixed straight ahead, he doesn’t look at me as he opens the passenger door of the monstrous vehicle and waits for me to climb inside. I shuffle backward instead.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m Cade,” he replies.

“I’m not asking what your name is. I’m asking who are you? Are you guys some sort of sex ring or something? Do you trade in people that are stolen off the streets? Are you going to use me up and then kill me?” I feel a little braver around this guy, so the questions flow one after the other. I probably shouldn’t feel brave around him, but he did tell me to lie to Raphael and Hector. Part of me wants to believe that’s because he was trying to save me from whatever horrors Raphael had planned for me. Equally, it could mean that he simply wanted his boss to have me instead of his enemy.

“We’re not gonna kill you,” Cade tells me, glancing at me out of the corner of his eyes. “And we don’t deal in girls, either.”

“Then why won’t you just let me go? You could just send me back to my family. I swear I won’t breathe a word about what I saw.”

Cade places his hand on my back and pushes me toward the car. “’Fraid we can’t do that. Rebel needs you.”

“He needs me? What for?” I have no choice but to climb up into the Humvee as Cade moves to my left and urges me forward.

“Not my place to tell you, kiddo. Just keep your head straight. Don’t freak out on me and everything will be fine. Rebel will get what he needs, you can go back to Seattle and everyone’s happy.” He slams the door closed and walks around the car, but he doesn’t get in. He locks the doors and heads inside the diner, instead.

As soon as he’s vanished inside the building, I get to work. There has to be something in here I can use as a weapon. Something I can use to get free. A cell phone to call my dad. I check the glove compartment, on the backseat, underneath the front seats as best as I can, contorting my body into awkward positions in order to get my head down into the foot wells, but there’s nothing. Not one scrap of paper. Not one piece of trash. Not even an owner’s manual. The interior of the car is spotless.

I don’t realize Cade has returned until I hear the driver’s side door opening. I’m on my front, looking under his seat at the time, which is where he finds me. He has a brown paper bag in his hand and a bemused expression on his face. “This isn’t our first time at the rodeo, kid,” he tells me. “Where are you planning on going, anyway? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

I push myself upright, slumping back into my seat. “I don’t suppose it’d matter where I go, asshole. All I’d need to do is find a payphone. I’d call the police and have them come arrest all of you, starting with that psycho Raphael and his weird boss.”

Cade nods, passing me the brown paper bag. He gets in, starting the engine. “Raphael is definitely a psycho. Hector, too, when you get to know him.”

The smell of melted cheese hits me, and I realize what I’m holding. Food. Actual, real food. I haven’t eaten anything since back at Hector’s ranch. I glance over at Cade, trying to suss him out.

“Is…this for me?”

“Before you start complaining, they didn’t have any salads. If you don’t want it, I’ll gladly take it off your hands.”

I close my hands around the paper bag, holding onto it tightly. “I do want it.” It’s annoying that he thinks just because I’m a woman, I’m allergic to carbs and a little grease. I manage to hold my tongue, though. If he wants to pretend like he knows who I am, based on the fact that I have tits and a vagina, then let him. That’s his loss. Cade pulls out onto the highway, and I tear into the paper bag, finding a simple grilled cheese and a chocolate muffin inside. Neither of us speaks. He drives. I eat.

I’ve never enjoyed a grilled cheese sandwich as much in my entire life. The heaviness of it sits in the pit of my stomach, solid and weighty, which is reassuring. If I have to go without food again for a little while, I’ll manage. I don’t know when but I’ve decided that I’m going to make a break for it as soon as I can. At some point on our journey from here to our destination, we’ll have to stop, and he will take his eyes off me, even if it’s for a second. A second is all I’m going to need. I’ll be away before he even realizes what’s happened. Better start making plans.

“Where’s the clubhouse, Cade?” I emphasize his name, testing it out. I don’t know anyone called Cade—I don’t think I’ve ever had to say it before. He huffs out a laugh, changing gear.

“New Mexico. Should take us about thirteen hours to get there if you don’t talk the whole way.”

New Mexico? My body sinks back into the seat, heavy as a lead weight. That’s way further than I anticipated. I thought maybe we’d be traveling for a couple of hours and then we’d arrive, but no. We’re headed across three states. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. If we were only going to be trapped inside this monstrosity for a little while, that’s less opportunity for me to run. But now, the further Cade drives me away from Washington is further that I have to make it back home without them coming after and finding me.

You don’t need to make it home, I remind myself. It’s like I just told Cade. I’d only need to make it to a police station. Or anywhere I could report what’s happened. Then I’d be safe. A surge of adrenalin fires through my veins, electricity around a circuit board, powering me up. I need to be ready, and for that I need energy. I start on the chocolate muffin but then give up halfway through, the food making me feel queasy.

“You mind if I put the radio on?” Cade asks.

I frown, looking at him properly for the first time since we got in the car. “You’re asking me? I’m your captive. I’m pretty sure you can do whatever the hell you like and I wouldn’t have a say in it.” It’s strange that he would even give me the option.

Cade grunts, dark eyes on the road. “You’re not a captive. That’s not what this is.”

“If I’m not a captive, then let me go.” I already know he won’t, though. If they were going to help me or do me any favors, they would have done so as soon as we cleared Julio’s den out in the desert.

“I already told you. Rebel needs you for something. Once that’s done, you can go.”

“Bullshit. You’re holding me against my will. You may not like the sound of it but that makes me a captive. And it makes you my kidnapper. If you expect me to do something for Rebel, then you’re dreaming. I’m not performing sexual acts for anyone. Not willingly. If you make me, then you guys won’t just be my kidnappers. You’ll be my rapists, too.”

Cade’s head turns so he’s looking at me, mouth slightly open. There’s a look of disbelief on his face. “Man, no wonder Hector got rid of you. You’ve got a tongue on you, you know that?”

I just shrug my shoulders. No way would I have spoken to Hector or even Raphael like that. I would have been too scared. Being in the car with Cade is different, though. “Why did you help me back in that alleyway? Why did you even bother if this is what you wanted to do afterwards?”

“This isn’t anywhere near as bad as you think it is. I helped you because we don’t like women being abused. The club has morals. And believe it or not, so does Rebel.”

“I doubt that.”

“Doubt it all you want. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

“Who is he, Rebel? Who is he to you? The way you say his name’s like he’s freaking god or something.”

Cade smirks. He must press his foot to the floor, because the Humvee picks up the pace until we’re speeding into the early dawn. “He’s the president of the Widow Makers,” he says. “He’s one of the good guys. He’s also my best friend.”

******

REBEL

181. That was the number advertised on Hector’s members-only website. I called back to the clubhouse and had Danny, our resident computer hack, check the records, but that’s all there was on her. No real name. No background information. Just 181.

She’s fucking beautiful, of course. That fact isn’t acknowledged or discussed as Carnie and I mull over what to do with her; it doesn’t need to be discussed. It just sits there between us, her beauty an obvious truth that’s making me seriously fucking antsy. Things would have been a lot more straightforward if she was ugly. I wouldn’t feel bad for her, for starters. That makes me a shitty guy, I know, but I’m honest. No point in trying to sugarcoat it. The fact that she looks like a younger, hotter, curvier Penelope Cruz is making it hard for me to think of her as a means to an end. It’s making me think of her as someone to be pursued, and that is a bad fucking deal. I don’t have time to deal with that. I can’t afford to be thinking of a girl when there are important plans to be made. Vengeance to be plotted out. Information to be gathered.

“If you leave her at the clubhouse, we can probably keep her there, out of sight, for three or four days before anyone notices. If we can keep her quiet,” Carnie says.

If. That’s a big fucking if. I somehow doubt very much that we’re going to be able to keep this girl quiet for any length of time. “She can’t stay in the clubhouse, Carnie. For starters, which room would we put her in? Everything’s being used. And secondly, Keeler and Brassic are nosey as fuck. We tell ’em they can’t go into a certain room and what’s the first thing they’re gonna do?”

“Go into the damned room. You’re right. Fuck.”

Carnie swerves a little closer to me so that our intercoms don’t crackle quite as much. These aren’t the lame, bulky intercoms dentists install inside their helmets while they’re touring around on the weekend. For starters, we don’t wear helmets unless we can avoid it, which we can most of the time. Our intercoms—sleek, small button radios that fit into our ears—were created by Brassic, the Widow Makers’ resident tech genius. He was in the army up until three years ago, when he lost the lower half of his right leg. He’s fitter, faster, more capable than well over half the other Widowers, but the US Army decided he wasn’t fit for active duty so he gave them the finger and joined our ranks—a different kind of army, but an army all the same.

“You know what you’re gonna have to do, don’t you?” Carnie asks. I hear him laughing, even with the wind whipping away his voice.

“What?”

“She’s gonna have to bunk in with you, brother.”

“Nope. No. Not happening. She can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need my fucking space, Carnie. Shit.” I paddle the gears with my left foot, switching up so I can go faster. I leave him behind, though I can still hear the bastard laughing in my ear.

“Just sayin’, boss. If you want your little witness protection scheme to work, it’d be smart to keep the witness out of the way. At least for a little while, anyway.”

I narrow my eyes, glaring at the road. “My little witness protection scheme only needs to work if my plan for all-out violence fails first. And when has all-out violence failed us before?”

Carnie sounds grim when he says, “Never, boss. Not once.”

We arrive in Vegas three hours after we leave Cade and the girl. Should have taken four, but we’re heavy on the throttle. The city in the desert is roaring already, despite the fact that it’s still early in the morning. We rumble down the strip, dodging piles of puke and Nevada PD cruisers pulled up onto the curb, as the local law enforcement round up the wasted people being ejected from the casinos. Gotta love Vegas, city of the damned. Maybe that’s why the cartel we’ve come to see set up their base of operations here—so many drunk people, addicted to one thing or another, to abuse and manipulate.

This is the first time in four years I’ve been to visit the leader of the Desolladors—the skinners. The Colombian cartel earned their name and their reputation by actually flaying the skin from their enemies’ bodies, usually starting on the chest first. That’s where most organizations and gangs wear their colors and ink.

I haven’t been back here in so long because Maria Rosa, the brains behind the Desolladors, hates coming to America. She’s obsessed with the culture, but she hates the people. Like, really hates the people. Quite the contradiction. If she steps foot on US soil, there’s a good fucking reason for it.

I know she’s here now because I pay one of her guards to give me a heads up when he finds out she’s on her way in.

Carnie and I turn down one of the side streets off the strip and park up our rides—Carnie grumbles about abandoning his twenty-thousand-dollar baby next to a dumpster behind the Bellagio, but machines like these aren’t exactly inconspicuous. Ideally, Maria Rosa won’t know we’re rolling up on her until we’re knocking on her suite door.

Sweat runs like a goddamn river between my shoulder blades, even though it can only be sixty degrees. It takes fucking forever for us to walk up to the MGM Grand. When we reach the entrance to the hotel and casino, Carnie’s making noises about getting a beer.

“You really wanna face Maria Rosa after a beer?” I ask, trying not to laugh. Carnie’s a lightweight of epic proportions, and Maria Rosa is a deadly viper. She draws on people’s weaknesses. I’m pretty sure she sucks out their souls; I just can’t prove it. To spend time with her even faintly mentally compromised is asking for trouble. Carnie’s never met her before, but he’s heard the stories. He lifts one eyebrow, one side of his mouth lifting into half a smile—good point.

The MGM is buzzing. People checking in. People checking out. Groups gathered around the casino tables still in their clothes from last night, gin and tonics still being placed into their open hands. The place smells like Vegas glamour and sweat, tinged with just the faintest hint of desperation.

“So, she’s on the thirty-fifth?” Carnie asks, already stabbing at the button on the elevator call panel. I grunt, pushing my hair back out of my eyes.

“She’s a creature of habit. I can’t imagine she’s changed.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen. Are you visiting a guest this morning?” I turn around and end up facing a wall of muscle, dressed in a suit. The Hispanic guy—a good three inches taller than I am, shaved head, tattoos peeking out above his shirt collar—looks mean. Really fucking mean. He doesn’t work for the hotel, that’s for sure. The MGM are used to people coming and going from the hotel rooms, no questions asked. Their security detail would never bother people trying to access the guest floors—not even super shady-looking bastards like me and my boy. No, this guy…this is one of Maria Rosa’s men. Has to be.

“We’re not here to cause trouble. We just want to talk to her,” I say.

The guy scowls at me, two deep lines forming between his eyebrows. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nuestra madre nos dijo que siempre estábamos bienvenidos. ¿Quiere que le digamos que nos diste la vuelta?” Mother said we were always welcome. You want us to tell her you turned us away?

Of course, Maria Rosa isn’t my mother, nor is she Carnie’s mother, but she insists that those she keeps close call her that. By using that name, I’ve demonstrated who I am to this blank-eyed bodyguard. I’m someone his employer trusts, and I won’t have any qualms in telling her he denied us access if he causes any shit.

He stares me down, back rigid and straight, testing me out some more. When I don’t back down, he gives me a single nod. “What’s your name?”

I tell him. A flicker of recognition flashes across his face. He turns his back to us and begins speaking into the discreet radio he has stowed in the breast pocket of his tailored black suit.

“So much for a surprise visit,” Carnie grumbles.

“Yeah, well. I guess it’s better she knows we’re coming than getting shot in the belly by one of these punks.”

“Oh, so that’s an option, is it? Fantastic.”

“You two can go up. But I’ll need to accompany you.” Maria Rosa’s man has stopped murmuring into his radio. He stares at both of us as he reaches forward and hits the button for thirty-five. We wait in silence. A group of tourists come stand behind us, talking loudly and giggling—four overweight adults and three overweight kids. When the doors to the elevator open, Carnie, the guard, and I get on. The holidaymakers are about to follow suit but then they see our faces. The casual bulge of the gun on Maria Rosa’s henchman’s hip. The tattoos that cover the majority of our visible skin.

They make the smart choice and don’t get on.

The doors close and we begin our ascent. “Give me your guns,” the guard says. “You won’t be admitted into her presence without surrendering all weapons.”

We already know this is how Maria Rosa operates. Smart, really. She commands the most lucrative gambling and drugs ring in the country. There are people who would kill her for that reason alone, to take her business, regardless of the fact that she’s faintly psychotic and slices off people’s skin for fun.

“We left our guns at home,” I tell him. He gives me a look—he clearly doesn’t believe that. “You can have our knives, though. That make you happy?” I grin at him, which doesn’t seem to ingratiate me to him any further. Holding out his hand, his cold eyes travel over us, as though searching for the telltale bulge of a gun that we’re claiming we don’t have. I start pulling out my knives—one from the waistband of my jeans, one strapped to my side, one strapped to my ankle. Carnie has more; the guy overcompensates when Margo’s not on his hip. All told, the guard has nine knives in his hand by the time we’re done giving them up.

He draws his lips into a tight line—not impressed.

The doors to the elevator open then, and a housekeeping maid—a skinny woman with a neat ponytail and sensible shoes—is waiting on the other side. She nearly jumps out of her skin when she catches sight of the sharp blades clutched in the guard’s hands. “Sorry, I’ll…I’ll just…” She doesn’t enter the elevator. She spins on the balls of her feet and hurries off down the corridor, glancing over her shoulder at us as she flees. The guard gestures to us that we should follow him.

“She gonna cause problems?” Carnie asks as we follow the hallway around, passing room doors on either side of us.

“She might tell her superior,” the guard grunts. “But he’s one of ours. They’re all ours. It won’t go any further.”

“Sweet.” Carnie pulls a face at his back. Fucking child. I give him a warning look, wondering why the hell I brought him and not Cade. That wasn’t really an option, though. There are times when Carnie just can’t behave himself, or hold his tongue, for that matter, but in this instance he was the sensible choice. Cade and Maria Rosa… Cade and Maria Rosa have history. She swore a long time ago that she’d have his balls if she ever laid eyes on him again. And Maria Rosa is a very literal woman.

I smack Carnie on the arm, sending him an expression that I hope conveys how much shit he will be in if he fucks this up.

The guard leads us to the end of the hallway, to the very last room on the right. He knocks twice, quietly, and then steps back, presumably so whoever is inside the room can see who’s at the door. A rattling, scraping sound follows—the chain being undone—and then the door opens and a huge guy in sweat pants and a muscle tee is standing in front of us, face drawn into a dramatic scowl. Rico Mendez. Rico has been Maria Rosa’s personal guard for the past twelve years, by all accounts. He’s her personal trainer. He drives her anywhere she needs to go. She fucks him when the mood takes her, although I’m pretty sure she prefers American men. The first time I met him was in Colombia, when he was trying to kill me. He didn’t succeed, of course. I kicked his ass and gave him the gnarly scar that still twists the flesh down the left-hand side of his face.

“Rebel,” he says, as though my very name is a statement in itself.

“Rico.”

The man looming in the doorway breaks into a broad grin, booming laughter filling the hallway. “It’s fucking good to see you, man. It’s been a long time.” He holds out his hand. I take it, letting him pump my arm up and down. Slapping me on the shoulder, he pulls me into the suite, still laughing. He points to Carnie, giving me a questioning look. “Who’s this? I haven’t met this one.”

Rico thinks it’s hilarious that I took him down. He decided that we would be best friends after Maria Rosa declared she wasn’t going to have me skinned alive for breaking into her house. Ever since then, whenever I’ve had occasion to meet with his boss, Rico’s treated me like a long-lost brother. I’m no fool, though. As with all gangs and cartels, camaraderie and hospitality are part of a very tenuous front that will vanish in a heartbeat if you do anything to piss them off. If Maria Rosa decides she no longer likes me, Rico will rip my throat out as soon as look at me. And I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of fending him off. Not again. He’s not the sort of guy anyone would ever beat twice.

“This is Carnie,” I tell him, clapping him on the back when he draws me in close for some semblance of a hug.

“Carnie? You guys are all crazy. None of you have proper names.” Rico turns to Carnie, not offering out his hand for him to shake—Carnie hasn’t earned that privilege yet—and asks, “What do you call yourself that for? You like meat?”

“Carnie, not carne,” my boy says, emphasizing the difference between his nickname and the Spanish word for meat. “I’m fucking vegan.”

“You don’t eat meat?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t eat anything that used to have eyes. That’s fucking wrong, man.”

Rico runs his tongue over his teeth, narrowing his eyes at Carnie. He makes a low humming sound in the back of his throat—I don’t think he’s impressed by my prospect. “Men were bred to hunt and kill, my friend. They learned to do that to survive. To feed their families. To assert their dominance over weaker, less intelligent men. That’s the natural way of things, huh?”

Oh boy. I’ve heard people have this conversation with Carnie before. It never ends well. He folds his arms across his chest, flexing his muscles. “Actually prehistoric man survived mostly off things he foraged from the land. Meat was an infrequent substitute to his diet. He survived where other species failed and suffered extinction because he was smart. Because he had a bigger fucking brain than any of the other animals. And look at me, man. You think I have any problems asserting my dominance over weaker, less intelligent men? Do you?” Pulling up to his full height, Carnie leans back, giving Rico a less-than-friendly smile.

The click of heels on tiles breaks the silence. “Are you boys done measuring dicks?” Maria Rosa appears behind Rico, as beautiful and deadly as ever. I always wonder whether it’s possible to catch the woman without a full face of makeup and her hair done. I’ve dated enough girls, really girly girls, to know that even they have their down time. Days when they don’t feel like sucking in their bellies and getting dressed up to the nines. Days when all they wanna do is lounge around on the couch in a  T-shirt and tracksuit pants, eating Ben and Jerry’s from the tub.

Maria Rosa is always perfect, though. Always. And she doesn’t look Colombian, either. Bleached blonde hair, green eyes, light olive skin—she looks like Penny from The Big Bang Theory. That’s no mistake. She’s obsessed with the show, addicted, or she used to be. It doesn’t look like much has changed since the last time we met.

“Rebel,” she says, holding out her hand. “What a pleasant surprise.” I take her hand and kiss the back of it, knowing that she’s lying. My visit is about as pleasant as a rough enema.

“Beautiful as always, Mother. So good to see you, too.” I lay it on thick, giving her no reason to suspect there are about a million other places I’d rather be than right here, right now, with her. “How long are you staying in the country for?”

She pouts, resting her weight over one hip. If I didn’t know her already, the extraordinarily tight red dress she’s wearing would have me thinking she is just on her way out to a nightclub. She’s not, though. It’s just how she dresses, even at ten in the morning. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m just checking on a few new business enterprises I’ve invested in. After that…I could stay a week. I could stay a month. Depends on whether I have any reason to hang around.” She strokes a taloned finger down my cheek, tracing her nail along my jawbone and down underneath my chin. She’s a notorious flirt. I know better than to even consider going there, though. Cade did and it nearly cost him his life.

I smirk at her, playing the game. Letting my eyes rest on her cleavage a little longer than I should because I know she likes to be appreciated. “Are you going to spend a few days with me here, baby?” she asks, stepping closer to me so that her chest is pushed up against mine. Her tits are almost spilling out of her dress, skin soft and golden and smooth, and it’s really fucking easy to see how men get caught up by her. She’s sexy, she’s powerful and she has stones. I don’t know a guy who hasn’t been given a boner by the Bitch of Colombia. I’m hardly innocent, myself. I am sensible, though.

I take hold of her wrist and kiss her lightly again, on the wrist this time. “I wish I could. We have to be heading back to New Mexico right away, though. I’ve come here strictly on business.”

“Is that why you’ve brought this one with you instead of that coward Cade Preston?” She actually sounds pissed that Cade isn’t here.

I laugh, but it takes serious effort. I can’t put a foot wrong here. I can’t say the wrong damn thing. If I do, my balls will be forfeit and Carnie will probably end up dead.

“Forgive me for saying so, Mother, but I didn’t think you were all that fond of my vice president these days?”

She flicks her wrist at me, making a derisive sound at the back of her throat. “Don’t be so ridiculous. I love him. Mateo, everything is fine. You can head back downstairs.”

I didn’t even realize that the guard—Mateo—was still behind us, loitering in the doorway. He gives her a short bow. “Yes, Mother. I’ll be available if you need anything.”

I don’t like the way he says that, like he thinks she might want us brutally murdered in about half an hour or so, and he’ll be ready to oblige her. Mateo leaves, pulling the door closed behind him, leaving the four of us behind in the entrance of Maria Rosa’s suite. To say things are a little tense would be an understatement. Rico and Carnie are still utterly unimpressed by one another, and Maria Rosa remains irritated that Cade’s nowhere to be seen. She pivots on her skyscraper heels and struts back into the main area of the suite, grumbling under her breath.

“Fucking men. Wouldn’t know what to do with…too much to handle. It’s his fucking loss, anyway. I wouldn’t…” She carries on muttering, the sound of her voice carrying as she vanishes. Rico gestures for us to follow after her, and we do. Inside the suite, a wall of glass stretches from the floor to the ceiling, displaying a panoramic view of the strip, the major artery that supplies the beating heart of the city. It’s an ugly, beautiful thing, all at once.

Maria Rosa clucks her tongue, lowering herself gracefully to seat herself at a large glass desk, covered in papers. “So tell me. Why have you come here this morning? I have to say, I’m accustomed to people waiting until they’re supplied with an invitation to call upon me.” She glances down at her papers, sifting through them, apparently looking for something, and I see it now: she’s pissed. I knew she would be. She’s just hidden it well until now.

“We’ve come to discuss a matter of mutual interest with you,” I say. Her hand stills on her papers, but she doesn’t look at me. She’s like a wild animal, aware of our presence, frozen solid, ready to bolt at any moment. Except in this instance, her bolting means her losing her temper and ordering one or both of our deaths. Not only do I have to pick my words carefully here, but I have to say them the right way, too. She needs to be handled with such caution. I’ve seen guys get their fucking tongues cut out for muttering a sentence she hasn’t liked. Thank god Carnie knows to keep his goddamn mouth shut altogether, otherwise I’d be leaving here with a mute prospect.

“What could you possibly have to discuss with me that could be to our mutual benefit, Rebel? You run a small-time club for boys on their bicycles. I run an international business.”

“I know, of course. Your organization is in a completely different league to mine, but still, we share common grievances every once in a while. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

She does know what I’m talking about. It’s well documented that Los Oscuros have been a thorn in my side for years. However, the Mexican cartel has been an equally big thorn in Maria Rosa’s side for just as long. Longer. It would be easier for her to ship her drugs up through Mexico and across the border into the states than to fly them direct from Colombia. US border patrol have a keen eye to the sky at all times. It’s hard to bribe an air traffic controller at a small airfield, because there are more people to witness a single prop coming in to land. If she were to send her drugs by road, bribing a single border control officer would be a piece of cake. Only problem is, Hector’s got all the border control officers on his payroll. And his men protect their investments fiercely against trafficking from outside sources.

He would rather have all-out war in the streets of Mexico than allow one of Maria Rosa’s trucks to pass through his turf. In fact, it’s come down to that on more than one occasion.

Maria Rosa slips her feet from her heels and holds them out in front of her. Rico reacts instantly, taking a seat so he can lift her feet into his lap. He begins massaging them, mumbling softly to her in Spanish as he works his thumbs into the arches of her soles. “I assume you’re talking about the Ramirez dog? Take a seat, please.” She jerks her head toward the plush couch a couple of feet away from the table where she’s sitting. Carnie and I do as we’re invited to and sit down. Carnie lifts an eyebrow in response to the scene playing out in front of us.

He gives me a look I can read all too well—what the hell is this all about?

Rico’s getting more and more aggressive as he massages Maria Rosa’s feet. She lets her head to fall back, one hand rising to touch the skin at the base of her throat. Her eyes slowly close, full lips parting. The whole thing is sexual. Really fucking sexual. I’m used to this kind of bullshit around Maria Rosa, but I didn’t exactly give Carnie a heads up.

“So,” she whispers. “I heard about your open declaration of war against Los Oscuros. I have to say, I’m very intrigued as to why you would do such a thing. Hector has more men than you. More weapons. And you have, what? A death wish?”

“I have men and guns enough, Mother. Don’t you worry about me. As to the why, Hector had someone murdered. Someone I care deeply about. I won’t allow that to go unanswered.”

Maria Rosa’s head lolls, rolling so that she’s finally looking at me. Her eyes are burning, filled with the promise of sex. “A woman? Did he snuff out one of your pretty women, Rebel? How cruel.”

“Someone of consequence,” I say. I refuse to tell her who I wish to avenge. Since he was my uncle, she’ll be able to figure out who I am if she discovers Ryan’s name, and I can’t have that. That information has been well guarded, protected, since the day I founded the Widow Makers, and I don’t want that changing any time soon.

Maria Rosa groans, eyes shuttering as Rico reaches what must clearly be a very sensitive spot on her feet. Her back arches off her chair, giving her body an inviting curve to it—the kind of curve that begs a man to touch. Carnie clears his throat, throwing his left ankle up to rest on his right knee. He’s clearly trying to hide something, probably the fact that his dick is getting hard, knowing him. I’m immune to this crap now.

“So Ramirez murders someone of consequence and you declare war. And then you show up on my doorstep, looking so good, bringing me some eye candy to enjoy, and I’m not supposed be suspicious, Rebel? Come on.” Rico raises her foot up even higher from his lap and licks at her toes, making her gasp. “You think…you think I don’t know what you want from…me? Ahh!”

“Fuck. Me,” Carnie groans.

“You’re a smart woman, Mother. I have no doubt you know why I’m here. And because you’re smart, I know you’ll also see the wisdom in providing support to the Widow Makers. We take down Hector, you get his business. You can ship through Mexico. You strengthen ties to the Widowers, who can then provide extra protection to you while you’re in this country.”

“And…” Rico traces his tongue across the bridge of Maria Rosa’s foot, making her breath catch in her throat. Her whole body shivers. “And you’ll contract to run my products for me when I need you to.”

This isn’t a question. This is a statement that I don’t really know I should be agreeing to. Providing protection is one thing. Running drugs is another entirely. The Widowers aren’t strangers to transporting the odd key of weed or blow from one spot to another, but what Maria Rosa’s talking about is something else entirely. She’s talking huge quantities, across long distances. “Our outfit’s too small to take on distribution of your operation, Mother. You just said so yourself—we’re a small concern compared to the empire you’ve built for yourself. But I’d be happy to organize local shipments. Share my contacts with you in the east. Set up an expanded network of trusted people who would be happy to work with you.”

“I already know people in the east. I don’t need more people in the east. I need you.” Rico’s working on her calves now, rotating his thumbs into her flesh, making her squirm in her chair. Unfortunately, I know what’s coming next. I doubt it’s avoidable at this stage, no matter what I say. I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve been witness to Maria Rosa getting fucked. It’s all just part of her madness. Should be a treat for Carnie, though.

“I can help you where I can, Mother. That goes without saying, of course.”

Her mouth pulls back into a lazy smile, as Rico’s hands climb higher and higher up her legs. “You’re a sneaky bastard, Rebel. Don’t take me for a fool. I need something from you and you’re dancing around it, like you always do.”

I just smile. There’s nothing else I can do, bar agree to something that will mean I am her employee and no longer her equal. She grins back, just as Rico reaches the apex of her thighs. His hand disappears underneath the skirt of her dress. Her whole body tenses for a moment, then she stretches languorously, like a cat. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear her fucking purring.

“All right, Rebel,” she says, her voice tight under the pressure of what’s happening between her legs. “I’ll help you. But you’ll need to sweeten the deal a little first, since you won’t give me what I truly want.”

This is how it is with her. Always something she needs in payment, regardless of whatever she may already be gaining. “What do you want, Mother?” I prepare for her to ask for my first-born son. Good job I don’t plan on having any kids.

“Hector Ramirez isn’t the only problem I’ve been encountering recently. A few of my shipments have been seized out at Baker. The DEA have been ramping up their interest in my business transactions the past couple of months. It’s very—ahh!—inconvenient.”

I keep my eyes up, front and center, careful not to let myself get sidetracked. “And you want the Widowers to lean on a couple of people? Get the DEA to turn their attention elsewhere?”

She shivers again. Rico’s hand is quickening under her dress, working faster. He grins at me, though with his lower lip fastened between his teeth, the action looks more like a grimace. Maria Rosa groans, rocking her hips upward. Carnie curls his hands into fists, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he hisses.

I ignore him. “So you want us to lean on someone for you?”

“I don’t…I don’t want you to lean on anyone,” Maria Rosa gasps. “I want you to bring me the agent’s fucking head in a…fucking bag.”

So it’s murder, then. There’s no love lost between the Widowers and the DEA, that’s for sure, but murder? That will draw all the wrong kinds of attention.

“Well?” Maria Rosa demands.

“I’ll need to assess the situation first,” I tell her.

“Ha!” She grinds her hips up into Rico’s hands, her eyes closing completely now. “You’re such a fucking pussy, Rebel. Don’t go shy on me now.”

The irony of that statement isn’t lost on me. I’m hardly shy. I’m sitting here, conducting a conversation with her about murdering a member of a federal agency while she gets finger fucked by her bodyguard. “I’ll give you one day to think on it,” she says. “And if your answer’s no then you can either…agree to ship,”—she’s growing breathless now—“my fucking drugs, or you can handle your problems on your own. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“In the meantime, there’s one more…thing that I want from you.”

“Which is?”

She opens her eyes, lazily glancing from me to Carnie. “Him. I want him to come assist Rico over here.”

Carnie’s cheeks flush. Of all the Widow Makers, he’s the most highly sexed, most fucking reckless when it comes to women. He has a different woman stumbling out of his room every single goddamn morning, and yet right now it looks like Maria Rosa has caught him off guard. “You want me to…you want me to fuck you?” he asks.

“I want you to stick you dick inside my mouth while Rico fucks me,” she informs him. “Now.”

Carnie looks to me, as though I’ll be able to clarify whether this is some kind of trick or not. I simply shrug. “Better give the woman what she wants.” I hold back from pointing out there’s a strong chance she’ll bite his cock off. Carnie’s a reasonably intelligent guy. He should be able to figure out the odds of something really fucking bad happening all by himself. He shrugs back at me, breaking into grin. “This is one royally fucked-up situation,” he says under his breath, but that doesn’t stop him from getting to his feet.

The next fifteen minutes are interesting, to say the least. Carnie pulls his dick out—already hard, no surprises there—and Maria Rosa bends over, hitching up her tight red dress. Rico slides himself inside her, pulling the top of her dress down so he can palm her tits. She’s practically naked, her long, toned body on show apart from the small section of her stomach that’s obscured by her bunched-up dress. Just like she said she would, she blows Carnie while she lets Rico screw her.

Most people would find this situation very graphic. Confronting even. But I know this woman. Her head is perhaps the most twisted place on the face of the entire planet. Because while she’s bent over, letting two people penetrate her body, letting them screw her, she’s screwing with me. She didn’t ask to suck my dick. She wants me to watch. The whole time she’s getting reamed she’s staring at me—she doesn’t look away once.

So I just sit there and watch. This is my life.

Fucked-up shit like this happens to me all the time.

ALEXIS

I end up sleeping most of the day. Maybe it’s because I feel kind of safe with Cade, but I let my guard down. I can’t help it. It’s been so long since I’ve rested. Even when I have dozed, it hasn’t been proper sleep. It’s been like dipping my big toe into a vast and deep lake, too afraid to submerge myself for fear of drowning. Or in my case, being raped. So I pass out in the car and I sleep the sleep of the dead, barely waking properly to eat or stumble zombie-like to the bathroom when we stop.

All thoughts of escape fly out of the window.

Through the mugginess clouding my head, I glimpse at the clock on the dash at some point in the afternoon to find that it’s coming up on four p.m. I think that’s when I realize something’s not quite right. Or it might be later, when I wake to darkness out of the passenger window, and country music playing low on the radio.

I manage four words before I slip into unconsciousness again. “Drugged me, you fucker.” The words bleed into one another, barely audible.

I hear Cade laughing just fine, though. “Sorry, sweetheart. Easier this way all round, I’m afraid.”

I come to briefly when I’m being carried somewhere, carried in the dark. The sound of a motorcycle roaring to life, and voices, talking voices filter in and out as I sway with the motion of someone’s gait. And then nothing.

My head feels like it’s splitting apart when I wake next. Morning. It must be morning. Bright light blares through a set of thin voile curtains above…above the bed I’m sprawled out across. “What the…?” I’m not wearing the hideous, torn dress anymore. I’m wearing an oversized black  T-shirt that says It Isn’t Going To Suck Itself with an arrow pointing downward. Clearly not something meant to be worn by a woman. So clichéd.

I’m already buzzing with anger as I throw my legs over the side of the bed. That anger swiftly makes way for panic as I realize I’m going to throw up. “Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no, no, no.” I get to my feet, the room pitching violently like a ship on rough seas. I don’t know where the hell I am. I don’t know where the damn bathroom is. I don’t have time to look for it, either. I scramble frantically, searching until I find something appropriate, and then I collapse onto my knees, puking up my guts.

The moment is brief but unpleasant. My body is trembling by the time I’m done. I look down at what I’m clutching in my hands, and my stomach drops all over again. A motorcycle helmet. I just threw up in a full-face motorcycle helmet. Great. Why the hell couldn’t it have been a trashcan?

I get up, holding the damn thing in both hands, cringing when I pluck up the courage to check out how bad it is. Because it’s bad. Really bad. The drugged food that Cade plied me with yesterday has mostly been digested, but what remained in my stomach is now seeping into the foam cushioning of what looks like a really expensive piece of equipment.

“Fuck.” I look around, properly taking in my surroundings for the first time. The place isn’t that big: a timber-built cabin made up of two rooms, the first and largest being a bedroom/living area. The second is a modern bathroom, complete with wet area and an overhead shower, tiled in slate. Very manly. I dump the helmet into the sink and turn on the tap, wincing as the water starts to fill inside it. Back in the main area, I try to figure out where the hell I am.

The huge bed I just slept in resides in the corner. A considerably large leather sofa, soft and cracked with age, divides the space into two. On the far side of the room, a monstrous flat screen television has been bolted to the wall. Bookcases, shelves, a desk with a stool shoved underneath it—the place is full of books and pictures and stacks of magazines. Odd bits and pieces dot the cabin. A snow globe—Welcome to Chicago!—sits next to a jumbled sheaf of papers, the skyline of the city in miniature inside, the roofs of the buildings already painted white. A photograph of a slim, beautiful woman with crystal clear blue eyes and a mass of almost-black hair butts up against a coffee maker on the narrow desk underneath the window. The woman in the picture is smiling, flashing teeth as she looks over her shoulder at whoever was taking the image. You can tell she’s laughing from the way her mouth is slightly open, her head tilted back. She looks familiar, for some reason. I touch my fingers lightly to the glass of the frame, feeling a bizarre sense of déjà vu.

When I look out of the window, there’s nothing but scrubby plant life, orange dirt and shale-like rocks for as far as the eye can see. In the distance, the ridgeline of a mountain range spears up out of the flat plains, made hazy and blue by the miles between us. The landscape is like nothing I’ve seen before in the flesh—not a place I’ve ever visited before. Not that I can remember. I’m about to try the handle on the door to the left of the window, ready to see if I am well and truly trapped here or not, when I hear the sound of splashing water.

“Shit!” I rush back to the bathroom; the helmet’s rolled onto its side and the flow of the tap is splashing off its surface, going everywhere. All over the mirror above the sink, all over the tiled floor. I turn off the tap and grab a towel from one of the racks by the toilet, throwing it on the ground and mopping madly with my foot. I’ve always been a little accident prone, but this is ridiculous. I’m trashing the place. Not that I should care—I’ve been bundled up and stolen, drugged and taken here against my will—but I’m not an idiot. I don’t want to make the situation worse for myself by breaking or throwing up on everything I touch.

“Hello?”

I stop scrubbing at the floor with my foot, every part of me going still.

“Hello? I brought you some breakfast.” My heart’s hammering in my chest. Someone’s in the other room. I hear the door close, and then heavy boots scuffing on the wooden floorboards. I peek cautiously around the bathroom door, hoping to see who it is without being seen myself. No such luck, though. Cade’s staring straight at me, a plate stacked high with pancakes in his right hand. He has some sort of dust in his hair. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “Rebel’s going to be back in an hour or so. Thought you might like to get some breakfast into you and some clothes on before he steamrolls in here, wanting to talk to you.”

I slide my body through the barely open bathroom doorway and pull it closed behind me. “This is his place?” I ask.

Cade nods, setting the plate of food down on the narrow desk next to the coffee machine. “Yeah. Built it himself. He’s not like the other guys. He prefers the peace and quiet.”

“What other guys?” I need to figure out what my situation is right now. How many people are here, wherever we are? Who are they? How far to the next town? What are my chances of breaking out of this cabin and making it to civilization on foot? Cade just smiles at me, wiping his hands down the front of his already grease-stained jeans. He’s a good looking guy—dark brown hair, cropped close, warm brown eyes, always with a half-entertained look on his face—but I don’t see any of that. I just see a brick wall of stacked muscle standing between me and my freedom.

“No one you need worry yourself about, sweetheart,” he says. “You won’t be bothered over here.”

“When can I go home?” I’ve somehow managed to keep my cool since waking up, but it feels like the walls are closing in now. I have to get out of here. I have to get back to Seattle.

“I told you, as soon as you’ve done what Rebel needs you to do, you’ll be able to go.”

“And when will that be? How long with that take? Hours? Days? Weeks?” My chest feels tight, gripped by the concept that I might be trapped here for so long. And even then, Cade could be lying. They could have no intention of letting me go, ever.

Cade purses his lips, shoving his right hand into his pocket. “Look. Wait for Rebel to get back. He’ll answer all your questions.”

“He said I should direct all my questions to you in his absence.”

Cade laughs, glancing back out of the door. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Turning back to look at me, he smiles. “You know why he said that?”

“No.”

“Because it entertains him to screw with people every once in a while. I don’t have any answers. Only he knows when all this will be over. For you. For me. For him.”

“Sounds like a great guy.” I lean back against the bathroom door, my head thumping dully against the wood. I want to cry. I really want to breakdown and sob my heart out, but I’m proud. Before I ran into Raphael in the street, it had been years and years since I’d allowed myself to look weak like that. I cried in front of Ramona, too. I do not want to cry in front of Cade.

“He may be a total asshole sometimes and he does like to fuck with people, but he’s not who you think he is, sweetheart. You’ll realize that soon enough. Now, you gonna tell me your name or what?”

“No.” I won’t do it. Giving them a name to call me by, any name, real or false, seems like I’m giving them power over me.

Cade blows out a deep breath, giving me a look my father used to give me when I was being stubborn as a kid. “Have it your way, then. I’ll make sure I come back when Rebel gets here.”

I just stare at the ground, feeling hollow inside. I don’t know if I want Cade to come back or not. He hasn’t exactly been helpful. Not really. The advice he gave me back in that alleyway in Seattle did save me from Raphael’s unwelcome attentions, but they also landed me in the situation I find myself in now. Only time will tell if this is better or worse.

I don’t look up as Cade leaves. I slowly slide down the bathroom door, covering my face with my hands, and I dare myself not to cry. I manage it, even as I hear the door to the cabin lock behind him.

A bizarre sensation washes over me—a true how is this real? moment. I want Matt. I want to curl up in his arms and feel like everything is okay again. I look around this unfamiliar room, nothing making sense, and I’m sure I must be imagining it all. Things like this don’t happen. This is the stuff of nightmares and movies, and horror stories young women are told by their elders to keep them safe. It was sure as hell never supposed to happen to me.

REBEL

FIVE YEARS AGO

“Are you fucking crazy? Get that thing outta here,” Cade hollers. The boys have found a vat of oil from somewhere, and the lid is off. I spin on them, not sure I can trust what I’m seeing with my own two eyes. We’re smack bang in the middle of fucking Kabul, perched on the roof of a barely standing building, and my men are screwing around with flammable liquids.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing with that, assholes?”

Thompson stops laughing, the smile freezing on his face when he sees the look on mine. Both he and Ramon quit attempting to drag the huge, rusted barrel toward the edge of the roof; they stand up straight, Ramon wiping the sweat out of his eyes.

“Well. We was thinking that, instead of wasting ammo on these fuckheads, we could get medieval on their asses. They used to do this in England, y’know? Back when people holed up in castles and shit. They’d pour fuel over the sides of the castles and set it on fire. Very effective.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant.”

“So you’re telling me you want to wait for the enemy to pass by underneath us? And then you want to take this barrel here,” I kick the barrel, “and you want to pour it contents over the side on top of the enemy. And you want it to be on fire at the time?”

Ramon and Thompson look at each other warily, obviously unsure what the correct answer is. “Yeeees?” Thompson says.

“And you don’t think that’s slightly fucked up. That you want to burn people alive, Thompson?”

“It’s no worse than they’d do to us, Duke.”

“But that’s the whole fucking point, isn’t it? That’s the whole reason why we’re here. These people do shit we would never do. Because we’re marines, not fucking medieval English castle owners, you fucking moron.”

The rest of the squad—Baggs, Paulie, Saunders and Cade—all burst into laughter. I throw my arms over Thompson and Ramon’s shoulders, pulling them in close. “Get rid of that fucking thing now, before we set you on fire and throw you over the side of the roof, huh?” I’m grinning as I say this, but I know how dangerous this place is. I know all too well what it can do to a man’s morals. What it could do to my morals if I’m not careful.

When I turn around, Cade is watching me with a small smile on his face. He nods at me, scrubbing his hand across his jaw. I’m seriously fucking lucky to have my best friend at my back through this, just as he’s been at my back through everything else.

If he weren’t here, reminding me of who I am, who I want to be, then god knows. Maybe I’d have been throwing that barrel over the edge of the roof after all.

Maybe I’d have been lighting the match.

REBEL

NOW

My body has that delicious burning ache to it as I climb off my motorcycle. It’s taken me far too fucking long to ride from Vegas to New Mexico, but I wasn’t exactly rushing. I had a lot to think about. I have approximately ten hours until I need to give Maria Rosa her answer. Either yes, I will kill this DEA agent who has pissed her off so much, or alternatively me and my boys are gonna become her runners, operating on her behalf for, well, forever. When you start working for Maria Rosa, there’s only one way you ever end up stopping. And I don’t particularly want to die just yet. I have a number of things I plan on doing yet, and I’ll be fucked if I let her mess that up for me.

There is one other option: go this thing alone. But Hector’s amassed an army over the past few years, ramping up his personal protection. Increasing the volume of his business, which means more hired guns. More people on his payroll. Ergo, less chance of us sweeping in and smashing his operation to bits. Three or four years ago, maybe, but not now. Now, we have to approach things differently. We need backup, and Maria Rosa is the most sensible option. She has as much to gain from Hector Ramirez’s downfall as the Widow Makers do.

“You still need me, Prez?” Carnie’s still got a shit-eating grin on his face, twelve hours after the end of our meeting with Maria Rosa. The guy has no shame. Usually the dynamic between two guys shifts a little after one of them watches the other get his cock sucked, but things are exactly the same with Carnie. He’s a total extrovert. And that wasn’t the first time I’ve seen his dick, either. The guy barely wears any clothes at the best of times.

“No, man, we’re good,” I tell him. He jogs off across the compound, laughing to himself, shaking his head—my money’s on him heading straight to Fee to tell her what happened. She’s gonna punch him in his stupid, grinning face.

I think about heading over to the clubhouse, the low-lying, squat building at the far end of the compound, to see if there’s anything left over from last meal, but that would mean facing everyone. Dealing with the chatter and having at least three shots of Jack poured down my throat. I don’t feel like that right now. I feel like taking a moment. Clearing my head. Breathing, just for a second.

I head in the opposite direction, instead, toward my place. The cabin’s outside of the compound proper, over the small ridge that curves naturally around the Widow Makers’ HQ. That ridge was part of the reason why I set up out here in the first place. A good natural defense in case anyone tries to fuck with us.

It’s winter but I’m still sweating by the time I summit the top of the ridge. The sun’s setting to my right, casting angry, long red shadows across the plane in front of me. It’s gonna be cold, tonight.

Behind me, the four buildings that make up the compound—the clubhouse, the workshop, the storehouse and the barn—are all lit up. I can hear Carnie somewhere down there, shouting something loud and obnoxious. Laughter follows. Cheering and shouting. I smile to myself as I make my way down the other side of the slope toward the cabin. It doesn’t register as odd that the lights are on inside my place. It doesn’t seem strange that the door is locked and I have to use my key to get in. The first thing I do when I see the girl sitting on my couch, watching my television, is pull my gun. Force of habit. She scrambles away from me, backing into the corner of the couch. Her eyes are so big I can practically see myself reflected in her irises. She looks terrified.

I catch myself, then—a gun shoved in her face is the last thing this girl needs. But she shouldn’t be here. I tell her as much. “You shouldn’t be in here. Who put you in here?” Carnie joked about this on the way to Vegas—her needing to bunk in with me. I never gave it serious thought, though. This is so not happening. I lower my gun, tucking it back into my waistband. The girl visibly sags, though it’s obvious she’s still afraid.

“Cade. Cade put me in here when I was passed out,” she says. “After he drugged me, that is.” It doesn’t sound like she’s too impressed about that. I know people who’d pay good money for the high she received, but it looks like she’s not one of them.

“Yeah, sorry about that. We’ve found in the past that being a little sleepy often keeps the people we’re transporting calm. And calm is something we value around these parts.”

“How old are you?” she asks. The question catches me off guard.

“Why do you ask?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“When you’ve figured out why you wanna know, tell me and I’ll decide whether your reasoning’s valid enough for me to share that information with you. In the meantime, I need to talk to my V.P.” I kick the door closed behind me, scowling as I bring up Cade’s number on my cell. He answers quickly, on the second ring.

“Hey, man, what’s up. Are you almost back?”

“I’m already back. And I’m standing in my cabin. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Ahhh shit. I thought for sure I’d be back before you. Don’t blow a gasket, all right? There was nowhere else to put her.”

“What about the barn? That’s where we usually keep people, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, when we plan on keeping them cuffed to the water tank and beating the shit out of them twenty-four-seven. You really think this situation warrants that?” When he puts it like that, I suppose he’s right. That does seem a little excessive.

“What about the room at the far end of the clubhouse? The one I used to use?”

Cade huffs—I think I’m pissing him off. Well, tough shit. He knows this place is strictly off limits. “You said you didn’t want anyone to know she was here, dude. If I’d dragged her through the clubhouse and up the stairs, someone would have spotted her. And they sure as hell would have wanted to know who she was and why we won’t let her out of the room.”

He kind of has a point there. “And so this was it? This was the only solution you could think of?” I pinch the bridge of my nose between my index finger and my thumb, feeling a headache coming on.

“She could hardly bunk above the shop with me, man. People are in an out of my place all day long. She’d have been seen in five seconds flat. If you can think of another option, I’ll head back to the compound right now and move her myself.”

I scowl at the floorboards, the floorboards I laid myself, hammering each and every nail by hand, hating that he’s fucking right. “All right. All right. I guess you did the right thing.” I exhale, my head working overtime. “Wait, if you’re not at the compound, where are you?”

“At the shop. I needed to pick up the gear for tonight. We had late appointments, too, and Chloe couldn’t work. I’m finishing off a back piece. Won’t take me more than an hour, though.” The shop, the Dead Man’s Ink Bar, the Bar for short, isn’t located within the compound. A twenty-minute ride down a dirt track brings you to Freemantle, the closest town to our location, though to call it a town is a stretch. There are five or six streets with actual stores on them, and then perhaps three or four as many residential streets, and that’s it. There was public outcry when the Widowers bought up High Street real estate and unveiled a full-blown, state-of-the-art tattoo parlor. The townsfolk probably wanted another florist or something. Instead they got burly bikers with a penchant for ink and very loud motorcycles. They complained at first, but that soon stopped when they realized the Bar was actually bringing a lot of out-of-towners into Freemantle. People from the surrounding small towns, who otherwise would have no reason to even pass through. More people means more money for the other local stores and diners; the folk who come to get inked at the Bar have to eat, after all. They buy groceries. They replace their old work wear at the army disposal store. Ironically, the business front we use to launder our ill-gotten gains has been really good for the local community.

“Okay, well just get your ass back here as soon as you can. I need to tell you about what happened at the MGM Grand.” I don’t mention names. The girl sitting on my couch is staring quietly at a seam in the leather armrest, pretending not to be listening, but of course she is. She’d be fucking mad not to.

“Got it.” Cade hangs up and I walk around my couch, staring at the girl. This is weird. If I fuck a girl, I do it at the clubhouse. I’ve never had anyone in here before. I’m not sure I like how normal it feels. It should feel like the place is on fucking fire and I have to get the hell out of dodge.

I sit down on top of my coffee table, still staring at her.

She blinks at me, digging her fingernails into the skin on her right leg. “What?”

“It’s time for you to tell me your name.” She arches an eyebrow at me. I can just imagine her getting them waxed in some fancy fucking boutique beauty parlor in Seattle, run by Asian hipsters with shaved undercuts and thick glasses. She seems like the type. “Why do you want to know?” she asks, cockiness filling her voice—she’s asked me something personal and that’s what I said to her. Now she’s throwing it back at me. It’s fucking adorable.

“I’m asking because I need something to call you. And if you don’t tell me your name, I’m going to be forced to call you One Eighty-One. And I’m guessing you won’t like being called one eighty-one.”

“Why would you call me that?”

“Because that’s the reference Hector Ramirez gave you when he uploaded your picture onto his skin site. Hector tags his girls chronologically. The first girl he sold was number one. The fifty-third girl he sold was tagged fifty-three. Using that logic, guess how many girls he sold before he tagged you one eighty-one?”

“So one hundred and eighty other women came before me?” She looks like she’s going to throw up.

“Exactly. And he hasn’t been caught. The police haven’t raided his place out there in the desert. No one has reported his website. No one came to rescue the one hundred and eighty other girls who came before you, and no one is coming for you, either. So if you want reminding of that every single time I call you one eight—”

“Sophia!” She screws her eyes shut, clenching her jaw. “My name is fucking Sophia, motherfucker.” She spits out the words like they’re poison. When she looks at me again, I can see the fury burning in the depths of her dark brown eyes. She comes alive when she’s angry. A thrill of adrenalin stabs through me, sending mixed signals to my cock; provoking such a violent reaction from her is provoking an entirely different reaction from me. For the first time, I see her. Fucking Sophia. I don’t see her as a means to an end—a potential way to take down the bastard who killed my uncle. I see her. I see her as a woman, and she is beautiful.

“All right, Sophia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I wish I could say the same.” She’s flushed, her irritation making itself known on her cheeks as well as in her eyes. Her body language is speaking volumes, too. She’s locked up tight, shoulders angled away from me. Her hands are balled together now, interlocking fingers white at each joint, showing how hard she’s squeezing.

My father was a fucking asshole—hated me from the moment I was born. He judged me as he saw fit, and I’ve made sure to prove him wrong at every available fucking turn. But he was right about one thing. He always said I had a stone-cold, manipulative side to me when I wanted to. And I do. That part of me, usually kept under lock and key for civility’s sake, pipes up, now, as I look at her. How hard would it be to make her change her mind about me? How hard would it be to alter that body language? It would be a mildly interesting game to play.

Her head snaps up—she stares at me as though she can hear my thoughts and she’s daring me to even try it. I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face, slow as sin. “Cade says you need me to do something for you,” she snaps. “He says you’re gonna let me go if I do it.”

“And do you believe him?”

She fixes her gaze on mine, staring me right in the eye. There are few people who have the balls to do that. My coloring’s always been a little confronting to some people. Unsettling, even. My eyes are a piercing ice blue. They’re not the kind of eyes you’d forget in a hurry. It’s not vain of me to admit that. I just know how other people work, how they think, and I also know how I affect them. Sophia doesn’t look away. She’s nowhere near as fragile as I assumed she would be. My interest is now well and truly piqued. “I don’t know. I believe Cade believes you’ll let me go. But you? I haven’t worked you out yet.”

I almost burst into laughter. Well, isn’t this interesting? I was just thinking the exact same thing about you. “Oh, I’m not a complicated man, Sophia. I do the things I say I’m going to do. I keep the promises I make. If I say something, you can take it to the bank.” But I’m lying to her. I am a complicated man. I make it my business to be as fucking complicated as I possibly can. If I were simple, I would be easy to pre-empt, and that’s not how you survive in the world that I live in. I can’t tell from looking at her whether Sophia believes me, but I’m enjoying the way she’s sliding her legs up and down against the other. In this case I’m sure it’s signifying discomfort, but it can mean other things, too. Sexual excitement for one. I suddenly realize that I want that—to sexually excite her.

“So what do you want me to do?” she asks. The question could not have come at a more appropriate time. A number of things are flooding through my head as I answer her. I manage to keep them to myself, though.

“I need you to testify what you witnessed in that alleyway in Seattle for me, Sophia. I need you to take the stand in a courtroom and tell a judge and jury how you saw a man murdered in cold blood.”

Her face goes pale, the angry flush that was still present a moment ago vanishing entirely. “You want me to go up against those men that took me? You want me to go testify against Raphael?”

“I do.”

She shakes her head, each shake becoming more and more violent. “No. No, I can’t do that.”

I didn’t think she was going to be happy about it, but in the same vein I didn’t think she was going to be this aggressively against the idea. Hector’s men did kidnap her, after all. “The guy they murdered was a judge. He was a good man. And you won’t do this, because?”

She takes a stuttering breath, pushing back into the chair, as though the more space she puts between me and her distances herself from the very idea of testifying. “Because I can’t. I…I have a family to protect. Raphael threatened them. He said he was going to kill them all. I can’t allow that to happen. I’m sorry for the guy that died, but that’s it. He’s already dead, now. Taking the stand won’t help him any. If I do what you’re asking of me, they’ll find my family. They’ll kill my parents. They’ll kill my sister, too, but they’ll rape her first.” She shakes her head again, fear written all over her face. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I won’t do it.”

REBEL

“Well it’s obvious. You can’t do either.”

I drop my head into my hands, groaning. There was no persuading Sophia that she needs to speak out against Los Oscuros. She wouldn’t even listen. She locked herself in the bathroom, and I took the opportunity to leave the cabin, locking the door behind me, too pissed off to try any further. The clubhouse is packed full of Widowers, just like it is every night, but tonight’s different. Tonight they know not to approach the quiet table in the corner of the bar that Cade and I occupy when shit is hitting the fan. If they could see the black bag sitting on the bench in between my second and me they might have tried, though.

“You can’t involve yourself with the DEA, man. And there’s no way the club will pass running Maria Rosa’s blow and dope all over the country for her. She tried to strong arm us into that the last time we got caught up in her shit, remember?”

“I do remember. But it was almost worth the risk back then. We had no other leverage. I thought this time she’d agree just for the sake of fucking with Hector.”

Cade stares grimly down into the bottom of his rocks glass. I know he’s not seeing the burned amber of the whiskey in the bottom, though. He’s thinking about Laura. Laura, my best friend. Laura, Cade’s sister. Laura, who went missing from my father’s estate years ago, never to be seen again. That’s what started this whole fucking thing—the MC, the gun running, the small time weed operation the Widowers sometimes dabble in.

I couldn’t accept Laura was gone. I left home, set up out here, started up the club. Cade came out later. We decided we would try and find her. Made enough mob contacts that we could submerse ourselves into the seedy underworld of skin trading without being suspected as cops. There were rumors about American girls being sold down in Central America. Mexico. Colombia. We tried Mexico first. A skeevy motherfucker in a bar, selling his own sister out of the back of his van, told us he’d seen Laura, yes, but she wasn’t in the country anymore. She’d been purchased by the Desolladors and they’d taken her back to Colombia.

So naturally, that was our next stop. I rolled up on Rico and cut his face open. Cade and I were detained by a very intrigued Maria Rosa for nearly two weeks, during which time she managed to show us that she didn’t have anything to do with Laura’s disappearance, and also convince herself that she was in love with Cade.

When she said we were free to leave, Cade declined Maria Rosa’s invitation to stay behind and be her sex toy, which did not go down well.

Our exodus from Colombia was a rushed one, complete with threats on our lives and absolutely no sign of Laura.

She was in the wind. There were no more leads regarding her whereabouts, no matter which country we asked in or who we asked. Just like that, Laura was gone.

Now, neither of us like talking about her much.

I grind my teeth together, growing more and more restless by the moment. “So what, then? We go after Ramirez on our own?”

“Yeah, sure. If you want to commit suicide and get the rest of us killed, why not? How many Widow Makers are there? Twenty-one? Hectors got forty people around him at all times. And then there are the hundreds of people he has working on the streets. We go against him without support and we’re all dead.”

“Then we do nothing. We forget all about him killing Ryan. I let him get away with it?”

Cade slugs back his whiskey and slams his glass down on the table. “Plan B, man. Use the girl. Get her to stand up.”

I take my own drink in my hands, rolling the glass between my palms. Sometimes alcohol makes me think clearly, can give me a better perspective when I’m trying to solve a problem. Not right now, though. It’s making my head muzzy. “Not an option. Dela Vega told Sophia he’s going after her family. He told her he was gonna rape her fucking sister. She says there’s no way for him to find them if she doesn’t testify.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does if she’s lying about her name, and she’d be stupid not to. I’m sure Raphael doesn’t know her real name, either.”

“Is Danny working on finding out who she really is, then?”

I nod, catching sight of our hacker in the corner, laughing with some brunette I’ve seen him with a couple of times before. He’s the best. If anyone’s going to figure out who this woman is, it’s Danny.

“Okay, well in the meantime you just need to tell her we’ll put a detail on her family,” Cade says. “Promise her that we won’t let anything happen to them.”

I grunt, drinking my whiskey after all. I fucking need it. I doubt my brain cells are gonna come up with anything useful tonight. Might as well kill a few of them off. “She’s stubborn, man,” I say. “Really fucking stubborn. How do you propose I convince her without threatening physical violence?”

Cade slaps me hard on the arm. When I look up at him, there’s a broad grin spreading across his face. “You’re a fool, you know that? I’m pretty sure you could convince any woman in the world to do whatever you wanted. You have a seriously annoying talent for that.”

I glare at him, tapping my finger against the rim of my glass. “What the hell does that mean?”

Cade sighs, leaning closer across the table. “I can’t believe after all these years you’re gonna make me say it. Women find you attractive, asshole. You’re a handsome son of a bitch.” He’s about to finish off his whiskey when he pauses, the glass halfway to his mouth, and says, “Not that I think you’re attractive, though. I think you’re fucking hideous.”

“Right back at ya, fucker.” We raise our glasses, draining what was left in them, and then we sit in silence, listening to the chatter of the club members around us. Carnie’s still trying to crack onto Shay. Pathetic. I lean back in my chair, scrubbing my hands over my face. “So you’re saying I should flirt with her to get her to do what I want? Am I understanding you right here?”

Cade nods gravely. “A means to an end, my friend. And, come on, she’s hardly ugly. I have faith in your ability to mac on some beautiful woman in order to get what you want. You’ve done it a million times before. I’ve witnessed it myself.”

“Fuck you.”

“You deny it?”

I can’t really do that. He’s right. I have used the way I look in the past to get a girl into bed, and I’m not sorry for it. But this is different. This is Sophia’s life, the lives of her family. Can I be a total douche bag and potentially put her whole family in danger to get justice for Ryan?

I pose myself the question because it’s the right thing to do. But I’ve already let that devious, calculating part of me out of its cage today; turns out I haven’t managed to cram him back into his box. I can do it. And using Sophia is a hell of a lot better for a hell of a lot more people than any of the other options open to me. So be it. I’ll win her over and convince her she needs to help us, and I’ll do it fast. That way I can honor what I’ve said to her and get her home quickly. Et voila. Everybody’s fucking happy. Cade refills his glass and holds out the bottle of Laphroaig to me, offering me more. I hold up my glass, resigning myself to my fate. Tomorrow, Operation: Woo Sophia will be in full effect. Cade was right—she’s all kinds of hot—so it won’t exactly be taxing on my part. Might not be as easy as Cade thinks it will be, though. There’s only one reason Ramirez would have sold her at such a high price, and that’s because she must be a virgin. Virgins aren’t exactly the types to jump into bed with a guy just because he pays them a bit of attention. I push that thought from my mind, not wanting to think about claiming this girl’s virginity. A hard-on would be seriously fucking inappropriate, as well as the last thing I need to deal with in the clubhouse. “So tell me, Cade. Which part of me do you think’s my best feature?” I try not to laugh.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” he says, shaking his head. “And it’s getting late. Shall we get things rolling then?” I place my hand on top of the black bag sitting in between Cade and me. My best friend smirks, tipping his glass in my direction.

“I’ll leave this one up to you,” he says.

“Why, thank you.” I may sound sarcastic, but it’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of making a call like this. The Widowers need this, and so do I. The bar’s full, club members drinking at tables and leaning against walls. There are over twenty members to the club, and they’re permitted to bring people into the bar once they’ve been vetted by Danny to make sure they’re not cops. The place can get pretty rowdy. The arrangement isn’t perfect. Fights break out. Members, both male and female, end up sleeping with the wrong person. Shit gets broken. But for the most part we make it work.

I draw some curious looks from the guys closest to me when I get up, Cade’s bag of tricks in my hand. Fatty, the Widowers’ resident bartender and sometimes chef sees me approaching the bar, sees what I have in my hand, and has an unopened bottle of Texas Trader’s Bourbon out on the counter before I can even ask for it. Trader’s is the cheapest, nastiest, shittiest bourbon ever made. I can still remember the bottle I had to finish when I first started this thing. My gut twists, also remembering the vast majority of that cheap, nasty, shitty bourbon coming back up again. Violently.

“I thought this might be coming soon,” Fatty says, breaking into a grin. “You sure he’s ready?”

I knock my fist against the counter, grinning back at him. “Fuck yeah. If the guy can make it through an encounter with Maria Rosa unscathed, he’s earned his ink.”

Fatty laughs, reaching for a pack of smokes and lighting one. “He’s gonna be unbearable after this.”

“Oh, I know. If his head gets too big, you can just kick his ass. Cool?”

“Cool.”

I turn around, finding that the oldest Widow Makers—Keeler, Brassic, Danny, Foxer and Josephine—have already stood up and are waiting with knowing smiles on their faces. Foxer, the guy responsible for managing the grow we have underway beneath the worn floorboards of the barn, is also in charge of new recruits. I’ve already spoken to him about what’s about to take place and he’s green lit the guy. He gives me a sharp nod when our eyes make contact, reaffirming his approval. I may be the head honcho around here, but I don’t have time to personally assess every new recruit we get. I value Foxer’s opinion as much as I do Cade’s, though. He knows what it takes to be a Widower. If he’d said not now, not ready, this wouldn’t be happening.

“Carnie, you ugly motherfucker!” I shout over the top of the chatter in the bar. Carnie, sitting across the other side of the room, immediately looks up, surprise on his face. He pushes his glasses up onto his head and stands. Everyone else is silent. “What’s up, Boss?” he asks.

I collect the bottle of Trader’s off the counter and I crack it open in front of him. I wince as I take the tiniest of sips. Everyone in the clubhouse roars, the sounds of their hollering and cheering set to raise the rafters on the place. Carnie, god bless him, looks around, completely confused. I hand off the bottle to Cade, who also takes a really fucking small sip.

“It’s time,” I tell him. “You’re in.”

More shouting and hollering breaks out, coupled with the thunder of people drumming their hands and feet against the tables, the floor, the bar. Carnie lifts both eyebrows, smiling cautiously. “For real? You’re serious?”

Cade holds up the bottle of bourbon, toasting it at Carnie. “We don’t break out this stuff unless we’re for real, man.”

Nearly everyone in the clubhouse aside from Carnie knows the pain that bottle is going to bring him. There are countless groans as Cade holds it out for Keeler to take. I don’t even need to watch to know he won’t be taking a big mouthful; every single member of the Widowers will drink out of that bottle before it gets passed to Carnie, and no one will want more than a taste of the vile liquid on their tongues.

“What is that?” Carnie asks.

“That, my friend, is a rite of passage. Once everyone’s taken a sip, the rest is for you. And you gotta finish every last drop before I’ll ink you.” I unzip the black bag in my hand and bring out the ink gun that Cade brought home with him from the Dead Man’s ink Bar. It’s been about two years since I’ve tattooed anyone, but that doesn’t matter. This particular tattoo is something I can draw without a stencil. I could probably do it with my eyes closed if I wanted to. Carnie whoops, ripping his Widow Makers MC Prospect  T-shirt over his head.

“Bring it on!”

The bar fills with more laughter and shouting as the other club members all gather around Carnie to slap him on the back and welcome him into the fold. Cade leans against the bar beside me, laughing an evil laugh. “Poor bastard’s not gonna be so happy in about an hour,” he says.

And he’s right. Barely an eighth of the Trader’s is gone when it’s handed to Carnie. The guy finally understands what he’s let himself in for when he takes his first big slug from the bottle. His eyes water, his face reddening to a dark crimson. “Holy fuck! This stuff’s worse than lighter fluid.”

By halfway down the bottle, he’s looking more than a little worse for wear. By the time he’s draining the last few drops of bourbon into his mouth, he’s already thrown up twice in the spillage bucket Fatty keeps behind the bar.

When I’m presented with a semi unconscious Carnie, carried between Keeler and Brassic and dumped unceremoniously onto the long wooden table that runs down the center of the room, I’m a little buzzed myself. They lay Carnie out on his front, his back bare and just begging for some fresh ink.

The Widowers surrounding me, each and every one of them wearing their cuts with pride, all stand around and watch as I fire up the tattoo gun and begin my work. Carnie sleeps like a baby through the entire fucking thing. Probably for the best. Three and a half hours later, I’m well and truly fucked on good whiskey and Carnie has a perfectly straight, perfectly perfect Widow Makers New Mexico patch inked into his skin.

“It’s a fucking masterpiece,” Keeler laughs, slapping me on the back. “You’re the only motherfucker I know who can tattoo someone when they’re falling off their fucking chair, Boss.”

“Fuck you, Keeler,” I laugh. “All right. Someone get this sorry bastard out of here. Shay, maybe you can make sure he’s taken care of when he wakes up, huh?”

Shay, the girl Carnie’s been trying to impress since the day we brought him back here as a prospect, shoots daggers at me. “I’m not his goddamn old lady, Rebel. I thought the Widowers didn’t do old ladies?”

Her tone is shitty to say the least. I lift an eyebrow at her, too drunk to be fucked with warning her to watch her mouth, but sober enough to tell her what I think of her attitude with one look. “I didn’t ask you to wipe his ass for him. I asked you to look out for him. We clear?”

She looks away, pouting, staring at the floor. “Sure. Of course.”

“Good.”

Cade’s at my side, then, throwing his arm over my shoulder. “Time we shut this mother down,” he sighs.

“Yeah.”

“You gonna be hung over in the morning?”

I punch him lightly in his ribs. “When have I ever been hung over?” It’s true. I can drink until I pass out—not that I do that very often—and still be fighting fit when I wake up. It’s a god given talent.

“Whatever, man. You need to get your ass to bed. Don’t forget. You have a girl to charm tomorrow.”

I grunt, trying to tell myself that I almost forgot about the beautiful woman I have locked in my cabin over the ridge. That’s pretty fucking laughable, though. Throughout getting Carnie so fucked his eyes began to work independently, and through every minute I was pouring liquor down my throat, marking someone’s skin for life, marking him as one of my own, I hadn’t forgotten about her.

She was all I was thinking about.

It’s three am, when I’m headed in the direction of the cabin, the girl still on my mind, that I get the text from Leah McPherson. I can just about make out the words:

Your father’s term is ending. He needs you to come home and keep up appearances. It’s just for one night, big brother. Will you come?

******

Sophia

I lay on the bed, wondering if he’s actually going to return or not. Sleep doesn’t come easily. On my back, staring up at the ceiling, I jump at every sound or creak in the cabin. I want to be alone, but then again I almost find myself wishing Cade or Rebel would come back, simply so I would have someone to be angry at. Being angry at them from afar is just as easy as it is in person, but face to face has its benefits. I’m hoping, despite how futile that hope might be, that one of them will finally realize how evil this is and let me go. Of the two men, my money is not on Rebel. He was so frustrated when I refused to do what he wanted me to. I get the feeling he doesn’t get told no a lot.

I fall asleep eventually. I dream that I’m at Dad’s work, at St. Peter’s, and both Dad and Sloane are working over me, trying to save my life. I have a gaping hole in my chest, and blood is pouring everywhere. Sloane keeps leaving instruments inside my chest cavity. She’s crying and so is Dad, but my sister is inconsolable. She’s sobbing so hard she can barely speak as Dad tells her what to do. I want to remind her to take out the scalpels and retractors and swabs she’s leaving inside me, but my body won’t respond. I have no voice.

Dad straightens up and wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, smearing blood everywhere. His mouth pulls into a tight line—a look of disappointment I’ve seen many times before. “That’s it. She’s a lost cause,” he says. “Nothing more we can do.” He turns to Sloane and throws his arm around her shoulder, pressing a kiss against her temple. “Never mind, pumpkin. I suppose I still have you.” He turns around and begins removing his gloves and gown, but Sloane bends down and whispers in my ear.

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…”

“Stop that, Romera. I told you. She’s gone.” I can’t figure out why Dad’s calling Sloane by her last name. He pulls her away, but she fights him. She grows more and more hysterical and he wrestles with her, dragging her off down a long, white corridor.

“All the king’s horses! All the king’s men! All the king’s horses!”

I’m not listening to her, though. I’m sitting up on the gurney, reaching into my chest, searching for the instruments that were left behind. My fingers don’t touch upon anything for a moment, and then I find what I’m looking for. I remove both hands, covered in blood and gore, but I’m not holding scalpels and swabs. In one hand, I’m holding my fake ID, smeared with blood—Sophia Letitia Marne, smiling out of the photo. In the other hand, I’m holding a gun.

I jerk myself awake, my heart slamming in my chest. For a brief, terrifying moment I think my chest is still open. I clutch both hands to my body, feeling solid ribs and breast and sternum, all rising up and down, up and down way too fast.

“Bad dream?”

I barely bite back the scream that’s building in my throat. Rebel’s standing at the foot of the bed, watching me with his arms folded. With no shirt on. His tattoos aren’t limited to his arms and shoulders. They fan out across his pecs, too, down each side of his body in swirling lines of black and red and green and blue. He looks like he’s posing for Men’s Fitness. Admittedly, with a physique like that, he could legitimately earn good money modeling for those guys. I push myself back in the bed, horrified when I realize I’ve worn that god-awful oversized  T-shirt to bed again. “What the hell are you doing?” I ask.

“Getting ready to go to my father’s place. I’m taking you with me. Sound good?”

“Only if your father’s place is actually a police station.”

He pouts at me, barely hiding a smile. He looks good when he smiles; I hate myself for acknowledging that, but my brain is still reeling from my nightmare. I’m not equipped to be fending off visions of his near-nakedness right now. “My father’s the governor for the state of Alabama. He’s the chief of police’s boss. Does that count?” he says.

“You’re not from Alabama.”

He smirks now, taking a step closer to the bed. “Why am I not from Alabama?”

“Because you don’t have an accent.”

“Oh, that’s definitive evidence right there. You must be on the money if I don’t drawl, huh?”

I shake my head, trying to pull myself together. “If your father’s the governor for Alabama, why would you take me to see him?”

“Because he’s a righteous asshole and I hate going back there on my own.” Rebel turns away, opening up a closet and pulling out T-shirts and full, button-down shirts. He starts making a pile on the end of the bed.

“No, why would you take me, the girl you’re holding against her will? You have to know I’ll tell him what you’ve done as soon as we walk through the door.”

Rebel reaches up high into the closet and pulls down a North Face duffel bag; he proceeds to place the piles of clothes inside. “You could do that. Or,” he says, looking up at me, “you can come with me and keep your mouth shut. You could let me tell you a little more about the guy you saw stabbed to death in that alleyway. You could listen to everything I have to say, and then, when our trip’s over, you could make your decision—whether you’ll help me or you won’t—based on everything you’ve learned. And then, either way, I’ll let you go.”

“I told you. I’ve already made my decision.”

“Based on no information whatsoever,” he says.

“I’m sorry. Like I said, I have family to protect.”

He carries on placing clothes into the bag at the foot of the bed. I watch for a moment, distracted by the shift of his muscles and the powerful lines of his shoulder blades. He’s quiet, not looking at me as he works, but then he says, “Okay. Fine. I’m gonna be gone five days. You can stay here and stare at the television. And when I get back, we’ll fit you out in a room in the clubhouse. You should be relatively safe in there. Though, there’s a lot less to do, of course. And no TV. Just four walls and a bed.”

“You just said you’d let me go either way!”

“Only if you come with me to my father’s place and suffer though his annual charity gala with me.”

I just stare at him. I can’t figure out what the hell is going on with this guy. He’s rude, abrasive and pushy, and now he wants me to go on a road trip with him? “All right, fine. I’ll come with you. But this is a complete waste of time. I’m not going to change my mind. You may not like your family very much, but I love mine. I won’t do anything to jeopardize their safety.”

I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. I must be crazy. Scrambling out of the bed, I tug the  T-shirt down in an attempt to cover my thighs. Rebel stops what he’s doing and watches me, a smile clearly itching at the corners of his mouth.

“If I come with you to Alabama, you have to swear you’re not going to rape me.”

He almost chokes on his laughter. “I swear, I’m not planning on raping you.”

“And you have to promise you’re not going to sell me or loan me out to any of your friends so they can rape me.”

Rebel holds up three fingers—scout’s honor. I doubt this man was ever a scout, and even if he was, the bastard never had any honor. “There will be no raping of any kind, performed by anyone while you are under my protection. Louis’ old Princeton pals get a bit frisky when they’re on the sauce, but I swear I will defend you to the hilt.”

I fold my arms across my chest, shooting daggers at him. “Well, all right then.”

“And Sophia?”

“You’d better swear the same. From your choice of  T-shirt slogan, I’m a little worried.”

“What? What do you mean?” I look down at the shirt. It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself.

“One of my boys went to Thailand last year. Said half the chicks there had dicks. Are you—”

“No! God! This is your shirt.”

He runs his hand through his thick dark hair, sending it sticking up in eight different directions. It still somehow looks like it was styled that way by a hairdresser. “Nope. That is not mine,” he tells me. “I would hate to hazard a guess as to who it does belong to.”

“Urgh!” I’m about to reach for the hem and tear the thing off over my head when I realize I’m not wearing anything underneath. Rebel has the look of a positively evil school kid when I glance up at him. He probably thought he was going to get a free show. I shove past him, into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. This room has fast become my safe place. How am I going to cope without a separate space to shut myself away when I need to? How am I—

“Hey, Soph?” Rebel’s muffled voice comes through the door. He sounds close, as though he’s leaning into the wood, speaking softly. There must only be a couple of inches between our bodies. I take a step back.

“What?”

“Y’all should know, ah’m definitely from ’Bama, baby. Any tahm y’all wan’ proof, alls y’all gotta do is holler.” He laughs as he moves away from the door, and I rip the T-shirt off over my head, growling under my breath.

The man is a nightmare.

REBEL

I started out murdering people from a very early age, killing my mother as I made my way out of her body. I took a twenty-two-year sabbatical after that. Since then, I’ve put a good many people in the ground. I like to console myself sometimes, when I’m feeling shitty about things, by reminding myself who those people were. They were violent, evil men. Men who made a living from the abuse of others much smaller or weaker than they were. Afghanistan left me with a zero tolerance for that kind of thing. It’s just not in me to let it slide.

As Sophia’s showering, I’m wondering whether I should start by telling her how many people I’ve shot or stabbed, y’know, just to get it out of the way. Shay comes by the cabin with the clothes I asked her to go buy first thing this morning; she’s weighted down by all the bags she’s holding in her arms, and she’s mighty pissed off. But then, that’s her usual expression: resting bitch face.

She doesn’t step foot inside the cabin. She just dumps everything at her feet, blowing her bright pink hair back out of her face. I can barely keep track of what color her hair is from week to week normally, but the fluoro pink seems to be sticking. Propping a hand on one hip, she casts a disgusted look at all of the bags at her feet and sighs. “You realize, this is probably very, very unhealthy, boss.”

“What is?’

“You, hoarding women’s clothing. I knew you were kinky, but I never knew you were balls-out weird.”

“They’re not for me, Shay.”

She lifts her eyebrows, nodding slowly. “Uh-huh. That’s what my Uncle Donald used to say. He likes to be called Princess now. He’s married to some guy down in the Florida Keys. Left his wife and kids. The works.”

“Shay?”

“Yeah?”

“Leave.”

She eyes the bags one more time. “None of that shit’s my style, y’know. If it ain’t right, you can’t blame me.” She saunters off the cabin porch and starts to climb the ridge back over to the compound, hips swinging as she goes. I’m pretty sure she knows I have a girl in here. She just doesn’t want confirmation. We had a thing once. A thing where I fucked her and she decided she wanted to be my old lady. That’s not how Widowers work out, though. I don’t need an old lady. I need an equal who will still shoot someone in the face for me if I need them to.

Shay was feisty from the moment I inked her into the club to the moment I sunk my dick into her on top of the pool table, but the moment she fell asleep on me I knew I’d made a horrible fucking mistake. She changed in a heartbeat. The fire I’d seen in her went out. She wanted to spoon and shit. She wanted to be subservient in all things, and while I do like that in the bedroom, I don’t wanna have an empty fucking vessel following me around, day in, day out, waiting for me to tell them what to fucking do.

I gather up the bags Shay left behind and carry them inside the cabin, tipping out the contents one by one. Winter in Alabama isn’t that cold. I told Shay to pick up thin sweaters and jeans. T-shirts and dressy tops. Some boots and some lighter shoes. I leave the last bag zipped up—a garment bag, presumably containing the eveningwear I told Shay to get. I shove everything into the duffel bag I’ve already packed with my stuff, folding the garment bag neatly on top, and then I wait for Sophia to come out of the bathroom.

I’m getting seriously fucking impatient by the time she eventually creeps out, wrapped in a towel. She stares at me, defiance written all over her face, and says, “I don’t have anything else to—” She sees the underwear, pair of jeans, light shirt and Chuck Taylors I’ve left out for her on the bed and shuts up. I pick up the duffel and sling it over my shoulder.

“I’ll be outside.” I’m feeling pretty damn smug as I sit on the steps outside the cabin, waiting for her. I don’t know why I’m taking such perverse, intense pleasure in one-upping her, but I am. It might have something to do with the fact that no one ever questions me. No one ever challenges me, and it feels fucking awesome.

I feel less awesome when my cell phone starts ringing and I find Maria Rosa’s name on the caller display, though. “Fuck!” I should have called her already to tell her which of her options we were going with. I definitely should not have left it so long that she is now calling me.

“Maria Rosa,” I say. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“I assume you know how much I like waiting, uh?” She sounds bored, but she must be fuming. She’s about to get even madder. “What have you decided, my love? What are you offering in return for my help?”

I take a deep breath. “Nothing.”

The line goes utterly silent. I hold my tongue, waiting for her to say something. To acknowledge that she’s even still there, let alone that she heard what I said.

Eventually, I hear a sharp scraping sound on the other end of the line—sounds like fingernails down a chalkboard. “So you expect me to help you for free? Is that what you mean to say?”

“No, Mother. I’m saying we can’t afford to start fucking around with a federal agency. And we won’t hand over the Widowers for your personal use, either. That’s what you want from us, and it’s not possible. So we’ll go without your help if we have to.”

“You’re an arrogant motherfucker, Rebel. You think I couldn’t smash your little club into the dirt if I wanted to? You’re pathetic.”

This is not going well. “Oh, Mother. Of course you could, but I’m hoping you won’t. If you do that, we won’t be friends anymore. I’d have to retaliate, and you’d do the same. It would be the start of a vicious cycle. And let me tell you, you may think my club is small, but it can be really fucking vicious.”

“Pssshh. You’re threatening me?”

“No. I’m just politely retracting my request for assistance.”

“You couldn’t be polite if your life depended on it, motherfucker.” The tone of her voice changes, then, softening. “But I understand. You don’t need my help, anymore? Fine. I’ll let you handle Hector on your own. But I’m a business woman, my love. When you’re up to your balls in hot water and you can’t fucking see a way out—that’s when you’ll call me again. And my prices will be a hell of a lot higher than they are now, I swear that to you.”

I smile, even though I have absolutely no reason to. “I won’t call, Mother. I never do. It’s kind of my thing.” I don’t know if she hangs up first or I do. All I know is my phone is in my hands and I’m staring down at the blank screen, wondering what just happened. Maria Rosa is a complete psycho. She could either take severe offence at what’s just gone down or she could have forgotten about it by next week. A person can never tell with her. This whole situation is one gigantic motherfucking head fuck.

The sound of the door clicking shut behind me has me reaching for my damn gun again. Sophia backs into the closed door when she sees the look on my face. “I’m sorry. You said you’d be waiting, so I came out.”

I stand, cracking my knuckles one at a time. I’ve been doing that since I was a teenager—a coping mechanism, a ritual I complete when I’m on the verge of flying off the handle. Saved me from kicking Dad’s ass about twenty or thirty times, that’s for sure. “Come on, let’s go.” I snatch up the bag and heft it onto my shoulder, setting off to the right, toward the flat, graveled area where we park cars and motorcycles that won’t fit into the compound. I don’t check to see if she’s following. She better fucking had be, though. I’ve just given Maria Rosa the flick, so now Sophia’s our only option. I will pick her up and toss her the fuck over my shoulder if I have to. My boots skid down the loose shale slope that drops away in front of the cabin. I’m almost at the bottom when I hear the cautious, sliding steps of someone coming down after me.

Good. She’s doing as she’s told. I wait for her, no more than ten seconds, and then I’m walking again, around the buttress of a tessellated rock formation that shields the parking area from view. The Humvee’s right where Cade left it when he got back from our little road trip. Alongside the gleaming black beast, a not-so-shit-hot Dodge Charger—blue, rusting wheel arches, a total bomb—has been up on blocks for the past eight weeks. Carnie keeps saying he’s going to fix her up, but so far all he’s done is sit in the driver’s seat and smoke pot for hours on end. If the fucking thing isn’t either souped-up and ready to roll or completely gone by the time we get back, I’m towing it out into the desert and firebombing the fucking thing. I throw the bag into the back of the Hummer, growling under my breath.

“Am I allowed to sit back there?” Sophia asks. Her arms are folded across her body, but she’s not defensive. She’s unsure. I don’t have time to be arguing over stupid shit with her right now, so I just shrug.

“Whatever you need, Miss Daisy.” She goes to sit on the driver’s side in the back and I grab her by the shoulders and forcibly redirect her to the passenger’s side. “I know you’re a pretty smart girl, so stop planning stupid shit.” She’s seen too many action movies. I’m willing to put good money on the fact that she thinks she can try and subdue me from behind while we’re driving or something, and that isn’t gonna happen. Not without one or both of us dying horribly when I flip the damn car. Her look of irritation only proves my suspicions.

I bundle her in the car and hop into the driver’s seat, starting the engine. She stares out of the car window, the muscles in her throat working overtime as she clearly tries to come up with another scheme to get herself out of this situation. I hit the lock button, and all four doors to the vehicle respond instantly, thunking closed. They won’t open until I hit that button again. Sophia gives me a tired roll of her eyes—I see it in the rearview as I speed away from the compound and the rest of the Widow Makers. We’re silent for a long time. Surprisingly, she breaks the silence first.

“How long does it take to get to Alabama?”

“’Bout nineteen hours.” I look in the rearview again and catch the stricken look on her face.

“I am so sick of being trapped in cars. Why do you insist on driving everywhere? It’d probably take a couple of hours on a plane, max.”

She’d fucking love that—me trying to herd her through TSA. Her screaming about my holding her captive. Me getting my ass thrown into jail. I reach behind me, shifting so I can grab my gun from my waistband. “I don’t know of any airlines that will let me take this as carry on,” I tell her, holding up the Glock I stole from my father when I was twenty-four. The night Laura went missing.

Sophia tries not to react, but I see her eyes go wide in the mirror. I’m used to being around guns now. Something feels off if I don’t feel the weight of the Glock at the base of my spine at all times. For Sophia, a weapon like that is something to be afraid of. For me, it’s a necessary accessory that enables me to get through my day without ending up dead.

“You should be careful with that,” Sophia tells me, angling her body so her back’s half turned to me. Looks uncomfortable. I laugh, returning the Glock to my waistband.

“You think I don’t know how to handle a gun?”

“My dad’s an anesthesiologist. He’s sat in on so many surgeries where guys have been shot in the feet. In the thighs. In the junk.” She seems especially pleased with that one. “All because the assholes tuck their piece into their pants like a G. So fucking stupid.”

I’ve heard her curse before, but this time it actually registers—the Widowers have plenty of groupies, women who aren’t exactly what you’d call ladies. The language on some of them could rival any of the club members. It’s not that I think chicks shouldn’t swear, but there’s something about Sophia. It’s just seriously entertaining when she does it.

“What the hell are you grinning about up there?” she snaps. I forget that since I can see her, she can see me in the mirror, too.

“Absolutely nothing. Just enjoying the scenery.” Ironic, since we’re staring at scrub and dirt and not much else for miles.

“You’re just like them, y’know? The men my dad used to come home talking about. Reckless. Selfish. People like you don’t give a shit about anybody else.”

“I might be those things, Soph, but just to set your mind at ease…I’m not stupid enough to blow my own balls off just because I shove my gun down my pants.”

“Oh, I feel so much better knowing that.”

“I’m glad.”

“You’ll excuse me if I choose not to believe you, though. You don’t strike me as the intelligent type.”

“I don’t?”

“You probably didn’t even finish high school.”

The irony of this statement almost has me wheezing. “Oh, sweetheart…”

“I’m not your sweetheart. And don’t call me Soph, either. I don’t like it.”

I hold my hands up. “All right. Whatever you want, One Eighty-One.” She kicks the back of my chair, lashing out hard enough that I actually feel the dig in my back.

“You’re a son a bitch,” she growls. “I’ve never met anyone as infuriating as you.”

Cade told me to flirt with the girl to get her on side, but at this rate I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t claw my eyes out instead. I just can’t help but bait her, though. The opportunity is just too good to pass up. There was a time when the old me would have knocked the new me out stone-cold for even talking to a woman the way I talk to her. But life’s a roll of the dice, and people need to evolve to survive. That guy doesn’t even exist anymore. I buried him under the dirt floor of a barn somewhere between San Antonio and Floresville, Texas.

“Just thank your lucky stars you’re not riding with Raphael Dela Vega right now.” I tilt the rearview so I can’t see her anymore. We can’t carry on like this. The whole point of this trip is to win her over to our side, not to alienate her even further. I’m gonna have to implement the age old practice of thinking before I speak. Trouble is, I’ve never been very good at that.

******

SOPHIA

Yeah, the guy’s a douche bag, but he’s right: I am glad I’m riding with him and not Raphael. And the more time I spend with him, the more I can read him. Rebel’s not the type of guy I’d ever hang out with voluntarily back home, but despite the way he looks—the tattoos, the hard set to his jaw, the ice in his eyes—I get the feeling that he’s not a violent man by nature. And it makes no sense that I believe he’ll release me once we’re done in Alabama, but I do believe it. More fool me. I could be setting myself up for a devastating disappointment, but what was I supposed to do? Hang around their clubhouse and potentially get gang raped by a bunch of bikers? Not happening. I’d rather take my chances with Rebel. At least there’s only one of him.

Two hours pass, and neither of us says a word. I think about my family, about Mom, and Dad, and Sloane, and how they’re definitely going out of their minds by now. I feel terrible. My heart is still aching with the pain of it all when Rebel pulls off the highway and kills the car engine.

We’re in the middle of nowhere, no buildings in sight as far as I can see. I can think of no good reason why he’d pull over here, and yet he has. Panic flares through me. “What are we doing?”

Rebel twists in his seat, throwing his arm over the back of the passenger chair so he can look at me properly. He runs his hand through his hair, brushing it back, the action an absentminded one. I find my stomach twisting in a most unnatural way—a reaction I do not appreciate.

So.

Time to get this over with.

The guy is hot.

I’ve done everything I can think of to not think that way, but it’s hopeless. He can be an ass and he can be rude, and I can want to punch him in his face, but that won’t change the fact that he’s smoking hot. He has a small dimple in his left cheek, lower than it should probably be to make him cute. It deepens into a small line when he smiles, a little crooked imperfection that breaks the symmetry of his face and draws my eyes to his mouth. I can’t stop looking at his mouth. I even turned away from him entirely when we first got into the car, but that lasted all of five seconds, and now here I am staring right at his lips again.

“We’re having a bathroom break is what we’re doing. You wanna go first or should I?”

I can just tell he’s waiting for me to kick up a fuss about dropping my brand-new jeans and peeing out in the open. He has no idea how many church camps I’ve been on, though. “I’ll go first. Are you sure you aren’t gonna come with me? Stand guard in case I make a run for it mid-stream?”

He just laughs. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and trust you.” A chunking sound echoes around the car—he’s unlocked the doors. I unfasten my seatbelt and climb out of the car, headed straight for the back of the Humvee. The massive vehicle is plenty big enough for me to squat down behind without him seeing a thing. It doesn’t take me long to finish up. I take a moment to stretch out my legs, though. I’m not used to all of this sitting down. Back in Seattle, I run track. I go rock climbing with Matt.

Oh my god, Matt.

My insides knot when I realize how badly he must be freaking out right now. Mom and Dad, too. It’s only been three or four days—with the head injury I suffered, it’s hard to be sure—but that will feel like an eternity to my parents. Sloane will be going out of her mind. She’s always been so overprotective of me, always thought of me as her responsibility.

I look up, pulling a deep breath into my lungs—the sky’s so damn blue. Feels wrong somehow. The driver’s side door opens to the Humvee, and Rebel climbs out of the car, sliding on a pair of shades. “Come here for a moment,” he says.

“Where?”

“Here.” He jerks his head toward the other end of the car. Stepping on top of the tire, he climbs up onto the hood of the Humvee and holds his hand out to me, offering to help me up.

“Why are we climbing on top of the car?”

He shrugs. “Why not? I need a moment. I’m sure you do, too.”

I look at his hand, suddenly exhausted by all of this. By thoughts of my poor, worrying parents. By thoughts of how to keep them safe. How to get away. How to cope. It all seems so…insurmountable. I take his hand, allowing him to pull me up onto the hood of the car. I can feel the heat of the engine through the soles of my new Chucks.

Rebel lowers himself so that he’s sitting on the roof of the truck, legs kicked out in front of him, crossed at the ankle. Seems like an odd pose for him; he’s always so rigid, back straight, chest proud. Right now, he looks pretty much how I feel—like he’s on the brink of saying fuck it and giving himself over to the powers that be, because what’s the point in fighting anymore? He nods at the spot next to him, raising an eyebrow.

“You gonna sit down or what?”

I sit down. Arguing with him would be futile. We sit there, side by side, staring off down the arrow-straight road, and for a moment I don’t hate him. He pulls a cell phone out of his pocket and taps something into it, and then he turns to face me, frowning slightly. “You believe in vengeance?”

“You mean like revenge?”

He shakes his head. “Revenge is a selfish act. Retaliation for something. Vengeance is a different thing altogether. It’s about obtaining justice, usually for someone who can’t claim it for themselves.”

This is an odd line of questioning but I decide I’ll bite. Maybe I wouldn’t if he were being a jerk like he was a couple of hours ago, but that’s not what’s happening. He’s pensive, the live wire that apparently runs through him dulled for the moment. “I don’t know,” I say. “Probably, in that case.”

“What if I simplified the question? What if I say, do you believe in justice?

“Then, yes, I do believe.”

“Okay.” Rebel fiddles with his cell phone again, and then he’s showing me a picture on the screen—a picture of the silver-haired man I watched die back in Seattle. He has a huge grin on his face, wearing a really bad Christmas sweater with reindeer on it, and a small kid is sitting on his knee. A baby, really. A little girl. She’s smiling so wide her little fat cheeks are round like apples. Can’t be any more than two years old.

“That’s Maddie,” Rebel says. “She’s older now, but not by much. She’s my cousin, but she might as well be my little sister. Ryan,” he points at the man in the picture, “Ryan got married late. His wife Estelle was in her forties when she had Maddie—surprise kid. They found out she had breast cancer at the same time, and she refused treatment so she could keep the kid. She hung on for three weeks after, got to hold her daughter in her arms, be a mom a little before she went. I guess that’s some consolation.”

I look at the picture, knowing what he’s doing. He wants me to testify so badly that he’s willing to pull the old poor-kid’s-mother-died-when-she-was-born-and-now-her-dad’s-dead-too card. It’s shitty and it’s underhanded. And it’s kind of working. “Who’s taking care of her now?”

“The state of Washington Child Services. She’ll be placed into a care home soon. At worst, some fucking drunk with a penchant for touching small kids will get her. She’ll grow up thinking it’s normal for Daddy Steve to touch her in her special fucking places. At best, she’ll be given to some down-and-out family who don’t give a shit about her so long as the government keeps on sending through the checks.”

“And how will me standing up in court and testifying against Raphael and Hector change that? If you’re so worried about her upbringing, Rebel, why the hell aren’t you petitioning for custody of her? She’s your blood relative right? You just said she’s your cousin.” Which makes the man in the photo, Ryan, his uncle. Rebel’s refusal to let this drop suddenly makes a whole lot more sense. His uncle. God, this gets more and more fucked up by the day.

“I can’t have her with me,” he says flatly.

“Why not? You afraid looking after a kid’s gonna cramp your style? That’s pretty fucking selfish.”

He clenches his jaw, clearing the picture from his cell phone screen and sliding it back into his pocket. I can tell I’ve made him angry just by the way he’s pressing his knuckles into the roof of the car. “I have a criminal record, Sophia. I live on a compound out in the middle of nowhere with a group of people who all have rap sheets as long as your arms. I’m not fucking evil. If I could take her, I would.”

I’ve accused him of being an asshole from the moment I met him. Turns out I’m an asshole, too. “I’m sorry, okay. I just—”

“A guy in my position, looking like I do, involved in the shit I’m running…you made an assumption about me. An assumption anyone else would make, too. Don’t sweat it. But know, the reason why I’m doing this…the reason why I’m going to convince you to do what I’m asking, isn’t because of me. Not because the man who helped raise me was murdered and I’m pissed about it. Which I am. But because I want justice. Justice for Ryan, because he didn’t get to watch his little girl grow up. And justice for Maddie, because of the shitty hand she’s just been dealt.” He slides off the roof of the car, jumping to the ground. I can hear him pissing against the side of the car. For the moment, I just stay where I am, eyes fixed on some vague, not-there point in the distance.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know how he expects me to choose between helping him and keeping my family safe. This is the first time that I’ve even found myself considering it, and the prospect is terrifying. If I testify, they find out my real name. They can track down my family and Raphael can make good on his promise, regardless of whether he’s behind bars or not. He’s the type of man who will find a way.

Rebel taps the hood of the Humvee—I can almost see the dark cloud hanging over him. “Come on, we gotta go.”

“What would you do?”

He looks up at me, eyes sharp. Pained. “What do you mean?”

“If you were in my position, what would you do? If it were Ryan and Maddie who were in danger, would you risk their lives just because it was the right thing to do?”

“Our situations are a little different, sweetheart.”

“How so?”

“I would kill anyone that threatened my family with my bare fucking hands. It would never be an issue.” He opens the driver’s side door and leans against it. “If you do what I’m asking, Sophia, I will do the same thing for you. I swear to God and all things holy, before you right here and now, I will spill the blood of every single member of Los Oscuros before I allow a single one of your family members to come to harm.”

REBEL

When she climbs back in the car, she gets in the front.

That's how I know I've made some sort of progress with her. Is it her finally agreeing to help? No. But maybe, just maybe, she's not as adamant anymore. Maybe she's thinking about it. Which is a better situation than we were in before.

She sleeps. For five hours, she lays so motionless, stretched out as best as she can in her seat, and I drive, glancing at her occasionally out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she's still fucking breathing. I can't tell, and she doesn't shift an inch.

We arrive in Dallas just as the day's darkening, the lights of the city like lightning bugs blinking on and off on the horizon. My eyes are killing me. My body is used to this, though, traveling long distances. The Hummer actually provides more comfort than I'm used to. Sitting on a motorcycle, through wind and rain and everything other fucking thing Mother Nature throws at us, can be unpleasant to say the least.

You get used to it. You get used to all of it. The pain in your back. The wet leather that just doesn’t dry out. The guns. The sneaking around in the dark. The shootings and the stabbings and the dying. The funerals.

"Mmmm. Where are we?" Sophia stretches out like a cat, just about managing to straighten her legs before the soles of her shoes hit the engine block in the foot well. She blinks at me—she looks like a child as she rubs at her eyes, ridding herself of her sleep. She looks...she looks so freaking sweet in that very, very brief moment that it almost makes my teeth hurt. Catches me by surprise.

"Dallas," I tell her. "Halfway, or close enough. We'll stop for the night."

"I can drive. I just slept for...wow. I slept for a really long time." She stares at the clock on the dash like she doesn’t believe it's telling her the truth.

"Yeah, I don't think so." I give her the old you think you're gonna pull that shit with me? look. "We're stopping. I need to get actual rest, and I won't be able to sleep properly if I have to keep my eye on you the whole time."

She doesn’t react to my rejection of her offer—it was clearly expected. Instead, she asks something out of the blue. "Why did you kill off your accent?"

"I didn’t kill it off. My father did. He didn’t believe a regional dialect was gonna help me through life. Had it trained out of me when I was a kid."

"That’s...practical?"

"An obsession of his. He tried to make my mother 'speak properly' too, but it never stuck."

"So she still speaks with a Southern accent?"

"Nope. She's dead." I wait for the awkward silence, but it never comes. Sophia makes a soft humming sound.

"Oh."

"You not gonna tell me you're sorry for my loss?"

"Do you want me to?"

"Not particularly."

"Then I won't tell you I'm sorry."

I grip my hands around the steering wheel, cracking my neck. I shouldn’t have mentioned my mother. My whole body feels tight as fuck now. I like that she didn’t dive right in with the placations, though. I fucking hate when people say shit like that. It's such a fucking lie. At least Sophia was true to herself. She's in a shitty position and I'm the reason why. I could have let her go back home by now a thousand times but I haven't. I've kept her locked up and refused her requests to leave. She could probably give a shit if my whole family died right in front of us right now.

"Where are we staying?" she asks.

"At a friend's place."

"Another MC clubhouse?" I can hear the worry in her voice. She must have heard about the shit that goes down in places like the Widow Makers’ clubhouse. The drinking. The drug taking. The fucking and fighting. She doesn’t want to get caught up in any of that.

"No, somewhere else. A motel."

"And...we'll be sharing a room?" She says it carefully, slowly, testing the words on her tongue.

"Yes, we'll be sharing a room. You got a problem with that?"

"You really expect me to say no here? Of course I have a problem with that."

"Well it's tough fucking luck, sugar. Unless you want us both to sleep in the car instead, this is happening. Don't worry—I fully intend on keeping my hands to myself."

I'm getting to know her reactions. I know she's looking at me, pulling that face she pulls when she's pissed. I don’t bother turning to check; I just keep on driving into the night. Our sleeping arrangements are non-negotiable. She can’t change that by acting like a princess.

"Okay. Fine," she says.

"Okay, fine?"

"Yeah. We get a room with two beds, you stay in yours and I stay in mine and all is right with the world."

If only she knew how many women had begged me to climb up into their beds with them. Begged. Sophia’s lack of interest in me only makes me want her even more, which is fucked.

We make it to the Motel 6 around seven. Not just any Motel 6; this is a specific motel run by a specific person. The place looks like any other cheap dive establishment might look, but it's not. It's a kind of safe house for people like me. Alex Draper, a regular guy well into his late fifties, owed pretty much every bookie in America money. I helped him clear a few of those debts with my fists, and I helped him clear the rest of them with a few careful words whispered into the right ears. Ever since then, Alex has been in my pocket. A Widower ever needs a place to keep his head down for a couple of days, he gets sent out to Texas on an enforced vacation.

There's an ancient-looking ’78 Honda CX500 leaning on a stand by the entranceway to the lobby. When I see it, my heart gives a kick in my chest. Its royal blue tank has been touched up, I see. In fact, the whole bike looks like it's had minor improvements made here and there. The old girl's been getting some love. I pull up beside it and park the truck, staring out of the window at a motorcycle I'd recognize anywhere, regardless of how many parts got replaced or fixed up.

"What's the matter?" Sophia asks. "You know the person who owns that bike?"

"I do. I knew the guy it belonged to before him better, though. That's my grandfather's old motorcycle."

"Your grandfather? Your father, the governor for Alabama, was raised by a guy who rode motorcycles? A guy like you?"

Her tone is very suggestive. I hate the way she says that: a guy like you. She's right—I'm a criminal and an all-round fuck-up these days—but, still, the more time I spend with this girl, the more I don't want her to think of me that way. "He was my grandfather on my mother's side. And no, he wasn't like me. He was just a guy who loved motorcycles. Building them. Racing them. He taught me to ride as soon I was old enough."

"Does he still live in Alabama, too?"

"Nope. Also dead." I climb out of the Hummer, slamming the door behind me. The ghosts of the past seem intent on screwing with me today. I don’t have fucking time for it. Or the energy, for that matter. I lock the truck behind me before Sophia can follow me. I head inside the motel, and Alex is sitting behind the counter, eating beans on toast from a chipped plate in front of him. Jeopardy! is playing on a small, decrepit-looking TV that's mounted to the wall. Alex Trebek flashes his pearly whites at the contestants, and Alex Draper catches sight of me and nearly chokes on his dinner.

"Rebel. Wasn't expectin' ya, son." He hammers his fist against his chest, face turning a strained shade of red.

"Yeah, flying visit. Was hoping you might be able to spot me a double room for the night."

Alex gives me that look he always used to give me when I was a kid and he was gambling away my grandfather's money—for a brief time they ran a business together, competing in races all over the country, and my pops trusted him with his winnings. He knew Alex was losing his money, but he didn’t really care. Alex was his best friend—hence how he ended up with the Honda CX500 when my grandfather croaked—and it was never about the money for him anyway. All he cared about were the bikes.

"Uh, well, yeah, son. I got the same room you normally use. I keep it free for ya. Just in case." We skip the whole credit card deposit, paperwork bullshit regular guest have to go through, and Alex tosses me the keys. When I head back outside, he follows me to the doorway, squinting out into the darkness. "That a girl you got with you?" he asks. Nosey fucker never did know when to not ask questions. I refrain from telling him to mind his own damn business, though. Against all odds, I have a soft spot for the old bastard, just like my grandfather did.

"Last time I checked," I inform him.

He nods, rubbing his calloused fingers over his two-day-old scruff. "That's good, son. Harry would be pleased. About time you found someone nice to settle down with." He squints a little harder, trying to get a better look at Sophia. "She's a beaut, too. Dark-haired. That's good. I never could picture you with a blonde."

"She's just keeping me company. She's not with me."

Alex's twisted old mouth pulls up to one side, displaying his crooked, slightly blackened front teeth. "Then you're a mad man, son. She's made for you, I reckon. Better get on that before anyone else does."

I fight off the urge to laugh. If only he knew.

******

The room's warm, which is welcome. Sophia heads straight to the bathroom and the sound of running water whispers behind the wooden door. I sit on the edge of the bed closest to the door and get ready to make some phone calls. Cade is first on my list.

"S'up, man. You breaking for the night?"

"Yeah. I'll be arriving at Louis' place around three tomorrow. Can you call Leah and let her know we're on our way in?" Leah McPherson works for my father, the one single favor the bastard's ever done for me. She needed to get the hell out of New Mexico, permanently, and I needed to find someone who would take her on, fast. At the time, my dad was the only person I could think of to ask. He goes through housemaids quickly, too abrasive and plain fucking rude for anyone to stomach him for too long, but a sharp-tongued Southern bastard was nothing after what Leah had already been through. I figured she would cope, and she did. Has been coping for the past two years. Ever since, she's been a convenient go-between, passing on messages from my father to me and vice versa. Makes communicating with the old man a hell of a lot more pleasant.

Leah is also very good at passing on information that my father probably doesn’t want me to know.

"I'll call her right away," Cade says. And then, “Shay came in here asking who she was buying all those clothes for this morning. She was pissed, man."

"Yeah, well, Shay can be pissed all she wants."

"It's bad juju to have a woman slamming around the clubhouse."

"What do you want me to do about it? Marry the fucking girl?"

Cade snorts. I can hear him shuffling papers or something—must be in my office. He takes care of the paperwork for the Ink Bar and the general running of the compound while I'm gone. "The day you marry anyone is the day hell freezes over. But maybe you could just talk to her. Have a quiet word in her ear or something. Fuck, man, just tell her it wasn't meant to be or something. I don't know."

If he were anyone else, I'd tell him to go fuck himself good and hard. "I'll think about it."

"Great. Now, the Mexicans want more—" Cade cuts off. I think it's just because he was about to say guns, and you can't say the Mexicans want more guns on the fucking telephone. Especially with the attention our little community out in the desert attracts. But Cade makes a guttural growling sound that tells me this is something else. Something bad.

"What? Tell me."

"You in front of a TV, man?" he says. "You'd better turn it on."

Oh, boy. When Cade sounds worried like that, it can only mean trouble. I hit the power button on the TV in the room, waiting for the old piece of shit to blink into life. The same Jeopardy! show Alex was watching materializes slowly, pixel by pixel, onto the screen. "Which channel?" I ask.

"Any. Just look for a news station. You won’t have any problems finding this."

Fuck. If something's happened that's made it to all news stations across America, it must be big. I stab at the programming buttons on the bottom of the TV, searching, until I come across a stricken-looking woman in a pale green suit, staring straight out of the screen at me. She clears her throat, taking a deep breath, as though pulling herself together. "Again, eighteen people have died and seven further people are injured in what is perhaps the most violent gang shooting in Los Angeles for years. Eyewitnesses reported that at three pm this afternoon, a group of men dressed in leather jackets and black jeans entered Trader Joe's on Sunset Boulevard and began indiscriminately shooting at shoppers. It's unclear how many gunmen there were at this time, as security cameras within the store were shot out as soon as the men entered.

"Our sources have confirmed that the reason for the attack is most likely drug related. It is believed an undercover police officer working for the DEA was meant to meet with a handler at the grocery store. Police are yet to confirm if this is the case, or whether a DEA agent was in fact shot and killed, but the tightening of security around the crime scene and the LAPD's notable silence on the matter would lead us to believe this is correct.

"Once the shooting was at an end, the men involved in this senseless, violent attack sped off on motorcycles. Footage here shows three of the men celebrating as they prepare to flee the scene."

The image turns fuzzy as camera footage replaces the news studio, showing a clear image of the supermarket from outside. From the angle of the footage, this camera was covering a small food court outside the entrance, but you can clearly see three men emerging from the left, heads bowed, long hair ratty and hanging in their faces. One of them spins around, must hear something, and then there it is: The Widow Makers’ emblem. Our patch. Right in the middle of the motherfucker’s back. I can’t hear what’s being said between them, but they’re not fucking celebrating. Their wild arm movements, the way they’re shoving at each other as they hurry off screen—they’re arguing.

“Police are yet to release an appeal for information. Should a member of the public recognize any of these men, we at News 541 want to help. If anyone has any information about these individuals, call in on…” The newsreader rattles of a telephone hotline, the screen frozen on a shot of the three men, bodies all pointed in different angles as they survey the area, faces nothing more than charcoal smudges. The only thing I can make out clearly is that goddamn patch.

“Oh my god.”

I jump, hitting the mute button on the television. Sophia’s standing right behind me, her body wrapped in a towel, breasts crushed together by the way she’s fiercely holding the material tight around herself. Her bare shoulders are speckled with water drops, her hair almost black now that it’s wet. Once more, it hits me like a kick in the gut: the woman is fucking beautiful. And she’s staring at me like I’m some kind of monster. “What—what have you done? That’s your club, isn’t it? The Widow Makers? Why would you have all those people killed?”

SOPHIA

Rebel just sits there, a tiny wrinkle in between his brows the form of an expression on his face. His eyes somehow look even colder than they normally do, which is saying something. “This wasn’t us,” he tells me. He stares grimly at the television for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw and throat working, and then gives a small shake of his head. “This was a fucking punishment.” He lifts his phone to his ear—I didn’t even realize he had it in his hand—and then starts speaking into it. “You still there, man?”

I sink slowly to sit on the edge of the bed next to him, not sure if I should pretend not to be listening. If I should be sitting so close to him. If I should put some clothes on. I don’t know what I should be doing. All I know is the news has this story on repeat and for all the world it looks like Rebel and his boys have been out murdering people for fun in Hollywood.

“Yeah. I know,” Rebel says. I can almost hear his teeth grinding. “She obviously didn’t take our refusal as well as I’d hoped. Now she’s gone after her DEA agent and had him killed. And she’s pinning it on us publicly, just to fucking spite us.”

There’s talk on the other end of the phone, but all I hear is my heart beating in my ears. The television’s quiet now, but they keep cycling through the same three or four images: a woman running out of the supermarket, dropping a plastic bag on the ground as she staggers away from the madness ensuing inside. A cashier holding up his hands, walking backward. Three men, pushing each other outside, arguing. And then a close-up of one of their leather jackets, complete with grinning skull and double drawn pistols, Widow Makers at the top, New Mexico underneath.

“She’ll be expecting that,” Rebel says, getting to his feet. “We can’t afford to retaliate right now. We need to account for every single member of the club for the past—no, I know none of us did this. Fuck’s sake, Cade. But the cops, they’re gonna be all over this. They’re gonna wanna know where everyone was.” He starts to pace, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. I was struck by a wave of horror when I first saw what he was watching as I came out of the shower, but now, watching him, I know his club is innocent. I just have no clue what the hell’s going on.

Rebel makes eye contact with me as he paces, and I don’t know what to do. I should maybe look away, give him a little privacy or something, but I’m too confused to do that. So I just look back at him, my heart in my throat, waiting for him to say something that I actually might understand. He stops in front of me, facing me, eyes still boring into my skin, and I feel a little lightheaded. “Burn everything we have on the Desolladors. Bury the guns. Burn the weed. Make our house safe,” he says into the phone. “The cops are on their way.”

The cops are on their way to the compound. I’m suddenly torn between laughing and crying. The cops, showing up at the compound? If I’d been a little more stubborn, they would have found me there, locked away in a room inside their clubhouse, still plotting a way to escape. I could have been home free.

Rebel slides his cell phone into his pocket and crouches down in front of me, the flashing images behind him on the television casting a blue light around his head, throwing his features into relief. He exhales and places his hands on my bare knees. “Soph?”

This feels like the first time, the first time I’ve ever been looked at properly in my entire life. Those pale, icy eyes of his almost burn my skin as he studies me.

“Yeah?”

“I need a stiff drink,” he says. “I can only have one if you swear you’re not gonna try and do something fucking stupid.”

He’s asking for my word that I won’t try to escape if he has a drink? He doesn’t need to do that. He could handcuff me to the bed or something and get as drunk as he liked without having to worry about me, but…he’s asking me if he can trust me instead. Absolutely crazy. I nod, trying to keep myself from appearing a little too over-enthusiastic. If he doubts me, he will cuff me. And after being restrained so frequently of late, I really don’t feel like trying to sleep with my wrists pinned up over my head. “It’s fine. I’ll behave,” I tell him.

“Thank you.” He stands, heading for the discolored, yellowing Bakelite phone that sits on the bedside table in between our two beds. He picks it up and stabs one button—must be 0 for reception. “Hey, Alex. Need some whiskey. What you got?” He frowns, but then says, “That’ll do. Bring it over?”

He puts the phone down. He doesn’t move for a moment, his back to me, his shoulders barely hitching up and down with his breath. Then he tips forward, taking hold of the phone cable, and rips it out of the wall.

Turns out he doesn’t trust me enough to leave it plugged in. Definitely smart on his part, but crappy luck for me. He picks up the entire phone and carries it to the door just as someone starts to knock on it. I don’t even see who it is. No words are spoken. Rebel shoves the phone through the gap in the door and then takes hold of a bottle of liquor, pulling his arm back through the gap, and then the door is closed again. Whoever was on the other side must be used to this kind of behavior; he leaves without a single comment.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I ask.

Rebel’s head snaps up, like he’d forgotten I was even here. “Was that part of our deal? Am I supposed to apprise you of everything that happens in my club now?”

“From the look on your face, this didn’t happen inside your club, asshole. Why do you have to be so fucking rude, anyway? I’m scared. You want to keep me calm. The smartest thing you can do is explain what I just saw on the TV, why you’re tearing into that bottle like it’s your last goddamn lifeline.” He really is tearing at it. He can’t seem to keep still long enough to focus and open the plastic seal properly. I can tell he’s growing more and more tense by the second just from looking at him. I hold out my hand, taking the bottle from him as he passes me. He doesn’t stop me. He’s too busy staring at the floor as he paces back and forth, opening and closing his hands into fists.

I catch my nail under the plastic seal on the bottle, opening it easily, and I twist the screw cap, wincing at the burning smell that immediately hits my nose. Rebel picks up the television remote and throws it as hard as he can against the wall.

“Fuuuck!”

My heart starts slamming underneath my ribcage. I thought it earlier, that despite how he looks, I didn’t think Rebel was really a violent man. Now I can see it, though. I can see how he would be absolutely crazy if the situation required it of him. He blows hard, his breath rushing in and out of his lungs so forcefully I can hear him panting. He storms toward the door and then changes his mind, heading back toward the bathroom. Flexing his hands again, it’s as though he’s itching for something else to throw.

“Rebel?” He doesn’t seem to hear me. “Rebel.”

He stops pacing. Stares at me. “What?” he growls.

“You’re starting to scare me.” I don’t know what I hope to accomplish by telling him that, but it’s as though I’ve just struck him across the face. The man who was throwing things and ripping phones out of walls , on the brink of a nuclear explosion, is suddenly gone. He lets out one final, rage-filled exhalation, and by the time he’s run out of breath, he’s calm. He leans back against the wall, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Fuck. Sorry, Soph.” He takes a moment, fingers digging into his hair, and then he slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor. “There’s a woman. A crazy fucking head case of a woman, who is sorely pissed at me, and this is her way of getting back at me.” He jerks his thumb at the TV, shaking his head. “She wanted me to kill this DEA guy. I told her I didn’t want the club involved in anything remotely to do with the DEA, so she’s gone and killed the fucker and made it look like it was us anyway. To teach me a lesson.”

I bridge my knees, still clutching hold of the bottle of…of Lagavulin? It stinks like nothing else. Rebel watches me tuck the towel up underneath me so that I’m not flashing him, a wan smile lifting up one corner of his mouth. He looks like he’s at a loss. “What does it mean, then? Will the cops come arrest you for this?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says.

“And you’ll go to jail?” I thought I’d rejoice a little more at that prospect, but the past few hours…I don’t know. Maybe I’m changing my mind about him. God, I’m not turning into one of those Stockholm bitches. I refuse. Seriously unhealthy stuff right there. But, from what he’s told me, I can see that Rebel’s reasoning behind trying to get me to help him is honorable. He’s just really not gone about it the right way.

“I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been with you the whole time that shooting was taking place. You could always tell the cops we were holed up in here all day.”

“And why would the police believe I was hiding out in a motel room with the head of a motorcycle gang, when I’ve clearly been reported as a missing person back in Seattle by now?”

Rebel leans forward, forearms resting on his knees, his eyes flashing with less worry now and more…something else. Something that makes my skin feel strange, like it’s glowing. “Young women run away and lock themselves in motel rooms with hot bikers all the time, sugar. I’d be happy to show you what activities they might engage in to pass the time. And we’re not a motorcycle gang. We’re a club.”

My cheeks are on fire. I know exactly what he’s referring to, of course. He’s suggesting we have sex, and that is not going to happen. “You swore you wouldn’t rape me,” I say, using the hand I’m holding the whiskey in to point at him accusingly. He takes the bottle from me and raises it to his lips, eyes locked on me the whole time. He drinks, swallows, inhales sharply, and then grins.

“I didn’t say anything about anyone being forced into anything, sugar. I’m talking about consensual participation.”

“And why the hell would I consent to participate with you in anything like that? I have a boyfriend, y’know.”

“I did not know that,” he says, shifting forward a little. Closer. Within reaching distance now. He takes another drink from the bottle, pressing his full lips to the beveled rim of the bottle, still watching me. Still making me feel very strange, indeed. He holds up the bottle to me, offering me a drink. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

“Matt.” I take the bottle from Rebel, not sure I want to drink from it. I do though; I need something to take the edge of the unexpected tension from this situation. The alcohol that chases over my tongue and down my throat is liquid napalm, setting small fires one after the other as it roars through my body. I gasp, barely able to catch my breath.

Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about Matt a lot. What the hell would he make of this situation right now? Would he be wondering why the hell I haven’t put any clothes on yet? A bolt of hot embarrassment washes through me, putting out the whiskey fire. Handing the bottle back, I get to my feet. “I should get dressed.”

“Why bother? We’ll be going to bed soon, anyway, right?” The way he says that—going to be bed soon—is full of innuendo. I hear his meaning clear as day: we’ll be going to bed together soon, anyway.

“What are you doing, Rebel? A second ago you were freaking out about a shooting that your motorcycle club is being framed for, and now all you seem to care about is flirting with me.” I tighten the towel around me, suddenly aware that there’s very little material between my naked body and his hands. “Shouldn’t you be thinking of a way to exonerate yourself and your club?”

Rebel shrugs. He gently takes the whiskey from me with one hand. With the other hand, he slowly traces his fingertips across the bridge of my foot, making me jump. I’d take a step back, but the bed is right behind me, blocking my way. Rebel softly runs up hand up over my foot and loops his fingers around my ankle. His thumb moves in small, careful circles over the swell of bone there, a soft, barely there contact that sends shivers of burning heat sparking upward, firing all over my body. “I think better when I’m distracted,” he says, his voice a low rumble in his chest.

I stagger sideways, almost losing my footing. “I’m not gonna be some cheap distraction for you, asshole. I’m not just some hole you can stick your dick into ’cause I’m here and it’s convenient.”

“And what if I told you I wanted to have sex with you because I like you? Would that make a difference?”

“You don’t like me.”

“Of course I do.”

I turn my back on him, heat welling everywhere all over my body. “Did you bring something else for me to wear, or should I just put my jeans and  T-shirt back on again?”

Rebel slowly gets to his feet, his chest brushing against my bare shoulder blades as he steps in between the two beds and unzips the bag he brought with him. I have to hold my breath. He rustles around in the bag and then throws something over my shoulder: another oversized T-shirt. I hold it up, and this time it doesn’t say, It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself. It says, Widow Makers MC, New Mexico and underneath, Club President. I spin around, holding it up in the air. “I can’t wear this.”

Rebel smirks, pulling his own plain black shirt over his head. He starts speaking somewhere between fully clothed and half-naked, his face hidden by his shirt, but I know he’s laughing. I can hear it in his voice. “And why not?”

“Because…because I don’t want anything to do with your club. I sure as hell don’t want your damn logo plastered all over me while I’m sleeping. I won’t willingly give you the free advertising.”

Rebel looks around, holding up his hands. “Who you advertising to, sugar? Ain’t no one here but you and me. Besides, that’s not how we roll, anyway. You see anyone outside our compound walls wearing that patch, you tell me straight up. That’s against club policy.”

“Cade.”

“What?”

“Cade was wearing a hoody with this on the back of it the day I met him. In that alleyway in Seattle.”

Rebel starts pulling the drawers open on the nightstand, searching for something. “That was different,” he says. “That was an exceptional situation.”

“Why?”

“Because he was acting on my behalf. He was there looking for my uncle. And he knew what he was gonna have to do if he found Ryan dead. He was going to have to declare war. Gotta be wearing official colors to do that.” He lifts out a large notepad in the bottom drawer, apparently having found what he was looking for. He points it at me, lifting one eyebrow. “Now put on the damn shirt.”

“Urgh, fine!” I wrestle the shirt over my head, doing my best not to drop the towel as I do so. It feels like he’s won, somehow, which is pathetic. We haven’t bet anything. He and I are not at war, not really. But wearing his club shirt makes me feel like I’m his property, and that doesn’t feel good. The material comes down to my mid-thigh, plenty long enough to preserve my modesty, but I still feel vulnerable all the same.

Rebel’s looking mighty pleased with himself when I turn around. “Do not look at me like that,” I tell him.

“Like what?”

“Like you want to fucking eat me.”

“And what if I do?”

“Just…stop!” I throw my wet towel at him, aiming for his smug, smug face. He catches it out of the air and tosses it onto the ground by the door.

“You’re not helping matters,” he says, his head tilted to one side. “You’re really sexy when you’re angry.”

I lift up my right hand and flip him off. "There. You think that’s sexy?"

"Yeah. I do actually." He smiles even wider. I think he's going to come for me, then. I imagine how it would play out: him prowling forward, sharp eyes pinning me to the spot. Him reaching up underneath the T-shirt he's given me to wear. His fingers searching for the most sensitive of places between my legs. My hands pushing him away, but my body craving more. This is fucked.

This. Is. Fucked.

Rebel rubs his hand over his jaw, lifting one eyebrow at me. It appears my imagination is misguided; he doesn’t come for me after all. He turns around and starts tacking pieces of paper that he tears from the notepad onto the wall. God knows where he found the tacks. And god knows why I’m feeling slightly disappointed.

"What are you doing?"

"Something to occupy my mind while I problem solve. You're welcome to help." He pulls a sharpie out of his back pocket and begins to write. I stand there, mouth open, watching him as he scrawls what essentially equates to hieroglyphs on the papers he's pinned to the wall.

I angle my head, hoping that a different perspective will give what he's written some meaning. It's pointless, though. The mathematic equation—I'm smart enough to know that's what it is, at least—makes absolutely no sense. "What is that?" I ask.

"This," Rebel says, tapping his pen on the paper, "is a proof sketch for the prime number theorem, using big O notation. I'm gonna use this to try and solve Legendre's Conjecture.”

“How long will that take?”

Rebel, shirtless, absolutely covered in tattoos…Rebel, the leader of a motorcycle club, the man who refuses to let me go home to my family, shrugs. “I don’t know. Been working on it since I left college. I could prove the conjecture tomorrow. I might never prove it.”

“You’ve been working on this for years?”

He gives me a broad, reckless kind of smile. The kind of smile that makes women’s insides twist. “Only eight. My old professor’s been working on it for over fifty.” Turning around again, he starts scribbling at the paper, leaving a wake of marks and symbols behind him that are liable to give me a headache just looking at them. I’m beginning to feel really rather foolish. He’s obviously way smarter than I gave him credit for. Way smarter than me, and I accused him of never even finishing high school.

Oh god. He definitely did finish high school because he was just talking about finishing college eight years ago. I feel rather triumphant when I realize this gives me insight into a little tidbit about himself that he wouldn’t share with me earlier. I sit down on the edge of the bed, his bed, clutching one of his pillows to my chest like a shield. “Twenty-nine.”

Rebel glances over his shoulder at me, a bemused expression on his face. “Twenty-nine is not the correct answer.” He carries on scribbling, the muscles in his forearm, his tricep and bicep, across his shoulder blades and down his back all shifting beautifully underneath his skin. “It’s not forty-two, either. Might have worked in Hitchhikers but this is slightly more complicated.”

“Your age,” I say. “You’re twenty-nine. You finished college eight years ago, which means you’re twenty-nine.”

He doesn’t seem even remotely fazed that I’ve worked this out. “Am I?”

“Yes.”

“And what if I went on a gap year to Europe with an ex-girlfriend in between high school and college? What if I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to major in and switched out courses halfway through?”

“Did you do either of those things?”

“Nope.” I can hear him grinning, even though he doesn’t turn to look at me. He doesn’t take his eyes off the paper in front of him and the ever-increasing spider web of mathematical figures. “Hand me that whiskey?” he asks, holding out his hand behind him. I pass him the bottle, wondering how alcohol is possibly the answer right now.

“Seems to me coffee would be more appropriate. I don’t think you’re gonna solve a super old math problem if you’re wasted.”

“Solving this problem isn’t the point. Solving my DEA/Maria Rosa problem is the point. I just have get my brain working. And since you won’t have sex with me, this is the next best thing.”

I can’t help but laugh. “You think you use your brain when you’re having sex?”

Rebel’s pen freezes on the paper. He turns, then, towering over me, my face level with his belt buckle. It’s as though I can literally feel the heat rolling off his body. He’s intimidating and overwhelming, his presence a powerful force to be reckoned with. “Oh, Sophia. I use my brain. Every time I sleep with a woman, I’m using my head to figure out what she likes. How she likes it. What I can do to have her screaming my name until her throat’s raw.” He takes a step closer, his perfect fucking abs pretty much filling my eye line. He knows how he looks. He knows how perfect all of him is. “I’m also thinking up ways for my partner in crime to make me happy, too. How she can defer to me, hand herself over to me, let me use her body for my own pleasure.” Gently brushing a wet strand of my hair from my face, Rebel makes a low humming sound. It sends shivers through me, making me feel shame for the first time in my life. I shouldn’t be reacting this way to him. I just told myself I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for my captor, and yet right now…

It’s so fitting that he just referred to his sexual conquests as his partners in crime; I get the feeling sex with Rebel really would be criminal. “If the guys you’ve been sleeping with haven’t been using every single part of their bodies when they’re fucking you, Sophia, including their heads, then they haven’t been doing it right.” He takes a drink from the whiskey bottle, and then he offers it to me. “Is Matthew the boyfriend not a very good lover, Soph?”

“That is seriously none of your business.”

“What you mean to say is, you’re a virgin.”

I feel like my face is on fire. “I am not a virgin!”

Rebel’s expression hardens a little, almost imperceptibly, but I catch it. “Didn’t Hector check you?”

“Yes, he did. And he wanted me gone, so he told Raphael I was a virgin. He said he couldn’t afford the attention I’d bring with me.” I shiver at the memory of Hector’s fingers inside me. That disgusting look on his face. Suddenly, I feel very sick. I snatch the bottle from him and drink. I drink deep, lighting up from the inside out as the explosive alcohol tears through me. Surprisingly, the burn dulls down after the first few mouthfuls. Rebel folds his arms across his chest, watching me swallow once, twice, three more times. I let my eyes drift a little, catching brief flashes of the ink that marks his skin. A skull sits over his ribcage, crowned in thorns, flocked by birds. A banner runs through the design, and on it, the text: Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned. Two full sleeves, bursting with color, scroll down his arms. The designs are filled with dragons and water lilies, Japanese designs mostly. The lines of them are harsh and dark, but they’re beautiful. On his chest, more birds—two swallows perching on top of the handles of two crossed guns, their barrels pointed downward. In the center of the design, a heart, bright red and bleeding. Live For Something runs along the top of the ink. Or Die For Nothing is written in cursive underneath. As he lifts his left arm, leaning against the wall, I see something else that catches my attention: Arabic script tracing up the inside of his bicep, leading toward his heart.

“You getting a good look there, sugar?” Rebel asks. Amusement colors his tone, to the point where I feel like kicking myself for being busted checking him out. And I was checking him out. I’ve seen Matt naked a thousand times, but I’ve never felt this intrigued by his body. Not even the first time we had sex. Our bodies just came together without any fireworks, whereas right now I feel like it’s the fourth of July inside my head and I haven’t even touched this guy. I resent that he can produce such a reaction from me. It makes me feel weak.

“Just looking for the prison tattoos,” I snap.

“Haven’t been to prison. Sorry to disappoint. Been arrested enough times, but they’ve never been able to pin anything bad enough on me to warrant jail time.”

“Until now.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe so.” He doesn’t seem to like me pointing that out. His shoulders are tense when he returns his attention back to his unsolvable mathematical squiggles. I drink more whiskey, trying not to feel anything. Not panic or terror or hope. Or the faint glimmer of interest I seem to be showing in this man, who I should fear with every bone in my body.

Now that I have the opportunity to look properly without him mocking me, I check out the ink on his back. I anticipate it to be the Widow Makers’ patch, but yet again I’m surprised. The ink Rebel has tattooed into his back has absolutely nothing to do with the Widow Makers, as far as I can tell. It’s a depiction of the Virgin Mary, hands clasped in prayer, head bowed low. She’s not what I would have expected from a man like Rebel. She’s beautiful.

And she’s weeping.

REBEL

Unsurprisingly, I don’t solve Legendre’s Conjecture. I make zero headway on it, in fact, just like I always do. It serves its purpose, though. It’s around two in the morning by the time the solution to my Maria Rosa problem reveals itself to me. Sophia sat and watched television for a couple of hours, drinking the whiskey I offered to her every once in a while, half pretending to watch the TV, half hiding the fact that she was actually watching me. Eventually she passed out at eleven thirty on my bed—a lesser man would have considered that an invitation and crawled up there with her—but I kept on working, feeling like I was on the brink of some conclusion and that at any moment it would come to me. And then it did.

I need to kill Maria Rosa.

Of all the crazy, half-baked conclusions ever dreamed up by a guy with a head full of whiskey, this is potentially the very worst of them all. But even once we’ve cleared this mess up with the DEA, the crazy bitch is still gonna be pissed at me. The only permanent solution I can think of that will keep the club safe and prevent any more civilian deaths is that Maria Rosa must die.

When I wake up in the morning, it’s the first thing I’m thinking: Maria Rosa must die. Couple that with the fact that I have a raging case of morning glory and a fuzzy head, and things are not shaping up well.

“Oh my god. What the hell?” Sophia’s shocked voice really just finishes the whole thing off. I grab the sheet around my waist, making sure she’s not exclaiming at my raging hard on. She’s not. She’s sitting up on the other bed, hair crazy and sticking up at all angles, staring at the wall. When I ran out of space on the paper last night, I just started writing directly onto the wall. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

“I hope you didn’t leave a credit card at the front desk,” she says, rubbing her head with her hand.

“Alex owes me more than a wall,” I inform her. Bastard owes me his life. I climb out of bed and hit the bathroom, cupping my seriously painful erection in my hand, not caring if she sees now. Pissing is pretty much impossible. I give up after about four minutes and find her waiting on the other side of the bathroom door, like she’s been standing out there, listening.

She looks guilty, but only for a moment. Even with her hair standing up like she shoved her fingers in a power outlet and her skin smelling of stale whiskey, the girl is fucking hot. Can’t be denied. She pouts at me, placing her hands on her hips. “I could have run,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

“I could have run. You left me alone in here with the door unlocked, and I could have run.”

“How d’you know the door isn’t locked?”

“Because I just opened it,” she tells me.

“Huh.” She didn’t run. I don’t really know what to make of that. I haven’t exactly been the best kidnapper in the history of kidnappers; it would totally have served my ass right if she’d done a runner. “Should I be thanking you right now?”

“No. I’m just too hung over to even try it. You need to move the hell out of the way.” She shoves past me, elbowing her way into the small bathroom. From there, she pushes me out and locks the door behind her. My ears are greeted by the familiar sounds of someone who’s drunk too much the night before, throwing up as though their lives depended on it.

Neither of us are feeling particularly chatty on the remaining leg of the journey to Ebony Briars, the estate where I grew up. We stop for food once and a few more bathroom breaks so Sophia can rid herself of the remaining Lagavulin in her system. Aside from that, my foot is glued to the gas pedal, and the pedal’s glued to the motherfucking floor.

Five miles outside Grove Hill, Clark County, I pull over the Hummer and jump out of the driver’s seat into the dirt, my skin already itching with the need to fucking leave. Soph watches with curiosity as I pull the bag from the backseat, throw it on the hood and start undressing on the side of the road. “What the hell are you doing?” She leans through the open driver’s door, frowning at me. I’m down to my boxers by this point, standing on the side of the road, feet bare, boots thrown into the foot well. I scowl, yanking out a white button-down shirt from the bag, shaking it out. “I’m maintaining the illusion that my father’s only son isn’t a complete fucking reprobate.”

Sophia watches as I slide the shirt on, covering my tattoos, covering who I am, and all for the sake of peace. It’s always been this way. Ever since I was born. I may not have had ink all over my body back then, and I may not have worn clothes my father would consider common, but I’ve always adjusted the person I am on the inside. Truth be told, that’s far more complicated than throwing on a suit and covering the way I look. I’ve never been able to truly master the skill of not being me. Not being a disappointment. Hence all the arguing and the shouting, and the years of silence in between.

I catch Soph staring at me, her face half drawn into shadow as the light fades. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says, shrugging. “I just…I don’t know. I guess you seem too strong willed to be the guy getting changed on the side of the road is all.”

I give her a grim smile, flashing my teeth. “If my father thought for a second that I was involved in any form of criminal activity, he’d be the one to hand my ass over to the police. His precious career is far more important to him than his son’s freedom. Believe me, it’s in my interests, the club’s interests, for him to think I’m an blue-collar businessman.”

“So that’s what I should say? If he asks me anything?”

Poor Soph. She really has no clue how this is gonna work. There’s an excellent reason why I haven’t spent the past two days coaching her about how she’s to tell people we met. Who we are to one another. Why I’ve brought her along in the first place. “I wouldn’t worry about that, sugar. He’s not gonna ask you any questions.”

She looks confused, her eyebrows arching upwards. “Won’t he want you to introduce him to me or something?”

I pull on my suit pants, laughing bitterly. “No. No, he won’t give a fuck who you are, I’m afraid.”

******

The monstrous old colonial building looms out of the dusk like a ghost ship. My grandfather told me once my mother loved the place because it looked exactly the way it did when it was built in eighteen fifty-three, a constant of Clark Country history that would never change. It’s a beautiful old house. Shame I can’t look at the place and see anything other than the brutal childhood I spent here.

Sophia sits forward in her seat as we make our way down the long, lit driveway. Lightning bugs flicker everywhere, small darts of glowing orange rising drunkenly from the gardens on either side of us as we approach.

“Well, this is pretty much the last thing I was expecting,” she breathes, her gaze drinking in the grand columns and the prestigious, eight-foot-high entranceway. “You grew up here?”

“I grew up here,” I confirm. The words grind out between my clenched teeth.

“Incredible.”

In the distance, I can make out Cade’s family home, lit up like a bonfire against the darkening horizon. Nowhere near as ostentatious as Ebony Briar, the Preston’s property is still vast and completely over the top. I’m pretty fucking certain the only reason I never tried to murder my old man as a teenager was because I could escape there whenever his back was turned.

The front door is already opening as I park the car outside the house. Carl, who must be in his late fifties now, is my father’s longest-serving employee. Twenty-one years. The guy deserves a medal just for surviving this long. He sidles out of the house, barely opening the door, and jogs down the steps to meet us.

The first thing he does when I’m out of the car is pull me into a bear hug. “You’ve arrived in the middle of dinner, you crazy son of a bitch,” he says, smiling. Holding me at arm’s length, he shakes his head, as though I’m different somehow. As though he’s trying to marry up some mental image of a past, younger me with this older, more life-worn me. It may have only been four years, and I may not look all that different in my polished Italian leather shoes and my sickeningly expensive tailored suit, but Carl is the kind of guy to see people. Really see them. I wonder, when he looks into my eyes, if he can see the souls of all the people I’ve killed since we last met.

“So good to see you, Jay. So very good to see you.” He grips hold of my shoulders, squeezing tightly. The light’s still on inside the car; Carl sees Sophia still sitting in the passenger seat, looking really fucking uncomfortable, and his whole face lights up. “Who is this?” He hurries to open her door—good job, since I haven’t had the chance to unlock it from the inside yet. He holds his hand out to her and helps her out of the car, shooting disapproving daggers at me as he does so. “Seems your manners have abandoned you since you left Alabama, boy.”

My manners aren’t the only things that have abandoned me since I left the south. I left my moral compass on the side of the road somewhere along the way, too. “I know,” I tell him. “I’m just the worst.”

Carl rubs Soph’s hand in between his, the old bugger clearly rejoicing in the fact that I’ve finally brought a woman home with me. “What’s your name, darlin’? I wait for young master Jamie to introduce me and I’ll die of old age, seems.”

Soph’s eyes flicker to mine—the name’s obviously stumped her. This will be the first time she’s heard anyone call me Jamie. The first time I’ve heard anyone call me that name in a long time. Only Cade is privy to that information, and he knows better than to call me that. Ever.

She also looks smug, as though she knew someone was going to want to know her name at some point during this visit. “I’m Sophia,” she says. “Sophia Letitia Marne.” She doesn’t realize how weird it is to give someone her full name like that. She’s still trying to reinforce it in her head, so it must seem smart. For me, the guy who knows she’s still lying about who she is, it’s a pretty obvious tell.

“I’m Carl. A pleasure to meet you, sweet girl.” He kisses the back of her hand, still giving me disapproving glances. “You come on inside now. I’ll come back out and gather your bags in a moment, once you’re settled.”

I give Carl a hearty slap on the back. I’ve missed him badly. He grins at me, leading Soph up the stairs and into the house. I wait a beat, taking a second to gather myself. I never thought I’d be back here. Never thought I’d be climbing these steps again. And the fact that Soph’s here? Yeah, the fact that I’m heading inside with a girl I technically bought as my sex slave at auction isn’t helping how surreal the whole situation is, either.

SOPHIA

The inside of the house… Scratch that. The inside of the mansion is just as grand and austere as the outside. Carl leads me by the hand inside the marble floored foyer, and my breath catches in my throat. Two huge, imposing staircases sweep around, rising up to the second floor, just like out of a Jane Austen book. Likewise, the cut crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling is beautiful. It spills warm, honeyed light over everything. The heavy gilt-framed paintings on the walls. The plush maroon-colored rugs that dot the polished floor. The Grecian vases, filled with wild flowers, which sit on top of every available surface. Every single item of furniture, from the wing-backed chairs to the perfectly placed buffet dressers, looks old. Old, but beautifully taken care of.

Rebel’s behind me, his hand in the small of my back. “Perhaps we could save the penny tour ’til later? We’re both kind of tired right now, Carl.”

“Of course. It’s a really long drive from New York. You both must be dead on your feet,” Carl says.

I squirrel away yet another scrap of information that I might need later. Rebel’s father and his employees think he calls New York home. They probably think he’s some big city hot shot, living it up in some high-rise penthouse apartment or something, when the ironic truth is that he lives in a secluded cabin in the middle of the desert. About as far from New York as you can get, really.

I still can’t get over the name. Jamie. He didn’t look surprised when Carl called him that—like he was expecting it to happen and couldn’t care less. I think I know him better than that now, though. He’s secretive. Every small fragment of information I know about him is hard won. And he still never told me how old he was. I have to be close with my guess of twenty-nine, though. He certainly doesn’t look much older than that.

Carl squeezes my hand again, smiling warmly. “Well, all right then. I’ll go and move that beast of a car before your daddy sees it, Jay. Your room is still where it’s always been, son.” He slips back outside, pulling the door closed behind him, leaving Jay and me behind. I curve an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to speak.

“Louis James Aubertin the third,” he says, his mouth pulling down at the corners. “My grandfather refused to call me Louis, though—hated my father—so he called me Jamie. Or Jay.” He reaches out absently, touching his fingertips to the petals of a bunch of flowers sitting on a small pedestal at the base of the stairs. “It kind of stuck,” he says. “My father refused to call me Louis anyway. Said I wasn’t strong enough to carry the name.”

I give him a small smile, not sure how I’m supposed to react. “Louis James Aubertin the third. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? I prefer Jamie.” I don’t know why I say this. It’s not my job to make him feel better. I owe him nothing, but…I don’t know. It’s so hard to explain. Every single hour I spend with him leads me away from hating him, and feeling…what? God, it’s too complicated to even try and put a name on it.

“Thank you,” he says, his eyes resting on me. They seem less hard. Less fierce, somehow. “I prefer Rebel, though.”

“Why Rebel?”

A small crease forms in between his brows. He stares at the flowers, stroking his fingers over their delicate petals, being so, so gentle. “Jamie was before. Jamie was an honorable man. Rebel…” He looks at me, wearing a small, almost sad smile. “Rebel does what he has to. Come on. We need to make ourselves scarce.”

“Why?”

“Because the very worst thing you can do to my father, besides be me, is interrupt him during dinner. Better we see him tomorrow than disturb him while he’s shoving food into his fucking face.” Rebel holds out his hand. Such a strange thing to do. It’s as though being here, around Carl and his impeccable manners, has changed him slightly. I take his hand, feeling conflicted. This situation is bizarre, to say the least. I don’t remember the last time I felt this confused. A part of me wants to go back on my word and tell anyone who will listen that I’m here against my will. But another part of me is beginning to…is beginning to trust the man now guiding me up the wide staircase, toward god knows what.

He hasn’t hurt me.

He hasn’t lied to me as far as I can tell.

He hasn’t abused me in any way, aside from being incomprehensibly annoying when the mood takes him.

For the time being, and for the sake of my sanity, I’m choosing to believe that he’s still an honorable man. That after all of this is over and we’ve driven back to New Mexico, he will let me go.

Rebel doesn’t let go of my hand when we reach the top of the stairs. He walks briskly down a long, well-lit hallway that branches off to the left, hurrying, as though he doesn’t want to linger. I realize why when I look at the walls.

Photos of him. Everywhere.

Photos of him in a football uniform. Much younger. Unsmiling. Photos of him in a graduation gown, cap perfectly straight on his head. Still unsmiling. Another picture, with another diploma in his hand—I see the name of the institute printed on the mounting of the picture, and my head starts spinning. “Massachusetts Institute of Technology? You went to MIT?”

“I did,” he says. He doesn’t stop walking. The muscles in his jaw are jumping like crazy.

“Wow.” We pass more and more photos. Images of Rebel, sans his tattoos, shirtless and holding trophies, swimming trophies, still unsmiling. As we near the end of the hallway, the photos on the wall change dramatically. They’re not of Rebel the over-achiever. Rebel the sporting hero. They’re of Rebel the soldier. I try to slow, to look properly, but he tightens his grip, walking faster. “Will you—will you just stop!” I rip my hand free, backing up a few paces so I can look at the walls properly.

For some reason, my heart is hammering in my chest as I take it all in. The first picture of him is in a dress uniform, buttons shining brightly, hat placed firmly on his head. Unlike in his other pictures, there’s a quiet sense of pride lurking in those cool blue eyes of his. He looks so young. Just a baby. “How old are you here?” I whisper.

Rebel sighs, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. His expression is tired as he joins me in front of the photograph, his chest so close to my back I can feel the heat of him radiating into me. “Fifteen,” he says. “I went to a military school.”

“And how was that?”

He laughs a hard laugh. “Like winning a five-year-long trip to motherfucking Disneyland. The fun just never ended. They called me Duke. Seems, when your name ends in ‘the third’, you can’t really avoid that shit.” His voice is full of sarcasm, but I can hear something else in there, too. Hatred. He hated it there. So why, then, does he look so proud in his uniform? I want to ask, but we’re not there yet. He probably wouldn’t tell me.

I walk along, looking at the rest of the pictures. In each shot, he gets older, bigger, taller, stronger. That hardness develops in his eyes—not cruelty, but strength. A challenge to the outside world. The photos show images of him with a bunch of other men, always surrounded by other guys in uniform. Even frozen this way, trapped in some millisecond of the past, it’s clear they respected him. Gravitated toward him. There’s always an arm thrown over his shoulder. Someone grinning or laughing, pleased to be the guy standing next to him. I see Cade in nearly every single shot, no matter what the landscape in the background—from what must be training grounds at his school to actual army bases. And then…then to the desert.

“You didn’t just go to military school,” I say. “You signed up afterwards. You were deployed.” I turn to look at him. He doesn’t return my gaze—just stands there, staring at the history of his life, framed and hung on the walls of his father’s home. “Where did they send you?” I whisper.

“Afghanistan.” The word comes out flat. Devoid of any and all emotion. Rebel blinks, a visible shiver running through his body.

“And?” I need to know more. I never would have guessed he was in the army, but it makes sense. His club might as well be a military organization, after all. A military organization at war.

“And what? There is nothing else. I did two tours. I left and I didn’t look back. The end.” He takes hold of my hand again, this time not pulling me quite so determinedly, but drawing me away all the same.

“There is no the end on something like that, Rebel. The story’s never over. It becomes a part of you. There’s just what comes after.”

He narrows his eyes at me, opening the final door in the corridor—a room all on its own, separated from the others. “You seem to know a lot about ex-servicemen, Miss Sophia Letitia Marne. Did a couple of tours yourself, did you?”

“No. I was studying psychology before all of…this. We studied the way people’s perspectives on the world change when they were thrown into tense, dangerous situations and expected to fight. To put the welfare of others in front of their own.”

“Are you about to start spouting PTSD shit at me right now? Because if you are, you can fucking forget it.” He storms into the room beyond, leaving me standing out in the hallway. Seems I touched a raw nerve. I follow after him, taking in the huge room—clearly his old bedroom—one detail at a time. The place is flooded with the bloody red light of the sunset, pouring in through two walls worth of massive windows. In the center of the room, a huge bed, already made up, dominates the space. There’s not much else in here. A small bookshelf, filled with books. A walk-in closet at the far end of the room. A couple of shelves—

My eyes freeze on the shelves. Three of them, one on top of the other, a foot in between, and evenly spaced on them sit about fifteen snow globes. They’re just like the one I found on the desk back in Rebel’s cabin. I walk straight to them, my eyes skating over each one—Detroit, New York, London, Paris, Vancouver, Calgary, Switzerland, Wyoming. Niagara. Places mostly within the states, but from cities all over the world, too.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“My mother collected them from all the places she went to. I should have boxed them up years ago.” Rebel turns his back on the shelves, crossing the room to look out of the window. Huge, ancient trees choked with Kudzu fill the view beyond.

“Chicago. You have one from Chicago back at your cabin. Was that one of hers as well?”

Rebel remains facing out of the window, but I see his shoulders tense. “Yes.” Doesn’t seem like he’s planning on divulging the significance of that particular snow globe—why Chicago was important enough to take with him, while the others remained behind. I don’t ask, either. His mood is spiraling. First me prying into the army stuff, and now this… If I get too nosy, he’s liable to shut down altogether. My motives for learning as much about him as possible have morphed over the past few days. Originally, I wanted to know so I could tell the police when I eventually manage to report all of this to them. But now, I’m just interested. There’s a drive inside me to break the code that is this complicated, hard-headed, kind-of-annoying man. After the photos on the wall and the obvious love Carl has for him, I’m beginning to see beyond his tattoos and the razor blade-sharp look he carries in his eyes. Could he actually be a good guy?

I need to change the subject. “Did you manage to figure out what you’re going to do about the shooting?” I ask. Probably not the best topic of conversation to put him in a better mood, but I’m curious. I woke up a couple of times after I passed out last night, already feeling shitty from the whiskey, and he was still scribbling away, trying to find a resolution to his problem. After that, I had nightmares that I was trapped inside that Trader Joe’s, scurrying from aisle to aisle, while men wearing Widow Makers cuts stalked me, calling out my name.

“No,” Rebel says, sighing. “Not a good solution, anyway. Not an easy one.”

Nothing about any of this seems easy to me. I hold my tongue, though. “So what are we doing right now? We’re just going to wait here until your father summons us?”

“Yep.”

“Perfect. Because we just love being cooped up in small, enclosed spaces with each other.” I press my fingers into my forehead, sighing heavily.

“I actually don’t mind being cooped up with you, sugar.”

I think he’s being sarcastic again, but when I look up at him, he’s not pulling faces. He looks…he looks like he means it. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I do nothing but complain. How the hell can you find that enjoyable to be around?”

“You’re feisty. I like that. And you give me shit. Not many people feel like they can do that.”

“Probably because they’re tied to a chair, scared for their lives, right?”

He gives that hard laugh again, though this time he actually smiles. Walking away from the window, he sits on the edge of his bed, tipping his head back, sighing. I watch the muscles in his throat work as he speaks. “Guess that all depends on the circumstances of the situation, doesn’t it?”

“So…you have hurt people?”

“Many people, sugar. Many, many people.” He looks at me, his eyes zeroing in on me, unblinking. It’s like he’s daring me to react. Daring me to look away. Daring me to do or say something.

“Was there a good reason for everything you’ve done?”

“I think there was a good reason. But would a judge? Or God? Or you?” He closes his eyes, and I feel it then, stronger than before. I want to do something crazy. I want to comfort him. I want to help him. I want to be closer to him. How is this possible? I feel like crying at my own stupidity. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “Maybe.”

I turn away from him, picking up a snow globe with shaky fingers. I suddenly don’t feel safe anymore, and it isn’t because of Rebel. It’s because of me. Because there must be something seriously wrong with me.

“Are you afraid of heights?” I didn’t hear him standing up. He’s right behind me, so close his breath brushes against the skin of my neck as he speaks. I break out in goosebumps, unable to control the reaction—half fear, half something far more worrying.

Matt. You’re in love with Matt. This man is a self-professed dangerous criminal. You are not attracted to him. You’re just not. “I’m all right with heights. Why do you ask?” Just like my hands, my voice shakes.

“Do you trust me enough to climb out of this window with me?”

I spin around, giving him a look I hope expresses how mad I think he is for even asking that. “Why are we climbing out of the window?”

He’s standing so close, looming over me. I’m not used to being around someone so tall. The Romera women are tall themselves, it’s in our genes; I’ve frequently found myself standing a clear few inches above most men. This is an unusual feeling. Anxious, but weirdly—and this is the strangest part—safe.

“We’re climbing out of the window because I want to show you something. What do you think?” Rebel’s eyes are crystal clear, so sharp and assertive. He stares at me, studying each aspect of my face individually—forehead, nose, cheekbones, jaw, mouth—before he looks up into my eyes. “You trust me not to let you fall to your death?” he asks, that odd, deep line forming in his cheek as he fights a smile.

“I suppose I’m no use to you if I’m dead,” I reply.

“Exactly.” He seems pleased that I’ve risen to this challenge. Returning to the window he was standing at a moment ago, he unlatches it and opens out the two panes, sticking his head out and looking up. Smirking, he glances back at me and nods. “All right, you have to follow me up. I’ll grab you and lift you.” With that, he pulls himself out of the window using the lintel to hold his body weight and then he’s gone.

“Oh, boy.” I stand by the window, flinching when I see how far the drop to the ground is.

“Just climb up onto the ledge. I’ll pull you up the rest of the way.”

I look up and Rebel’s already on the roof, half his body visible as he leans out into space, reaching down for me. “Is this going to be worth it?” I ask, wondering if I can back the hell out now without looking weak.

Rebel waggles his eyebrows at me, laughing. “I can make it worth your while.”

“Shut up.” I clamber up onto the windowsill, the soles of my Chucks not feeling all that grippy all of a sudden. I look for the handhold he must have used to pull himself up and I see it, a small length of iron piping protruding out of the house. Probably designed to drain excess water if it rains. I lean up, my heart in my throat, reaching for it. Adrenalin spears through me as I grab hold of it, and then my body is twisting, moving, leaning out into space.

I’d wanted to do it myself, to pull myself up without his help, but that’s not what happens. Instead, I’m left dangling out in the void, one hand holding onto the length of iron pipe, the other scrambling, reaching, grabbing upward for…nothing. There’s nothing there.

“Jesus Christ, Soph! What the fuck are you doing?” There’s grunting above me, and then hands, big and strong, locking around the wrist above my head. My shoulder sings out in pain as I’m wrenched up, knees, hips, ribcage scraping against the edge of the roof as I’m pulled over it. And then I’m safe. The whole thing takes place in the space of five or six seconds, but it feels as though it took a hell of a lot longer. I lie on my back, chest rising and falling at speed, barely able to think coherently through the roaring sound of my own blood in my ears.

“Well, that was fucking stupid.” Rebel slumps back next to me, lying on his back, too. Both our feet are hanging over the edge of the roof, our chests hitching up and down like crazy. “When I say I’m gonna lift you up, you’re supposed to fucking let me,” he pants.

“I’m sorry. I just…”

“Don’t trust me.”

I let my head loll to the side so I’m looking at his profile. His lips are parted. There’s an angry crease to his forehead, his eyes narrowed up at the sky. “I’m sorry,” I say. And I mean it. He wouldn’t have let me fall, and I was being my usual stubborn self. I could have fallen and died. Rebel sits up, the back of his suit jacket wrinkled now. He lets out a deep breath, shaking his head.

“This…this is all fucking ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you. My uncle getting murdered. My entire club moments away from being fucking arrested for a crime they actually didn’t commit. Now that’s fucking irony, right there.” He gets to his feet, carefully standing on the slightly pitched roof, and then he turns to me and holds out his hand.

“I’m sorry, too, Soph. I should never have put you in this position.” I somehow don’t think he’s referring to the fact that we’re now trapped up on a rooftop and I have no clue how I’m going to get down. I take his hand, allowing him to help me to my feet. “My uncle would wanna kick my fucking ass right now,” he says. “This would not impress him at all.” He points between us, scowling. “Come on. Be careful where you’re putting your feet. I was eighteen the last time I came up here, and I weighed a hell of a lot less.”

I gingerly follow after him, watching where he steps so I can place my feet exactly where he places his. The roof is pitched on either side as we climb upward, but once we reach the ridge, the apex where the two sides meet, I see that there’s a flattened section to the right, a cutout of the roof panel. About twelve feet long and eight feet deep, the platform has been leveled for no apparent reason that I can tell. No air conditioning unit. No access back in through the roof. It’s just there. Rebel drops down onto the platform, reaching up and turning to face me. By the look on his face, it hits him at the same time as it hits me that what he’s doing—lifting me down beside him, like a lover would—is weird.

I tuck my hair behind my ears, clearing my throat. “What is this place? What is it for?”

Rebel places his hands on my shoulders and physically pivots me, pointing me in the direction of the sunset. I feel like I can’t breathe; the sight is the most formidable, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It looks like the sky is on fire. “I’m guessing it’s for this,” he says, removing his hands from my shoulders. He sinks down, sitting Indian style on the platform. I do the same, not daring to take my eyes off the horizon, not wanting to miss a single second of it.

“But how did people get out here? They can’t have been climbing out of windows. I think we’ve just proven that that’s not safe.”

Rebel snorts, clearly not over the fact that I didn’t just do as I was told and let him lift me. “There used to be a small doorway.” He jerks his head back, motioning behind him.

“But not anymore?” The wall behind us is smooth brick and render, no sign of a door in sight.

“Louis had it bricked up the day I was born. My mother apparently liked to come up here.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

We sit in silence for a while, until there’s nothing left of the sun, sunken beyond the distant fields, leaving behind nothing but the tiniest glimmer of light. “You can go. In the morning, I’ll drive you back to town,” Rebel says abruptly.

“What? You’re just gonna let me go?”

“Yeah. Why not? Everything else is fucked. Hector and Raphael would somehow find a way out of being arrested, anyway. They’d bribe the fucking judge. Or just kill him, too. Your testimony would be pointless. And after all those people in that grocery store…” Rebel leans back on his elbows, crossing his feet at his ankles. “After all of those random people being killed because of me, I don’t particularly want your family’s blood on my hands, too. You should just catch the Greyhound back to Seattle.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Somehow, it feels like this might be a trick. But then again, Rebel looks absolutely devastated. Why would he bother putting on such a convincing act, if he’s only just going to tell me he was joking in the morning? That doesn’t strike me as his style. Doesn’t strike me as the sort of head game he would play. “Do you mean it?”

“Sure. At least I’ll have a vaguely clear conscience where you’re concerned, if the five-o do come calling.”

I hug my knees up to my chin, tears stinging at my eyes. I can’t look at him. If I do, I’m gonna start sobbing and I won’t be able to stop. He’s letting me go. Tomorrow, I get to go home to my family. “Thank you, Jamie.”

He bristles at that, doesn’t like it, I can tell, but I’m thinking of what he said in the hallway before. Jamie was an honorable man. And him dropping this whole thing, setting me free like he said he would, is an honorable thing to do. Far more Jamie than Rebel.

We sit in silence for a long time, until we start to see stars peeking through the deepening blue of the night sky. “I used to bring all of my dates up here to see the stars,” he eventually says, pointing up at them. “Never brought anyone to see the sunset, though. That was always something I did alone.”

I can imagine him as a young teenager, scrambling up here, sitting and watching for hours. I can imagine him bringing girls up here, too. Making out with them under the blanket of stars. Doing much worse, no doubt. “I’m sure they were all incredibly beautiful. And incredibly grateful,” I say, allowing a hint of sarcasm to pepper my tone.

“So grateful,” he answers. “Can’t blame them, really. Being invited up here was like winning a golden ticket to the chocolate factory.” His face is deadpan, though I can tell he’s joking. “As far as them all being beautiful, you’re probably right there. But you, sugar…just so you know, you’d win the title for Most Beautiful Woman Louis James Aubertin Ever Snuck Up Onto The Roof hands down.”

I can feel two hot patches flaming on my cheeks—embarrassment. I hug my knees tighter to me, not sure if I want to look at him or not. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Flirt with me. Say stuff like that. Proposition me.”

Rebel laughs, unashamed and, unlike me, unembarrassed. “Because I told you, sugar. I like you. I’d definitely try and fuck you if we’d have met under any other circumstances.”

“You do that a lot? Try and fuck a lot of girls?”

“No. Never. Just the ones I think might make pliable bedmates.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You think I’d be pliable?”

“I think, despite how resilient you are when you need to be, you’d let the right person have control over you if the situation presented itself.”

“You mean that I’d let someone dominate me?”

“And you’d fucking love it.”

“And you assume that you’re the right person?”

“Oh, sugar. I’m the only person who could dominate you.”

I want to laugh. I want to laugh right in his face, but the arrogance that’s normally present when he says something sexual isn’t there right now. He’s being totally and utterly serious.

“I don’t understand you,” I whisper.

“Are you supposed to?” he whispers back.

“It’s how my brain works. I’m studying psychology so I can understand everyone I ever meet. I like knowing how people work. What makes them tick. But you…”

Rebel smiles. It’s a kick-you-in-the-guts kind of smile that I can imagine a boy from Alabama wearing. Slowly, he reaches over and pulls at the lace on my shoe. “Don’t bother trying to get inside my head, sugar. It’s a dark and fucking scary place. Even I don’t want to be here most of the time. You change your mind about the sex, though, and we can talk.”

REBEL

I climb my way back down through my bedroom window, and this time Soph trusts me. She lowers her legs down and I catch her around the waist, pulling her back in through the window. I can feel her heart slamming against my chest as I hold her a second too long against me. God, I’m a glutton for the worst kind of punishment. She’s not for me. She’s for some fuckhead back in Seattle called Matt, apparently.

I intend on keeping my word; I’ll drive her to the Greyhound stop in the morning, and she and I will go our separate ways. It’ll be for the best. The more I thought about it, the shittier I felt about forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. I’ve never been that person. Losing Ryan has been seriously fucking shitty, but I can’t darken my soul even more by stooping to these new lows.

It’s gonna be dark enough after I’ve finished with Maria Rosa.

I let Soph sleep in the bed, and I fall asleep in the reading chair beside the window, listening to the cicadas’ song. When I wake up, the day is barely breaking, and my father is standing over me in his dressing gown.

“So,” he says.

“So?”

“You’re not even man enough to sleep in the same bed as the woman you’re fuckin’? All the girls paradin’ around this place in their underwear when you were a teenager, I thought you were at least about to get your dick hard, boy.”

And so it begins.

“Good to see you, too, Sir.”

“Don’t you fucking Sir me.” My father’s always loved his food, but he’s a skinny, slight man. I think it makes him self-conscious—that’s why he’s always eating and eating and eating, never sated. He’d be the fattest man in Alabama if he had his way. Instead, he looks like a half-starved chicken that’s had it neck wrung. His wattle wobbles from side to side as he looms over me, shaking. “You’ve got no respect,” he tells me, as though I may not have already known this fact. “You say Sir the same way other people say dysentery.”

That one makes me laugh. Comparing himself to shit? Nothing could be more appropriate. Louis doesn’t take kindly to my amusement. “Who is she then? Some fucking waitress you picked up? Don’t tell me you’ve got her fucking pregnant, you little shit. If you think bringing her here, showing off your new prize pony will mean I’m gonna give you any money, you are sadly mistaken.”

I rocket to my feet, blowing hard down my nose. “You told me to come here, Louis. And what makes you think I need your money? I have never asked you for money.”

“Well, I just assumed that since you’ve clearly been spending your meager wage on whores…” He gestures to Soph. I see that she’s awake now, propped up on one elbow in the bed, eyes wide. “You probably aren’t flush with cash.”

I swing for him. In all the years I’ve been verbally, mentally and physically abused by my father, I’ve taken everything he’s given to me. The dynamic has always been pretty straightforward between us: I killed my mother. My father hates me for it. I deserve anything he throws at me.

But not this time. Not this. Not Sophia.

My fist connects with his jaw. A bright pain lances up my arm, a pain so familiar and welcome that I almost laugh. My father staggers back, clutching his hand to his face. He doesn’t fall down—I haven’t hit him that hard. Just hard enough to teach him some fucking manners.

A cold rage boils behind his eyes when he looks up at me. “Finally,” he says. “Some fucking backbone. After all these years. Good to see the army at least taught you how to hit right.”

“No, Sir. It wasn’t the army that taught me that. It was you.” I’m panting, ready to launch at him again, but Sophia sits up in the bed properly now, gathering the sheets around her. Louis casts a very brief glance over her, disgust written all over his face. “It won’t last,” he says. He’s not addressing Soph, though. He’s addressing me. “She’s a leeching opportunist at best. At worst, a whore with no morals. Mark my words. She’ll represent nothing more than an empty bank account and semen-stained sheets by the end of the month. I know a gold-digging cunt when I see one.”

That word sounds so much worse when my father says it—he spits it out like a bullet, aiming to hurt, maim, kill. I let my expression fall completely flat. “You need to leave. Right now.”

“Get your ass down to breakfast. You expect to show up here and not join your family in a civilized manner?” He looks at Sophia again, a sneer of contempt twisting his face. “And if you insist on bringing her down, make sure she dresses appropriately. This isn’t a fucking cat house.”

He turns, striding out of the bedroom, his dressing gown flaring out behind him like a goddamn cape. A sharp, bitter fury rises up in me. It hits me with the force of a freight train. I lunge forward, ready to go after the fucker, but then Sophia’s in front of me, her hands pressed up against my chest.

“Don’t. Don’t do it. He’s expecting it.”

I let out a small laugh, running both hands back through my hair and pulling. “No, he’s not. He has his precious fucking campaign fundraiser tonight. The last thing he wants is a fucking busted-up face while he’s asking his fucking Ivy League fucking pig friends for a backhander.” I grind out each word, knowing it’s true. My father did not expect me to lash out at him. Never in a million years. I saw the look of shock on his face, right before my fist connected with his jaw. I guess he’s gotten used to my tolerance of his abuse, but his attitude toward Soph? He can give me shit all day long, but he cannot call her a whore.

“Well, he’s already going to have a split lip and a bruised jaw. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

I grit my teeth together, trying to bring my heart rate down. “No. It’s not.”

“Look at me.” Soph’s hands are on me again, this time on my face. She forces me to look down at her. She’s touching me. She’s trying to calm me down. That in itself is confusing. My father just insulted her and she doesn’t seem fazed. She didn’t protest. She didn’t tell him she had no choice but to come here—that the very last thing she cares about is his goddamn money.

“Don’t give him the satisfaction,” she says softly. “If you lose it, he’ll know he still has power over you.”

I look down at her, adrenalin still firing through my veins, and I do something stupid. It’s not even a case of me making a conscious decision to act; it just happens. I fold my arms around her, and I kiss her. She goes still in my arms, hands still flush against my face, as I press my lips against hers. She tastes sweet, just like sugar. Just like the name I’ve been using to try and irritate her the past few days. I couldn’t have known how appropriate it was until now. She’s holding her breath as I persuade her mouth open, and then dip my tongue inside. Instead of lowering my heart rate, my pulse is now jackhammering, my blood roaring around my body.

I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I saw her in the fucked-up prom dress outside Julio’s place. I’ve wanted to run my hands over her body, claim her as my own. I can feel her warring in her head—torn between letting me kiss her, kissing me back, or pushing me away. In the end, she does all three.

She remains still a moment more, but then she begins to sink into me, her back curving, bringing her body closer, her chest pressing up against mine. I bury my hands in her hair, my breath and hers combining, quickening, as she responds to me. Her tongue slips into my mouth, tasting me now. Her hands move from my face, sliding back around my neck, until she’s wrapping her arms around me, pulling me tighter.

A fire seems to spark within her. She’s doesn’t even pretend to hold back. She’s panting, every inch of her pressed up against me as she kisses me back, like her life depends on it. I was hard the second my lips hit hers, but my cock is straining in my pants now, throbbing painfully, demanding I go further. There’s no way she doesn’t know how badly I want her; my rock hard erection’s pressing up against her, between her legs, making demands all on its own.

I run my hands down her body, until I reach the warm, smooth, bare flesh of her thighs. She shivers against me, making a small, strangled sound at the back of her throat. She wants this. She wants me. I slowly move my right hand upward, skimming the material of the large, plain  T-shirt she wore to bed, until I reach the curve of her breast. I pause there, waiting for her to move away. To tell me to stop. But she doesn’t. I palm her in my hand, groaning when I feel the weight and fullness of her. I can feel her nipple through the thin material of the shirt, stiffening, responding to me.

I want to lick at that nipple. I want to bite and tease and suck at it. I’m lifting the shirt when Sophia finally reacts. She tears her mouth away from mine, a wild look in her eye. Her hand whips out and slaps me across the face. A loud buzzing sound rings in my ear, deafeningly loud for a second before fading away. I touch my fingers to my jaw, stretching it out.

Sophia just stands there, her nipples still peaked and showing through the  T-shirt, her lips pouting and bruised from our kiss. “Don’t you…don’t you fucking dare do that again,” she whispers. Her whole body is shaking.

“Why? Because you’re so in love with Matthew?” I ask. I can still feel my pulse in every part of my body—some places more painfully than others. Her gaze flickers down to my very obvious hard-on, her eyes shining a little too brightly. I don’t even try and hide it.

“You have no right to…I’m not your possession, Rebel.”

“I know that.”

“Then why the hell did you just treat me like I was? Something that belonged to you that you could just take?”

I lean back against the wall, my breathing slowly returning to normal. I don’t respond right away. I let it sink in—what just happened. I let her replay it a couple of times in her head, so she can see how ridiculous she’s being. “I didn’t take anything from you, sugar. I offered it to you. And you picked up what I was putting down.”

“I did not!”

I laugh, undoing the top button of the shirt I’m still wearing from yesterday. “Don’t they teach you anything about body language in your psychology class, sugar? I know quite a bit about body language.” I push off from the wall, standing directly in front of her. Touching my fingers to the delicate, beautifully soft skin around her eyes, I say, “For instance, when someone’s attracted to you, their pupils dilate.” I can barely see her iris for the deep well of black in her eyes right now. I trace my fingers up the side of her ribcage, fighting back a wicked smile. “Their breathing becomes erratic. Plus, women’s nipples tend to tighten. That’s an obvious one, given I can see your perfect nipples through the shirt you’re wearing.”

“Screw you,” Soph whispers, stepping away from me. She turns her back, hiding herself from me.

“I’m betting you’d be ready for that, too,” I tell her. I move myself behind her, pressing my body up against her back. She goes utterly still again, seemingly at war with herself. Slowly, I reach up, brushing her hair away from her neck, and then I stoop down to graze my lips ever so slightly against her soft, sweet-smelling skin. “I’m betting if I were to slide my hand down the front of your panties…” I slide my hand around her, starting from her hip, heading in that direction. “I’m betting if I were to do that, I’d find that you were more than ready for me to screw you.” My fingertips are almost doing it, almost sliding down the front of her lacy white underwear when she slaps my hand away.

“Stop. Please, Rebel. Just stop. I can’t…I don’t know what the hell is happening right now.”

I tuck my hands into my pockets, smiling softly at her. “I can tell you what’s happening right now, what’s been happening for days, but you won’t want to hear it.”

“You don’t know me, Rebel.” She says the words harshly, and I can hear the fear in her voice. She’s afraid, because she already knows what I’m about to say, and she knows that it’s true.

“You’re attracted to me, despite everything, and I’m attracted to you. We want each other, Sophia. It’s the reason why you’re so terrified right now. And it’s part of the reason why I’m letting you go.”

I leave the room, my head too messed up to even be in the same room with her right now. She doesn’t say anything as I go. She doesn’t deny that what I’m saying is true.

******

When I come across Leah, she’s in the foyer refreshing the flowers, dressed from head to toe in the ridiculous maid’s uniform Louis insists all his female employees wear. She looks up, sees me charging down the stairs, and grins.

“Well if it ain’t the devil himself,” she says. She throws her arms around my neck and hugs me. Thank fuck my hard-on’s vanished is all I’m thinking as I hug her back.

“Looking good, little Leah.” She does look good. When I first brought her here, her bruises had healed and she was clean of the heroin she’d been addicted to, but she was still thin. Still quiet and withdrawn. Still broken on the inside. Now, with her hair a natural blonde and tied back in a neat ponytail, the dark purple circles under her eyes gone without a trace, she looks healthy. More importantly, she’s smiling. “Feelin’ good, big brother,” she replies, elbowing me in the ribs. I’m not her brother, of course. It’s just what she’s called me ever since Cade and I dragged her out of that dingy brothel in Seattle.

“You staying long?”

“Not if I can fucking help it.”

She pouts, hitting me lightly on the arm with the dying flowers she’s holding. “Carl says you got a girl here. Is that true?”

“For the moment. She’s not staying, though. I’ll be driving her back into town as soon as I’ve suffered through breakfast.”

“You pissed her off already?”

“Of course I have,” I say, laughing. I start walking, heading in the direction of the dining room, and Leah walks along with me. I throw an arm over her shoulder, making her chuckle.

“Why don’t you go up there and apologize. Maybe she’ll stay.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“Fucker.”

“Bitch.”

My father’s eyes nearly bulge straight out of his head when he sees me walking in with my arm around one of his employees. “What the hell are you doing now? For fuck’s sake, James.” He tosses his napkin on the table, releasing an exasperated breath, and I see that Soph was right; he does have a split lip. I let Leah go, giving her an apologetic smile. She returns it, and then hurries out of the room. I’ll need to talk business with her later, when the old man has his back turned.

“You realize I should fire her for that,” Louis says. “She has to know her place around here. I must have been out of my mind the day I agreed to hire her.”

“Must have been,” I agree, slumping down in the chair at the opposite end of the table, the furthest from him that I can possibly sit. “I doubt it could have been a moment of compassion.”

“Why should I show compassion to someone who can’t administrate their lives effectively? It’s not my fault the girl involved herself with an abusive partner.” This is the story I told him—that she was hiding from an ex who liked to raise his fists to her. The reality of her situation—that she was kidnapped, hooked on drugs and used for sex by countless men against her will? That would have made good ol’ Louis squeamish. In his eyes, that, too, would somehow have been Leah’s fault. “I take it you won’t be staying long?” he says.

“I’ll leave in the morning, once your little soiree is over. I think that’s just about my limit as far as maintaining this charade goes.”

Louis grunts, forking some scrambled egg into his mouth. “In all honesty, I’m surprised you even came. Having not heard from you in four years, I’d assumed my invitation would go unanswered. It’s not as though you’ve felt the need to uphold any of your other familial responsibilities.”

I don’t bite. He wants to bait me into an argument, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. He narrows his eyes, looking first at me and then out of the window. “You know, I’m not as clueless to the life you lead as you might think, son. I know you’re not living in New York.”

“So you’ve been checking up on me. How fatherly.”

“I need to know what you’ve been involving yourself in, James. With this re-election on the horizon, the last thing I need are skeletons being dragged out of the closet. No surprises.” He points his knife at me, his expression severe. “Tell me right now and I can bury all of your dirty secrets in time, before my competitors have the chance to discover them.”

“All right, Pop. Let’s see. Where shall we start? Oh, yeah. Okay, since we’re talking about burying things, you should know I have a plot of land out in the desert where I’ve been hiding the bodies of all the people my friends and I have been murdering. Rapists. Drug dealers. Child abusers. You name it, we got it. There are even some crooked government officials out there, actually. Men after your own heart.” I lift the glass of orange juice in front of me, toasting him before taking a sip. He just stares at me, his knife and fork gripped in his hands like he’s about ready to launch them across the table at me.

“Oh, and then there’s the fact that I grow copious amounts of marijuana. I don’t deal in the hard stuff, but a bit of pot here and there never started any wars. And I’m sure you’d like to know about the guns? The Glocks and the Berettas and the semi-automatics that I supply to gangs all over America?”

Louis throws down his cutlery, his face turning redder and redder by the second. “You’re a spoiled little shit, James. You think of no one but yourself. If you can’t respect me enough to tell me the fucking truth, then you should get the hell out of my sight. Now.”

I smile so wide my face hurts. Patting my mouth with a napkin, I stand and give him a small bow. “My pleasure, Sir. Honest to god, sincerely, it would be my pleasure.”

SOPHIA

I don't know who I am anymore. I never thought I'd become this person.

In August 1973, two armed gunmen forced their way inside a bank in Stockholm and proceeded to take hostages—three women and a man. They held them for five whole days inside that bank, one hundred and thirty-one hours, and during that time, something happened to the hostages. The gunmen got inside their heads. They altered their perspectives so dramatically that when the police finally stormed the building and set them free, the hostages thought their captors were there to protect them from the police. One of the women ended up becoming engaged to one of the bank robbers. One of the other women set up a charity canvassing for donations to cover the robbers' legal fees. And so Stockholm's Syndrome was given a name.

When people are kidnapped, they develop defense mechanisms in order to survive. Weirdly, falling in love with a captor, forming an emotional bond with them, improves your chances of remaining alive. The cops even encourage people to do it in certain circumstances. Better your heart keeps beating in your chest, oxygen keeps filling your lungs, and you end up with an unhealthy, undeniable connection to your abuser, than simply being dead, right?

A sick realization dawns on me: that could have happened to me if I'd ended up stuck with Raphael as my master.

But that’s not what's happened here. I know how the syndrome works. I've studied it. Written a paper on it. The human mind develops these mechanisms when it fears extinction. Only if the stakes are so dramatically high that the psyche will do anything to survive. And I haven’t felt like that with Rebel. All along, he's been promising me he's going to let me go. And he's never made an advance on me until now. And even then, he didn't exactly force himself on me. I wasn't pinned down and raped.

God, am I just making excuses for him? I don't even know anymore.

All I do know is that when he kissed me, I was shocked and momentarily overwhelmed, but I didn't want to stop him. I only pushed him away at the end because things were moving very quickly and I knew...I knew if I let it go any further, I would have been the one pushing it even further. I sit on the edge of the bed I just slept in, staring down at my hands, not seeing them properly. Wishing I could call my dad and ask him what the hell I should do.

I know what I should do, though. Rebel said he was going to let me go this morning, and that's exactly what I should do. I should go, run for the hills and not stop running until I'm safe in my father's arms.

A knock at the door startles me from my panic. Rebel wouldn’t knock—this is his room—so it can’t be him. That leaves a number of possibilities, none of them particularly good. Carl? Rebel's dad? I don't answer. Whoever it is, I don’t want to see them.

I don’t get much choice, though. The door cracks open and a short blonde woman, maybe late twenties, stands in the doorway, a broad smile on her face. "Oh, Carl was right. You are beautiful."

I suddenly feel like I'm back at Hector's odd little house and Ramona's come to prep me all over again. I swallow down the urge to scream at her to leave. She takes two small steps into the room, wringing her hands in front of her, a nervous look on her face. "I'm sorry to bother you. I just...Rebel told me you'd had a slight misunderstanding."

"You could call it that." I laugh coldly, not sure how to take this woman. She seems anxious.

"I'm Leah," she says. "Forgive me if this is wildly inappropriate, but...are you like me? Has he brought you here to hide you?"

"Hide me?"

"Y'know. Is someone looking for you? Did they..." She struggles with her words, wrestling each one out like it causes her physical pain. "Were you taken?"

My eyes go wide. So, this woman was kidnapped too? My heart lurches, my stomach rolling, like I'm about to be violently ill. After all that crap I was just telling myself about him, Rebel is a monster. I'm not the first. He's taken women before. How utterly, terribly stupid of me to have fallen for his bullshit. "You didn’t come here of your own volition?" I ask, my voice breaking a little. She doesn’t look like she's been abused but that doesn’t mean anything. Sick men who like to hurt women find innovative ways of not getting caught. They also don’t like being faced with the ugliness of their sins. Keep their women's faces pretty, while underneath their clothes, they're black and blue.

The woman, Leah, jerks back, confusion on her face. "What? No. I was glad when he brought me here. Grateful. He kept me safe. Hector's men fed me a cocktail of drugs each morning, kept me compliant. They did...they did terrible things." Her face turns white, losing the healthy pink glow she had in her cheeks a moment a go. "Rebel came to the house where they were keeping me. He was looking for someone, a girl called Laura. I was the only girl in the house at the time and I fit her description so he demanded to see me. I could hear them arguing downstairs—they didn’t want to let him come up, but in the end they did.

"He saw me, saw that I wasn't his friend, but he paid them twenty thousand dollars to take me, anyway. He gave it to them in cash right then and there, picked me up, naked and covered in my own vomit, and he carried me out of that place. He took me back to his place. Not in New York. The other place. Said I could stay and work for him, as a cook or I could train to do tattoos, but Hector found out where I was and came for me. He was pissed that his men had let Rebel buy me, and he wanted me back. Cade and Shay hid me 'til he was gone, but by then it was pretty clear I couldn’t stay after all. So he brought me down here. I have a boyfriend now, Sam. He's sweet to me. I don’t drink. I don't smoke. I make enough money working here to pay my bills and put food in my fridge. I have a good life. I'd never have had that if he hadn’t done what he did."

"So...Rebel didn’t take you?"

"No, of course not. He saved me. He brought a few others through here after I was settled in. Found them work in the surrounding towns. Figured out new identities for them. Not anymore, though. He sends the girls he buys all over the country—Texas, Florida, Chicago. Doesn’t want his father working anything out, I guess. Where is he sending you?" she asks.

"Home," I whisper.

Leah's eyes begin to fill with tears. "Then you're one of the lucky ones," she says. "Go easy on him, okay? I know he's a jerk and you just wanna wring his neck sometimes, but his heart is in the right place. He does shitty things sometimes, but he does his best, okay?"

Leah gives me a watery smile, and then she turns around and walks out the door, tucking her hands into the small pockets of her servant's uniform. I sit there in silence, unsure how I'm supposed to react to what just happened. Completely at a loss as to how I'm meant to process the fact that Rebel is some kind of fucking hero to the woman who just walked out of here.

A cold, hard awareness dawns on me as I think this. Technically, since Rebel did buy me and whisk me away from Raphael’s evil attentions, he did the same thing for me as he did for her.

Should that make him my hero, too?

Fuck.

******

I shower in Rebel's en suite and get changed into a clean pair of jeans and a thin maroon sweater, and all the while I'm thinking about what Leah told me. Hunger motivates me to go adventuring, but it takes me a solid hour to pluck up the courage to step foot outside of Rebel's room. I'm hoping to find Carl—he was incredibly friendly last night when we arrived—but the first person I run into is Louis James Aubertin the second, pacing down the hallway with a gold capped cane in his hand. From his steady gait, he carries it for aesthetic purposes and not because he needs it. His salt-and-pepper hair has been slicked back, displaying his high forehead and prominent cheekbones. The cheekbones are the only thing he's passed onto his son. I can see nothing else of Rebel in him. His eyes are almost black, unlike Rebel's piercing blue coloring.

"I see you do close your thighs long enough to climb out of bed, then?" he says when he sees me. I want to grab that cane off him and smack him around the head with it. His eyes follow mine, glancing down at the cane in his hand. He smiles. "Oh, child, I wouldn't even bother planning on stealing this. It’s not real gold, you see. All of my household's valuables are locked away until my event this evening. I shall know who has taken any of my property should it go missing."

"What makes you think I'm planning on stealing anything that belongs to you, Louis?"

His eyes flicker, his mouth pulling down at the corners. He looks away from me, over the handrail of the banister that sweeps down the staircase below us. "Most guests address me as Governor Aubertin when they're residing in my household."

"Oh! Pardon me." I press my hand over my chest, feigning embarrassment. "You've accused me of being a whore and a thief more times than I can count this morning. I didn't think I was a guest."

Sharp, narrowed eyes fix on me. Louis pulls back his shoulders, standing with his chest proud. "You are a rude young lady."

"And you're a rude, obnoxious, likely impotent old man," I reply. "I like this game. Wanna keep playing?"

He doesn't appreciate me answering back to him. He doesn’t appreciate it one bit. If this were a cartoon, there'd be steam coming out of his ears right now. He steps forward and lifts his cane, pressing the capped end of it directly in between my breasts, right up against my sternum. "If James thinks he's bringing you to my gathering this evening, he has another thing coming. I may need him to play happy families for the sake of appearances, but I do not need you propositioning my peers."

"Oh, believe me, I won’t be attending," I snap. "You couldn’t pay me to stick around here."

A smug, unbearable smile spreads across Louis' face. "I knew it. I told him as much this morning."

"Told who what?" I growl.

"I told my son not to expect you to stick around much longer than a week. I thought maybe I'd underestimated your staying power, that maybe you'd make it to two weeks, but it seems I was wrong. You aren’t even going to last a day. How delicious." He taps his cane against the top of my arm—condescending motherfucker—and then he saunters down the stairs, leaving me with my mouth hanging open. I have to stop myself from running after him and pushing his ass down the remaining steps.

I’ve never felt so angry in all my life. It’s all-consuming, the rage pumping around my body with each solid thump of my heart. I hate it. I hate how it makes me feel so unlike myself. Jogging down the stairs, swearing profusely under my breath, I manage to find the kitchen. And I also find Rebel. He’s sitting at a kitchen island, apparently washed and changed already, and he’s eating a sandwich.

He tenses when he sees me, placing his food down on his plate and leaning back on his stool. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to come find me.”

“I haven’t come to find you. I’ve come to find food.”

He pushes his plate toward me across the marble kitchen island, his expression flat. “Help yourself, sugar.”

He probably thinks I won’t eat the other half of his sandwich, but the guy is mistaken. I accept the food, taking a decent bite out of it—cheese and pickle—before convincing myself to look him in the eye. “So I met Leah.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

“Did you tell her to come talk to me?”

“Why would I do that?”

“To convince me you’re a good guy.”

A dangerous smile spreads across his face. “But I’m not a good guy.”

“Then why would you go around buying up women who’ve been kidnapped? Finding them safe houses? Creating new lives for them?” I have to know. My mind won’t rest until I can figure out how this side of him fits in with the rest. Rebel scowls, angling his shoulders away from me so he’s facing the large bay window—it overlooks what seems to be an extensive herb garden.

“Someone really has been talking, huh?” he says. “I helped those girls because human beings aren’t meant to be bought and sold as property. I was looking for someone. A friend. I’ve had to go to these places—the darkest fucking places on earth—trying to find her. And I’ve been in a position to help the girls that I’ve found in the process. Sue me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He cocks his head to one side, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “Because you wouldn’t have believed me.”

“I might have.”

He doesn’t say anything. I keep eating the other half of his sandwich, thinking really hard. Wondering if what I’m considering is actually madness on my part. It probably is, but after him telling me he’s going to let me go, my conversation with Leah and the subsequent encounter I had with his father, I’m beginning to…oh god, I’m beginning to trust him.

“Are you going to take me to the bus station now?” I ask.

He pulls in a deep breath, bracing himself against the cool marble. “I guess so.”

And so he does. Carl brings the Humvee around, and Rebel drives me back into the closest town of Grove Hill. He’s silent as he drives. Outside a café called The Sweet Spot, he pulls over and kills the engine. My heart skips a beat when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a roll of money.

“This will get you back to Seattle. You’ll be able to grab some more clothes and…shampoo or whatever. They sell tickets inside the café. If you hurry, you’ll be able to make the midday bus.”

I look at him, at the money he’s holding out in his hand. I close my eyes, allowing my head to fall back against the headrest. “Take me back,” I whisper.

“What?”

“Take me back.”

Rebel, always so self-assured and cocky, now looks confused. My heart beats faster, suddenly scared. What the hell am I doing? My parents flash into my head—how sick with worry they must be. Sloane, too. This isn’t just madness. It’s cruel. If I stay here and I don’t contact them, even just to let them know I’m alive, then what kind of person does that make me? Rebel leans over and presses the money into my hand. “You need to go,” he says. His eyes flash, as though he can read what’s going on inside my head. I close my hand around the money.

“It’s okay. I’ll stay. I’m not happy about it but I’ll do it. I’ll testify.”

Rebel pulls his lower lip into his mouth. If I’m not mistaken, he does it to hide the fact that he’s trying not to smile. I can see it in his eyes, though. “This is because you wanna sleep with me, isn’t it?”

“No!”

“Admit it. You’re only lying to yourself.” He’s not even trying to hide his smirk now. I thump him as hard as I can on the top of his arm.

“I’m doing it because you were right back at your cabin. You said you were going to show me you weren’t the man I thought you were, and you have. But mostly, I decided to stay because your father said he didn’t want me at his party tonight. And you may have noticed, but your father is a massive asshole. Displeasing him will make me one incredibly happy woman.”

Rebel tips his head back and laughs. I’ve never heard it before, his laughter. It sends electricity snapping through my torso, my arms, my legs, my head; it’s the most amazing sound. “The Widow Makers say I’m stone-cold, Soph. They say I’m made of ice. When the rest of the club meets you, I’m pretty sure they’re gonna say you’re made of fire.”

My chest tightens at the thought of meeting the other Widow Makers. God knows how I’m going to handle that. Not well, probably. Rebel twists in his seat, staring at me. His hand lifts from the steering wheel, reaching slowly toward me. My breath catches in my throat as he grazes his fingertips along the line of my jaw, his eyes fixed firmly on the point where his skin meets mine. “I swear nothing will happen to you, sugar. I’ll keep you safe, no matter what. Your family, too. From here on out, from now until you decide you need to leave, you’re under the Widow Makers’ protection, and so are they.”

******

REBEL

Soph stares anxiously at the payphone, chewing on her lip. She shouldn’t be worried, but she is. “Just do it. Pick up the phone and make the call,” I tell her.

Panic flashes in her eyes. “I’m going to break down. I won’t be able to stop myself,” she whispers.

“It’ll be okay. They’ll know you’re alive and well. They’ll stop worrying that you might be dead, and that’s the most important thing, right?”

“Yeah, I...I guess you’re right.” She moves mechanically as she picks up the handset and dials slowly, her finger hovering over each key before she presses it. The dial tone changes, turning into a ringing that I can hear standing two feet away. I watch her face as she waits for someone to pick up.

She grimaces when the ringing ceases and a male voice says, “Dr. Alan Romera.” Her whole body locks up. I turn around, gritting my teeth together. I’m a selfish son of a bitch and I know it. Sophia lets out a strangled sob, gripping hold of the side of the payphone. Her eyes look wild when she turns to me.

“Hello?” the guy says on the other end of the phone. A fat tear rolls down Soph’s cheek. She swallows hard and then shakes her head, slamming down the receiver.

“Was that your dad?

She nods.

“Why?” I ask. “Why didn’t you speak to him?”

“I can’t. I just can’t,” she whispers. Her voice sounds thick with emotion. “If I do, if I speak to him, then I won’t be able to stop. I’ll ask him to come get me. I won’t be strong enough to stay.”

She starts crying even harder, and no matter how badly I might want her to think I’m a completely heartless jackass, I can’t do it anymore. I move quickly, before I can change my mind, shifting to stand behind her. I wrap my arms around her body, her back to my chest, and I hold her as she cries. She doesn’t push me away.

I can feel her heart bang, bang, banging, its tempo fast and furious around her body. My hands are over her stomach, one resting on her hip, but I can feel her pulse beating there even, through the material of her shirt. She slumps back against me so that I’m the only thing keeping her upright. I’m not sure that it’s even a conscious decision to lean on me, but I hold onto her. I hold onto her tight.

Standing on the street in Grove Hill, the place where Cade and I grew up, I’m assaulted by a million different memories as I hold this broken, crying girl in my arms. She turns and buries her face in my chest, and my head is racing. I heard her father say his name on the phone: Dr. Alan Romera. I know this about her now, at least. Her last name isn’t Marne. It has to be Romera, like her father. A father who’s going out of his head, wondering where his daughter is.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m really so sorry that you’ve had to do this for me. Can you forgive me?”

Sophia holds her arms in, close to her sides, not wrapping them around me. She’s still leaning on me, though, still needing me in some small way. “Maybe.” She gasps the word in between breaths. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

I should ask her again if she’s sure she wants to do this, but I don’t because I’m a bastard and I need her. I feel like shit. Hollowed-out, evil shit. But still, a brief spark of hope flickers inside me, too. She didn’t say no. She said maybe, and maybe will have to be good enough for me right now.

It shouldn’t matter. I’ve done some incredibly shitty things in the past to get what I want, and I haven’t batted an eyelid. But this, with her…it’s different. She’s not from the awful, damned world that I call home. She was on her way to being something better than I’ll ever be, before my family and my shit messed everything up for her. So now here she is, neck deep in this crap, danger surrounding her at every turn. It’s within my power to send her back to safety, but I’m choosing not to. So yeah, it feels like I really need her forgiveness. And I’m sure as hell going to make sure I earn it.

SOPHIA

I couldn’t bring myself to phone Matt. The hesitation wasn’t the same as my reluctance to call my father. I’d just been afraid of falling to pieces as soon as I heard Dad’s voice, knowing that still I wasn’t going to see him for a while. But with Matt…

I just didn’t want to hear his voice, period.

I know Rebel plays a big part in that. As much as I don’t want him to, he’s somehow worked his way into my head. And, if I’m being honest, into my heart, too. He’s secretive and closed off from the world, but he’s also in pain. I see it all the time, in the moments when he doesn’t think I’m looking. His arrogance fades, leaving him staring off into space with a deep sadness shadowed in his eyes. I have no idea why, but I want to know. I feel the desperate need to find out.

Rebel takes me back to Ebony Briar, the mansion even statelier on approach during daylight hours. He drives the Hummer around the back to a vast garage where he stows the truck, and then he takes my hand, guiding me behind the low-lying building, out toward the trees at the very edge of the property.

I’m grateful. I feel exhausted, and facing Louis Aubertin again before it’s absolutely necessary is something that I can do without. I guess Rebel feels the same way. After walking another ten minutes once we’ve crossed the boundaries of the Aubertin property into the next, Rebel leads me to a twisted live oak, monstrous in size and jacketed in Kudzu. We both sit down. He takes off his suit jacket and rolls up his shirtsleeves, exposing the brightly colored ink on his skin.

“You shouldn’t hide who you are from him, y’know,” I say. “You should show up to this event tonight in jeans and a T-shirt and fuck whatever he thinks.”

Rebel lies back in the grass, his hands underneath his head. “Don’t think I don’t want to,” he says. “But if he’s mad at me, he’ll punish everyone around him as well as me for it. Leah’ll lose her job. And having her here is very, very convenient for me.”

“Is she…have you—?”

He laughs softly, shaking his head. “She spies on Louis for me. Passes along information. The old man’s about as dirty as they come. On the receiving end of so many bribes it’s a wonder how he keeps everything straight in his head. Information like that can be really valuable. Who wants what bill to go through. Who’s involved in insider trading. Who’s addicted to drugs. Who’s cheating on their wives. My father has a stream of information coming in at all times, and Leah gathers it all for me.”

"And you use that information to get what you want.”

“When I can.”

“And when you can’t?”

Rebel casts a steely look in my direction. “Then I use other means.”

I lie back into the long grass, lacing my hands over my chest. “Is this who you thought you’d end up being when you graduated from MIT?”

“No. I thought I was going to be a solider forever. But things don’t always work out the way you intend them to, do they?”

“Obviously not.”

Neither of us says anything else. The wind blows through the tree branches overhead, rustling leaves and grass and teasing strands of my hair up into the air. I fall asleep. When I wake up, Rebel’s sitting with his back against the tree, watching me.

“Getting involved with me is the worst thing you can possibly do,” he says.

The words are gripping me by the throat—I don’t want to get involved with you. I’m not going to—but the intensity of his expression prevents me from lying. Even to myself. “I get the feeling it might somehow be too late now,” I say, my voice quiet. “Don’t…don’t you feel that, too?”

He looks away, clenching his hands tightly into fists. “Yeah. Well. I was kind of hoping you were smarter than me.”

“From your math problems and the diploma hanging on your father’s wall, I don’t think I know anyone smarter than you, Jamie.”

I don’t know why I call him that. His forehead creases into lines of…worry? “You can’t call me that outside of this place, Soph. You need to remember that. It’s important.”

“I’ll remember.” I sit up, every part of me focused on him. “I won’t do it again. Will that make you happy?”

That small crease in his cheek reappears, completing his rueful expression. “Yes, ma’am.” He leans forward, his body close to mine, the smell of him filling my head. Carefully, he plucks a blade of dried grass from my hair. “I kissed you before, sugar. You pushed me away. Next time you want that to happen, you’re gonna have to make it happen yourself. You understand?”

I look away, tucking my knees up underneath my chin. Hiding from him. He ducks down, searching for my eyes, but I’m a coward. I close them.

“Sophia?”

“What if I’m too scared? What if I want that now, but I’m too afraid of what comes after?” I feel dizzy as I speak, not sure where I’m drawing the courage from.

“Look at me, Soph.”

I don’t. I can’t.

“Sophia.” He shifts his body so that his side is pressed up against mine; his warmth makes my head spin. I feel his fingers underneath my jaw, lifting and turning my head so that I’m facing him. I keep my eyes tightly closed, though, still too paralyzed by the fear that I’m losing myself entirely to acknowledge this. To acknowledge him.

I might not be able to see him, but I can sense him drawing even closer. My heart stops altogether when I feel the rough stubble of his cheeks grazing against mine as he presses himself against me and whispers in my ear. “The moment you give yourself to me, it won’t be because I’ve bought you. It won’t be because you’re afraid of me, or because you want something in return. It’ll be because you need me. Because you need me inside you. Because you can’t stand this torture a second more. Then, you won’t be afraid of what comes next. You’ll be begging for it.”

His heat suddenly vanishes, leaving me breathless. With his close proximity making my head spin a moment ago, now that he’s moved away I feel abruptly alone. I open my eyes and Rebel has stood up. His eyes are so filled with hunger that I don’t know where to look. Holding out his hand to me, he jerks his head in the direction of the house. “Come on, sugar. We have to go get ready for my father’s circle jerk of a party.”

******

The dress probably isn’t something I would have picked out for myself, but it’s still beautiful. Cream, almost white, with lace around the midsection, it falls gracefully to the floor as I pour the silky material over my head. I feel like a different person entirely in this dress. Someone I would be if I went home and finished my degree. Someone I would be if I had a normal life.  Someone I would have been if I’d let him put me on that bus.

With my hair swept to one side, pinned in place and curling down over my shoulder, I feel like I belong in some sort of Grecian legend. I have no jewelry, but I don’t need it. The single splash of color I’m wearing—bold, bright red lipstick that I found in amongst the toiletries Rebel brought for me—is embellishment enough.

Rebel, in yet another beautifully tailored black suit, is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs when I come down to meet him. The smile falls from his face as he watches me approach. I think he approves. The guy he’s talking to turns and looks over his shoulder, smiling politely as I stop at Rebel’s side. “This is Sophia Marne,” Rebel says, introducing me to the older man. “Sophia, this is Drew McKinney. He’s my father’s campaign manager and our family’s oldest friend.”

I shake Drew’s hand, mirroring the frown that develops on his face when he takes a closer look at me. “Why, how strange,” he says, his accent by far the most southern I’ve heard since arriving last night. “I swear I’ve seen your face before. Are you…do you work in television?” he asks, breaking out into a grin, elbowing me as though he’s caught me out in some grand deception.

“No, no,” I laugh. “I’ve just got one of those faces.”

“A beautiful face, I’m sure. Either way, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Marne. I hope this young man is remembering his manners around you?”

I hear Rebel’s voice in my head—it’ll be because you need me. Because you need me inside you. Because you can’t stand this torture a second more—and I can’t help but smile. “I assure you, he’s been the perfect gentleman.”

“That’s mighty good to hear, my girl. Our Jamie’s always been a bit of a rebel. I’m reassured to know he can at least treat a beautiful woman the way she deserves to be treated.”

Rebel nearly chokes on the flute of champagne he was drinking from. Obviously the rebel reference just hit a little too close to home. “I think I see my father. We should probably go say hello,” he says, clearing his throat. “It was a pleasure to see you again, Drew.” Pulling me away through the crowd of people who have already arrived and are milling around the foyer and formal reception rooms, Rebel growls under his breath. “This is my worst fucking nightmare.”

His mood doesn’t improve. As the night progresses and we’re forced to make nice with progressively stuffier, drunker, more passive aggressive people, my escort gets ruder and ruder. His final breaking point comes when his father joins us, as a morbidly obese oiler from Texas is praising Rebel in his service to his country.

“Louis, you must be pretty damn proud of this boy of yours. One tour in Afghanistan is one thing, but two? That’s damn patriotism right there, if ever I saw it.”

“Yes, my son, the war hero,” Louis says. To an outsider, it might look like he’s agreeing with the Texan’s comment, but  Rebel hears the sarcasm just as well as I do. He stiffens, his back ramrod straight.

“I only ever turned out to be the man my father intended me to be,” he tells the Texan. “I was sent off to military school on my thirteenth birthday. It was natural that I’d want to enlist properly once my education was complete.”

“Yes, that’s right. And what did you do when you were in the army, James?”

“I was a Marine.” He hardens his jaw, lifting his chin, daring his father to say anything about that.

“Hoo-rah,” the Texan roars, laughing. He’s so drunk he’s completely missing the antagonism taking place between the other two men. “Marines are the backbone of the US Armed Forces.”

“Yes, of course. Though, coming summa cum laude in his class probably should have meant he was the brainpower of the US Armed Forces instead of a glorified grunt.”

The governor’s tone catches the Texan’s attention now. “Oh, come on now. Some people don’t like taking an officer’s promotion without feeling like they earned it. I respect that.”

“You’re too kind, Mason. But my son’s had an easy upbringing. I’m afraid he’s all too used to having things handed to him.”

Rebel’s eyes flash with hatred and he thrusts his drink into his father’s chest. Louis automatically catches hold of it, a look of murder in his own eyes. “Fuck. You,” Rebel grinds out. “I suppose I became a Marine and put myself in danger every single day I was out there just to spite you, then? Is that it?”

Louis raises his eyebrows, his mouth drawing downward in that sour, unimpressed way of his. “You’re not calculating enough for that, son. You’re just like your mother was—reckless and…and foolish,” he says, taking a deep pause in between words. After all that he’s said, after all that he warned, he is the one starting trouble at his own event.

Rebel makes a disgusted sound at the back of his throat. “You’re pathetic,” he tells his father as he pushes past him. I can feel the Texan gawping at us as I hurry after Rebel, pushing through the crowd of men. Their hungry eyes and wolfish smiles feel like they’re burning into my skin, making me feel dirty. I catch sight of Rebel heading through a door at the rear of the formal dining room, vanishing from sight as the door closes behind him. He’s waiting for me when I follow after him. His hands are on me the second I step through the door.

“Fuck what I said earlier. Fuck waiting for you to make the first move. I can’t do it.” His lips crash down on mine, his hands tightening on my waist. My breath feels like it’s being pulled from my lungs, making me dizzy as I let him walk me backward, pressing up against the wall behind me. I was expecting him to be angry. I was expecting him to need calming down. I was not expecting this.

“Rebel, I don’t…I’m not sure this is the best—”

He grabs hold of my hair, winding it around his fist and drawing my head back. “Do you want me to stop, sugar? Do you not want me to sink myself inside you?” I can feel just how badly he wants to do that when he presses his hips up against mine, his solid hard on digging into my stomach. He pulls my hair back further, so that my neck is there for his taking. He lowers his mouth halfway to my skin, his eyes never leaving mine. They spark with fury and lust, combining to create something powerful and overwhelming. “Tell me you don’t want me to fuck you ’til you’re screaming and I’ll let you go right now.”

A hot shiver travels through me, making my body feel suddenly weak. God, this can’t be happening. Here? Now? It doesn’t seem right. I look over his shoulder, seeing that we’re in an empty corridor, completely and utterly alone.

“Well?” Rebel growls.

“Fine. I do. I do want you,” I gasp. Admitting that is the final breaking point. I’ve crossed a line, a dangerous one, but right now, here in this moment with his body flush against mine and my skin burning up, I can’t seem to make myself care. Rebel growls again, the rumble vibrating through me as he descends on me, licking and biting at my neck. My head’s pounding, my blood surging through me, filled with adrenalin and endorphins.

His mouth on me feels amazing. His hands roaming all over my body, his powerful arms bracketing me in place against the wall. The pressure of his cock, demanding and hard against me as he grinds his hips upward. All of it feels incredible and wrong and I don’t want it to stop.

“Take off your dress,” he commands.

“I…I can’t. Someone might come.”

“They won’t,” he says. His voice is heavy with need, his hands already pulling at the material of my dress. “This is a servant’s walkway. Everyone’s out on the floor, doing their jobs. No one will come.” I don’t get any further say in the matter. Rebel rips the dress up over my head, leaving me standing in front of him in nothing but my underwear. He makes a stifled groaning noise as he leans back and takes me in.

“You’re fucking perfect. So fucking perfect.” Dipping down, he runs his tongue along the swell of my cleavage, his mouth hot on my body. “Do you want me?” he asks, his breathing coming even quicker than before.

I tell the truth, because it’s all I can do. “Yes.”

“Do you want me to possess you? To make you mine?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” The very prospect has been the one thing I’ve been afraid of since he took ownership of me from Julio, but now I’m desperate for it. Begging him, just like he said I would underneath that oak tree.

He’s upset. He’s pissed off and boiling with anger, but that just seems to add to this undeniable attraction I feel coursing through my veins. “How badly do you want to touch me?” he rumbles.

“Really…really badly.”

“Then undress me.” He steps back, tilting his head back, challenging me yet again, not just to allow this to happen but to participate. To prove to myself that I do want this. I slide my hands over his chest, up the front of his white dress shirt, and then underneath his black suit jacket. His mouth twitches, either with the beginnings of a smile or with amusement at the way my hands are shaking. He doesn’t tease me, though. If anything, the look in his eyes is keen with curiosity, waiting to see just how far I really will go. I pull his suit jacket over his shoulders, my heart slamming erratically as I feel the hard ridges and planes of his muscular back underneath my fingertips. His physique is hard won. Five years at military school, two tours in Afghanistan and the years he’s been running the Widow Makers can’t have been easy. I’m definitely reaping the rewards of his labor.

His suit jacket hits the floor. I start working on the buttons of his shirt, aware of his eyes burning into my flesh. Another bolt of adrenalin zigzags through me when he leans into my neck again and whispers, “If you don’t hurry up, I’m gonna have to take you fully dressed.”

My hands move like lightning, ripping at the remaining buttons, then at the material of his shirt. I’ve been covertly checking him out for days now, trying not to, trying not to get caught at least, but once his shirt is gone now I can’t help myself. I drink him in the same way he’s been drinking me in, eyes hungry, barely able to look away.

He is perfection. There isn’t a spare inch of fat anywhere on him. I run my hands up and over the bird tattoos on his chest, hesitant but determined at the same time. His breath blows hard across my cleavage, making me break out in goose bumps. “I need to feel your tits up against me, Soph. God, they’re fucking amazing.” He makes quick work of freeing my breasts from my bra; his fingers barely skate over the clasp before he’s ripping the straps down my arms and throwing my underwear to the ground. I’m almost naked; only my panties remain. Rebel grinds his body against mine, pushing me even harder into the wall. He dips down, his mouth moving over the skin of my neck, my collarbone, my chest and then my breasts. I gasp as he takes my left nipple into his mouth.

Fire ignites in the pit of my belly, roaring, sending flames in every direction, burning me up from the inside out. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, Rebel, I need you.” My head rocks back, my body feeling boneless. Rebel’s hands work their way over me, investigating and exploring every last inch of me. His fingers move down, down, down until they’re hovering over the lacy material of my panties.

“Are you ready for me, Soph? Am I gonna find you soaking wet and desperate when I play with your pussy?”

No one’s ever referred to it that way before. Only certain men can say pussy and own it without it sounding sleazy or plain weird coming out of their mouths. When Rebel says it, the word sends heat and electricity charging in between my legs. “Yes. I’m wet for you,” I whisper. “Please, Rebel. Please.”

I can feel him getting harder against me, his cock straining at his pants. Rebel lifts one eyebrow, a ruinous smile teasing at his lips. “If you’re lying, sugar, you should know…you will be punished.”

I have no idea what form of punishment he has in mind but I’m not sure if it’s the bad kind or the good kind. Is there such a thing as a good kind? My head says no, but by the way my body reacts, it might just know something I don’t. “I’m ready. I want you, Rebel. Please. I can’t…” I can’t wait much longer. I’ve never reacted to anyone like this before.

With Matt it’s always felt nice, but in the same vein it has felt rote. Like we’re going through the motions, having sex every three days because that’s an appropriate amount of time between adventures. With Rebel…fuck, with Rebel, I feel like I’m going out of my mind. I don’t think any more of Matt. Alexis was the girl who belonged with him. I haven’t wanted to admit it, but Alexis is gone. She might as well have died right alongside Rebel’s cousin in the alleyway back in Seattle. Now, I’m Sophia, and there’s no way she and Matt would have a future together. She belongs to Rebel, the man standing in front of me, looking at me like he’s about to screw me into oblivion.

I start fumbling with his belt, determined to get his pants off him. Rebel slips his hand down the front of my panties, and my hands suddenly still. I can’t move, can’t react, can’t breathe. His fingers find my clit right away—no fumbling around, searching. He makes a guttural, animalistic sound at the back of his throat.

“Oh, sugar. You weren’t joking, huh?” Sliding his fingers back, he draws his pointer finger and his middle finger through the slick folds of my pussy, and then he brings his hand up to his mouth. I’m paralyzed as he sucks his fingers into his mouth, humming, the vibration of his vocal chords traveling through his chest into mine. “You taste fucking amazing, Soph. I can’t fucking take this anymore.”

Unfastening his belt and tearing down his pants, Rebel does what I couldn’t do the second his fingers touched me between my legs. His cock springs free, swollen and way bigger that I’d anticipated. I’m no prude. I’ve not exactly had a vast number of lovers, but I’ve seen a cock before. And Rebel’s is way above average. I feel dizzy just looking at it.

Rebel takes himself into his hand and slowly pumps up and down. He hasn’t removed his shoes, so his pants remain around his ankles. That would look ridiculous on someone else, but somehow he pulls it off. I can’t take my eyes off his hand working up and down his smooth, slicked flesh. “See something you like?” he asks.

I look up at him, not trusting myself to speak. I can only nod my head.

“Take your panties off, Sophia.” Complying, I shimmy the small, barely there material down my legs, kicking them off. While I’m losing my underwear, Rebel’s still stroking himself; he pauses for a moment to roll a condom down over his hard-on, completing the movement with practiced ease. His eyes scour my body, taking every inch of it in. “Now press your back against the wall again.”

I step back, doing as he tells me, my chest heaving. Rebel comes for me, then. There’s no more foreplay, no more talking. He moves up against me and places his hands directly under my thighs, lifting me from the ground. My legs wrap instinctively around his waist, tightening when I feel his cock press up against my pussy. God, I want him. I need him so bad. His hands are everywhere, all over my skin, in my hair. He grinds himself upward, rubbing against my sensitive clit. His lips finds mine, and the two of us breathe our need into each others mouths, panting, tongues skating over each other as we kiss.

He takes hold of my jaw lightly in one hand, holding my head in place so that I’m looking at him. “Look me in the eyes, sugar. I wanna see into you,” he says.

I can’t take it. The intimacy of staring into his eyes as he slides himself up against me is too much to bear. I can’t look away, though. I could close my eyes, but there’s something in the way he’s staring at me, so intense and focused, as though I’m the only thing he sees or cares about in this moment. I already know, deep down in my bones, that being looked at like that by him will be an addiction I won’t be able to shake. “You ready to get fucked?” Rebel growls.

“Oh, god. Holy fucking shi—” I cut off when he pushes into me. My mind goes utterly blank. He feels…he feels huge for that first few seconds. Way too big, I feel like I’m going to burst. Rebel freezes, stilling himself, allowing me to get used to the feeling of him inside me. My nipples burn in the best way, my breasts crushed up against his naked chest. It feels amazing. My whole body feels amazing. I feel my pussy tighten around him, reacting to his presence, and Rebel growls.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that. You really shouldn’t have done that.” There’s a dark, sinister look in his eye as he slides himself out of me and then pushes back in again, harder this time. Gripping hold of me in his arms, he starts up a rhythm, slamming himself into me harder and harder each time.

I can barely breathe. I taste blood in my mouth—I’ve been biting my lip hard enough to break the skin. Rebel’s right hand finds its way into my hair again. He jerks my head back, still inside me, still filling me with himself, and bites at my neck. He’s not careful about it. I’m definitely gonna be left with a mark. Right now, I could care less, though. I want him to mark me. I want him to make me his. I know with a hollow, terrifying certainty that I’m never going to want to be anyone else’s ever again.

Rebel’s thrusts grow even faster, his fingers digging into my skin. “You want to come, Soph? You wanna come all over my dick?” he groans.

“Yes! Yes!”

“Then get ready. I want you to break apart in my arms, okay? I want to be the only fucking thing holding you together. Let go, Soph. I’m right fucking here. I ain’t gonna let you go.”

If I’d thought he was driving me crazy before, then what he does next completely blows me out of the water. He slides one hand in between our bodies and he begins to stroke my clit in tight circles, sending wave after wave of pleasure racking though my body. He slows everything down, sliding himself out of me with torturous patience and then carefully pushing back inside.

Pinned up against the wall, my legs still wrapped around his waist, I can do nothing but cling onto him and take it. He has me trembling, on the brink of tumbling over the edge in less than a minute. I tighten my hold on him, staring into his eyes again. He’s hidden himself from me since the second we met, barely told me anything that I’ve wanted to know about him, but while he’s inside me, while he’s connecting with me like this, I can see who he is perfectly. It’s like he just said—he wanted to see into me. I can see into him, and I feel like I recognize him. Like he’s the piece of me that’s been missing all this time and I never even knew it. It’s a scary, overwhelming realization. He gives me a scandalous smile, and fire races through my veins.

“That’s my girl,” he pants. “I can feel you tightening around my dick again. You gonna come for me?”

I nod, my eyes shuttering closed. My body feels taut as a bowstring as I feel the first swell of pleasure rushing up through me, building, building, building until I’m screaming out his name.

Rebel puts his hand over my mouth and pulses inside me, gritting his teeth together as he comes, too. “Holy fuck, sugar,” he growls. “You’re so fucking tight.”

His climax overtakes him then, so that he’s leaning his forehead against my shoulder, thrusting hard into my body. I hold him to me, wanting him closer, more a part of me, more fused to me as our bodies ignite.

Eventually, our breathing slows. Rebel lifts his head, that reckless smile plastered all over his face. He’s always so cocky, always so sharp-eyed and suspicious, but not now. Now, he folds his arms around me and places me carefully on the ground, looking distinctly pleased with himself.

“I think half my father’s guests might have heard that,” he says softly.

“Is that why you did it, then? To cause another scene? Get back at your father?” That thought makes me feel less than special. If I’m honest, it makes me feel suddenly very vulnerable, very sick. Rebel grazes his fingertips across my collarbone and down over my breasts, still able to make me react to him. “No, sugar. I did that because I’ve been desperate to ever since I laid eyes on you. I did it because it’s all I’ve been able to think about for fucking days. It was going to happen eventually. You know that as well as I do.”

And he’s right. He’s telling the truth. Reaching down in between my legs, he traces his fingers lightly over my pussy, growling deep and low in his chest. I know I’m wet from him, slick with my own orgasm. He seems to take great pleasure in rubbing his fingers through my wetness, sliding them up inside me, even sliding them further back, circling his finger around my ass, coating me with myself there, too. No one has ever touched me there before. A spark of embarrassment, coupled with excitement charges through me.

“You’re mine, now, Soph. For as long as you want to be, you’re mine. And I’m yours,” he tells me. “That okay with you?”

I feel paralyzed. I know what I want to say, but I can’t bring myself to part with the words. I’m not ready to. I don’t know why I feel so strongly for him, and that scares the living crap out of me. If I say it, if I tell him yes, it will feel like I’m walking blindly into something I have absolutely no control over.

He grins at me, watching me intently, and I just know that he can tell what I’m thinking. He opens his mouth, is about to say something, but the moment is stolen away by a horrified scream, tearing through the house. For a second I think we’ve been busted, but the scream doesn’t come from the hallway. It comes from somewhere beyond, toward what must be the kitchen.

“Fuck.” Rebel snatches up our clothes and grabs me, pulling me to one side, into what turns out to be a closet containing a fuse box and a stack of sealed cardboard boxes. We’re barely concealed before the door leading to the party opens and people start to pour into the hallway. A second later and we would have been found for sure. Rebel holds out my dress to me, eyes flashing cold fury. “Hurry. Something’s not right.”

Another scream echoes through the house—fear and panic combined. I wriggle into the dress, not worrying about my bra or panties. Rebel finishes dressing moments after I do, fastening the top button of his shirt and smoothing back his dark hair.

“Come on.” Taking my hand, he leads me out of the closet, ignoring the curious looks of the men and women now loitering in the hallway. The Texan from earlier is standing to one side, a champagne flute still clutched in his meaty hand.

“What’s going on?” Rebel asks him.

“A body. Someone found a body in the kitchen. Some hired help or something. Blood everywhere, apparently.”

Rebel’s expression turns to tempered steel. My arm nearly comes out of the socket as he pulls me after him, pushing and shoving his way through the crowds. He stops in his tracks when he reaches the kitchen. On the floor, just as the Texan said, a body lies in a pool of blood. It’s the girl who came to my room, Rebel’s friend, Leah. Her eyes are wide, starting to cloud over; her throat lays wide open, slit from ear to ear.

“Oh my god,” I whisper. “That’s—”

“Yeah.” Rebel lets go of my hand, dropping into a crouch, covering his mouth with his hands. Devastation sweeps across his face. He’s turned sheet-white.

I go to comfort him. I take a step forward, wanting to place my hand on his back, to say something to let him know I’m there, but something stops me. Or rather someone. Across the other side of the room, talking to Louis Aubertin, a man I recognize all too well catches my eye. He has the fucking audacity to smile. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

Hector Ramirez.

Dressed in an expensive-looking suit and holding a cut glass tumbler of what looks like whiskey in his hand, it’s obvious he’s here for Louis’ fundraiser. And from the cold, evil smile he sends my way, it’s obvious that he’s responsible for the dead girl lying on the floor.

Rebel must see him at the same time I do. Slowly, shakily, he gets to his feet. The man I was naked with, so caught up in only ten minutes ago, is completely gone. It’s like he never even existed. “Motherfucker,” Rebel snarls. “He should never have come here. He should never have known. I am going to fucking destroy him.”

Right there, in front of everyone, Hector raises his glass and smiles at Rebel. If the message he’s sending with the dead girl on the floor isn’t enough, the one in his eyes is crystal clear:

Bring it on, Rebel. Do your fucking worst.

Dear lovely reader,

I promised a few weeks ago that there would be four additional chapters at the end of Rebel, and I haven’t forgotten! At the time of upload for pre-order, the chapters are still being polished so that they shine, however by the time you are reading this they will be available for your exclusive viewing on my website.

In order to view the extra chapters, you must CLICK THIS LINK and enter the case sensitive password, Badlands145.

These chapters are my gift to you as a thank you for buying and reading Rebel, so please don’t share your treat!

I hope you enjoy! Don’t forget to comment in the section below and let me know what you think ;)

All my love,

HELL’S KITCHEN

Callie Hart and Lili Saint Germain have teamed up to create their first debut novel as Hart Saint Germain! Hell’s Kitchen will be unleashed on the world on March 2, 2015.

If you’d like to know more about Hell’s Kitchen, or want to be notified as soon as it’s live, sign up to the newsletter right here!

Callie and Lili are also hosting an exclusive book signing in Las Vegas on March 14 at the Inspire News Cafe to celebrate their release. You’ll be able to order your copy of Hell’s Kitchen and watch it print right in front of you on one of ono y 30 EBMs in the world!

A Q & A will follow, as well as complimentary snacks. Afterwards join the girls at the Wayfarer Bar for socialising and laughs!

If you’d like to attend, you can grab your ticket by clicking right here!

Roberto Barbieri is known in the Kitchen by many names: Bobby B. The Barber of Brooklyn. Il Assassino. My brother and I call him Father. No matter what name you call him by, when Roberto Barbieri tells you do something, you do it. No questions asked. And you do not fuck it up.

Money.

Power.

Sex.

Blood.

It all hangs in the balance.

And in this world?

Somebody always loses.

About The Author

Callie Hart is a bagel eating, coffee drinking, romance addict. She can recite lines from the Notebook by heart. She lives on a ridiculously high floor in a way-too expensive building with her fiancé and their pet goldfish, Neptune. Rebel is the first instalment in her Dead Man’s Ink trilogy. Book two will be coming out soon!

Her Blood & Roses series has over two thousand five star reviews, and features a dark hero and a kickass heroine. Book one, Deviant, is FREE right now! Click here to download now!

If you want to know the second one of Callie’s books goes live, all you need to do is sign up here.

In the meantime, Callie wants to hear from you!

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Tell Me Your Favorite Bits!

Don’t forget! If you purchased  Rebel and loved it, then please do stop over to your online retailer of choice and let me know which were your favorite parts! Reading reviews is the highlight of any author’s day.

I must ask, though…if you do review Rebel, please do your best to keep it spoiler free or clearly indicate your spoilers clearly. There’s nothing worse than purchasing a book only to accidentally ruin the twists and turns by reading something by accident!