Screams rip me back to reality. My mother’s words resonate with enough force to know I need to find a way to escape. Maybe if I play the innocent and stupid card, they’ll be dumb enough to leave me with a chance to escape just like Enrico did. I need to try something to break free.

“I don’t understand,” I cry. “Why would anyone think I killed them? I loved them!” Good girl, play innocent. Maybe they’ll show me enough mercy to make my move.

A sick smile forms on the officer’s face. “You sure have a funny way about showing your love by hacking your mother and step-father to death. Your blood and fingerprints were found all over the crime scene and on the murder weapons. That doesn’t exactly scream innocent little girl to me, does it?” he says, directing the question at the officer behind the wheel.

“I didn’t fucking do it, you cocksucker! I’m fucking innocent!” I yell, kicking the seat with my legs. Well, there goes that plan. My goddamn stupid mouth.

“If you kick that seat or open your mouth one more fucking time, I will pull your ass out of the car and teach you how to respect an officer of the law, you fucking cunt. Sit back and shut up!”

Spitting on the glass on the divider between the seats, the officer driving slams on the breaks, sending my head rocketing toward the glass. “That’s fucking it. Harris, shut her the fuck up or I’m killing her now.”

The man I now know as Harris bolts from his seat and flings the back passenger door open. He crawls in to grab me as I ball up away from his grasp in the opposite corner. Wildly kicking my feet, I connect to his face, sending him falling to the ground. The other officer flings open the door I’m cowering against while I was distracted and pulls me out of the car by my hair. Throwing me to the ground, he kicks me in the stomach twice before hauling me to my feet. He slams my face against the glass of the back window, causing me to slump over the back fender.

“Jesus, she’s a hellcat,” Harris exclaims. “Are you sure we can’t have a little fun with her before we take her in? She’s a hot little number if you discount the fact that she’s covered in blood. We could break her jaw afterward so she can’t talk.”

Fuck! He’s trying to convince the other guy to let him rape me in broad daylight. I have to get out of here before that happens. Who the fuck are these guys?

“You’re fucking sick, Harris. You know we have strict orders to take her down to the cabin. We weren’t even supposed to bang her up this badly before he got to talk to her. He’s going to be pissed she’s roughed up as it is. If you fucking rape her, he’ll kill you for it.”

Who the hell are they talking about? Who is he?

“I know, Parsons, but fuck, I like it when they fight. She’s got my dick begging to come out to play with those big, beautiful tits. Maybe the boss will let me play with her when he’s done. She might not look as good, but her cunt will still be useable.”

“I fucking doubt it. Get her ass back in the car,” Parsons orders. “Make fucking sure she doesn’t open her mouth this time.”

Harris stumbles around the car and jerks me against him by my hair again. He leans down to my ear. “You’re fucking lucky that the boss ordered you to be delivered alive, or I’d have my dick pounding into that ass of yours right now while Parsons watched,” he whispers just before he slams my face into the car, sending blackness spiraling around me.

I’m jolted back into consciousness when one of the fuckwit officers drags me out of the car and onto the gravel. My hands try to soften the hard collision with the ground, but I forget about the cuffs. I fall to the ground on my face, ending up cut open and bleeding from the embedded stones. My vision is blurry, which makes my already aching stomach on the brink of retching up the breakfast Hero made me.

Fuck, Hero. Just thinking his name pains me and sends seething anger coursing through my veins. He watched as the men threw me against that car as they took me into custody. He spouted all this bullshit about protecting me and needing me, but he just sat there like a fucking stone statue and let them haul me off. Where the fuck was the fight in him? Where was the man who eliminated an entire fucking motorcycle club as revenge for taking one of his brother’s lives in cold blood? He’s a fucking joke. He’s no one’s hero. Just a fucking coward with a bullshit medal of honor.

I can’t believe I bought into his bullshit. He was in it for the pussy. His words were laced with lies to get me to open my legs because any other man would have stood his ground and fought them for me. I can’t believe I was so stupid to believe he was the real deal. I’m a fucking idiot to believe my life would ever be sunshine and rainbows with him. It was all just a pipe dream of a romance that could not, or would not, ever happen.

“Get up, bitch,” one of the officers orders. My attempt to stand on my own is fleeting without the use of my hands as leverage to push myself up to my knees. Falling back down to the ground, the officer repeatedly yells at me. Finally realizing that I can’t move, they drag me up from the ground and carry me by the arms up the wooden steps of a building. Swinging open the building’s front doors, they literally throw me into the interior. Looking up from my landing spot, I realize that I’m not in a police station at all, but in an old cabin. I can smell the cedar in the wooden floorboards and the smell of a forest trickling in from the open door.

“Where am I?” I rasp against the floor boards as my head pounds with the beginnings of a migraine.

A heavy set of footsteps walks toward me, the wooden floor creaking underneath the person’s weight. Black, polished, dress shoes stop in front of me. Judging from the style and width of the shoes, I determine it’s a man. Who the hell is this guy? Craning my neck upward, I find that he’s dressed in black dress pants. His large frame is evident as my eyes scan farther up. His chest is broad, but it’s his face that sends fear spiraling out of control within me. It can’t be him. No, I repeat. Please, God, let it be anyone but him.

“Hello, Dani,” a low voice calls to me. “It’s nice to see you again. I’ve missed your pretty face, princess.”

The man standing before me is my worst nightmare. This man is the reason I ran. The reason I left my life in Cleveland behind and traded it for sunny California and a motorcycle club. He is the ghost from my past that made me fearful of everyone and everything around me. He is the catalyst to all the bad shit in my life.

Mikey is the fucking cop that murdered my parents to get to me, but that’s not the worst of it. He’s my fucking step-brother.

“Hero,” a soft voice calls from outside my door.

“Go the fuck away, Ruby. I don’t want to talk to you or to anyone else standing outside that fucking door. GO AWAY!” I scream at her.

Sitting on my bed, I just sit and stare into nothingness. Dani is a fucking murderer. I just don’t fucking understand how someone like her would even be capable of something like that. She cut down her own family and then tried to spin this sob story of how they were taken away from her. Watching the police haul her away bleeding in the back of that goddamn police car nearly killed me. I wanted to reach out and save her, but I couldn’t help her. I just stood there and watched them rough up my woman and take her away. The police made it clear that if we interfered, we would be charged for harboring a known fugitive. With the kind of rap sheets our club has, we’d be locked up for life. I had to protect my club, and in order to do that, I had to let fate deal Dani her own cards.

Raze ushering me inside was for the best because he could see the beast inside of me rising. I would end up in jail next to her if I acted on the rage-induced acts playing in my head. Those two bastards signed their death warrants when they slammed her face into that car. Raze had to restrain me from tearing off after them. There had to be some mistake. She’s not like us. She has a temper, sure, and violent streak when provoked, but she’s not a killer. There’s no way, but doubt creeps into my mind.