When I realized we were alone in the room, sharp jabs of fear prickled over my skin. My rational mind told me to be frightened of him. He was a stranger—a strange man at that. He towered over me with muscles that could inflict great harm. But everything I needed to know about him was in his eyes. Searching them showed me that he was a gentle giant, and he seemed like someone that I could trust.

At what must’ve seemed like my continued apprehension, Rev held his hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you, I swear. As long as I have a breath in me, no one is ever going to hurt you again. You’re safe.”

I stared at him, weighing his words. “Y-You saved me,” I whispered.

“I guess you could say that,” he replied. I was shocked when he shyly ducked his head. The reaction seemed so foreign from the tough-guy persona he exuded.

“You got me away from Mendoza and that horrible place.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“So you saved me, and I’d like to thank you.”

He glanced up to give me a sad smile. “You’re welcome.”

When I tried pushing myself up in bed, pain once again charged through my midsection like a locomotive, causing me to wince. “Do you need more pain medicine?” Rev asked.

“No!” I answered a little more loudly and emphatically than I should have. I felt embarrassed at Rev’s raised brows. “I’ll be fine,” I added more calmly. The truth was I didn’t like feeling woozy and incapacitated. The last time I had been drugged was when I had been kidnapped.

Once I had ridden out the pain, I asked, “How long have I been out?”

“A day.”

I gasped. “I was out that long?”

“After being beaten and going through surgery, you needed it.”

“How bad was I?”

Rev grimaced. “Breakneck wasn’t sure you would make it through the surgery.”

“Breakneck?”

Rev chuckled. “I mean, Dr. Edgeway.”

“He was very kind to me when I woke up before surgery.”

“He’s an amazing doctor. If anyone could have saved you, it was him.”

Staring into Rev’s face, I recalled more of what had happened before I went into surgery. “I asked him to get you, didn’t I?”

He nodded. “And I came to you.”

“Yes, you did,” I murmured as I vaguely remembered his standing in the doorway before I’d slipped into unconsciousness again.

“I stayed by your side the entire time you were in recovery. It’s probably good we are in Mexico because I’m pretty sure an American hospital wouldn’t have allowed me to stay.”

I couldn’t rationalize why I found myself so drawn to him or why I had felt the need to have him with me during surgery. After all, he was a stranger to me. Sure, he had proven himself to some degree by rescuing me from the depths of hell, but I still knew so little about who he was. Was Rev really a knight in shining armor or had I once again met a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

When I shook myself free of my distracting thoughts, I found Rev staring at me. I hadn’t cared about my appearance since I had been kidnapped. Although I had been forced to look good for Mendoza, I didn’t seek his approval. For some strange reason, though, I now found myself worrying about what Rev thought of me. I brought my hand, which was currently tethered to an IV pole, to my hair. “I must be a mess.”

“No. I was just thinking how much better you already look since the surgery. I was so scared for you when I found you in the compound.”

“I thought you were Jesus,” I murmured, alluding to what I had said at the compound.

“I’m still just Rev,” he teased.

For some reason, I found myself smiling at his response. It felt good to smile again and to have someone tease me. It made me think of the past, before everything that had happened to me with Mendoza. “So, what kind of name is Rev?” I asked.

“Road name.”

I jerked my hand from his in revulsion. No, it can’t be true. Surely someone as kind and caring as Rev couldn’t possibly be like Johnny and his friends.

When I continued staring at him, Rev said, “It’s not what you think.”

“You’re a biker, right? What else is there to think?”

“I’m a Hells Raider. We’re nothing like the Diablos.”

“You sure about that?” I countered before I could stop myself.

A defiant look flashed in his eyes. “I’ve never laid a hand on a woman that wasn’t consensual. And I’ve sure as hell never beaten one. Even if I’d wanted to, my club would have taken my cut if I did. One of our bylaws is that no man is ever to abuse his old lady or any other woman.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “It was a wedding gift our former president gave to his wife. She’d had a rough go in life. Lots of men had hurt her over the years.”

Even though I didn’t know her, I felt a strange affinity with this former president’s wife. We had both found ourselves members of a club no one would ever want to join. “He sounds like a good man.”

A pained expression came over Rev’s face. “He was.”

“Was?”

“He got killed a few months ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” I replied. My heart went out to Rev because I could feel the sorrow emanating from him.

“Thank you.”

Grimacing, I pushed myself up in the bed. “And I’m sorry for accusing you of being like the men who . . . hurt me.”

“Don’t be sorry. You can’t help the way you feel. And I know what you went through.”

Cocking my head at him, I asked, “So what’s ‘Rev’ short for?”

“Reverend.”

My brows shot up in surprise at the thought of Rev having a religious calling. “You’re a minister?”

“No, but my father was.” At what must have been my continued inquisitive expression, he drew in a breath. “When my brothers and I patched into my father’s club, we took road names that bound us as a family and honored his former life as a minister.”

“Former life?”

Renewed grief etched its way onto Rev’s face. He didn’t respond for a few moments. Staring down at his hands, he said, “When I was eleven, he left the pulpit and went back to the biker world. My two brothers and I followed in his footsteps, much to our mother’s disappointment.”

Feeling guilty for dredging up his pain, I said, “I’m sorry. I seem to have a special gift today for bringing up things that make you feel bad.”

He gave me a small smile. “Don’t apologize,” he replied. “Speaking of fathers, I’m sure you’ll want to get in touch with your family. Although we found out your identity, we thought it would be better for you to contact them.”

A pang of regret stabbed me at the thought that it had been Rev who brought up the subject of my parents and not me. The truth was I had forced myself to bury any thoughts I had of them in the deep recesses of my mind. In those early weeks as Mendoza’s captive, I’d thought about my parents a lot. I wondered what they were doing and how they had reacted to my abduction. I fantasized that they had pulled strings and dispatched some Special Forces unit that would arrive at any minute to save me. But as time went on, the weeks turning into a month and then two, and no one came for me, I had to force myself to stop thinking about them. I had to reason that I had left them little to go on when it came to tracking me down.

Focusing on something else Rev had said, I questioned, “You know who I am?”

He nodded. “Annabel Lee Percy, originally from Virginia but living in Texas.”

My brows rose in surprise. “You were able to find all of that just by me telling you my name?”

Rev smiled. “My fellow Raiders have talents. Of course, it wasn’t that hard going through the missing persons reports for girls named Annabel.”

“I see.”

Reaching into his back pocket, Rev took out a phone. “Would you like to call them now?”

“No. Not right now.”

Rev’s brows furrowed in confusion at the panicked note in my voice. But at that moment I didn’t have the energy to try to explain my complicated family. I’m sure it sounded strange that I didn’t demand the phone from him to have a tearful reunion. Trying to lessen the abruptness of my reaction, I said, “I’m just a little too tired right now. Maybe in the morning when I’ve had more rest.”