by Ada Stone
I rounded the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. I could see the mass of cars parked outside the house, even spotting my sleek little black one.
See? Everything’s fine, I told myself, letting out a shaky little laugh. I was so paranoid these days, but…could anyone blame me?
I’d slowed down to a more reasonable pace, one that didn’t make my ankles feel as though they were about to break in half at any given moment, and was making a beeline for the car. That was when I finally noticed it. The soft plod of shoes switching from grass to pavement. The breathing of a person close enough behind me to sense if even you couldn’t see them. And the rising of the tiny hairs on the back of my neck that reminded me that something wasn’t right.
My body tensed and I sucked in a harsh breath as I readied myself. Then, I bolted. I ran as fast as humanly possible, but I’d waited too long. Between my stupid sequined dress and those damn uncomfortable heels, I wasn’t in any position to be sprinting across the lawn. He must have been dressed a little more sensibly, because before I reached the parking lot full of cars and no people, he grabbed a hold of me.
I let out a single scream, but it was cut short as a clammy hand slapped across my mouth. I tasted salt and skin, making me want to gag. An arm wrapped around my middle, strong enough to hold me even as I thrashed about, trying to dislodge myself.
But it was no use. As I struggled and tried to bust free of him, he merely dragged me along. I expected us to go back towards the gardens, but instead he pushed me forward towards the cars I’d already been aiming for just a moment ago. Hope sprang up in my breast. Maybe someone would see me!
Those hopes were quickly dashed, however, as I realized that there was no one in sight. I searched frantically for a single soul and way off in the distance, I caught sight of several streams of gray smoke lifting up in the dark night. Whatever big shot star came to this after party with a driver would likely find them there.
Like my driver.
I tried to scream against the man’s hand, but it barely made a sound and was swallowed up by the blaring music of the party so nearby. I continued to struggle, but it, too, was useless. The man dragged me to a car that I didn’t recognize. It looked like any car. Four doors, black, stock silver rims. Not good, I decided. If anyone did actually manage to see me getting thrown into a car tonight, they wouldn’t be able to tell it apart from any other black four-door car.
Not that anyone would see me, I realized grimly. No one was watching, no one was paying attention. I’d craved a moment away from the madness of the party and the paparazzi all night and now I got it.
Be careful what you wish for.
I was graced with one last chance to save myself. When the man got to the car, he had to take at least one hand off of me to open the door. He must have realized it and made an executive decision, because he decided to remove the hand that covered my mouth. Probably, he thought the same thing I did: there was no one around to hear me.
Still, as he reached for the door to the little black car, I let out the loudest, shrillest scream my vocal chords would allow.
“Shit!” the man said, the first and only thing he’d said to me thus far. His voice was just like the car: bland and unrecognizable.
He managed to jerk the door open and brought his hand back to my mouth, cutting off my scream. I thought I was done for as he shoved me head first into the backseat of the car. Because of the awkward position, my body was forced to bend at the middle and I found myself slamming to the leather interior. That was where I saw the rope and the duct tape, the handcuffs and the silky red scarf that I could only hope was meant for gagging and not something…kinkier.
The sight of these things made me struggle harder, panic truly and firmly setting in. I wiggled and kicked out my legs, anything to allow me a chance to break free, but it was no use. Now that I was in the car—except for my legs which were dangling out the door, flailing wildly—it was pretty clear that he had me. Whoever he was, whatever he wanted, I was his.
Oh god, I thought, trying to brace myself for the very worst and failing miserably.
And then, he was gone. I blinked twice just to be sure I was correct, but I noticed that all of a sudden his clammy hands on me were missing. I didn’t miss a beat. Using my arms on the cheap leather of his car, I shoved myself back and out of the car, unwilling to scramble out the other door even if it would put me farther from my assailant. I would not get locked up in his car.
I landed on my pinching heels and took five steps away from the car before I really bothered to look and see what was going on.
Another man had grabbed my attacker, gripping him by the collar of his shirt to yank him away from me. He was a tall man with broad shoulders and darkly tousled hair that fell into his wickedly dark eyes. The muscles of his arms rippled beneath a ripped t-shirt that was stained with grease and oil as he threw a hard punch into the other man’s face. I heard something break, probably his nose, but I didn’t even look at the asshole who’d come after me. My eyes were riveted on my savior. His jeans were tight against his firm rear and his upper thighs, falling haphazardly across boots that were likely steel-toed. Tattoos worked their way down his strong arms and I saw an earring glitter in his ear.
All of this should have painted one very clear picture for me: trouble. The kind of trouble I’d spent my life getting away from. But even as I thought that, believed that, I couldn’t resist the urge to drag my gaze across his firm body. I worked with sculpted, well-oiled men on a regular basis. The kind who ate only chicken breast and had personal trainers and were so busy worrying about what they looked like that they could care less what I looked like.
But this man…I could tell he wasn’t like that. There were holes in his jeans. He’d cut off the sleeves of his tee. His boots were scuffed and his hair was wild. No, this man was strong because he was the kind of man who got into fights.
I let out a strangled breath, clutching at my breast in a vain attempt to get my heartbeat to slow again. I felt as though a shot of adrenaline had been stuck directly into my heart, wiring me and my whole body on high alert.
My rough and tumble savior punched my attacker once more, causing him to go down. That was when he finally looked at me and the spike of intensity that shone in his smoldering eyes was enough to make my knees weak. I tried to write it off as simply being attacked, but deep down, I knew it had to do with the way he was looking at me.
I licked my lips and opened my mouth to say something. I thought it was going to be a thank you or something, but instead it came out as a sharp, “He’s getting away!” as I pointed.
The man had picked himself up off the ground and was running at full speed away from the two of us. He wove between cars and dove through bushes before finally leaping over the fence that surrounded the property. I felt a spike of annoyance.
“You let him go?” I demanded angrily, still off kilter thanks to my rapidly pounding heart, his devilishly good looks, and the fact that I’d nearly been kidnapped in some rinky dink black car. I promised myself I’d have it traced and figure out who was after me, but that would be later. Right now my focus was purely on this rugged man in front of me.
A single eyebrow rose in my direction as he stared me down. “You’re welcome,” he told me sardonically, wiping at his stained clothing as though to brush away invisible dust.
My cheeks flushed beet red, but I held on to my anger to avoid the fact that I was being a little rude. “He tried to kidnap me and you just let him run off?”
He rolled his dark eyes at me, then let out a sigh. The sound of his breath slipping from between full lips, a scar running vertically down the top lip on his left side, made me shiver. “Whatever, princess. Get back to your party.” He nodded his chin in the direction of the house which still blared loudly behind us.
I sucked in a deep breath, then forced myself to be calm, cool and collected. “What do I owe you?” I said, deciding that treating this all clinically was the best remedy.
He blinked at me. “What?”
“What do I owe you? I insist on paying you for your services.”
He gave me a half surprised, half disgusted look. “I don’t need your damn money. Be more careful and next time don’t go prancing around alone at night.”
“I was not prancing—”
But he was already walking away. I watched him go despite myself, staring at his ass, which was shaped perfectly by those tight jeans. He slipped onto a motorcycle and revved it as I shouted after him, “You ass!”
He rode off and I told myself good riddance, but there was no denying that now that he’d gone, fear wrapped its cold cloak around me once more. I wrapped my arms around myself and hurried towards the trails of smoke where I was sure my driver was. He’d be fired tomorrow, but tonight I couldn’t help but be relieved to know that he was around.
I should have known better, I thought to myself, gently chiding. How can I be so reckless with a stalker after me?
Chapter Two
Spear
My motorcycle rumbled beneath me, drowning out much of the sound of the city. I was downtown and traffic wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good. I’d had to stop a half a dozen times already and the sun beating down on me had made this usually pleasant trip miserable. Normally, I went to the shop earlier on in the day both to avoid traffic and the heavy California sun. But I’d had a late night last night and had chosen to sleep in a little this morning.
“What do I owe you?”
I shuddered at the memory of her sultry voice, letting it slide down my spine and drop into my gut, swirling around there until I felt myself get half hard with just the memory of it.
I didn’t recognize her, though I was pretty sure she was someone famous. That was the neighborhood for it and there was a huge party not twenty feet from us. For all the good it had done her. Probably a hundred or so people up there in that house and not a one of them had heard her scream or noticed her unceremoniously thrown into a car, her silvery dress splitting up the side to reveal the glowing and smooth skin of a toned, long leg.
I shook my head, trying to clear it of the memory of her voice, but of other things, too. Like how she smelled of some kind of flower, just light enough that you almost didn’t notice, but when it did it hit you so hard that you felt like you’d been drugged. Or the low dip of her cleavage, her perfectly round breasts barely covered by the twin panels of her slinky party dress. Or those full lips as they raged and pouted and promised me dirty, dirty things.
On a scale of one to stupid, it was well into absolutely moronic to remember her like I did. The fact that she was in that area at all last night meant she was far out of my league.
I was in that area last night, too, my subconscious pointed out to me, but I dismissed the thought quickly as the light turned green and I actually managed to make it through this time.
It was true that I had been in that ritzy, over the top neighborhood last night, but I’d been there on business. My boss had meetings at his house sometimes but they were usually for only certain members of the Angels of Chaos motorcycle club. I was in pretty tight with him, we’d been friends for a long time now, so I usually went, but I never cared for it. Everyone in that area tended to be snooty and I’d always wanted to ask what he’d been thinking living in a place like that.
But I was sure he had his reasons.
I pulled into the shop bay. We had an underground parking lot all to ourselves, something thrown in when the boss finally got enough money to do well. Ironically enough, to do things the right way, you had to collect a certain amount of money doing things the wrong way. He still dealt in drugs, mostly to people who had enough money to roll in it nightly, though they were of better quality and involved a lot fewer people who couldn’t handle it in the end. But at least we didn’t have to boost cars anymore. And there were always lines we had never crossed, unlike more than a few motorcycle clubs out there.
I came to a stop in my spot in the underground parking, then shoved the keys into my pockets as I dismounted. There was a collection of other bikes already down there, guys who had been working since about six or seven o’clock that morning. I usually worked later in the day to begin with, mostly because my jobs weren’t always one hundred percent legitimate. The shop was on the up and up, but not everything the Angels of Chaos did was, and I handled a lot of that stuff.
Heading upstairs, I went towards the coffee pot first. I poured myself a cup of the strong stuff, the taste resembling bitter tar, but that was the way I liked it. The cream and sugar aspect was too much like drinking liquid sugar and never settled well in my stomach.
When I had a cup, I headed towards one of the back rooms where I could do some paperwork. You would think that someone who mostly dealt with illegal business arrangements wouldn’t have to deal with paperwork, but you’d be wrong. It was mostly the books, money stuff, that needed to be watched, but it was other things too sometimes. Things like names. Business partners. Who had recently screwed us. If the cops ever came snooping around all, of this information would disappear instantly, probably in either a fire or a shredder, depending on how much time we had, but for now it was useful to know who we were dealing with.
Before I made it to the office, however, I was stopped by Derek. His sandy brown hair was kind of greasy, because the idiot had likely run his hands through it several times after working on one of the cars in the shop, but otherwise he was a good-looking kid—but definitely a kid.
“The boss wants to see you,” he told me, wiping his filthy hands on an equally filthy rag. He was a good kid and I liked him, trusted him even, but he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the pack. Still, I’d take him with me on a dangerous mission before I’d take most, if only because I trusted him to listen.
“It’s too early for me to be in trouble,” I whined.
He barked out a laugh. “Well, I don’t think you’re in trouble, but he’s definitely in a mood.”
I sobered up quickly at that little piece of information. It made me wonder what had changed since last night. He’d been in pretty high spirits then, pleased with how the business was being run and how much money we were bringing in. There were several new members being vetted and he was pretty happy with them, too, so I wasn’t sure what could have caused his mood to take a nosedive in so short a span of time.
Sucking in a deep breath, I steeled myself before heading to his office. Derek wished me luck, then hurried back to whatever car he was stuck under today.
I knocked on the door to his office, though it was only a formality, and pushed it open before anyone answered. “You wanted to see me, boss?”
The office was clean and neat, despite the general greasiness that came with working around cars and motorcycles. The walls were painted a mossy green color that I figured some designer picked out to instill a “sense of calmness” in the room. There were framed pictures hanging on those mossy walls and there weren’t any windows in the place. There were a couple of green leafy plants settled in the corners that I had to imagine someone else took care of, and there was a desk made of expensive wood with a smooth, polished surface. That was where my boss, Ryker Wilson, was sitting, leaning back in his leather chair, staring off into space thoughtfully.
“Take a seat, Spear,” he told me, gesturing to one of the two chairs positioned on the other side of the desk. “I need to tell you some things.”
I frowned, but took my seat anyway. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but despite Ryker’s general calmness, it was pretty clear that whatever it was, wasn’t good. “Alright,” I told him, keeping my tone neutral and my voice even.
There was a long pause of silence where no one said anything. I was starting to get impatient, which I tried really hard not to do with Ryker, and was about to blurt out something stupid when he finally broke the silence.
“Do you know I have a niece?” he asked me.
The question was so out of left field that I just stared at him stupidly for a long t
ime. Regaining my composure, I cleared my throat and shook my head. “Uh, no, sir. I didn’t realize.”
He nodded his head. “Beautiful, sweet girl. Everyone loves her. A real doll.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say to this, so I just kept silent, only nodding my head to show that I was at least listening.
He continued. “I love my niece, you know? She’s all the blood family I’ve got left. That makes her very important to me, you understand?”
I nodded firmly, though I still wasn’t entirely sure where this was going. “Yes, sir. Family’s important.”
Turning in his leather chair, Ryker swiveled to face me, leaning his forearms on the desk. “Do you have family, Spear?”
I frowned. Family? No, not anymore. I got the shit end of the stick as far as that went. My mother was fucked up on so many drugs that it wasn’t a hundred percent clear whether she’d died of an overdose or just from mixing the wrong kinds of drugs together. That had happened when I was a bleary seven years old and my biological daddy was good enough to step up to the task of raising his poor, worthless son.
