Snare swipes his cell. “Viper says we need more brothers.”

“Shit,” I hiss. Time. Time to coordinate, plan, and execute. Rose doesn't have that time. 

She's with Diablo.

The hearing is Tuesday. 

He'll fucking exact his torture and return her in enough time to recuperate and not look like she was beaten in places that don't show for an audience. 

Maybe he'll rape her. I scrub my face with a palm. Definitely.

“Get outta your head, brother. This doesn't help Rose.”

I release my grip on the truck and can almost hear its sigh of relief. Snare grabs jumper cables, walks to the hood, and feels for the release. 

The latch pops, and I hop behind the wheel. 

A few seconds roll by. I grind my teeth.
***
Rose

I move my head.

My stomach immediately revolts, and I roll to my side, vomiting. Pain explodes through my head as I throw up helplessly. 

I scoot away from the steaming mess I just made and wipe a shaky hand over my mouth.

“Fuck this, Diablo. You've gone over the fucking top―kidnapping a citizen? One you can be―” a man's voice I don't recognize yells at Drake. 

“Shut your fucking piehole, or I will.”

I open my eyes. My vision’s hazy, so I close them.

When I open them, Drake and another guy are arguing. I blink and cough.

Their faces turn to me.

“Fucking puked everywhere. Goddamn,” Drake bites out.

“Probably gave the bitch a fucking concussion, dumbass. You can't clock a woman like you do a man.”

Nice to know there's a difference of strength needed when abusing a woman. 

I push my upper body up and sort of crawl to the nearest wall, only about three feet away. I rest my shoulders against the cool concrete and stifle a sigh of relief. There's just something so much better about being upright.

Lying on a floor with a circle of vomit around me, I'm at Drake's mercy. And as far as I know, Drake doesn't have any.

The other man looks me over. Brown eyes and dark hair frame a face too angular to be handsome, but isn’t easy to forget, either. 

Not that I want anyone to pay attention to me here. 

“Hot, even with the puke.”

Oh God.

Drake snorts. “Yeah. But a goddamned thorn in my side.”

“She the one who's got your property?”

Drake nods. “Not for long. Gonna teach the snatch some manners, then she's gonna comply.”

Comply.

I set my teeth. My skull is a mass of agony, and my stomach burns with lack of food, glucose overdose, adrenaline drain, and a sound hit to the head. 

I feel terrible, but my mind's in sharp focus. 

This man is a demon in the flesh. 

He wants Charlie. There's no force of nature that will give him what he wants.

“You were still a fucking ’tard to take her.”

“Bitch wasn't listening to reason. Had to go hard.”

The other man puts his hands on his hips. “You went hard, all right.”

“Puck, shut the fuck up. I mean it. I'm a brother, and we stand behind brothers.”

Puck of the dark, villainous looks peers at me again. “I do stand behind all my brothers in the Chaos Riders, but I didn't sign up for beating and torturing chicks.”

“What's the fucking difference? We run girls.” Drake gives a dismissive shrug.

Puck jabs his thumb in his chest. “I don't. I patched in before the trafficking. Now I'm in for life, but I'm not doing that to chicks.”

“They're all cunts, Puck.”

I close my eyes, tears of hopelessness begging for release behind my eyelids. 

Apparently, there is a difference in MCs.

Drake is a criminal. His “brother” stays out of sheer loyalty, but probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for that. Sounds like the Chaos Riders MC was a different club when Puck joined.

“They all have cunts. That part's true, but they aren't all cunts.”

“Use fancy words, twist mine―either way, my dick wants to teach this cunt a lesson. I'm getting my property back, and if I have to do fucked-up shit to see it through, I will.”

Puck grunts low in his throat. “Fine. But before you attack her, you might go a little easier. She's not going to look perfect for the hearing if you rough her up.” 

Voice of reason. I open my eyes, landing them like daggers on Drake. His smile is slow and easy―all for me.

“I'm not going to rough her up, unless you call stabbing her with my cock roughing up.”

“Fuck, Diablo―don't fucking rape her. Look at her.” Puck swings a palm my way.

I know Puck's logic falls on deaf ears. Drake can't hurt Anna anymore so he'll work on me instead. 

Drake gives me his attention. “Yeah”―he licks his lips―“look at her.”

“I'm hungry,” I say, surprising them both.

Puck gives me a speculative look.

Drake strides to me, avoiding the pile of vomit, and in one smooth movement, he crouches. 

Strings of his greasy hair fall forward, and his hand reaches toward me. 

I flinch.

He tears off my shirt, and I yelp. My body jerks toward his because the fabric refuses to tear neatly.

I fall back, my elbows hitting the concrete floor with a painful tap. “Ouch,” I whisper. My strength is fading. 

“Hey, wait a second, Diablo.”

Drake's fast hand twists my nipple through my sports bra, and I cry out. But it comes out like a moan instead of the scream I hear in my mind. 

Pretty soon, I think the only part that won't hurt on my body is my big toe. 

I guess there's time. 

Fear dries my mouth into a cotton-filled desert. 

Drake ignores Puck and mounds my left breast with his hand. “Fucking finest rack around.” He jerks my sports bra down, and my bare breast oozes right into his waiting fingers.

All I can think of is Noose and his savage tenderness with my pussy. How can a man hold every piece of your body and not have your heart surrender to his ownership?

“Check out that tat, numbnuts.”

“Huh?” Drake says absently, his eyes glazed with lust.

“Some kind of med symbol.”

Finally, Drake's attention leaves my boob and drops to my lower ribcage. I know what's there. 

It's been there since the first “episode.”

Everyone is familiar with the medic symbol. A pole with wings and a twisted spiral around a flagpole thingie. But mine has a word in script above it: glucose. 

That's how they knew what to do when I got to the hospital. First thing they did was check vitals, lift my T-shirt and voila! Glucose issue.

“What the fuck is this?” Drake asks, flicking my rib painfully.

I bite my lip then manage, “I have hypoglycemia.”

His slap makes my face rock back. “Just a love tap, you ungrateful twat.”

I lie down on the cold concrete. It's official. Drake―or Diablo, whoever he is―hates women. He's not happy unless he's calling me a vagina in every demeaning way he can.

He pisses me off. I can't help that he's too stupid to know what hypoglycemia means. But my face hurts worse, so I glare from the floor. “I need food regularly, specifically protein, you-you jackass!” I scream.

Yelling hurts my head. I roll my face against the cool concrete.

Drake stands, grabbing a handful of what remains of my shirt, yanking me to my feet. The movement is too sudden. My head spins, and my belly flops in a sick twist.

I turn my head and barf on him. Not a gentle evacuation, either. I open my mouth and take the greatest yawn of my life, spewing vomit like the girl from The Exorcist. 

“Fuck!” Drake roars, tossing me backward. 

I fall against the wall, palms slapping the sides of the rough concrete to arrest my momentum.

I still slide down and land on one ass cheek. 

Puck is suddenly there. 

I flinch for the second time―it’s becoming a theme. My eyes roll up to meet his.

“I won't hurt you.”

Right. I turn my head away and spit vomit-laced saliva onto the floor. 

He grabs my arm, and I scream. Full-throated. A wounded roar torn out of my throat.

The noise echoes hollowly in the confines of the room.

My skull reverberates in agony, and I sort of slump in on myself.

“Shut up.” His brown eyes try to tell me something, but hysteria is my next stop on the kidnap train.

I clamp my mouth shut, hating the rank taste inside. Hating what I know I'll have to live through. To survive. Easier said than done. 

“What does hypoglycemia mean?”

“I was in the hospital when-when…” I cover my face as tears squeeze through the cracks of my fingers.

“When what?” he asks, voice soft.

“Speak, bitch.”

I don't look at Drake. I can't. Maybe I can use this.

“When Drake got me. I was going to go home, eat. Now I'm here, and my head hurts. I need food.”

“Or what?” Drake grates.

“I'll just―” Disappear. “Go into a coma.”

“Fuck!” Puck stands and faces Drake.

“You fucking kidnap a girl that's tied to a murder. And she's got some kind of medical issue? Smart, Diablo.”

“What's with this Diablo name?” I look between them, and their faces swivel to mine.

“Road name, whore.”

My chin lifts. “I'm not a whore.” 

Drake's eyebrow shoots up. “Yeah, was that some fucking Road Kill dude I saw splitting your twat? Yeah, looks like he was going to hump you in front of God and country.”

His voice is an ice pick to my brain. I don't reply. I can't deny what it might have looked like. But I won't justify anything to this man. 

I don't know what “Diablo” means, but I bet it suits him. 

“Gotta feed her, man.”

Drake shakes his head. “Was looking forward to sticking my wick.” His tongue runs over his thick lips.

Puck frowns. “Listen, I know you've got a fucked-up torture plan. But you might have to put that on hold long enough to let her piss and eat some food. Or you're going to be raping an unconscious girl.”

My gorge rises.

Drake grabs his crotch. His grin is lascivious. “Might be fine. I'll still fill her gas tank.”

I gag.

Puck jerks his face in my direction. “Let's get you some food.”

“What? You feel sorry for this bitch? She's the one that took my boy. We're brothers. Whose side are you on anyway?”

Puck pulls me slowly to my feet. I sway, and he puts an arm around my shoulders. 

“The right one. Now let me get her some food, and then you can fuck her up.”

I allow him to move me through a room. My eyes dart to a drain at its center as we walk past.

I swallow my fear. Rust-colored stains mark the floor. I'm not the first one who's puked here. Bled here.

Been threatened torture. 

I won't be the last. At least I'll have a full belly.

“ʼKay, try it.”

I turn the key, and a sick winding noise screams from underneath the dented metal.

“Kill it.”

I sit there, elbow hanging out the window, eyes burning holes through the hood, wanting a smoke so bad, I can taste the tobacco on my tongue. 

The rumble of Snare's bike idles as I sit like a coiled snake inside the truck. Ready to strike at anything. Anyone.

Minutes feel like hours.

“Again.”

I turn the key. The engine roars to life, and I gently tap the accelerator.

Snare shuts the hood, and I grimace at the noise as pain flares through my skull.

He comes around to the driver's side and claps the opening where the window rolls up and down. Bright-blue eyes shrewdly gauge my mood. 

It's a black fucker.

“I know you want to Lone Ranger this shit, Noose.”

“You got that.”

“You can't.” He swings his palms wide. “That fucker Diablo will be abso-fucking-lutely expecting that maneuver. I'll hand it to ya; it's a slick way to commit suicide. Creative.” He nods, a sloppy grin on his face.

I scowl at him.

He laughs. “Listen, I know you've got it bad for this girl.”

I can't hardly get out of that truth, so I don't bother. “Yeah.”

“So let's be smart.” His eyebrows rise, and he taps his temple.

I tramp on the gas. Maybe I can drown the fucker out.

Snare shouts over the engine. “Gonna go see Viper. He'll have a plan. He's calling emergency church. Get Road Kill behind you, Noose. You know it's the only way to get her back.”

Nope. Heard him just fine.

I hate that Snare is right. I hate that fucker having Rose. I'm wasting precious time nursing my fogged brain and waiting for this heap of shit to regain battery power.

“I know it seems like a time suck―”

“Yeah.”

Snare grunts. “But we gotta have brains goinʼ in. Someone's gotta be thinking. And you're not. And ya need stitches. Probably have a concussion.”

“Yeah.”

“Noose.”

I turn and look at Snare, biting the inside of my cheek as pain swarms my thick head.

“I know it's more than pussy, Noose. I got that. But we have one shot to do this right. Only one.”

“Yeah,” I repeat for the millionth time. “It's more than good tail.”

“Then let's handle it right. She's your property, and you didn't know it. But now ya do. No excuses.”

I do know.

“Let me leave the bike―”

I jerk my head back and meet his stare. He must be like real blood to leave his bike behind. “No. I'll drive this hunk of shit and follow you.”

“Sure?” His eyebrow whips up. 

“Yeah. Just drive slow. I feel like I've slammed ten shots.” I don't mention the part where they're all begging to come back up for an encore performance. 

Snare takes me at my word, turning on his heel, and heads back toward his bike with the jumper cables hanging from his hands like tame black and red snakes. Nature's warning of poison, I think randomly.

I throw the truck in reverse and carefully pull out of the parking stall. 

I don't kick myself in the teeth for not noticing the danger before it broadsided me. I was literally into her. Everything had narrowed to Rose under my hands―and her pussy split by my dick.

Rose was counting on me. So much for my offer of protection. She'll never want me now.

If there's anything left of Rose to want anything.

I take a deep, steadying breath then let it out and suck another. My gaze latches on to the red taillights I follow like eyes leading me straight to hell.

The sick thud of my head pulses in time with my heart.

I keep on. I'm going back to the club. Gonna gather my brothers, and we're gonna get Rose back.

I can still taste her on my mouth, feel her smoothness beneath my fingertips, and remember the way her mouth milked me of every drop of my cum. 

I don't know when I fell for her.

Now that I think about it, I think it was over for me before me and Rose even began. 

She looked at me.  

Just one look. 

Love at first sight is bullshit. 

Until it happens to your ass.