Contents

Title Page
Rights
Dedication
Prologue
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
DON’T FORGET:
Also by Jessica Gadziala:
About the author:
Stalk Her
Acknowledgments
 WOLF
A Henchmen MC Novel
--

Jessica Gadziala
Copyright © 2016 by Jessica Gadziala
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any
manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief
quotations used in a book review.

"This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been
used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or
organizations is entirely coincidental."

Cover Image Credit: shuttershock.com/glebTv

 DEDICATION:
To the strong and silent types, a personal favorite of mine.
 PROLOGUE

Detective Collings

He hated the new blood. He blamed his upcoming retirement. It was by some cruel twist of
fate that five years shy of getting out of Navesink Bank and going somewhere, anywhere else,
they decided to strap him with some kid greener than a Christmas tree. It wasn't that he didn't
understand why they needed to put rookies like him with the old-timers, but that didn't mean he
had the patience to deal with his gung-ho super cop crap.
See the new blood wasn't even from the area. He didn't understand the delicate balance that
existed in Navesink Bank. Fact of the matter was, the law didn't run the town. Sure, they pitched
in; they dealt with the robberies, domestic disputes, the occasional gang scuffle.
But there was no mistaking who owned their particular cesspool of a town, and that was the
big time criminal enterprises. It was The Henchmen MC and their gun running; it was Richard
Lyon and his cocaine; it was Hailstorm and their varied talents; it was even the family of loan
sharks known as the Mallicks; it was the Grassi family and their docks; and it was the scumbag
Lex Keith who dipped his hands into a little bit of everything: drugs, extortion, prostitution.
Collings had been a new blood once, testosterone flooding his balls, itching to take down
every crooked mother fucker this side of the river. He lost a marriage and most of the custody of
his daughter to his obsession back in those days. It didn't take him long after to figure out how
things were. Half of the department was in one or more of the syndicate's pockets, so were the
judges, so were the juries if it ever went that far. So while he kept his wallet and his bank
account clear of dirty money, he learned his place early on. His place was not to stake out The
Henchmen compound and try to find illegal guns. It wasn't his place to try to link Hailstorm to
illegal skip chasing. It wasn't even his place to chase down the Mallicks when one of their clients
ended up in the hospital with busted kneecaps.
Unfortunately, those were not concepts that the new blood understood as he paced in front
of Collings' desk, arms flying out in agitation, trying to talk him into approaching the captain
with some harebrained scheme to bring down Lex Keith's bloody reign.
"Son, I have cold beer and leftover Chinese to get home to. I don't need to..."
The explosions shook the building, shook the Earth underneath their feet. His new blood's eyes
flew to his for a second before he was running out of the building, adrenaline, no doubt, coursing
through his system.
Collings grabbed his gun with a sigh, realizing his beer and leftovers would have to wait as he
slowly followed the kid outside.
 ONE

Janie

My arm was on fire.

I didn't even feel it until I looked down and saw the familiar black sleeve of my sweatshirt
was engulfed in flames. It was the adrenaline. My system was drunk with it. That's why I hadn't
felt it. Every inch of me felt tingly and foreign, my ears muted and ringing from the sounds of
the explosions. There were six of them placed around Lex's property. I know this because I was
the one who put them there. I was also the one to throw Molotov cocktails through the windows
of the first floor. The bottles were from the latest shipment of insanely priced whiskey Lex
ordered that I intercepted. It was overkill. The bombs did their job, but, well, I really wanted to
make sure the fucking place burned.
I whipped off my sweatshirt with a hiss, tossing it carelessly to the side. It was just more
kindling for the fire. My forearm from wrist to elbow was violently red and peeling, distorting
the tattoos underneath. It needed treatment as soon as possible; every second I wasted was
increasing the very likely chance of a serious infection.
But I didn't care about that. What I cared about was making sure it was done.
The only thing in the world I had left to give a shit about was making sure my plan worked,
making sure that Lex Keith was dead.
So, ignoring the charging bodies of Lex's guards, looking like headless chickens without the
guidance of their leader, I flew through his burning grounds looking for the hidden doors to the
basement. I knew they were around the side somewhere. Sure, at this point, I'd bet you're
thinking how freaking stupid it was to go into the basement of a burning building in case,
y'know, the place started falling apart and crashed down on me. But, well, some things were
worth the risk. I needed to get down there and make sure the son of a bitch wasn't resting easy in
his god damn panic room like the chickenshit he was.
"Knew it," I said, grabbing the handle to the walk-out that was hidden behind ornamental
pine trees. I flew down the stairs, barely even pausing to notice the blood all over the floor. I
knew who it belonged to, if the busted, bleeding face Alex was sporting was anything to go by
when I saw her, Breaker, and Shooter on my way into the grounds. They were the reason the
bombs went off that night- because Lex had Shooter in his basement, using him as leverage
against his best friend Breaker so Breaker would kidnap and hold onto a hacker by the name of
Alex. Problem being, Breaker didn't know Alex was a chick and Breaker didn't fuck with chicks.
So when he got his hands on her and realized what Lex's plans were, he changed allegiances
quick. They had been hiding out in his house trying to figure out how to get themselves and
Shooter out of the shit situation.
Long story short, Alex decided she needed to get away from Breaker so he wasn't in danger
because of her. I helped her do so. But before I could get her to a safer location, Lex got his paws
on her. Cue Breaker who decided to try to single-handedly get them out. Leave it to a man to go
in thinking he could take on an army all by himself. He'd have gotten them all killed if I hadn't
been paying attention and pushed my plans ahead. The bombs gave them the distraction they
needed to get out.
If they were smart, they were already on their way to Canada or Mexico. They needed to lie
low and let things blow over. If I lived long enough, that was my plan too. The only difference
was, I could never come back to Navesink Bank once everyone found out what I did.
But I couldn't think about that.
I tore through the door that led to the finished side of the basement, going behind the fancy
bar he had set up and flinging the bottles of alcohol onto the floor. I wasn't stupid. I knew the
point of panic rooms was that they were virtually impenetrable, but there had to be a switch to
open it somewhere.
"God damn it!" I screamed as I threw open the last cabinet and ran my hand over the
smooth surfaces inside.
"Help." My ears were ringing and his voice was barely above a whimper, but I heard it. I
flew upward, eyes darting around the room and landing on the prone body of someone in a suit
in a corner. His face was busted, bloody, swollen, but I imagined he was good looking before he
took his beating. The one eye that wasn't swollen shut was a piercing shade of green. I was ready
to shrug and say 'fuck em' when I noticed his hands were cuffed.
"Damnit," I growled, moving around the bar toward him. I'd have been fine with one of his
guards dying down there, but not some prisoner who probably did nothing but look at Lex the
wrong way. "Why are you down here? The place is going to collapse in on itself soon."
"I think my leg is broken," he hissed as he moved out the leg in question. Through the leg of
his slacks, I could see the edge of one of his bones sticking through the material and, therefore,
his skin.
"You think?" I snorted, shaking my head.
I wasn't getting into the panic room. There was no way I'd have had the time to get the dude
out and find the switch to unlock the door. I sighed as I lowered myself down beside him,
wrapping an arm around his back and taking as much weight as my significantly more slight
frame would allow. It was one thing that always pissed me off. No matter how much I trained,
how good I got, I would never be able to best most of the men at Hailstorm, the lawless military
camp I lived and worked at. I was small. I might have been fast and had good instincts in a fight,
but when it came down to it, most of the time you won out of brute strength which meant I lost...
a lot. And this guy had a good foot and seventy-five pounds on me so when he leaned on me, I
had to lock my knees so they didn't buckle.
"I'm Joshua," he said as he hopped alongside me across the basement.
"I'm not exactly in the making friends mood, Josh. You just fucked up my plans."
"Which were?" he asked, his face twisted up in pain.
I figured he needed to talk to distract himself from the fact that an inside part of his body
was suddenly halfway outside, so I decided to humor him. "To kill Lex Keith."
"Was this you?" he asked, waving his free hand around. At my tight nod, he let out a
laugh/snort hybrid. "Guess I owe you a thank you then, huh?"
"For?" I asked, wincing as we started up the stairs, my free hand a death grip on the railing
so I didn't topple over.
"If this place didn't blow up, I'd be dead," he ground out as we surfaced back on the grass.
From a distance, I could hear sirens. I needed to get the hell out of there. "Better a cripple
than a corpse I suppose."
"There's no hope of walking without a limp is there?" he asked, already knowing the
answer.
"No," I told him honestly. I was never the kind to sugarcoat anything. "But I'm sure you'll
be able to pull off a cane. I need to drop you off by the gate," I told him as we hobbled down the
driveway. "And then you need to forget you saw me."
 "You're just going to leave me?" he asked and I could feel his eyes on me, accusing me,
silently calling me heartless.
"Would you prefer I stick around and get my ass locked up after saving your life... twice?"
"I see your point," he conceded as we stepped through the blown-open gates.
"The cops are already almost here. They'll be coming up the hill in five, maybe ten. I need
to get out of here. You never saw me," I reminded him, propping him up against the guard booth.
"Saw who?" he asked and I nodded, giving him one last look.
"Chances are, he's still alive. He obviously has it out for you. My advice? Turn State's
Evidence or get the fuck out of here as soon as you're out of surgery." With that, I tore off down
the road, praying I still had enough of a head start to get shot of the cops.
I was fifteen minutes outside of Lex's area when it came over me. That's how it was at
times. I didn't have to be over-thinking, stressing about it. Sometimes it crept up unexpected and
crippling. My lungs felt on fire from running and I dropped to my knees on the side of the back
road on a loud sob.
I failed.
I failed and now I was never going to feel like I could breathe free.
My hands moved up to cover my face, trying like hell to fight back the tears. I didn't cry. I
couldn't. I wouldn't let myself. If I started, I knew I was never going to stop. So for eight years, I
choked them back.
And that was exactly what I was trying to do when I heard the rumble of a truck move past
me then idle a few yards ahead of where I was still knees down in the dirt.
"Just keep going. Just keep going," I mumbled to myself, hoping they decided they weren't
that good of people and went about their business.
I heard the door slam and the footsteps as they approached.
Damn it.
I gulped in a breath that burned like acid fog in my lungs, trying to pull it together and face
whoever the hell it was who decided to stop and help the random chick on the side of the road.
"Woman," a deep, rough voice called, making my head snap up.
Oh for Christ's sake.
And there he was... all five-million feet of him. Not really, but the guy was tall, six-six if he
was an inch. He also had the width to go along with the height- solid shoulders, broad chest,
strong down the center, legs like freaking tree trunks. He had on black jeans that were neither
tight nor loose and fit like jeans were supposed to fit which was refreshing amongst the sea of
hipsters and wannabe gangsters. His black tee was slim cut and did nothing to hide the brute
strength underneath the material. His leather cut was worn and soft-looking, having gotten that
way from the daily wear of it since the day he turned eighteen. I didn't have to see the back to
know what emblem I would find there.
The Henchmen MC.
I also didn't have to ask to know that he wasn't just any member; he was the road captain.
He was the third in command behind Reign, the leader, and Cash, Reign's brother.
I knew all of this because about a year before, Hailstorm had worked a job with the three of
them (plus some young kid named Repo who wasn't patched-in yet). Reign got himself wrapped
up with a woman who belonged to V, the area's biggest skin trader. And when V came and took
the girl, Summer, back, Reign came to Hailstorm asking for help. Lo, the hopeless romantic she
is, had agreed and we had gone in all guns ablazing, action movie style.
As such, I found an unlikely accomplice to this night's activities.
 Summer had followed my instructions to a T.
The mammoth in front of me was coming back from her house where I had asked her to
have him, Cash, Lo, and Summer's father, Richard Lyon, to a dinner party.
In about two minutes, the giant would be getting a phone call telling him that his compound
was bombed as well. I knew this because I bombed that too.
It's a long story.
"Leave me alone, Wolf," I demanded, keeping my eyes off his face. I didn't have to look to
know that his freaky honey-colored eyes were fixed on me, that beneath his dark beard, his
mouth was in a firm line. He was actually a really good-looking guy if you were into the
mountain-man biker sort. Luckily for me, I wasn't into anyone of any sort. But that didn't mean I
could meet his gaze. There was something about it that made me feel exposed, vulnerable... like
he knew. Though he couldn't know, not really. No one did except Lo. And even Lo didn't know
the whole story.
"No," he said after a long minute, making my head shoot up and, just as I had expected, I
felt naked underneath his gaze.
"Oh, don't be trying to pull that macho bullshit with me, Wolf. I said leave me alone."
"I said no."
Christ. He was a stubborn fuck too. Wonderful. That was just what I needed.
"I don't need your..."
"I'll call Lo."
I shot to my feet on a hysterical, "No!" that made his brows draw together.
"No Lo," he said in a way that was half a declaration and half a question.
"No Lo," I confirmed, trying to slow my frantic heartbeat. If there was one person I couldn't
face right then... or ever again, it was Lo.
I was so caught up in my own worries about Lo that I didn't see his eyes move from my face
and settle on my arm until I felt his vice-like grip close around my wrist and pull it upward. My
eyes moved up to his face, looking for some kind of reaction, but he gave me nothing.
If there was one thing that Wolf was, aside from wholly incapable of stringing together a
complete sentence, it was unflappable. He was calm, steady, stalwart. He never gave anything
away.
His eyes slowly moved to my face and he let out a heavy breath, his head shaking slightly
and I knew he knew. He knew I set the bombs.
"Fuck, woman..."
Yeah... that about covered it.
 TWO

Wolf

Dinner party was weird as shit.

Wouldn't have gone at all if, when I tried to refuse Summer, her eyes didn't fill up.
Couldn't fucking make her cry over something as stupid as my presence at a dinner party.
So I went.
I ate.
I got the fuck out of there.
Why she wanted to have us all over at once: gun runners, drug dealers, and the leader of a
lawless army was beyond me.
Women...
The bombs started when I was halfway home, making the ground shake, forcing me to pull
over and see what the fuck was going on. Down the hill, Lex Keith's McMansion was ablaze. I'm
not gonna lie- seeing that almost gave me a Cheshire cat grin. I stood there for a long minute,
hands tucked in my pockets, watching the evil bastard's little minions run around like idiots
without their ever-present leadership to tell them what to do.
Fucking hilarious.
If anyone deserved to have their place blown off the surface of the Earth, it was Lex Keith. I
said a silent prayer that he was suffering somewhere inside that place, skin blistering and peeling
off. I might have been a lot of things, but I ain't never been merciful. Besides, that mother fucker
didn't deserve anyone's mercy after the shit he had done to people, most especially women. He
was an evil, sadistic rapist who deserved the most painful death imaginable.
Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that.
I was another ten minutes down the street when I caught sight of something on the side of
the road. Scratch that. Someone on the side of the road, down on their knees in the dirt. At first I
thought it might be one of Lex's minions, but my lights caught the long dark hair and the small,
almost childlike body, and I knew it wasn't one of his men. It was a woman. It could very likely
be one of the women Lex kept around his estate. Prostitutes or sex slaves. Who the fuck knew.
On a sigh, I pulled the truck off to the side of the road and got out.
Then fuck if the slip of a woman was none other than Lo's little hellion protege, Janie. I met
Janie helping Reign save Summer from a skin trader about a year before. She had been a distant,
calculating, hot-headed piece of work who had the respect from all the other men and women
over at Hailstorm. And, given the sheer amount of criminal and ex-military talent that place
sported, it went without saying that she must have been something special. I'd seen the way she'd
wielded a gun, sure of herself. Maybe not the best shot I'd ever seen, but a cold, calculated killer
when she needed to be.
She was young. I'd put her at twenty-four or five though she looked younger being short and
so skinny that she barely had any curve to her at all. Even in her usual tight black tank tops, her
breasts were barely more than a suggestion and her hips non-existant. That wasn't to say she
wasn't hot. She was just her own kind of pretty with her long dark hair, big blue eyes, and
colorful tattoos. Janie's biggest appeal was the confidence she wore, like she didn't give a fuck
whether you thought she was hot or not. Which, well, made her all the hotter.
She didn't look so hot knees down in the dirt, her face twisted in a way that suggested she
was fighting a losing battle with tears. But she came up spitting when she realized it was me.
That was until I mentioned Lo's name and she jerked back like I'd struck her. She didn't want Lo.
And that was some weird shit because from what I understood, those two were practically
attached at the hip.
Then my eyes did a quick scan, taking in the tear in the knee of her right pant leg, the dark
spot around the thigh of her left leg which I couldn't know for sure, but would bet good money
on it being blood. Then, finally, the pale skin of her right arm that was usually just a nice piece
of brightly colored artwork, but instead was violently red and peeling viciously. My hand curled
around her wrist, pulling it up slightly.
It didn't take a genius to figure out how she got it. She was on a road that led away from
Lex's estate. She set the bombs there. Why... I had no idea. And obviously it wasn't with
Hailstorm and Lo's blessing that she did it, otherwise she would have been calling Lo herself
instead of insisting I didn't. So I didn't know what was going on. What I did know, though, was
that she needed to get the fuck off the road, not kneeling down beside it. She needed to get out of
sight before the cops, crooked and inept as they might have been, started sniffing around. And
she sure as fuck needed to get her arm taken care of.
After all of that, then I would get some answers.
"Fuck woman..." I said, releasing her wrist. It fell to her side without her so much as
flinching. She should have been in massive amounts of pain. I'd been burned a fair amount of
times in my life and the pain was a fierce and unyielding thing until you got the right creams on
it. Maybe she was in shock. That would explain her unusual tight-lipped mood. "Come on," I
said, waving a hand out to my truck.
"I'm not going anywhere with you, Wolf," she said, her chin jerking up defiantly. On a good
day, everything about Janie screamed: I don't need help from you or anybody else for that matter.
This was not a good day and the usual fierceness seemed dimmed under something else I
couldn't explain: regret or fear or grief. I couldn't place it. But it was something strong that made
her lip tremble slightly and her shoulders slump forward. It was a startling change that I didn't
like. Women like her, strong women, don't take no shit from no one women, should never look
so lost and unsure of themselves.
"Woman..."
"No," she said again, brows raising like she couldn't believe I wasn't taking no for an
answer. "I'm fine. I'm great. I don't need your help."
"Cops are coming," I tried, jerking my head down the hill where the sounds of sirens were
both stationary and moving... our way.
Janie looked over her shoulder for a long minute, her breath hissing out. "A ride," she said,
turning back to me. "That's it. No questions. No explanations. Just a ride. Got it?"
I felt my lips twitch at her tone but nodded my head. She brushed past me, throwing her
small frame into the passenger side of my truck and slamming the door.
I would give her the silence she wanted.
I would give her a ride too.
I just didn't tell her that where she was getting a ride to wasn't wherever she wanted me to
take her. No, she was getting a ride to my place.
Like it or not.
 THREE

Janie

"I said pull the fucking truck over right now, Wolf," I shouted, the sound reverberating back
at me in the enclosed cab of his truck.
"No."
We'd been having the same conversation for five minutes, me yelling, screaming, cursing,
slamming my hand on the dash. Him giving me the same one syllable answer, calm as a
cucumber which was only making me all the more angry. He'd child-locked the friggen door so I
couldn't open it. Then he just... kept on driving.
Only a handful of people knew where Wolf lived. He was private to the point of reclusive.
The only reason I had any idea of his cabin in the woods (horror movie worthy, truly secluded)
was because when I couldn't sleep, I screwed around online, digging stuff up about the people of
Navesink Bank. I never slept. So I had come across the information about Wolf's land a good ten
months before. So knowing this, I knew that was the exact direction Wolf was driving us in.
It was also in the exact opposite direction to where I asked him to take me, to where I had a
car parked, full of everything I had taken from Hailstorm and all the supplies I'd packed for my
new life.
"Are you seriously fucking kidnapping me right now?" I asked, eyes lowered as I sat in my
seat, half facing him, arms crossed over my chest.
"Yep."
This couldn't be my life.
First, I royally fucked up my plan. I had no idea if Lex Keith was dead or alive. Second, I
didn't get the hell out of dodge. Third, I was being kidnapped by someone I once fought
alongside.
"I swear to Christ, I am going to kill you when you stop this car," I said, mostly meaning it.
I wasn't stupid enough to risk my own life by beating the hell out of him while he was behind the
wheel. But all bets were off when I wasn't risking violent, metal-pierced vehicular death. To this
threat, I got no reply. Likely because he thought it was bluster. I imagined being a living,
breathing hot-guy equivalent to the giant at the top of Jack's beanstalk made the threat of bloody
death from a girl who could barely tip the scale into the triple digits on a good day dismissible if
not outright laughable.
He was in for a rude awakening.
I was pissed. As in... seriously pissed.
I wanted blood.
And since I couldn't have Lex Keith's, well, I was okay with having his. At least some of it.
Whatever amount I could get before he took me down. I was under no illusions. There was no
way I could actually take him in any kind of fight, not even if he just stood still and let me wail
on him. I'd probably break my own hands before I caused any kind of damage to him. But that
didn't mean I didn't want to unleash a bit of my frustration on him.
I mean... who took someone somewhere against their will anyway? Even if maybe he was
trying to do the right thing and get me away from the cops who would definitely take the burn on
my arm as some incriminating evidence. And, well, if they got my clothes into a lab, they'd find
a lot more than a trace of bomb and Molotov cocktail residue.
 Maybe I should have been thankful to him. He obviously had his head on straight when he
offered me a ride. I had been losing my shit on the side of that road.
But that being said, I didn't need to be holed up in his shack in the woods. I needed to be
getting the hell out of town. Christ, what if that Josh guy decided to rat me out? The further away
I was, the better. I might have been risking my relationships with everyone I cared about by
doing what I had done, but I wasn't exactly keen on the idea of being trapped behind bars for the
rest of my life.
Wolf turned the truck up a driveway that was steep enough to require you to take it on foot
or by some other behemoth with huge traction like his truck. I guess that was why he left his bike
at The Henchmen compound.
"You planning on chaining me up?" I asked, uncomfortable with the lingering silence as we
drove up the long lane.
Wolf's gaze cut to mine for a second and I could have sworn he almost looked offended.
"No."
"Then you can't keep me here," I decided, looking away out the windshield.
"Okay," he said in a tone I didn't trust, like he knew something I didn't know.
The driveway seemed to twist forever, secluding us deeper and deeper into the woods, the
treetops long barren. Despite myself, I actually felt myself relaxing. There was something
soothing about knowing you are somewhere that no one would look for you or find you.
Especially after all the reckless and unforgivable things I had done that night.
Wolf finally pulled his truck up beside a small cabin, looking like it couldn't have been any
bigger than an average loft apartment inside.
"Do you even fit inside that?" I asked, meaning only to think it, but there it was... all out
there.
To this, Wolf made some sort of snorting sound that I took for amusement when I glanced
over and saw his honey-eyes dancing. "Come on," he said, swinging out of his door and bleeping
the button to undo the child-locks.
Without much choice, I followed, the jump down from the cab making me feel like a little
kid when I landed hard, the impact ricocheting up my legs. When I looked up to see him standing
beside his door, lips twitching, I lowered my eyes at him as I approached. "Not all of us can be
Paul Bunyan," I bristled. I stopped in front of him, planting my feet wide and craning my neck
up to look at him. "If my arm wasn't throbbing like a mother right now, I'd make good on my
promise. As it stands, I need to get cleaned up and down some pain medicine. But don't think I
forgot about it. It wouldn't be very smart to fall asleep around me right now."
There was more lip twitching and he nodded his head at me, acknowledging my threat the
way a parent acknowledges their child's proclamation that they are Superman when they tucked a
pillowcase into the collar of their pjs like a cape.
When he said nothing, I sighed. "So do you actually have indoor plumbing in this place or is
this a cop a squat behind a bush kind of situation you have here?"
There it was again, the lip twitching. Apparently everything I had to say amused him. I
found myself both annoyed and flattered by that realization. Annoyed because nothing I said was
meant to be funny, especially the parts where I threatened his life. And flattered because, well,
no one ever laughed at me and because I knew Wolf was not the kind of man to find amusement
easily. He was one serious dude.
He moved to open the front door, left unlocked, and pushed inside. He said nothing, but
then again, he rarely did, so I followed behind. The inside of his cabin was a loft floor plan with
a straight, small kitchen against the wall to the left with a small dining table. There was a worn
leather chair against the back wall, a end table beside it stacked with magazines and a massive
TV attached to the wall beside the front door. To the right was a giant bed with plush red and
black flannel comforter; true mountain man style. There were two doors which I imagined led to
a bathroom and a closet. That was it. That was all there was to his place.
I mean I guess I was judging a little harshly given that I had spent the last eight years living
at Hailstorm, a survivalist camp/ lawless military compound that was made out of shipping
containers with no windows where I slept in a barracks-style room with a bunch of men and
women. But if you were going to have a sanctuary in the woods, why not go whole-hog and
make it more, well, sanctuary-ish.
Still, it was cozy. The log walls, the wood floors, the curtain-less windows, the braided rugs
here and there. It screamed 'home' to someone who all but forgot what home felt like. If it had
some massive built-in bookshelves and a killer wifi connection, I could be comfortable there.
I felt my good wrist tagged in his giant hand and looked up as he started pulling me forward
toward the door beside the bed.
"Quit pawing at me," I grumbled, uselessly trying to pry my arm from his grip. He opened
the door and reached inside to flick on the light then dragged me inside, slamming the door to
give us more standing area in the small space with a square sink vanity and mirror, shower stall,
and toilet. That was it. No medicine cabinet. No linen cabinet. God, his whole place screamed
'I'm a man and don't need all that useless shit like a guest towel or bath mats'. I was suddenly
turned, my stomach pressed against the sink cabinet, crushed there by Wolf's solid frame at my
back. He reached around my body, turning on the tap and putting the stopper in the sink. "What
are you..." I started, then found my burned forearm submerged in the cool water, pressed and
held there by his hand wrapped around mine. I repeat: his hand was holding mine. I'd never had a
man hold my hand. As in... ever. And here it was happening for the first time with my well-
intentioned kidnapper who meant it as nothing else but a silent instruction to keep my arm under
the water.
I focused all my intention on keeping my fingers still under his, not wanting him to think I
was making as big a deal of it as I was. His free arm pulled open a drawer by my thigh, dragging
items out and putting them on the counter beside my arm: factory-wrapped gauze, tape, and a
huge white tub with a prescription label.
"What is that?" I asked, reaching for it with my good arm and holding it up to read the label.
"Silver Sulfadiazine," I read, turning my neck to try to give him a questioning look.
"Burn cream," he answered, taking it from my hand and putting it back on the counter. That
was the end of that. He wasn't going to explain. I mean not that I really expected him to. That
wasn't who he was. He wasn't a talker, a conversationalist. Which, given that I almost never shut
up, kind of bothered me. I couldn't just keep talking with no comment from anyone else. I mean,
I could, but I would look crazy. And, suddenly, I found myself not wanting to look crazy.
Normally I didn't give a good god damn what anyone thought of me. But for reasons I was
choosing not to analyze, I didn't want Wolf to think I was off my rocker.
So I stood there silently, looking down at my arm under the cool water. Actually, I wasn't
looking at my arm at all; I was looking at Wolf's hand wrapped around mine. Like the rest of
him, it was massive, but in that large knuckle, tendon, and vein way that only large men seemed
to possess. Like they could handle anything, like they could hold on forever and never tire, like
they could take any burden and lift it.
Jesus Christ.
 I was starting to think like Lo, all wishy-washy from reading all her silly love stories all the
time.
That wasn't the kind of woman I was. I didn't romanticize things. I certainly didn't think of
poetic ways to describe a man's freaking hands. What was wrong with me?
As I was thinking that, my hand was finally released and I watched my fingers instinctively
flex and reach outward, like they were seeking the contact again. Mortified, my head swung
around to look at Wolf. His gaze wasn't on me or my hand though. He was reaching behind the
door for a white towel and moving it to rest on the sink counter. He pulled my arm out of the
water and rested it there. I reached for the edge of the material that was so stiff I knew that,
among not believing in bath mats, he also had some kind of aversion to fabric softener, and
moved to blot the water off my arm.
"Don't," he growled, swatting my hand away and giving me a hard look that I guess was
supposed to impart some kind of information, but it was completely lost on me before he turned
away to focus on the gauze. I watched as he carefully laid out strips of the gauze then used some
sort of sealed stick to glob the burn cream onto the soft material. "Dry?" he asked, turning to
look at me.
"Um... yeah," I guessed, not having the damndest clue. I was too focused watching him,
watching the way his powerful frame seemed capable of the smallest, delicate tasks in a way that
seemed unnatural. He reached for my wrist, pulling it up and letting go of it in mid-air. It was
another silent instruction: keep your arm like this, it said. It was amazing how much he was able
to communicate silently. Then I stood stiff as a board and watched as he picked up the coated
gauze and carefully wrapped up my burns. He did it so lightly I barely felt it and it seemed
wrong for such a big man to be able to be so gentle. Finished with the wet gauze, he wrapped me
in about ten coats of dry gauze then attached the medical tape and put the remainder down on the
counter.
When he turned back, his eyes went to my face for the first time since we were outside his
house and the effect was physical, like a falling sensation in my belly. His hand raised slowly,
his fingertips whispering across my jaw and the sensation stopped being falling and started to be
a fluttering in my stomach. His eyes went soft for a long minute before he shook his head
slightly and let his hand drop. "Triple antibiotic," he said oddly, pulling open a drawer, finding
some, and slapping it on the counter before reaching for the door and opening it against my back
until I moved out of the way.
And then he was gone, leaving me staring at the closed door for a long minute before
turning back to the sink and looking into the mirror. It was then that I got it. I had a bunch of
shallow scrapes and scratches down my cheek. They were nothing, superficial, wouldn't even
scar, but they had made his eyes soften. How freaking weird was that? I sighed loudly and
washed my face, skipping the triple antibiotic because I didn't really need it.
I was just starting to fret about what I was supposed to be doing when there was a knock at
the door. With drawn-in brows, I pulled the door open and there was Wolf, holding out a white
tee with various items piled on top: a toothbrush, towel, washcloth, and bottle of ibuprofen.
"Shower tomorrow," he instructed, shoving the pile toward my chest then waving at my arm as
an explanation in case I was too stupid to realize that I shouldn't bathe with freshly wrapped
gauze.
"Um... thanks," I murmured, closing the door before I remembered I was supposed to be
plotting his incapacitation instead of showing him gratitude. But, well, there was no way I would
make it to my car without being spotted by some idiot cop asking questions. Especially once they
realized who I was. I had to wait until sunup when walking around wouldn't be so conspicuous.
And, well, my clothes were filthy.
I piled the stuff on the counter, tying my hair up with the band I kept around my wrist, then
digging out the toothpaste and brushing before stripping out of my filthy clothes and unfolding
Wolf's t-shirt that was large enough to completely swallow me up, hanging most of the way
down my thighs and wide enough to fit another me and a half inside. I felt naked (because I very
nearly was), but I couldn't sit in the bathroom all day to save my modesty. With a sigh, I walked
back into the main area of the house to find Wolf scrolling through something on his phone. It
didn't take a genius to realize that the grim set to his mouth implied he had just learned that not
only did I blow up Lex's mansion and The Henchmen compound, but also Hailstorm, the
Mallick's bar, and Summer's father's estate.
Hearing me step out, his head snapped up, doing a very short inspection that didn't linger
anywhere womanly, instead landing on my face and staying. Uncomfortable under his gaze, I
shrugged a shoulder. "Not going to ask why I blew up most of the criminal empires in the area?"
I asked, deciding it would be better to own up to it than be accused of it.
"No."
"Why not?"
"You got reasons?" he asked, surprising me enough to answer automatically.
"Yes."
To that, he shrugged.
"Bed," he said gesturing toward it like it could have possibly escaped my notice, taking up
half of the room as it did.
"Um... yeah... that's a bed." If I didn't know better, I would think he was daft.
I got another of his amused snorts and his lips stopped twitching and gave into a small smile
as he shook his head at me. "Sleep," he clarified. "I'll be there," he added this time, gesturing to
the recliner.
And, well, that was downright chivalrous of him. Who was he to be a good guy? He was
kidnapping me! Sort of. But maybe not really. I didn't even know anymore.
"That's stupid," I said instead of admitting I wanted to know why he was being nice to me
and why he was making me stay with him instead of bringing me to my car. "You're a Hulk; you
can't sleep on a recliner. You'll be all in knots and stuff by morning. I mean... not that I care if
you're all in knots or anything seeing as you're holding me here against my wishes but I mean it's
only logical that I should..."
"Woman. Bed. Now," he demanded, his tone all serious and deep and I found my feet
moving toward the bed before my brain could tell them not to. Unwilling to look indecisive, I
huffed as I pulled back the comforter and sheet and climbed inside, glad for a way to hide my
naked legs. God, when was the last time I had even shaved? On that thought, I rubbed my legs
together under the blankets, feeling the bristles that implied it had been at least three days but
that I wasn't sporting cavewoman hair yet. Not that the caveman across the room from me
seemed adverse to hair given his face, but still. It stupidly mattered to me.
"Sleep," he demanded, dropping down into his recliner and popping up the leg rest that cut
off somewhere just under his knees.
"It's like... ten o'clock," I reasoned, cocking a brow. What were we, middle schoolers? What
full grown adult went to bed at ten at night? I mean... I never slept anyway but still. It was the
principle of the thing. "Are you, as well as being a mountain man and near-mute, also some kind
of old man who has to go to sl..." I trailed off mainly because he had flicked on the TV and
cranked the volume up so high that there was no way he could hear me over it anyway.
Well fine then.
I threw myself backward onto the pillows and stared at the ceiling, doing my best to not
think about the events of the night and how I had royally, epically fucked my life up. Yeah, I
tried that. I obviously failed.
Then, despite me never being able to do so, I drifted off to sleep.
 FOUR

Janie

The nightmares woke me up, as they always did when I finally did manage to pass out.
They weren't nightmares though, not in the traditional sense. They were memories I tried to keep
buried. It was why many times, tired beyond comprehension, I still fought sleep. I didn't want the
memories. I didn't want the sick feeling in my stomach when I woke up. I didn't want the pain.
Because they were sharp, jagged things and there were many mornings I arrived in bloody
pieces. Then I had to spend half the day trying to patch myself back up.
It was easier to not sleep.
So most of the time, I didn't.
After eight years of practice, I had gotten good at it. My body didn't crave it like it used to. I
didn't feel disconnected and spacey like most people did when they lost a night or two. I could go
three or four with no adverse reactions at all before I finally needed to crash for a few hours.
I was on night four when I got to Wolf's. That was why I passed out. That mixed with the
solitude of the woods and the huge, comfy bed with the warm sheets that smelled like him- like
autumn. That was what he smelled like. Like rain and fallen leaves and crisp air. It was all
around me, cuddling me in its foreign yet completely familiar comfort.
But it was of no comfort when I bolted up in bed, mouth open on a silent scream. It was
silent only after years and years of waking up on a blood-curdling scream that woke everyone
else in the barracks. I learned to make them soundless so I didn't have to deal with everyone
worrying about me and my chronic nightmares. I reached up to brush the hair that had fallen out
of my ponytail out of my face, finding it sticking to my cheek for some reason. Touching my
skin, I felt the tacky, gloppy sensation of triple antibiotic cream.
He'd slathered cream onto my cuts when I was sleeping!
Who the hell did things like that?
"You okay?" his sleep-rough voice reached out to me from across the room, sending an
unexpected shiver across my skin. My head snapped in his direction of its own mind and he had
already kicked in the leg rest. His feet were on the ground, spread wide. His leather cut was
gone, leaving him just in jeans and the tight black tee. His elbows were on his knees, his back
curled forward, his sleep-puffy eyes on me.
"Fine," I strangled out, fighting the urge to put my hand over where my heart was slamming
in my chest.
"Don't lie," he chastened quietly, shaking his head at me. "Don't wanna talk, don't." He
paused. "But don't lie."
Well then.
I kind of liked that.
Everyone else wanted to pry. Everyone thought they had the right to demand I spill all my
dark secrets. It was really refreshing to come across someone who acknowledged my right to
keep my private feelings private.
Also, that was probably the most I had ever heard him speak before.
I nodded tightly at him, pushing the blankets off and climbing out of the bed. "I don't want
to talk about it," I explained unnecessarily, but the silence in the room was deafening since he
turned the television off. I walked over toward the kitchen. "Go back to sleep. Take the bed even.
I'm not going to get back to sleep again now," I confided with a shrug as I pulled the pot out of
his coffee maker and took it to the sink to wash it. "Don't worry," I added at his expected silence,
"I'm not going to run away. It's dark as hell out. Who knows what is out in these woods."
I figured he had followed my instructions until I got the coffee pot all ready and found the
coffee grounds up in a cabinet so high that mere mortals could never reach. I had done a mildly
embarrassing jump before I made a grumble, ready to go grab a dining room chair, when I felt
his presence behind me. As in... right behind me. His entire front was against my back. I
wondered if he was always so blase about the concept of 'personal space'. My head tilted upward,
making the top of my skull rest on the lowest part of his chest, my brows drawn together in
question as I looked up mostly at his beard.
"Coffee," he explained and my gaze caught the movement of his hand going into the cabinet
and pulling down the grounds.
Oh, right. Coffee.
I nodded, letting my head drop away from his chest and forcing my hands to open the coffee
and put grounds in the machine.
"Go back to sleep," I said again as the silence dragged on and he still hadn't moved from
behind me. There was a weird, completely insane, nonsensical, uncharacteristic urge in me to
turn and bury my face in his chest, to wrap my arms around him. To say it was an unsettling
desire would be an understatement. I didn't hug people. I certainly never embraced men. That
wasn't how I operated. I didn't have that drive like normal women did. Men were never a safe
place for me to land. But the tug was there, just under my ribcage, begging me to do it, to
surround myself in his strength, to let it settle into my bones. But that was ridiculous. So on an
exhale, I forced myself to move to the side and away from him. "What time is it?" I asked,
finding myself without a cell, having left it in my bag in the car that I, apparently, wasn't being
allowed to go to.
"Four," he said easily, not even having looked for a clock anywhere or anything.
"Jesus." What the hell was I going to do with myself for another couple hours of darkness?
"Well thanks for getting the coffee. I'm, ah, going to need it. So... yeah... go on back to bed."
"I'm good," he said, moving away to lean against the kitchen counter, hands grabbing the
edge, focus still on me in a way that made me want to squirm.
"There's still a couple hours until the sun is up. I didn't mean to..."
"Woman," he cut me off.
"What?" I asked when he didn't elaborate. Was 'woman' supposed to mean more than a
word in man-language?
"Said I'm good."
And I guessed that was that because he pushed away from the counter and went into the
bathroom. A minute later, I heard the shower running. At a loss for what to do while I waited for
the coffee to drip, I made the bed and rummaged around for mugs. The door swung open a
moment later and my head snapped over. And holy hell.
Yeah so... Wolf didn't take clothes in with him when he went in the bathroom. I guess being
so used to be alone and able to walk around naked after a shower made it completely slip his
mind. Because there he was in the bathroom doorway with one of his white bath towels slung
low on his hips. The material was stretched tight around his massive frame and I got the distinct
impression that any kind of movement could send it pooling to his feet. I kind of wanted him to
move.
Again, weird.
 I didn't even have a sex drive. Literally. None. That wasn't even a part of my life in the
least. Not after all the shit that I... Yeah I wasn't going to think about that. Let's just say, sex
wasn't a part of my life. So wanting to see his naughty bits was so not like me. Besides, what was
not covered by the towel was plenty to take in. From the fully exposed frame revealing the
breadth of his strong shoulders and chest, to the indentations of his abdominal muscles, to the
bulging power of his arms, and the unmistakable strength in his legs. Then, of course, there was
the window dressing. Meaning, the ink. He had it and he had it in abundance. As someone who
obviously appreciated being a human canvas herself, I really enjoyed looking at other peoples'
work. Wolf was no exception. From across the room, I couldn't make it all out as it snaked up his
arms and across his chest, but I could see an eight-ball, a web, flowers, and some kind of bird.
Across the center of his chest was a bold lettering saying "Henchmen".
So yeah. Wolf was definitely a sight to behold. Even for an asexual freak like me.
I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Coffee is done," I said, spinning away from him so fast that
I felt light-headed and had to slam my hand down on the counter. Behind me, I heard him
shuffling around. When I thought it was safe, I turned again. "How do you want..." Yeah it
wasn't safe yet. While he had a pair of black jeans on and big, clunky combat boots, he was still
shirtless and his zip to his pants was still undone, revealing a dark happy trail that led down into
his pants. As if sensing my thoughts, or more likely, seeing my gaze linger there, his big hands
went down and pulled the zipper and pressed the button into place.
"Come here," he said suddenly, making me jump.
"What? Why?"
"Woman..." he said, sounding mildly frustrated. And given how even-tempered he usually
seemed, I found myself responding and walking toward where he was sitting off the edge of the
bed. I might add he was still freaking shirtless. Deciding space was necessary, I sat down at the
very edge of the other end of the bed. I did this, but I didn't stay there. I didn't stay there because
suddenly I felt the mattress jump as Wolf lunged downward and tagged my ankles, grabbing
them and pulling me sideways, squealing like a kid on a carnival ride. My ankles were released
but only because I suddenly found my thighs draped across Wolf's. My/his tee had ridden up
during the movement and was gathered up high enough that you could see the black outline of
my panties. When I looked up, his gaze was focused there. It took me a good couple of seconds
to force my hands to move the material of the tee back into place.
When I did, his gaze rose to mine. "What are you doing?" I asked, my voice sounding a
little breathless.
"Arm," he said, grabbing it and holding it up. He released it and moved to unwrap it
carefully. I sat there numbly and let him, my eyes focused on his face that was focused on his
task. I felt the last of the gauze release and his eyes suddenly cut to mine, making me inhale on
what could only be described as a gasp. Yeah. I was pretty sure I had somehow inhaled too much
of the ingredients to the bombs and caused some kind of brain damage. Something was definitely
wrong with me. "Hurt?" he asked, interpreting my gasp for one of pain.
My eyes moved to my arm, looking weird with the remains of the burn cream still smeared
on the skin that was still really unusually red. It stung. It wasn't like I had expected though. "It's
alright," I said, shrugging. "I feel like it should hurt more than it does."
"Mind over matter," he said with a shrug of his own.
"That was a huge tub of that burn cream stuff. You burn yourself often?"
"It happens."
Augh. He was killing me with his lack of conversational skills.
 "Where?" I found myself asking.
"Back," he said simply and I felt myself nodding. It was the only part of him I hadn't gotten
a good look at. A weird part of me wondered if he had scars there. I thought about that until I felt
one of his hands slap down on my thigh, a couple inches above my knee. It was such a strange
feeling that my eyes moved to look, seeing his giant hand pretty much encompassing my entire
thigh. But it was just resting there, not doing anything, looking like he just had nowhere else to
put it. But then his thumb moved outward, stroking up my thigh slightly and a shiver coursed its
way through my whole body. Our eyes sought each others, both mirroring confusion. I felt
myself swallow hard, looking for something flippant to say to ease the tension, but coming up
blank. Shockingly, Wolf ended the silence. "Go shower," he said, his palm squeezing my thigh
before pushing them off of his lap and moving to stand.
I had barely made it to my feet when he had already snagged a shirt and had it over his
head. Stiffly, I made my way to the bathroom and quickly undressed and threw myself under the
spray. I stood under the water until it started to turn cold, grumbling at having to leave my little
private sanctuary and having to go back out and face him. It wasn't like me to have an issue
facing someone. I stood toe-to-toe with some of the most dangerous men on the East coast on a
daily basis. I sparred with them. I taught them how to navigate the dark web. I learned how to
shoot from them. I didn't run and hide from any man.
Not anymore.
Hell to the no.
That was not the kind of woman I was.
With a growl at myself, I snatched the towel off the hanger and pulled the shower curtain
open. It didn't hit me at first as I carefully started to dry myself off. Nothing struck me as amiss
until I was toweling off my leg and glanced up into the room and noticed my clothes were gone.
The clothes I kicked off the night before because they were filthy... yeah they were missing. As
was the white tee and panties I had stripped out of before my shower. Not only that. Oh, no. As if
it wasn't crazy enough that he sneaked in and took my dirty clothes while I was showering, he
had also laid out fresh gauze slathered in cream on the counter. So he had been in the bathroom
for a good long time while I was naked in the shower. Granted, the curtain was solid and he
couldn't see me, but still. That was a gross invasion of privacy.
Seething, I towel dried my hair and finger combed it, brushed my teeth, re-wrapped my
arm, then threw on the fresh white tee he had left me, pantie-less because he took mine and I
didn't have a spare pair. As if the tee didn't make me feel naked enough to begin with. Dressed, I
threw open the door, sucking in a breath, getting ready to leash into him.
"I swear to Christ if you ever, ever sneak into a room where I am..." I trailed off, realizing
my anger was falling only on an empty room. Wolf wasn't inside the house.
I walked out, glancing around even though there was literally nowhere he could be hiding
except under the bed and, well, he could never fit. Was that why he took my clothes? Did he
think he was somehow keeping me there because he stole my pants? Yeah well, he was in for a
rude awakening. I stormed over to where my black, beat up and beloved combat boots were
sitting beside his front door and shoved my feet inside. I reached for the black and white flannel
shirt on a hook and slipped inside it, leaving the front unbuttoned. I looked ridiculous. But I
didn't care. I was getting the hell out of there.
I pulled the door open on a huff only to fly backward on a shriek.
Because there outside the door were two beasts from hell.
Okay. So they were actually dogs. But they were like... dogs on steroids. I'd never seen a
breed that huge before: all black with face hair that dipped into their eyes. I had a feeling that if I
got close enough to gauge such a thing, that when sitting they would still reach almost my
shoulder area. They were giant. Giant dogs for a giant man.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm my heartbeat. Alright, so they were big. But there was
often something to the phrase "gentle giants". I mean... look at pandas and elephants and like...
manatees and shit. They were probably completely harmless. Besides, I loved dogs. They would
surely pick up on that, right?
I took a couple tentative steps toward the door again and watched as their heads tilted to the
side, watching me, but doing nothing that looked remotely threatening. I felt the tension leaving
my body as I gave them a small smile. "Good doggies," I said in a baby voice. "You're not hell
beasts at all, are you?" I asked as I stepped over the threshold. The second my foot moved over
the line, they both stood, closing ranks, and letting out matching and menacing growls. I jumped
back and they stopped. Curious, I stuck my leg out the door again. The growling started up
again. I yanked my leg back in and watched them watching me for a moment before they sat
back down.
Wolf had guard dogs.
And they were not trained to keep people off his property.
Oh no.
They were trained to keep me on it.
That son of a bitch.
 FIVE
Janie

I spent the day seething. First, because leaving the dogs as my prison guards confirmed that
he had every intention of keeping me at his place against my will. So him being sweet and taking
care of my arm and face and looking all worried after my nightmare, yeah, that was just his
attempt to create some kind of Stockholm Syndrome bond with me. Yeah well that jackass was
in for a rude awakening. I wasn't falling in love with my freaking captor.
Second, I was pissed because I was going stir-freaking-crazy. I was not the kind of person
who could sit and watch mindless television for hours on end. I needed to go outside and go on a
run. I needed to shoot something and hit something. And most of all, I needed a freaking laptop,
phone, or book to keep my mind from racing.
By midday, I had managed to wear a path in his floor. His hell beasts hadn't moved from
their post. I scrounged up some food. I drank another pot of coffee. Night fell. On a growl, I
grabbed his pile of magazines and climbed up on the bed with them. I flipped through them,
reading the blurbs underneath the gun and hunting gear items. I grimaced through the fishing
magazines. Finally, sometime around midnight, still with no appearance or word from Wolf, I
drifted into a boredom induced sleep.
I woke up through a nightmare, bolting up in bed, hand slapping down over my mouth. I
closed my eyes, taking in slow, deep breaths, trying to push the memories back before they took
root. Trying to forget the eyes, the hands, the edge of the knife, the sadistic laughter.
I opened my eyes in the dark room and felt the panic flood away in a whoosh, replaced
instantly with the anger I had gone to sleep with. Because there was Wolf, leaning back in his
recliner, fast-a-freaking sleep.
Alright, it could be said that I have rather poor impulse control. As in, I have none. I flew
up off the bed, grabbing a handful of his magazines and hurling them, one by one, at his sleeping
form. The first collided with a satisfying smack to the side of his face, making his eyes snap open
as his body lurched upward as if fully awake. I didn't pause, just curled back my arm and sent
another magazine flying.
"The fuck..." he said, awake enough to snatch it out of the air, but he let it hit him in the
chest instead.
"The. Fucking. Dogs!" I yelled, throwing another magazine before turning back to the bed
to grab more. "You leave me here with fucking hell beasts as my jailers without so much as
telling me how long you're going to be gone or if they might, I don't know, fucking maul me!
And and you have nothing to read!" I yelled, letting the last magazine fly, the spine hitting him
in the jaw.
"Feel better?" he asked, calm as could be, like I hadn't just thrown a years' worth of
magazines at him.
"No I don't feel fucking better," I said, folding my arms across my chest and glaring at him.
At that, he just nodded at me and slowly stood up, his long form unfolding like a panther
before he moved toward me. It took everything in me not to flinch away, not to retreat. But he
didn't stop when he was in front of me, he brushed past me, his arm touching my shoulder as he
did so as he made his way to the front door. I felt my brows drawing together as he pulled the
door open and whistled.
Then I was scrambling back across the floor as his hell beasts charged into the room. I
remembered to stand still and froze with the backs of my thighs against the bed.
Wolf closed the door and slowly moved across the room toward me, sitting down at the foot
of the bed. Then I was tagged around the waist and pulled downward. No, not just downward. I
was pulled onto his lap. I was sitting on Wolf's lap. His strong arm was around my lower back,
his hand settled at the upper most part of my thigh. I was still trying to adjust to the fact that I
was on his lap in just a t-shirt, meaning no panties, and that said t-shirt had ridden up almost
indecently high when I heard him snap his fingers. Not more than two seconds later, I felt cold,
wet dog noses touching my leg.
Instinctively, I flinched and stiffened. Around my back, Wolf's arm tightened for a second,
almost like a hug. "Relax," he instructed and I felt his breath at the top of my head.
"Relax?" I asked, trying to sound outraged, but my voice came out kind of breathy. "They
snarled at me all day."
"Tried to leave."
"Um yeah. I tried to leave. You can't fucking kidnap people, Wolf!" I felt his shoulder lift
and fall. "No you can't just shrug about that. This is completely unaccept..." I trailed off on a
squeal as one of the dog's tongues licked the underside of my foot.
I might have been a badass bitch from Hailstorm who could handle my dark past and the
crazy shit that happened in my life on the daily, but everyone had their weaknesses. Me, I
couldn't sleep. I was easy to rile. And I was ridiculously, obnoxiously, annoyingly ticklish. My
body moved of its own mind, my legs pulling upward, my head moving to the side until it found
itself tucked into the side of Wolf's neck. The dog, seemingly spurred on by my reaction,
continued his innocent torment as I squirmed and laughed into Wolf's neck. If I had been paying
any attention at all, I would have noticed how tight his arm was around me and how his other
hand had moved to encircle my upper body as well. "Call. Off. Your. Hound," I gasp/giggled,
trying to suck in a breath through my laugh-achy chest.
If I wasn't mistaken, I felt his chest jump underneath me like he was silently laughing too.
"Off," he said gruffly and the licking immediately stopped. My laughing, however, did not. And
I continued to do said laughing into the mountain man's neck. It was around then that I realized
how tightly he was holding me. It was also then that I realized kidnappers didn't hold their
hostages like that. No, lovers held each other like that. On that completely horrifyingly sobering
thought, I jerked in his arms.
"Why am I in your lap?" I found myself asking, never one to mince words.
The rumbling in his chest stopped suddenly and his arms slackened slightly. "Dogs."
"What about the dogs?"
"Needed to know you're mine."
His? His? I was not his!
"I'm not yours!" I yelped, trying to fly back away from him, but he was still holding me
still, keeping me where I was.
"No," he agreed. "They needed to think so."
Okay. So maybe I was buying that. They were obviously really well trained dogs. They
responded to verbal and non-verbal commands. They didn't so much as step away from their post
while he was gone. Maybe for them to not want to attack me, they needed to see that their pack
leader 'claimed' me. That made sense. I couldn't even be angry about that.
"So they won't keep me trapped in here anymore," I said, tilting my head up to look at his
face.
"Didn't say that," he said in a way that implied they would be my guards for however long
he commanded it. Damn it.
"Let go of me," I said in a low, lethal voice, expecting to need to save my voice for the
inevitable pissing contest we were going to have. Surprisingly though, his arms dropped from
around me and he let me go. I jumped up and started pacing the room as he sat there and
watched. At about my fourth turn, I stopped in the middle of the room and turned to him.
"Why are you keeping me here? I blew up your compound!" I reminded him, wanting some
kind of reaction. He gave me nothing. "I killed god-knows how many people at Lex's place! I... I
turned traitor and blew up the only home that would have me!" Okay, I was getting a tad bit
emotional. What can I say? It had been a crazy couple of days. "Jesus fucking Christ! What is
wrong with you?" I demanded as he just kept sitting there watching me with a blank mask on his
face. "Are you like some kind of robot? Complete automaton. You know, normal people have
feelings and reactions. They don't just... what are you doing?" I asked as he slowly stood and
moved toward me. There was something about him, something I didn't know or understand that
had me taking a step back each time he moved forward. I wasn't that girl. I didn't retreat. I didn't
give up my ground. Ever. But I was doing just that. I backed up until the kitchen counter jabbed
me in the back and I had nowhere to go. "What?" I asked, adopting a scathing, mocking tone
because it was better than betraying the weird cocktail of fear and excitement I felt low in my
belly. "Are you trying to freak me out? 'Cause, newsflash Wolf, I don't scare all that easily. So
you can just..."
He was toe-to-toe with me, his pelvis pushing against mine and I had to crane my neck up
to see his face, but it was ducked down toward me, his keen eyes watching me. "You're hurting,"
he said oddly.
"What? No, I'm not. I'm fine. I don't even need the ibuprofen anymore."
"Not here," he said, his hand brushing over the gauze on my arm. Then his palm pressed
against my chest, right above my left breast and stayed there. "Here," he clarified.
It couldn't have been a more killing blow if he did it with a knife.
I felt my spine straighten at being found out and my survival instinct immediately told me to
deny deny deny.
"What? Don't be ridiculous. I'm not hurtin..."
"Don't lie," he said again, shaking his head slightly at me.
"I'm not..."
I didn't get the rest of my sentence out because both his hands were suddenly at my
shoulders and jerking almost violently, making my teeth clank together. "Lying don't fix it," he
told me with a sort of understanding that only came from personal knowledge.
"I'm not trying to fix anything! I am trying to get out of..."
"Blowing things up?"
"How could blowing things up possibly fix anything?" I objected, screwing my face up in
confusion, trying to throw him off. Because he was too close, he was way too close to being
right.
"You tell me."
"I'm not telling you anything," I blurted out, then rushed to cover. "There's nothing to tell. I
just like bombs. I like blowing things up. I'm good at it. It's fun." All that rang true, because it
was true. I had taken to bombs the way spaniels take to water. "Just because you obviously have
some demons that..."
"Don't," he broke in, his tone almost savage.
"Don't what?" I shot back, jerking my chin higher.
 "Don't think you can know me," he finished, his hands moving from my shoulders to cup
my face, holding a little too hard, almost painful, and I wasn't sure if it was from his anger or just
not knowing his own strength. "Ever."
I stared up at him silently for a moment. There was something in the air between us. It was
something I didn't understand on a conscious level. But it was charged, electric, it was sparking
everywhere our bodies were touching, it was vibrating everywhere we weren't. Wolf seemed to
notice it too, his hands gentling on my face but not releasing it.
"Don't think you can know me either," I said into the silence, but my voice came out
almost... sad. But that was ridiculous. Because I absolutely did not want him to know me. I didn't
want anyone to know me. If they knew... if they knew what had happened...
No.
No one knew.
No one was going to know.
Certainly not the giant in front of me.
"Stubborn," he said with a brow lift.
"Right back at you."
I was rewarded with another small smile before his thumb moved out to stroke across my
cheek. The sensation fluttered across my face and shot a line down the center of my body, ending
in a strange little tightening in my sex and I felt my lips open in surprise and confusion. His gaze
dropped to my mouth and the pressure low in my stomach intensified to the point of pain before I
finally recognized it for what it was: arousal.
But that was impossible.
Never. Not once. Not since...
No.
Wolf's eyes met mine again. I guess he saw something there because he let out a small sigh
and leaned down toward me and rested his forehead against mine. It took every ounce of control
inside me to not melt into him. There was something there, in that moment, something weighted,
but in a good way that made me want to press forward, that made me want to angle my head up
and offer my lips as an invitation.
But then his head shifted slightly and I felt him press a chaste kiss to my forehead before
pulling away. "Bed," he said, moving back over toward his chair and sitting down, pointedly
avoiding looking at me.
I stayed against the counter for a long minute, taking deep breaths that did nothing to quiet
the unfamiliar chaos working its way through my body as Wolf turned the TV on and cranked up
the volume. Another silent communication telling me we were done talking for the night.
With nothing else to do, though knowing I was done with sleep, I climbed into the bed and
turned my attention to the TV. I patted the bed and watched one of the dogs tilt his head at me
like he was trying to figure out if I was gesturing for him or not.
"Do they have names?" I yelled over the TV, not bothering to turn my attention to the
grumpy giant.
"Harley and Chopper," he answered, not needing to raise his voice because the depth in it
carried even in the loudest of situations.
Unable to help myself, I turned, a ridiculous grin on my face. "Seriously?" How cliche was
that? A biker who named his dogs after bikes? I mean... come on. To that I got a brow raise.
"You're ridiculous," I concluded, patting the bed again. "Come on, Harley," I called to the dog
staring me down. But he stood still and the bed depressed from behind me and the other hell
beast climbed up with me. "So you're Harley," I said, tentatively reaching out to touch his back.
"Come on, Chopper," I called to the other dog who bounded at me when he finally got the
invitation he needed.
With their two huge forms sprawled out, the bed no longer seemed as massive and empty. I
put a hand on each dog and gave them scratches, leaning forward as if confiding a secret and
declaring, "I am going to win you guys over and then you are going to help bust me outta this
joint."
"Don't count on it," Wolf's voice said and my head snapped up to find him sitting in his
chair, eyes closed. How he had even heard was completely beyond my comprehension.
"Don't listen to him. He's just a grumpy giant. A day with me, you'll be begging to change
your alliances, right? I bet he doesn't even let you sleep in the bed with him."
"Wouldn't all fit."
"No one is talking to you," I called, not bothering to look up. "We're having a private
conversation, prisoner to jailers. The warden can go get bent."
I wasn't certain, but I was pretty sure I heard actual genuine laughter coming from behind
me.
 SIX

Janie

As predicted, I didn't sleep. Wolf, however, did. As did my hell beasts. I sat up watching
infomercials and wondering if I tried to sneak out of the cabin if I would get very far. I decided
on not and around sunup, I hauled it into the bathroom and took the longest shower in recorded
history just to waste some time.
When I finally got out, Wolf was sitting on the bed, watching the door as if he had been
waiting for me to emerge. My hell beasts were gone, leaving me to wonder if they hunted their
own food or something. Wolf seemed like the kind of owner who might encourage that.
I immediately regretted the fact that I hadn't fished around for a new tee to slip into before I
went into the bathroom. While, unlike Wolf, I was slight and the towel had plenty of give and
covered a huge chunk of flesh, I still felt naked when his eyes slid a little too slowly up my body.
"Arm?" he asked, jerking his chin at the appendage in question.
"It's fine," I shrugged, fighting the urge to check the knot to the side of my chest.
To that, I got a very long-suffering sigh as Wolf unfolded from the bed and walked toward
me. "Arm," he said and I took that to mean: show me your arm. When I didn't immediately move
to show it to him, he grabbed it at the wrist and hauled it up. He inspected it for a minute as his
thumb stroked over my pulse point on my wrist, leaving me to wonder if he was doing it
deliberately or subconsciously. Either way, it was distracting. In the same way it had been
distracting when his forehead was on mine, and when his hands were cupping my face, and when
he wrapped my arm, and when he asked if I was alright after my nightmare, and pretty much any
time his gaze was focused on me.
Jeez.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I needed to get a grip.
"Wolf..." I heard myself say, the sound a quiet whisper.
But he heard and his gaze rose to mine. His hand pulled my arm down to my side, but his
fingers stayed around my wrist. His other hand rose, hovering in the air near my clavicle for a
second before moving forward and brushing the droplets of water from my wet hair off my skin.
My entire body shuddered hard at the sensation and his eyes flew to my face.
"Janie," he said, his voice rougher than usual and I had the sneaking suspicion it was that
way because of desire.
That realization sent a matching current of arousal through my body, foreign but familiar
like a long-forgotten memory hazily resurfacing. My name sounded strange on his lips, intimate,
like a secret. I liked it a little bit too much. And that was absolutely terrifying.
Wolf's eyes closed tightly, staying that way for a long moment before he opened them on an
exhale. His hand dropped and he flew away from me like I burned him. He rummaged around in
the closet then threw himself into the bathroom. The water came on while I was still frozen in the
same spot, heart pounding, skin feeling electric, not sure what the heck was happening. I turned
toward the bathroom door, watching as if it had answers for me.
Behind it, I heard a sound, something deep and guttural that I didn't have to know to know.
It was accompanied by a slamming sound, like his fist hitting the shower wall. And I knew what
he was doing. And I knew he had just reached completion. And I also knew I had something to
do with that. That knowledge brought a strange surge of both confidence and desire. Wet pooled
between my legs, shocking me enough to snap out of my strange little fog.
What the fuck?
I was not, was absolutely not turned on by Wolf.
I was never turned on by anyone. My body didn't work that way.
And I wasn't like... flattered that he thought about me when he jacked off either. That was
crazy. He was quite literally holding me captive. There was no longer making excuses like he
was trying to hide me from the cops who were swarming everywhere. It had been two nights.
There was no reason for him to keep me there. Except that he was being a total creepy kidnapper.
I threw myself backward onto the bed, feet dangling off the end like a kid, and covered my
face in my hands. He needed to leave. He needed to leave and I needed to trick Harley and
Chopper into letting me outside somehow. Then I needed to get the hell out of there. Because,
fact of the matter was, I was going stir crazy. That was why I was getting all weird about Wolf. I
had nothing to do to occupy my mind and it was looping over things it needed not to.
Like the fact that Lex Keith was very likely still alive. It was a fact I couldn't confirm
because I had no friggen computer or cell phone or anything to tap into the dark web or the city
cameras. Chances were he was still out there causing his particular reign of terror. And I had
been given a chance of ending that and I failed. I failed at saving a ton of future people from him.
I failed at trying to erase my demons. And in failing to do all of that, I fucked up my entire life
for no good reason. I had convinced myself that if it worked, if I took him out... it would all be
worth it: losing my home, losing the respect of my coworkers, ruining my friendship with Lo.
Now it was all for nothing.
And I could never go back.
I could never go back and going forward meant going into something new and unknown.
What was I supposed to do? Get a day job? Work at a computer company fixing hard drives
ruined by malicious porn sites? Work at a bookstore? Get an overnight job so no one thought it
was weird that I didn't sleep like a normal person? I couldn't pop back up on the radar of the
criminal underbelly. Not without Hailstorm around to back me up. I was very likely going to find
myself on the hit lists of at least three criminal organizations. If I popped up, they would know
and they would find me. So I had to go straight. I had to bury the parts of me that knew the best
way to construct a bomb; I had to forget that I could bring any corporation to its knees by
hacking into their mainframe; I had to pretend I didn't know Krav Maga and how to assemble a
M-16 as fast as a soldier in basic training.
Jstorm would disappear.
Leaving me just Janie again for the first time in eight years.
I wasn't sure I would even recognize her anymore.
But if what I had been getting a taste of the past two days in the woods was anything to go
by, I would not adjust well. Already, the walls I had built between me and the things that had
happened to me were crumbling. I was having a problem controlling my emotions. I was losing
my shit.
Great.
"Arm."
Augh. I was getting really sick of him not talking to me like a normal person. Like... really
sick of it. I kind of wanted to smack him every time he tried to communicate an entire sentence
in a word. "Fuck off," I said, not bothering to open my eyes.
"Suit yourself," he growled, sounding about as patient as I felt that morning as he reached
down and grabbed my arm, dragging it up roughly enough to nearly pull it from its socket. My
eyes shot open, surprised. Everything about him had been gentle toward me before. His strength
was a threat he kept reined in carefully, never putting his hands on me with anything but the
gentlest of touches. There was a noticeable tension in him even after a shower and, um, the
activities in the shower. His shoulders were stiff, his brows drawn low, his mouth in a firm line.
He dropped my wrist and started wrapping my arm with moist gauze. But this time, he wasn't
carefully laying it down, fingers soft and deft. No, he was wrapping it around my arm with the
same kind of carelessly violent way one wraps a vacuum chord up after a long day at work only
to come home to find the dog had knocked over one of your potted plants and there was dirt
everywhere. He did it with a sort of resigned frustration.
Well... fuck him.
I jerked my arm back out of his reach. "I'll do it myself if you're going to be a dickhead
about it," I growled.
His eyes rose to mine, searching my face for a long minute before he let out a sigh. He held
out his arm, palm open, like he was expecting me to put my arm there. He could expect all he
wanted; he wasn't getting my cooperation. "Janie," he said, his voice quiet, but there was still a
hint of frustration there.
"I don't know what you have to be frustrated about," I told him, watching his face. "I believe
I'm the one being held somewhere against their will with the threat of being mauled if I tried to
step foot over the threshold and absolutely nothing to do all day or all night when I can't sleep.
Like... seriously. You have no right to be all grumpy and rough with me when the only reason I
am here is because you, for fuck-knows what reason, are keeping me here. You wouldn't have to
wrap my arm every day if you would let me go."
"Staying here," he said simply, taking my wrist again, but much more gently.
"But why?" I demanded, a bit of pleading in my tone.
He straightened the wonky gauze for a second, settling it all into even lines before he
looked me in the face again. "Have reasons."
"Care to share?"
"Why'd you bomb Hailstorm?"
I wanted to smile, because I knew what he was doing. But I kept my lips in a straight line.
"Have reasons."
"Care to share?" he threw my words back at me and I felt myself smiling.
"No."
"So you get it," he said on a shrug as he moved away from me.
I sat up slowly, mouth opening to remind him that the situations were in no way similar,
when I heard a voice outside. "You better be shacked up in here with some grade-A pussy if
you're not showing up at church," it called through the door. My head snapped in Wolf's
direction to see him silently contemplating the ceiling. I didn't have to ask who it was. I knew
that voice. I had talked to him the night of the dinner party where he and Wolf were going so
they would be safe... while I went out and created chaos. Cash. It was Cash. He was Reign's, the
leader of The Henchmen MC, brother. He was also second in command, vice prez, one position
above Wolf.
I liked Cash. That wasn't surprising because literally everyone who met him liked him.
Especially women. He was charming as all hell, good looking, sweet, funny. And, when the
situation called for it, he was a vicious, capable fighter and killer.
I wanted to ask Wolf where he had been the day before if he hadn't gone to church with the
rest of the men. But then Cash's voice called through the door again, "Oh you fuck. If I
have to hunt you down..." he trailed off mainly because Wolf had rushed across the floor and
flung the door open.
"Cash," he said as I moved to sit up on my knees on the bed, shamelessly eavesdropping.
"The fuck you doing up here when bombs are going off?" Cash asked.
"Anything I can do?" Wolf countered, sounding almost... bored.
"That's not the point, Wolf. You don't miss church. Reign was worried. Now that he knows you
ain't dead in one of your fucking tree stands or something, he's gonna be pissed."
"I'll deal with him," Wolf said with a shrug, rendering Cash momentarily speechless. Because no
one 'dealt with' Reign. Reign had a soft spot for his woman but that was about it. He was
hardened from all the years being in charge of a group of ruthless men. He didn't take well to
disloyal members and that was exactly what Wolf was sounding like right then. Why? What was
he doing messing with his brotherhood?
"What the fuck did you get yourself into now, man?" Cash asked after a moment.
"Nothin'," Wolf lied.
"There are fucking bombs going off all over. No one has a god damn idea who is setting them.
Repo is up my ass about not being around enough and I can't be around because I got fuckin' Lo
begging asylum at my house 'cause she got trouble and she won't involve Hailstorm in it..."
Lo.
He had Lo begging asylum at his house?
Because she had trouble that she wouldn't involve Hailstorm in?
I was pretty sure my heart stopped on the spot right then, the pain was so acute and cutting that
my hand rose to the left side of my chest and pressed in.
Lo was a lot of things: strong, capable, smart, ruthless, enterprising. She was a woman in charge
of a group of men who had never taken orders from a woman before. She ran Hailstorm with a
whip and a unshakable spirit. She was not the kind of woman to beg. She was certainly not the
kind of woman to turn to someone outside her organization for help if she somehow needed it.
Whatever she had going on, it didn't take a genius to know it was bad.
"Lo?" I heard myself ask before I could stop it.
Wolf's head tilted up, looking at the ceiling as he let out a breath and shook his head. It was then
that I realized he didn't want Cash to know I was there. That was why he had been blocking the
door. I was his dirty little secret.
"I fuckin' knew you had a skirt in there," Cash chuckled as he ducked under Wolf's arm and
made his way inside the cabin. He was tall and a thin kind of strong with colorful tattoos up his
arms. His blond hair was left long on one side and shaved to a buzzcut up the other. His deep
green eyes were amused until his eyes landed on me, quickly taking in the cuts on my face and
the gauze on my arm. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said, rolling his eyes as Wolf moved back into
the room, leaving the door open as if telling Cash he could get a move on at any time. "Well well
well," he smiled, too amused for any of our good. "Look at this little development..."
"Cash," Wolf's deep voice warned, but Cash completely ignored it.
"She's not your usual type, man," he said, nodding at me. "But, hell, if you can put
up with that smart mouth," he said, winking at me.
And well, two days of frustration came to a head right in that moment and I felt the anger well up
strong and insistent. And Cash, well, he was just a perfect outlet for it.
"The operative word there being 'smart'," I started, moving toward the end of the bed and
hopping off. "I know. It's a foreign concept to someone who barely has two brain cells to rub
together and when he does, all they do is scream out 'pussy, pussy, pussy', but some of us
actually have..."
"Retract the claws, kitten," he laughed, winking at me as he chucked me under the chin. "I was
messing with you."
"Oh," I said, immediately deflating. Of course he was. That was how he was: carefree, jocular,
fun. I sighed a little, deciding to change tactics. "Why is Lo staying with you?"
"I dunno. Why you staying with Wolf?" he putted it back at me. And, well, what was I supposed
to say? That he kidnapped me? That I was being held hostage by one of his biker brothers? The
very strong, independent part of me bristled at ever admitting I was some man's captive. So I just
lifted my chin and remained silent. Cash waited a beat then reached out toward me, touching his
hand to the gauze on my arm and it sent off a shock of pain that made me let out a small shriek
and pull away. "The fuck..." he started, looking genuinely concerned.
"Time to go," Wolf said suddenly, moving to stand between me and Cash. The message there
wasn't lost on me. He was taking a stand against one of his brothers. That just simply... wasn't
done. I couldn't see Cash anymore past Wolf's massive frame, but his silence spoke a thousand
words. He was confused.
Watching Wolf's back... so was I.
"Alright," Cash said after a long minute. "But pick up your fucking phone and call Reign or
you're gonna have a group of Henchmen up here asking questions and airing your laundry. Janie,
kitten," he said, leaning past Wolf's body so I could see him. "Take care of that arm. I'll see you
around."
I listened to him walk out the door, closing it quietly and making his way back down the hill.
Wolf was still standing with his back to me. I knew he was never going to volunteer any
information unless I forced it out of him. If it was possible to "force" him into anything.
"What the hell was that?" He moved away from me, going toward the kitchen and making a fresh
pot of coffee.
Oh no. He wasn't getting away with that.
"Um... hello. I'm talking to you here." I got a grunt of acknowledgment to that. A grunt. Like a
caveman. "Why are you avoiding church and The Henchmen? Why are you making it clear to
Cash that the topic of me is off limits? What the fuck is going on in that Neanderthal head of
yours?"
He betrayed his annoyance by slamming the pot into the machine and stabbing the button to turn
it on. "Drop it."
"Yeah, I'm not going to just... drop it, Wolf. I need to know what the fuck is going on. This might
not be a big deal to you, but this is my life here. I am trapped with a man I don't know from
Adam, whose intentions are anything but clear, who could very well plan on torturing, killing,
and burying..." Whatever I was about to say got cut off because suddenly he wasn't across the
room from me. He was right in front of me, all up in my space, his head tucked down to look me
in the eye.
"I. Won't. Hurt. You." He made every word its own sentence, putting so much sincerity into
them that I had no choice but to believe him.
"Okay," I swallowed, my neck craning up to look him in the eye.
"Believe me?"
"Yes. I believe you," I said, nodding a little for emphasis.
"Don't be afraid," he pressed, looking down at me like he wouldn't be able to move away from
me until he knew for sure that I trusted him.
And, oddly and for no damn good reason, I did. I trusted him. "I'm not afraid." I was never
afraid. And even though he could break my entire body with just one of his massive hands, I
didn't truly believe he would ever do that.
"That's my girl," he said, his hand touching my cheek.
The words landed with impact, making the floor beneath my feet give away, making my hands
move out to grab his forearms to hold steady. His hands closed around my elbows as his face
twisted in a mirror to the shock I was sure was on my face.
My.
That's my girl.
I was trying really hard to not analyze what that meant, if that meant anything at all. But it had to
mean something if he said it. He said so little that everything that did come from between his lips
had weight, had meaning. So it meant something. But maybe it was the flippant, nothing way
people said all the time. "That's my girl" like "that'a girl". Like encouragement, not endearment.
So yeah I was doing really poorly at the 'not analyzing it' thing.
"Wolf," I started, my palm resting on his chest. But I didn't get a chance to speak because the
second my hand landed, his gaze followed. Then he wrenched away from me violently and
stormed across the room, pulling open the door, then slamming it closed behind him.
So I guess that was that.
I waited a beat then made my way to the door, pulling it open slowly and smiling when Harley
and Chopper met me. Their heads tilted to the side and their tails wagged, but the second I
stepped past the doorway, I got growls.
"You guys suck," I said small-eying them and slamming the door closed.
I tried every means of escape that afternoon and evening. I attempted to climb out of each of the
windows, only to be met with snarling hell beasts. I tried bribing them with lunch meat I found in
the fridge. They ate it, but one at a time so the other could keep an eye on me.
I exhaled loudly, leaning against the wall and looking around the cabin as night fell.
"Home sweet prison," I mumbled, pushing off the door and heading for the coffee pot.
 SEVEN

Janie

I heard the truck sometime later, grumbling up the drive. There was a slam and I heard the
dogs shuffling up to greet him. The door opened and I didn't bother to look up. The dogs ran over
to the side of the bed, looking up at me for permission.
"I'm not speaking to you," I informed them grumpily, keeping my head ducked to avoid eye
contact with Wolf. That was until something hit the mattress at the end of the bed and I noticed a
bag. I reached for it, curious. Opening it, I found about a dozen paperback books. My head
jerked up to find Wolf standing a few feet away staring at me. There must have been a question
in my eyes because he answered it.
"You like to read."
"Yeah..." I said, my hands stroking over the covers of the books. He bought me books. He
bought me books because I had yelled at him about not having any reading material while I
threw magazines at him. That was... considerate. Kind even. A little voice whispered that if he
was buying me books that he likely meant to keep me a while. But I ignored that voice and let
my mouth form the words that were making my insides feel a little wobbly. "Thank you."
He nodded tightly at me and moved over toward his recliner, popping up the legs, turning
on some game, and ignoring me. But, for once, it didn't annoy me. Because I had a new pile of
books to look over and dive into. It felt like Christmas morning used to.
I read until my eyes got blurry, making the words on the pages start to swim, then rolled
onto my side and drifted off to sleep.
I woke up not aware I was awake, still screaming, this time not silently. Because this time,
the nightmare pulled me in and drowned me in the memories, in the pain, in the horror, into the
sickening reality of what had happened.
"Shh," a deep voice said as a strong hand closed around the side of my neck in a way that
was meant to be reassuring. But I wasn't fully awake, still trapped in the remnants of a dream,
and I flew at the body that was in the bed with me. "Shh," the voice said again and I found my
flailing hands trapped between my body and a man's chest as his arms closed around me tight
and held me. "Janie, shh," he murmured into my hair and I felt myself jerk fully awake,
realization washing over me like a bucket of cold water.
I wasn't back there. I was okay. I was in a cabin in the woods. I was safe.
Then another realization came over me, but it wasn't shocking and cold. It was warm and
comforting. I was in Wolf's arms. I was in Wolf's arms and he was draped around me,
murmuring quiet reassurances against my hair. My hands curled slightly into the material of his
shirt and I rested my head against his chest. "Wolf..." I started, not knowing what I was even
going to say, but knowing I needed to say something.
"You're okay," he told me, his arms squeezing tighter. "Safe."
Safe.
God.
It was an alien feeling to me. Even trapped behind barbed wire, behind fences with dogs
roaming the grounds and snipers on the roofs at Hailstorm, I almost always felt on edge. Noises
sent a swirling off inside. People coming unexpectedly around corners set my teeth on edge. Safe
was a physical thing I had externally, but an illusion that always felt false on the inside.
 But in that moment, in a cabin in the woods with a man who kidnapped me and trapped me
and wrapped up my burns and bought me books, in the arms of my too-often silent captor, I felt
it right down to my soul.
Safe.
My hands uncurled from his shirt and slid around him, holding him as tightly as he was
holding me, wanting more of the sensation, wanting to drown in it. His arms loosened slightly,
but only because his hands started stroking- one up and down my spine, the other sifting through
my hair. I allowed myself the moment, closing my eyes, sinking into the feelings I wasn't
accustomed to, choosing not to analyze them, just experience them. I breathed in his autumn
scent that was somehow even more narcotic than being wrapped up in sheets that held it.
Beneath my ear, his heart was slow and steady.
When was the last time I had been close enough to someone to hear their heartbeat?
Childhood? The last clear memory I had was when I was eleven and crying in my mother's arms
when the boy I had a crush on referred to me as 'one of the guys' and it broke my little tomboy
heart.
Christ... that was thirteen years ago.
In a lot of ways, it felt even longer than that. It was hard to even accept that hugs and
heartbeats had ever been a part of my life. But they had been. Before all the ugly, before all the
pain and blood and bitterness. Before I had reasons to erect walls high enough to never let
anyone get close to me again.
Wolf's hand tracked up the back of my neck, splayed into my hair and curled, tugging
gently to make me move backward. I did on a quiet grumble that his chest shook in reaction to.
My eyes opened slowly, feeling weighted to find his often haunted-looking honey colored eyes
were soft as he looked at me again. "Bad one," he observed, referring to the nightmare.
"Yes," I agreed because it had been.
"I'll stay close," he said, his hand loosening its hold on my hair and slowly releasing me,
moving away. He settled down on the bed just to the side of dead center, one hand tucked behind
his head, the other stretched up under the pillows where I was about to lie down.
I took a steadying breath and lowered myself back into my spot, leaving a few inches
between our bodies. But I didn't stay there because as soon as my head hit the pillow, the arm
underneath it curled around my shoulders and hauled me toward his body until I was on my side,
plastered against him. It took me, oh say... two-point five seconds to think about and decide to
lift up and rest my head down in the center of his chest. His arm stayed around my shoulders, the
other moved from behind his neck and draped across my hips.
He was quiet for so long, his breath slow and steady, that I thought he had fallen asleep.
"Every night?"
"Yes," I said just as quietly as he had asked. Funny... being around him for a couple days
helped me interpret his half-sentences as full ones much the way that all his Henchmen brothers
seemed to be able to do.
"Bad memories?"
The worst.
"Yes."
"Tried to burn them," he observed, meaning the bombs.
"Yes."
"Didn't work."
I exhaled loudly. "Missed my target."
 "Dunno that."
"I do. I feel it in my gut," I admitted, finding myself opening up more to him than I had
opened up to anyone. Lo was the closest person I had in the world. She knew what happened
because she picked up my pieces off the floor and helped sew me back together, both literally
and figuratively. But I had never been able to tell her. I choked on the words any time I tried.
"Think it'd help?"
To kill him? Honestly, I had no idea. All I knew was it couldn't hurt; that was for damn
sure. "Probably not."
"Not."
"Speaking from experience?" I cringed at how snippy my tone was. That was me. When
someone got to close to the truth, I had to deflect deflect deflect.
"Yes," he answered honestly, surprising me.
"You burned them?"
"No."
"But something else just as lethal."
"Yes."
"And it didn't help?"
"Not me."
Curious, I pushed up on his chest, resting my hand there for balance and looking down at
him. "Who did it help?"
He watched me for a long time, long enough that I thought he wasn't going to answer. His
hand reached out and brushed my hair behind my ear. "Mom."
That was all I was going to get. But I had the feeling it was more than he gave most people.
Maybe he gave it to me because I gave a part of myself to him. That thought had a weird gooey
feeling swirling around my belly. "Thank you," I heard myself saying without having
consciously thought it.
"For?"
For taking care of me? For helping me open up? For offering physical contact I wasn't even
aware I wanted? How did someone thank another person for things like that?
"Janie..." his voice cut into my internal battle, making my gaze snap to his. My hair slipped
from behind my ear again and his hand rose. But it didn't do another ear-tuck. It paused for a
second then slid into the strands then cupped the side of my neck. I saw the question in his eyes,
but I didn't know what he was asking for.
"Wolf, I..."
Then his fingers dug in slightly because he was pulling me slowly downward toward him
and I understood. He was looking for permission to kiss me. Kiss me. A thousand objections
flashed across my brain in the course of a second, not the least of them being my earlier
objections about becoming some pathetic Stockholm chick. But I ignored all of them. Because
Wolf's eyes were liquid and heavy-lidded and my belly felt like it was melting in an all too
delicious way.
"You good?" he asked as if sensing the small part of me that was begging me to pull away,
to put some distance between us, to reconstruct my walls.
I felt my head nod slightly as his hand moved around the back of my neck, our faces a
breath away from each other. There was a pause before he applied pressure and closed the space
between us, my lips landing on his and sending a shock through my system, making my body
jolt.
 His lips didn't immediately demand anything from me; they were just firm pressure under
mine as I adjusted to the sensations. His beard tickled in a way that wasn't amusing and almost
erotic instead. His hand at my neck was hard. The arm around my back had tightened at the
contact. My hair had fallen forward to curtain us and my heart suddenly flew into overdrive,
making my chest feel tight.
I had expected that trying to get close to someone again would bring with it the memories,
would overwhelm my body with the sick, awfulness of it all. That was why I never let anyone
get close. I didn't need the punishment; I had suffered enough.
So when our lips pressed into each other and nothing surfaced but the desire, leisurely
stretching from its long sleep like a cat, I knew there was no going back.
My head slanted and his lips closed around my lower lip, sucking it in slightly and drawing
a surprised whimper from somewhere deep inside me. At the sound, a growl escaped him and his
arm tightened on my hips as he rolled, pushing me onto my back and half-covering my body
with his. My hands went to his shoulders, digging in, holding on as his tongue pressed forward
and moved into my mouth, toying with mine. My hands grabbed him, pulling him closer until he
planted his arms on either side of my body and came fully over me. My fingers slid into his hair,
holding him to me as his teeth nipped gently into my lower lip.
There was no tentativeness in him. He kissed me like worship, like prayer, like benediction.
He kissed me like it was the only thing standing between him and absolution, like together we
could wash away our sins and start anew in the Elysian Fields.
And I found myself wanting to believe in the promise he was offering me. But as his hand
moved, sliding softly down the side of my breast, an image popped into my mind: unwanted, of a
hand there, aggressive, violent, taking things I hadn't offered.
My entire body went ramrod straight; my hands dropped from his shoulders.
Feeling the change, his lips pulled from mine, his body weight shifted upward. "Look at
me," he demanded as I kept my eyes clamped shut hard, trying to push the images away and
failing. "Janie," he demanded again, his voice like velvet-coated steel- soft but firm. My eyes
drifted open to find his watching me, taking in every nuance, seeking answers and finding them.
He nodded slightly, rolling off onto his side and pulling me onto mine so we were facing each
other. His hand rested gently at my hip, safe, undemanding, taking nothing and offering an
anchor. "It's okay," he answered, somehow reading my struggle to try to explain.
"No," I clarified in a small voice. "It's not."
"Not what happened," he said, his fingers squeezing my hip for a second. "Stopping."
On a choked whimper that gave too much away of what I was feeling, my forehead
slammed into his chest. His arm went up my back and remained there, sifting through my hair as
I tried to pull myself together.
He was, at once, both right and wrong. It should always be okay to stop, to want to slow
things down, to need things to go at my own pace. That was my right and no one should make
me feel guilty for that. But he was wrong too. Because he didn't understand. He didn't know what
it was like to not want to stop, but to need to. He didn't know how it felt to feel ripped in two
with desire and fear. He couldn't comprehend the struggle to overcome an invasion and move
forward from it, to fear hands that wanted to give pleasure because there once had been hands
that had caused pain.
"Janie," his breath made my hair flutter slightly. "Don't," he demanded.
"Don't what?" I heard myself croak, the tears stinging at the back of my eyes, begging to be
released once and for all.
 "Go there," he clarified. "Don't go there."
"How can I not go there? I live there," I told his chest, my voice both strong and weak at
once. "It's everywhere. It's in everything. It won't go away. It won't let me..."
"You wear it."
"How can I not? It's etched into my skin. I can't scrub if off. I've tried. I've tried everything."
My breath hitched, making me bite hard into my lip to keep any other sounds from coming out.
He silently pushed me backward and reached between us, taking the wrist of my un-burned
arm and stroking up my skin, no doubt feeling the raised lines underneath the tattoos, touching
the scars. "Covered them."
"Didn't work either," I admitted, keeping my eyes down, not trusting myself to make eye
contact when I was so close to tears.
"No," he agreed. "But made it into something beautiful." My head snapped up then, looking
for an excuse in his face to not believe him, to deny deny deny. But I found nothing there.
"Beautiful," he repeated and it sent a shiver across my skin, soaking in like a healing salve.
"Wolf..."
"Don't regret me," he said, a vulnerability in his tone that I had never heard before, that I
wasn't sure I believed he was capable of until that moment.
It was my turn. To comfort, to soothe. It wasn't a role I was familiar with, it wasn't one I felt
fit to play. But he had been so good to me, so understanding, undemanding. I owed it to him to
try.
My hand raised slowly, his hand still holding it at the wrist, and moved to the side of his
face, resting there. "I don't regret you. It's weird and it's warped and I'm pretty sure I need
therapy for thinking this, let alone admitting it... but I've felt okay here. That sounds strange," I
said, searching for the right words. I seemed full of the wrong ones all of a sudden. I sucked in a
breath and charged on, ignoring the sharp twisting inside that was trying to make me clam up, to
keep him from getting any further under my walls. "It's like... I feel like every day of my life for
eight years I have been wearing a mask. I try to hide it, disguise it, pretend it isn't there. But it's
there and all I've accomplished by denying it is making sure no one can ever really know me. No
one. Not even Lo. It's... made me unknowable. It has made me alone even in a room full of
friends. But you..."
"Saw under the mask," he supplied when the words failed me.
I felt myself nodding. "I don't need to pretend here. It's... safe here." I threw myself onto my
back on a strange, hysterical-sounding laugh, covering my face with my hands. "Like I said... I
think that proves I need some serious head shrinking."
My arms were snagged at the wrists and pulled away. "Stop hiding," he said with a pointed
brow raise. Then he reached across my body and grabbed my book off the bed where it had
fallen when I passed out. He pressed it into my hands, reaching down and dragging the blankets
back over our bodies. He settled in beside me, one arm draped across my belly. At my
questioning look, he settled his head into the space above my shoulder. "You won't sleep," he
said simply, knowing it was the truth. "You read. I'll sleep."
And there it was: acceptance.
He knew.
He saw.
And he didn't shrink away; he didn't look at me any different.
He saw and he accepted.
His breath warmed my neck and chest, his arm was a comforting weight across my middle,
his massive body beside me, curled toward me, offering protection.
And, again, the word flashed across my mind, it burrowed deep into my soul:
Safe.
I was safe.
So I read. And Wolf slept.
 EIGHT

Janie

Wolf's body didn't move all night, my sleeping, stalwart protector. He drifted awake a few
minutes after I finished the book, turning his face in toward my neck slightly and planting a soft
kiss there. My stomach clenched at the normalcy of it, the casual intimacy, like he did it every
morning. But then he rolled away casually, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. "Good
book?"
I almost wanted to laugh. "Yeah," I said, smiling wide at his profile, a happiness inside me
that felt foreign and almost overwhelming.
His head tilted in my direction, his eyes drifting over my face for a long moment and I
watched as something strange happened, a shutter closed down over his eyes. While the honey-
colored depths always hinted at a bit of distance, there had always been an openness there. Right
then, it was gone completely. He shut down. He shut me out.
"Shower first," he commanded, bolting off the bed and making his way toward the door,
Harley and Chopper jumping up to follow.
The door slammed and I sat up slowly staring at it. What the hell was that? Like, I got that
he had walls. There was nothing about Wolf that suggested he had escaped from his past
unscathed and completely well-adjusted. I mean he couldn't have a normal conversation for
chrissake. Suddenly, I found myself wanting to know every detail. He implied he had done
something bad, something that didn't help him, but had helped his mother. Did he do something
to his father? Or his mother's boyfriend or something? I wanted to know. I wanted to know every
gory detail.
I'd looked into Wolf. A year ago when Hailstorm decided to work with The Henchmen, I
dug deep and tried to find more than the surface information we had already acquired about him.
The problem was, his trail was almost non-existent. He didn't have any social media; he didn't
seem to go online at all; he paid his bills in cash. Aside from a few arrest records- one for a
drunk and disorderly that I found hard to believe. One, because he seemed like the kind of man
too in control to get drunk in the first place and two, because, well, how much liquor would it
take to make someone as massive as him drunk in the first place? There had been another arrest
for aggravated assault when he was in his early twenties. It never went to trial and I knew
enough about the crooked law enforcement in Navesink Bank to know that palms had been
greased and paperwork and witness statements found themselves 'missing'.
I didn't like being blind. I was usually able to find out just about anything if I dug deep
enough for long enough. But with him, I got nowhere. And now I was without the resources to
try again to find out more about his family. His mother and especially his father. The only thing I
knew about Wolf's dad was that he was a Henchmen under Reign and Cash's father and that the
three of them had grown up tight as brothers.
I sighed, climbing out of the bed and shivering against the late fall/ early winter air,
grabbing a fresh t-shirt out of Wolf's closet and making my way into the bathroom. I hadn't asked
him what happened to my clothes. I don't know why that was. Especially my panties and bra. I
made a mental note as I waited for the water in the shower to warm up and I unwrapped my arm,
to ask him to return them. Or in lieu of that, buy me new ones. Because, really, it was too
freaking cold to be walking around with a draft up your skirt.
 I got out of the shower and opened the door to find Wolf standing there, completely
overtaking the entire doorway. "Jesus," I yelped, flying back a foot, my hand going to my chest.
"Just creeping outside the door?" I asked, feeling defensive.
He ignored me, reaching out to snag my wrist and pulling up my arm to inspect it. "No wrap
today," he informed me, dropping it.
I searched his face for a long minute, both of us blocking each other's way. "Everything
alright?"
"Fine."
I felt my lips quirk up, ready to throw his own words back at him. "Don't lie. You don't
want to talk about it, don't. But don't lie." Ha. So there!
I thought his lip was going to do the twitch thing, but all I found there was a firm line.
"Woman..." he growled.
And, well, the impulse control thing failed me again.
"Alright," I snapped, shoving a hand into his chest. "I've had just about enough of your
monosyllabic bullshit. I know you like to hide behind it and just shrug and go 'just how I am'.
But I think that's cheap. I think you do it so you don't have to let anyone in. But I'm over it. Oh,
and while we're on the topic of your linguistic skills, or complete lack thereof, 'woman' is not a
complete sentence. You seem to think it relays some deeper meaning, but, newsflash, it doesn't.
You're going to have to start using actual sentences with subjects and verbs. You get extra points
for a good adjective or adverb here and there."
"You done?" he asked, one of his dark brows raised.
"Actually..." I started, still going full-steam.
"You're done," he corrected, pushing into the small room and leaving me no choice but to
back up against the sink counter. I sucked in a breath as he just moved past me, reached in the
shower to turn the water on, and went about things like I wasn't there. Meaning, he reached
behind his back, snagged his shirt, and pulled it off.
I was totally going to lift my chin up defiantly and storm out of that room, slamming the
door for good measure. Totally. That was the plan.
But, well, um... that didn't happen.
I stood there, eyes glued on his strong back, looking over the giant back piece inked there. I
felt my mouth fall open slightly as I realized what the image was of: Michael Defeats Lucifer.
The archangel Michael, sword raised, wings aloft, was standing on the body of a figure that was
more man than demon. It didn't take a genius to know that had particular meaning to him, to his
past, to whatever he had done to make his mother's life better, whatever man he had to defeat to
make it that way.
He'd chosen wisely, championing himself as Michael in the image, the angel of protection. I
barely knew him and that was what he felt like to me. I felt like he could swoop down and fight
off any foe that I might be faced with. I felt like he was someone I could trust.
He waited, I guess giving me a chance to excuse myself. When I didn't, he reached for his
pants and undid them, letting them fall down his legs, and I realized when I got the blinding
image of his firm ass, that he was the kind of man who went commando. I felt my air get caught
in my chest, my hand slapping down on the surface of the sink as he slowly stepped into the
shower. I should have lifted my gaze. I knew it the moment his body shifted and he was no
longer standing with his back to me, but his side. But the movement happened too quickly and I
suddenly found myself no longer staring at his muscular ass, but staring at his hard cock. Yes,
hard. He was hard. And, like the rest of him, big.
 The breath I had been holding rushed out sharply, audibly, as a dozen different thoughts
flashed to the forefront of my mind. My system felt drunk on an exotic cocktail of desire and
fear. It made my leg muscles feel wobbly and my heartbeat feel erratic, speeding up one moment
and slowing down the next. The swirling in my stomach was at once both exciting and
nauseating.
"Two choices," Wolf's voice growled at me, making my head snap up guiltily. God, I had
been staring at his dick! Jesus Christ.
"Two choices," I repeated, watching his face. It was still closed down. His tone was oddly
empty.
"Come in or leave," he clarified and the words landed like lead in my belly. Because I knew
I couldn't go in, no matter how curious I was, no matter how much a part of me wanted to. But
leaving was equally unpalatable. But I couldn't just fucking stand there all day like a freaking
creep either, could I?
"Right," I said, ducking my head as I nodded and moved to walk out of the room.
I closed the door on a quiet click and moved over to the side of the bed where my legs
finally gave up on me. Okay. So... yeah. I just saw Wolf naked. I saw Wolf naked and hard. And
a part of me really did want to strip down and step into that shower with him. A part of me
wanted his strong arms around me again, wanted to feel his fingers on my skin, his lips on mine.
I wanted to see if I could break down the barrier in his eyes and voice.
But that wasn't me. I didn't do things like that. And no matter how nice it may have been for
him to hold me while he slept and I read, as new and novel as his kiss had been, that didn't
change anything. I was still me. I was still full of nightmares and demons. I could never be the
girl to strip naked and step into the shower with a man without fear, without memories rushing
back and ruining it. What had I been thinking playing at trying to be something other than what I
am? I needed to stop playing house and focus. I needed to get my life back on track, as empty
and unpromising as the rest of it sounded.
There was no room in my universe for fantasy, hopes, and dreams.
I closed my eyes on the crushing, crumbling feeling inside as I felt those childish wishes
slip away. Then I got my ass off the bed and got on with my day.
Wolf came out a while later after more primal animal sounds and slamming that I pretended
I didn't hear. He made a cup of the coffee I brewed and shuffled around making food. I sat at the
table staring out the window wondering how deep a sleeper he was, if I could slip out when the
dogs and he were passed out. It was worth a shot.
The frantic pounding came at the door sometime that afternoon. It was a long ass day
pretending it wasn't driving me ape shit crazy that we hadn't spoken so much as a word to each
other since the bathroom.
Wolf flew at the door, blocking the doorway as he did. "Not now," he growled at whoever
was there. There was a short pause, then, "Seriously?" he asked.
"I need Janie's help," Cash's voice reached me. It was his, but it wasn't. Because I knew
Cash's voice and it was always almost lazily flirtatious, light. But his voice sounded tortured,
crazed.
"No," was Wolf's typical one-word response.
If I hadn't been listening so aptly, I would have missed it. But as it was, there was no
mistaking the sound of a gun cocking. Cash had a gun on Wolf? What the hell was going on?
They were brothers in every way that counted.
"This is not a discussion. Lo is in the hands of some fucking psychopath and no one, not
even those freaks at that camp of hers can find her. So I need Janie's fucking help."
At that, my heart seized in my chest. Lo. Lo was at the hands of some psychopath? My Lo?
My mentor, the woman who was like a big sister and mother and best friend to me all at once. I
flew across the room, wrenching the door open.
"Who has her?" I demanded, hearing a bit of hysteria in my tone and not caring.
"Damian Crane," he told me, expecting the name to stump me, because he went on to add,
"Her husband."
But, well, there wasn't a whole helluva lot that I didn't know about Lo. She was private; she
never talked about her past, but I had done my digging and I knew. "Ex," I supplied.
"What?" Cash asked, brows drawing together.
"Ex-husband. She had a contested divorce that finalized a decade ago. He's her ex-
husband."
"How do you know this shit?"
I looked off over his shoulder at the woods for a moment, surprising myself when I offered up
the truth, "When I can't sleep, which is often," I started, "I go online. I look into stuff. When I
was first at Hailstorm, I looked into the people. So... I know her name is Willow Swift. When she
was eighteen, she married Damian Crane. They were married until she was twenty-seven though,
obviously, she was not with him that whole time because she was building up Hailstorm at the
time and no one there had ever so much as heard his name. I don't know why she wasn't..."
"He beat her," Cash cut me off, effectively stunning me into complete silence.
"What?" I asked, hearing the horror in my own voice.
"I found a picture. There were bruises on her arm. That, coupled with the article that said he was
stabbed twelve times in his apartment..."
"Oh my god..." I whispered, feeling a little light-headed at the idea. I couldn't picture it. I
couldn't imagine a young Lo, untrained, knowing nothing of all the self-defense she now did,
cowering away from a man who raised his hands to her. No wonder she fought so hard to be so
damn strong all the time. She never wanted to feel that way again. She never wanted to cower or
fear a man again. She...
"Enough," Wolf said roughly, making my head snap up to find his gaze on Cash for a second
before drifting over to mine, his face softening slightly.
"He has her, Janie..." Cash said, his voice a plea.
"I need a computer," I snapped, looking over at Wolf, not caring about the shaking in my voice.
"Right now," I clarified.
There was the barest of pauses before his head gave me a jerky nod. "'Kay," he said and turned
into the cabin.
"How long?" I asked Cash as we followed Wolf inside.
"Hours. I don't know. I was at Hailstorm trying to get their help in locating him before he found
her again."
"Again?"
"That's why she was begging asylum at my place, kid. He got to her and he busted her up. Her
face... her ribs... it was bad. He did a number. She went to The Henchmen. I just so happened to
be there so I took her home. I took care of her. And then..."
There was something in his tone, something in the softness in his eyes. I wasn't exactly familiar
with it, but I knew it when I saw it. He had feelings for Lo. Like... real feelings. I didn't think
such a manwhore was capable, but if there ever was a woman who could intrigue him enough to
tame his wild nature, it was Lo. "And then..." I prompted.
He sidestepped the question he knew I was really asking. "And then when I got home, my place
was trashed. Her blood was on the walls. My neighbor gave me a make and plate of his truck. I
called Malcolm and got him on it."
"They got nothing?" I asked, annoyed that they were proving so inept without me. I thought I had
trained them well.
"Nothing useful. He said every other case is closed until you guys find her."
"Well... duh," I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. The rummaging Wolf had been doing
quieted and I turned in his direction to see him moving toward me with a laptop box in his hands.
Like... a factory-wrapped laptop. He had had a laptop in his closet the whole time. How the hell
had I missed that? Why hadn't I asked if he had one before? He stopped in front of me, holding
the box to a laptop that was already a good two years old and I felt a smile tease my lips. "You're
ridiculous," I told him, taking the box from his hands.
The men moved away from me, going toward the kitchen and talking in somewhat hushed tones
to, I imagine, exclude me from their conversation. Not that they needed to; I wasn't paying them
any attention. I had a laptop to open and get running. Then I had the most important person in
my world to find... before anything horrible happened to her. Though, a part of me knew that if
she was in the hands of someone who used to beat her... well, horrible things were probably
already happening. I used that knowledge to push me forward.
"Carpet store?" I called out as soon as I got online.
"Been there. Nothing," Cash supplied.
On a growl, I went back to work, their low, grumbling voices carrying on in the kitchen. "As
much as I love to sit here listening to you two hens clucking like a couple chicks," I said, still
tapping furiously as I spoke, "I am going to need some coffee and silence," I snapped at them,
not caring if I was being a bitch.
Wolf made a grunting noise and I knew he was going to make the coffee. I flicked open a tab and
put on internet radio, metal music blaring loud enough to drown out the endless stream of fears
flying across my mind.
Cash moved over toward Wolf's recliner and sat down, anxious energy bouncing off of him. A
part of me went out to him, knowing how helpless he felt, knowing that for a man of action to be
forced to sit and wait and worry was the worst kind of torture. Especially when his woman was
out there somewhere having god-knew what done to her. True, Lo was strong. But even strong
women, when faced with something that once made them weak, could crumble.
Eventually, Cash slept. Wolf held silent vigil at the dining room table with me, refilling my
coffee when it went empty, pretending to ignore my growling and cursing when I met dead end
after dead end. Whoever Damian Crane was, aside from ex-military and wife-beater, he was air.
He kept next to nothing on the books aside from that god damn abandoned carpet store he kept in
town.
The longer I searched, the more that bothered me. Why would he have bought a store and not
done something to renovate and reopen it? Why pay taxes on something useless? In the town
where your formerly-battered ex-wife set up her business?
The answer was... he wouldn't. That carpet store meant something. Cash had said he had been
there and there was nothing there. But I didn't buy that. No way. It had to mean something.
Sometime around sunrise, I got into the city's website and after an annoying search, finally found
the plans.
"What about the basement?" I shouted as I paused the song on the radio station.
"What?" Cash asked, bolting awake in the chair, rubbing his eyes.
"The basement," I said again, overly caffeinated and under-slept and, therefore, a little grumpy.
"What basement?"
"The one at the carpet store," I clarified.
"Kid, there wasn't a basement. No doors to a staircase. Nothing."
"Then what is this?" I asked, swinging the laptop screen in his direction and stabbing at the
picture.
He flew out of his chair and across the room, his face a mask of horror as he choked out, "No..."
"Yeah. There's a basement. He must have hidden the..." I didn't get to finish my sentence because
suddenly... he wasn't in the cabin anymore. I closed my mouth on a snap as Wolf got up out of
his chair, grabbing the cell off the counter in the kitchen where he had put it to charge after Cash
had passed out. As he passed, he fished into his pocket and brought out another cell, tossing at
me.
"Call it in," he told me, not having to say anything else. I snagged it on the fly and quickly dialed
in the number for Hailstorm.
"Malcolm," he answered, his familiar, fatherly voice making my insides feel like they were being
ripped out. It was supposed to be a clean break. I was never supposed to hear their voices again.
And, next to Lo, Malcolm was the closest thing to family I had. He raised me up. He showed me
that men could be good and trustworthy. He never once implied that my damage or my
femaleness or my size was ever a factor. He trained me like he trained the men even though I
knew he held a soft spot in his heart for me, like the daughter he never had. Hearing his voice
physically hurt.
But it was for Lo.
I would torture myself every day left of my miserable life for Lo.
"Malc it's Janie..."
"Jstorm, what the fuck?" he exhaled loudly, sounding both frustrated and relieved. "Where the
fuck have you been? Lo is..."
"In the basement of the carpet store. Cash is on his way. He's going to need back up. Bring
someone medical. If Damian has her, there's going to be damage."
"On it," Malcolm said and I could hear him issuing out orders. There was a pause. "Honey is
everything okay with you?" he asked, somehow picking up on things being amiss. What can I
say? He was good at his job.
"Everything is fine. Go get Lo. Get her safe. Get her fixed up."
"Never doubt it," he said, but he wasn't done. "JJ," he said, his voice dipping soft, "when am I
going to see you back here?"
The ripping of my insides things intensified. "Bye Malc," I said into the phone, ending the call
before things got out of hand and I started crying.
I put my elbows on the table, burying my face in my hands. It was that moment that Wolf
decided to come back in. "Janie..." he said softly, all the distance gone from his voice. I couldn't
bring myself to look up at him, too focused on trying to rein in my emotions before they went out
of control. "He'll get her," he told me and I heard him come up by my side. "She's strong," he
reminded me.
"Even strong women can be weak sometimes," I told him, feeling the truth of it in my bones.
I felt his huge palm close over both of my wrists, pushing them down and away from my face.
His other hand reached up and snagged my chin, pulling it in his direction. I looked to find him
crouched down beside my chair, watching me with open eyes. "He'll take care of her."
"I know he's like your brother and you have to protect him. But Cash isn't exactly..."
"She's his," he cut me off firmly. "He loves her." Those words hit home, cutting through the fear
and helplessness I felt. "He'll help."
"Help what?"
"Her be strong again."
"You're sure?"
He gave me a tight nod and I found myself believing him even though I had no good reason to.
On a strange muted whimper, I flew off the chair and launched myself into his chest, arms going
around him tight. Him, being some descendant of the Titans themselves, didn't so much as budge
at the impact. He made a grunting noise, his arms moving around me automatically as I buried
my face in his neck, his beard tickling across my cheek.
Feeling braver with the contact, I whispered into his neck. "You locked me out this morning."
His chest tensed against me. "You pushed."
I felt a small laugh escape me, shaking my head. "Yeah I do that sometimes. In case you haven't
noticed, I'm a pain in the ass."
"Noticed," he said with what sounded like humor in his voice.
"You're not supposed to agree with me," I laughed, slapping his back, not bothering to wonder
why I hadn't let go of him yet.
"Ain't gonna lie," he defended.
"No, but you could keep that trap shut," I smiled, pulling backward to look at his face. "You
know how to do that."
"Where's the fun in that?"
"Oh so it's fun to insult me?" I said, lowering my eyes at him in mock anger.
"Cute when you're pissed," he said, effectively wiping the smile off my face. Cute? He thought I
was cute? I wasn't cute. I was a badass, gun-wielding, bomb-setting, Krav Maga-doing bitch
from Hailstorm.
"Bunnies are cute," I shot back.
"Yep," he agreed. "So are you."
"I'm a badass," I objected.
"Yep," he agreed, nodding, lips twitching.
"I can incapacitate a full grown man with two fingers."
"Sure."
My eyes lowered for real this time. "I can!" I insisted. "Two fingers, right on the carotid. Eight
seconds. Out." He nodded, acknowledging the truth of that statement. But there was a light in his
eyes that I didn't trust. "What?" I snapped.
"Got a carotid," he said on a shrug.
"Um... yeah you do. Everyone does."
"You got two fingers. You got ten..." he informed me and I felt myself stiffening as I realized
where he was going.
"Don't," I heard myself almost beg.
"Still conscious," he said, giving me a brow lift. "Wonder why."
"Oh gee... I dunno," I said, attempting sarcasm to cover the fact that he was right. He was so
right. I hadn't even tried. What the hell? "Maybe because you are seventy-thousand pounds of
muscle and if you felt my fingers even try to press into your neck, you could snap me like a
twig?"
The humor drained from his face, his brows drawing together seriously. "Never," he said almost
savagely.
"Never what?" I asked, too fascinated by how quickly his moods could switch from one to
another to understand what he was talking about.
But then his arms released me and his hands went to frame my face. "I'd never hurt you."
Oh, duh.
I knew that. Like... I really knew that. He wasn't that type of guy. He was Michael, the archangel.
He was a protector. And now I made him think he was some piece of shit that could put his
hands on me. Great.
My hands went to his wrists, closing around them. "I know that. I was... deflecting," I admitted
with a shrug.
"Why?"
Augh. Why was he always so curious?
"Because I don't know why I haven't tried to choke you or knock you over the head with
something, catch you unaware in the shower or something. I'm losing my edge."
"Nah."
"Then what other explanation could you have for it? You dragged me here when I demanded you
take me to my car. Then you stole my clothes and you trapped me in here with your hell
beasts..."
"And..." he prompted and I knew where he was going with that too.
I sighed. "And got me off the side of the road where I was losing my shit and the cops were
bound to find me. And you wrapped up my arm and bought me books and..."
"You wanna be here."
"What? No!" I objected a little too quickly.
"Yeah you do," he said, giving me a small smile.
"No. I need to get to my car and get my clothes and phone and cash and I need to get the hell out
of here before Reign, Charles Mallick, Lo, Richard Lyon, and Lex Keith find out I was the one
who set the bombs."
"Need isn't want," he picked the part of my argument that went in his favor. He was right,
annoyingly, obnoxiously right. I needed to get out of town; I didn't want to.
"Well I need to stay alive or I won't be wanting anything anymore," I reasoned, sounding a bit
more like I was trying to convince myself, not him.
"Janie," he said, his thumb stroking across my cheek.
"What?" I asked when he didn't go on.
"Won't let em hurt you."
His words and the sincerity with which he said them had my insides doing that gooey thing
again. But still... "I know you want to believe that, Wolf, but you're one person. And you know
as well as I do that your brotherhood to The Henchmen is supposed to trump all. Reign is going
to be furious enough when he finds out you knew who set the bombs and didn't tell him. He
would blow a fucking gasket if you tried to stand between me and him."
"Doesn't hurt women," he objected, shaking his head.
"Maybe that's only because a woman has never fucked with his empire before," I reasoned. "And
it's not just about Reign. He's the least of my worries."
"If it's..."
"Don't," I interrupted, squeezing his wrists. "Just don't." I couldn't take it, hearing Lex's name on
his lips after he knew what happened to me. It would feel wrong. They were different parts of my
world and I didn't want them crossing paths.
"Okay," he said, dropping his hands from my face. "Come on," he said, getting back onto his feet
and moving across the room.
"Come where?" I asked, watching him as I straightened. He waved a hand toward the door and I
snorted, waving a hand at my body. "Um... it's freezing out there and I don't even have panties
on," I said flippantly and regretted it the second his eyes got heated, got hungry. Okay, well, I
didn't regret it exactly, but I realized my mistake. But to my relief (or utter disappointment, I
couldn't decide), he took a deep breath, gave me a stiff nod and made his way toward the closet.
A second later, he came out with my clothes from a couple days before, cleaned and folded.
Um, yeah, so I needed to get a good look around that closet sometime. Apparently he kept
literally everything of worth in there. You know... like my underwear.
He crossed to me, pushing the clothes at me. I took them, my head cocking. "What are we going
to do?"
"Get dressed," he said, moving toward the door and going outside.
Right then. I shimmied into my panties then pulled my pants up my legs, feeling strange and
constricting after several days not wearing any pants at all. I left on Wolf's tee, but tucked it in
and grabbed his flannel off the hanger by the door as I slipped into my boots. It wasn't high
fashion, but it would do.
I was almost a little giddy as I reached for the door handle to see what he had in store for me.
Wolf, shockingly, seemed rather full of surprises.
 NINE

Janie

"Target practice?" I asked after we trudged silently through the woods for a good ten
minutes before we came to a clearing where he had half a dozen targets set up at various
distances. I watched as he pulled a gun out of the waistband of his jeans and checked the clip.
"Seen you shoot," he said casually.
"I'm a good shot!" I immediately bristled. I was. I never missed a target. Ever. So maybe I
didn't always (okay, maybe I hardly ever) hit the bullseye, but still. I knew how to handle and
point a gun.
"Good ain't great," he said on a shrug, holding the gun out toward me.
"You really think you should be handing me a gun after insulting me?" I asked in a grumpy
tone. Inside, though, I was doing an obnoxious little happy dance. After eight years of training
seven days a week at Hailstorm where having two broken arms could barely be considered an
excuse for missing target practice, I was unused to inaction. I was beyond excited to get back to
some sort of training, especially if he thought he could improve my aim.
He shoved the gun into my hand and held out his arms wide. "Wanna shoot, shoot," he
taunted, knowing there was no way I was going to shoot him.
On a smile, I turned toward the closest target, aimed, and shot. It was barely a seven. Christ.
To my side, I could see Wolf nod then move toward me, stepping behind me.
"Stop closing your eye," he commanded, lifting my hand again and kicking my legs a little
wider. "Shoot." I shot and hit almost the same spot. Wolf made some kind of grunting noise.
"Jerky," he said, and I heard jingling like change in a pocket. About a second later, I realized I
was right because he reached around my body and placed a coin on the sight. "Shoot."
"What's the coin for?" I asked instead.
"Falls, you're jerking."
My brows drew together, but I squeezed the trigger. And, like he expected, the coin went
flying. "Damn it," I growled as he bent to pick it up.
He placed it again, but this time his hand curled around mine, his finger pressing into mine
on the trigger. "Slow," he said, his finger pressing into mine gently. Then, incredibly, the shot
fired and the coin stayed in place... and the bullet lodged just outside the bullseye.
"No way!" I yelped, swinging around to face him. "No way is it that easy! I've been
working on this every day for years." Wolf shrugged a shoulder, tucking his hands into his
pockets, giving me the slightest hint of a smile.
"You try," he said, jerking his head to the target.
I fished the coin off the ground, got back into position, took his advice, and shot. And damn
if it didn't land in almost the exact same spot. "Who taught you that?" I demanded, facing him
again. Wolf considered me for a long minute, taking in my excitement and surprise, before
letting out a long breath.
"Dad."
Well, that made sense. His dad was a Henchmen. I heard Reign's father ran a tight ship. Of
course he would teach his men how to shoot. "Are you the best shot in The Henchmen?" I asked
into the silence that was starting to feel heavy.
At that, I got a smirk. A actual, real smirk! "No," he said, shaking his head.
 "Top five?" I pressed. I got a nod to that. "Who is first?"
"Repo," he answered instantly.
Repo was a relatively new recruit. He was patched in just a year before, right after he helped
save Summer and gained Reign's favor. "No way. He's like... twenty-one."
"Four," Wolf corrected. "Your age," he added, surprising me. How did he know how old I
was?
"Still..."
"Didn't teach him," he shrugged. So he was just a natural shot? That was interesting. He un-
tucked a hand from his pocket and waved to the targets. "Impress me," he suggested and, well, I
was always up for a challenge.

"Take that!" I declared, throwing my arms up in the air when, an hour later, I had finally
landed a bullseye on the furthest target. I turned a huge smile in Wolf's direction, full of the pride
of accomplishment that I owed at least in part to him. His eyes searched my face, landing on my
mouth for a moment and I watched as his face seemed to slowly start to shut down again.
"Don't," I commanded immediately.
"Don't what?"
"Don't shut down," I demanded. I saw his immediate head shake and did something I never
did: begged, "Please."
His head tilted to the side for a long minute before he slowly lowered himself onto the
ground, looking off into the distance, his feet still on the ground, his knees cocked up. "Come
here," he said without looking at me.
I let out a breath, unsure where this was going to lead, but sure I wanted to know. I walked
toward his body, stopping to stand beside him. His arm reached out and snagged my wrist,
pulling me to stand in front of him, facing him. Then his hand moved up to tag the front
waistband of my jeans and used it to pull me downward onto my knees before him. "Here," he
clarified when he released my jeans.
"Okay. I'm here," I said when we just sat there looking at each other.
He gave me an odd smile, shaking his head for a second. "Not like most men."
"I noticed."
"Got walls..."
"No shit," I found myself laughing. "I have those too. So?"
"Can't get under," he said and there was steel in the words, "or over," he added with a smirk,
like he knew I was thinking there was always a way around a wall.
"Maybe not," I agreed, understanding the need to believe the walls you build around
yourself were impenetrable. "But guess what?"
His head cocked to the side and I could tell by the way his light eyes were dancing that he
was amused. "What?"
"Doesn't matter what the wall is made of; a good enough bomb can blast through anything."
Then the strangest thing happened.
He threw his head back and he laughed, loud, and rumbling, full of genuine appreciation. I'd
never seen anything like it before. While true, I lived at a compound where I was surrounded by
men and they often found reason to laugh and enjoy life, I had never seen a man like Wolf,
someone serious and haunted, have his rugged, manly features lit up in amusement. There was a
strange swelling sensation in my chest, something I wasn't familiar enough with to recognize that
made me reach out without thinking and place a hand on his cheek.
His head snapped back to me; the smile slowly faded. His eyes grew heavy as his arm
raised, his hand snaking around the back of my neck, moving me forward. He did it slowly, as if
waiting for resistance. But I felt none. All I felt was drunk on the sound of his laughter and the
warmth spreading across my chest.
My lips landed on his, sending a shot of desire through my system. My other hand raised so
I was cradling his face in my hands as I pressed my lips harder against his, wanting things,
needing things I couldn't describe. Wolf's lips parted under mine and my tongue moved into his
mouth, claiming his almost violently. His arms went around me tight, pulling me forward until I
was plastered against him, his legs closed around me as well, completely trapping me in.
Normally, even during training sessions when I was being held down to see how fast I got away,
I freaked at being held down. It was my greatest weakness because the hysteria and panic made
me clumsy and predictable, easy for my opponent to anticipate and thwart my escape. But I
could never overcome it, the strangling feeling across my throat, the cold sweat breaking out
over my whole body, the uncomfortable crawling sensation of my skin. I never left one of those
training sessions feeling successful. I walked away and threw up violently, slamming my head
against the tile walls in the bathroom to keep from crying.
But right then with Wolf, I was trapped as I had ever been, by someone who was at least
five times stronger than anyone who had ever held me down before, and I didn't panic. Maybe it
was because a large part of me was aware that he would let me go if I so much as stiffened, that
he'd rather tear off his own arm than make me fear him. Maybe it was because my body felt high
off of desire. It was so overwhelming, so unexpected that I couldn't even think to fight it. All I
could do was experience it: the heavy pressure at my lower stomach, the fluttering heartbeat, the
hyper sensitivity of my skin, the way my sex felt like it was clenching every time his fingers
sunk in slightly.
Wolf let out a growl, his hands slipping down my back to grab my ass roughly. He used it to
prod my legs to wrap around his hips as his own pulled in and crossed underneath me. As soon
as my pelvis dropped down, I could feel his erection pressing hard into the juncture of my thighs.
I let out a surprised groan, my lips pulling from his violently, my eyes snapping open.
Wolf's eyes opened more slowly, watching my face for a second, trying to gauge my
reaction. I, myself, had no idea how to feel right that minute. As if maybe sensing that, Wolf's
hips rose up into mine, making his cock press into me, drawing another moan and bringing with
it a rush of wetness. My mouth parted on a rough exhale. "You good?" he asked, his voice
sounding even more gravely than usual. I felt my head jerk out an awkward nod as my hands
fisted into his shoulders. His hands moved from my ass and slid to my hips, using them to stroke
me down his hard length again. My forehead fell to his. "Ride me, Janie," he urged, his hands
gentling on my hips, making it clear I was in control.
I sucked in a deep breath and lowered myself down on him again. I did three strokes before
I paused. "You alright?"
"This won't do anything for you," I objected, seeing the unfairness in the situation. I could
come from a little friction; he wasn't very likely to do so. "It's kind of a one-sid..."
"Shut up," he said, shaking his head.
"Seriously, it's not..."
"Said shut up," he growled, his hand closing around the back of my neck and dragging my
lips back to his, kissing me hard and deep. So I guess I missed the threat in 'shut up'. As in 'shut
up or I will shut you up'.
 But that didn't matter. What mattered was his tongue sliding over mine, his teeth nipping
into my lip, his hips thrusting up into mine, offering things I had never allowed myself to want
before. But I wanted. I wanted like I didn't know was possible. I dropped my hips down and I
rode him, slow and uncertain at first, gaining in confidence and desperation as I felt something
building deep inside, making the pressure in my core hit the point of pain, having the gasps and
groans bursting from my throat radiate out through the quiet woods.
I felt it then, a suspended sensation that promised oblivion if you pushed past it. But in that
moment, I wasn't sure I could. I knew there'd be no going back. Things would be different.
"Wolf, I..." I said, pulling back to look at him, shaking my head, not sure how to explain my
uncertainty.
Wolf gave me a small smile and thrust upward one last time, making my body erupt into an
orgasm that had me crying out his name, my entire body shuddering hard as the waves crashed
almost viciously through my system. A part of me was aware that his arms had gone around me,
anchoring me to him, but I didn't fully appreciate it until I collapsed against his chest, my face
buried in his neck, and felt them tighten around me. His fingers went up and sifted through my
hair as the aftershocks worked their way through me as I clung to him tightly.
There had been times... before when, a young teen and hormonal as all hell, I had
experienced the pleasure that was a self-induced orgasm. But my body hadn't felt that in the
better part of nine years and every nerve ending felt frazzled as I tried to steady my breathing,
tried to slow my heartbeat, tried to not analyze what happened.
"Don't think," Wolf's voice said quietly and I felt a shiver course through me. "It's good," he
said when I didn't respond. "Let it be good."
Let it be good.
Could it really be that simple?
I wanted so badly to believe it could. And, nestled deep in the woods far away from
anything and anyone, the arms of a fiercely protective man around me, it almost felt possible.
I closed my eyes tight and let myself believe. If only for the moment, I let myself have it
without thinking about it, without analyzing it.
"What about yo..."
"Shut it," he said, but his voice sounded calm, almost sated. Which wasn't possible seeing as
I was the only one who got to have an orgasm.
"But you've got to be uncom..."
"Woman," he growled and I felt a laugh burst from my chest. He pulled me backward
suddenly and watched me laugh. "I was wrong," he told me when I trailed off.
"Wrong about what?" I asked, my head cocking to the side.
"Not cute," he said, shaking his head.
"I'm not cute?" I asked, feeling a sinking sensation inside despite the fact that I had argued
with him about calling me cute in the first place. I realized suddenly that I did want him to think
that. I wanted him to think I was cute. It mattered. It shouldn't have, but it did.
"No," he said, looking almost grave. I know my face must have fallen because his lips
quirked up. "Not cute," he said, hand going to my cheek. "Beautiful."
The word turned my bones to liquid, turned everything inside me solid into something fluid.
I sat there stunned at the feeling for a long minute before something inside me violently fought it.
My body went solid again, reinforced with steel.
"Mean it," he said, misinterpreting my reaction for disbelief.
I felt myself nod tightly at him as I slowly inched away. "I believe that," I said, swallowing
against the dry feeling in my mouth.
"You're pulling away," he observed as I, quite literally, did so. "Didn't push," he informed
me, bringing up our earlier conversation.
"I know."
"Still pulling away."
"What do you want from me, Wolf?" I yelped, feeling torn in two with the desire to crawl
back into his lap and the growing part of me that was screaming at me to run far, run fast.
"Nothing you don't wanna give."
Augh. Of course he would say the right thing. I guess the silent-type didn't often blurt out a
bunch of stupid, meaningless shit like the rest of us.
"I don't know what I have to give," I admitted, falling onto my ass by his feet.
"Your pace, Janie," he said, reaching out to place his hand on my knee and squeezing.
I looked down at the ground between us. There were a dozen things that could have been
said, honest things, true things, things that exposed a little bit of what I was truly feeling in that
moment. But that wasn't the kind of woman I was. I looked up with a smirk. "I thought you were
supposed to be some badass biker guy. All booze and brotherhood and bitches."
He didn't bristle and prime for a fight like I would have preferred. That wasn't his style. He
just shook his head at me and got to his feet. I watched him curiously for a minute until I realized
what he was doing; he was walking away from me. I sprang to my feet and moved to chase after
where he had disappeared into the trees. But he was nowhere to be found.
"Not funny, Wolf!" I called into the empty space, spinning around. "Is this supposed to be
some more like training shit? Or are you just being a dick?" I walked a few more steps forward,
sure he was close enough to hear me. "What could possibly be your end game here?"
"Proof," his voice said right behind my ear, causing two things at once- a knee-jerk surge of
fear and adrenaline that had me spinning around and striking out like I had been trained to do,
but also a complete, almost overwhelming sense of relief.
"Proof of what?" I asked, my fingers on my left hand aching from where I hit his jaw. He
hadn't so much as flinched meanwhile my hand felt like it collided with a brick wall.
He shrugged. "You stayed."
"I stayed?"
"Coulda run. Stayed."
So it was a test. He wanted to see if I was, what, just biding my time? Letting him kiss me
and touch me? Sharing things with him that I never shared with anyone? So that I could
eventually disarm him and get away? He gave me the chance to run. I found that both insulting
and liberating.
"And if I ran? What then?"
"Let you go."
"You'd have let me go?" I asked, going back a step. "You keep me in your house under
guard by your dogs for days but today you would just... let me go?"
"Things changed," he said, brushing past me and walking back in the direction of the cabin.
"What changed?" I asked, having to just about jog to keep up with his long-legged pace.
"Things," he said again.
"Fine but what things?"
"Doesn't matter."
God, he was impossible. "Maybe it matters to me," I tried, keeping my tone even.
He shook his head and pushed his pace faster as if silently informing me the discussion was
over.
"Seriously? This is juvenile," I hissed, picking up into a full jog and still falling behind him
as he did the manly version of a power-walk. You wouldn't think there was such a thing, but
apparently there was and Wolf was doing it. "You're really not going to talk to me about this?"
To that, I got his head turned over his shoulder at me, a brow lifted in a way that said 'what do
you think?'. "Well fine. Two can play that game," I said, slowing to a walk and letting him
charge ahead.
He didn't want to talk to me? Fine. I didn't have to talk to him either. At least not until he
was willing to give me some answers.
Oh yeah, we were going full-on school ground at this point.
 TEN

Janie

I got back to the house all of five minutes after Wolf did, intending to follow through with
my adolescent 'let's see who can win at the silent game' thing when I heard Wolf's voice from
through the open front door.
"She okay?"
I had a sinking feeling inside.
Lo.
Jesus Christ.
Lo.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I just... took off into the woods to play with guns and have an unexpected orgasm and shit
while Lo was still out there.
I shouldn't have cared. I told myself that that part of my life was over. I was planning on
leaving. I should have already been gone. If things went to plan, I wouldn't have even known she
was in that kind of situation. Fact of the matter was, there was a good chance she would have
been dead, or wishing she was dead, if I hadn't still been around. I was supposed to
compartmentalize that shit from my future- locked up tight, pretending not to care, becoming
stone cold.
But as I stood there listening to Wolf's minimalist side of a conversation, I knew that would
never be possible.
"Wolf," I heard myself whisper and he turned toward me, giving me a nod that I took to
mean they had her and she was okay. Or, if not okay, would be that way.
"Yeah. Right. Okay."
He hung up and tossed his phone on the counter, holding his arms out and I didn't even
pause, I flew at him.
"Cash got her," he said on impact, arms going around me.
"How bad is it?" I asked, needing to know because otherwise my imagination would run
away with me. And let's just say that my imagination had a lot of awful, sick things to pull out of
the cobwebbed corners of my memory.
"Back ripped open," he went on quickly, not sugar-coating it, not treating me with kid
gloves. "Stitches. Couple days. Week maybe."
"Was she..."
"No," he cut me off, arms squeezing me.
Okay. She was okay. Her back was cut up somehow but we had people at Hailstorm with
medical pasts. They would stitch her up. She would be good as new. She was beaten again, but
she wasn't raped. Thank God for small miracles. She would come back from that. If I knew her at
all, she would be pitching a fit after two or three days in that bed. Cash would have to get
inventive if he planned on keeping her there long enough for her to heal properly.
I felt a strange laugh/snort hybrid escape me as I realized that if there was ever a man up for
the task, it was him.
"Tell me they killed the mother fucker."
"Saved him."
 "For Lo?" I asked, pulling back and giving him a smirk. "Cash locked him down so she can
do it?"
"Yep."
God, he was good. When she healed, when the shock wore off, she would want blood. He
was a good guy who must have known her pretty well to give her that.
I felt the weight fall away from my shoulders.
She was okay.
Suddenly, I felt bone-deep tired, more so than I had ever felt before. Maybe it was my
body's defense mechanism. Too much had happened so quickly. There was so much I needed to
think about, to face. Too much. It was all too much. All I wanted to do was shut down.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm tired," I shrugged, pulling out of his arms and moving toward the bed, kicking out of
my shoes on the way. I climbed into the bed, dragging the blankets up and over my head to block
out the light, and I passed out.

I woke up to a nightmare sometime after darkness had fallen to find that Wolf had climbed
into bed beside me again, though not touching me like he had done the night before. I reached for
my book and read for as long as my eyes would let me then drifted off again sometime around
sunrise.
When I woke up the second time, Wolf was gone. Harley and Chopper were in the bed with
me, looking up with groggy eyes when I shot up off the mattress.
"Where'd he go?" I asked them as I reached out to pet them.
Wolf was not the note-leaving type. So I piddled around the house for hours wondering
where he was and getting more and more pissed at myself for said wondering.
What was I doing worrying about the absence of a man I barely knew? True, I'd been living
with him for like... six days. But still. I'd lived with people at Hailstorm for years and never
worried when they went missing for whole days at times.
A small voice whispered that maybe I was curious about his whereabouts because he
mattered, because I cared about him. Because I was starting to have feelings about him.
But that was ridiculous.
I didn't have feelings for any man. Not that way. I never had. I never would.
If I found myself feeling all romantic, well, that would be the day that the fucking Earth
started revolving around the moon.
"Guys wanna go for a walk?" I asked the dogs as they stretched languidly and hopped off
the bed. "I'm gonna go stir crazy in here."
As I led the dogs outside wrapped in Wolf's shirt that was more mine than his anymore, I
knew the walking I should have been doing was walking away. I knew that the last thing I should
have been doing was staying and playing house. Because I knew all that was going to come of it
was a broken home, a broken heart... or two. I was not the kind of girl who got to have
relationships. I wasn't the girl who got to have a man's arms around her every night, to drift
dreamily into that thing called love, to wrap it around herself like a security blanket.
Wolf was a good man.
I didn't need him to give an Ayn Rand-worthy monologue intimating to me every large and
infinitesimally small detail of his life for me to know that. Wolf was a man whose actions spoke
volumes when his tongue did not. He saved me. He healed me. He gave without asking for
anything in return.
 He was good in all the ways that mattered.
He deserved to have a woman in his bed who didn't wake up screaming. He deserved a
woman who wouldn't flinch away from his touch at times. He should have someone who wasn't a
minefield, hidden explosions all around. One misstep and you could lose an arm, a leg, a heart. I
couldn't let him be taken down with my shrapnel.
The dogs led me toward a stream where they bound off and I figured they were hunting so I
sat down and waited, contemplating the water that should have been soothing.
I had to go.
It was the second time I came to that realization in the past month.
This time should have been easier. It should have been easier to decide to leave Wolf than it
was when I decided to leave Hailstorm and everyone within its fences, people who had become
like a makeshift family to the orphan I had turned out to be.
But as I sat by the river and listened to Harley and Chopper barking manically at something
from a distance, I realized it felt the same. It felt like I was trying to convince myself it didn't feel
like ripping my roots out of the only ground I had ever felt comfortable in, ground that nourished
me and helped me grow, ground that I felt safe planted in.
I felt the tears tease my eyes and blinked them furiously away as I made my way back
toward the cabin, confident the dogs would see themselves home when they were ready. I sat
down at Wolf's laptop and I fell into the black hole the dark web afforded me, purposely
avoiding that one thread, that one forum, that one post that was what drove me over the edge in
the first place, the post that made me decide to throw away everyone I cared about and build
bombs in an abandoned store front in the industrial part of town then destroy a building in the
hopes that it could destroy the things inside me that made me wake up screaming, that made me
untouchable, that made me a grenade with a missing pin.
I couldn't go there again.
I was barely hanging onto my sanity as it was.
So I went on and I found my plans for escape. I found the motel in the mountains where I
planned to set up camp for a few weeks before moving onto something more permanent. I
hacked into the city cameras to see if my car was still where I parked it at the paid lot beside the
docks. Then I searched the fastest route from Wolf's cabin to my car's location.
I did all this, cleared the history (as if Wolf was tech-savvy enough to even know what a
browser history was), ate, showered, watched night fall.
Still no Wolf.
I climbed into bed with the dogs and read.
Morning came.
Wolf didn't return.
At this point, I was pretty much the Mom in every teenager's house when they stumbled
home after missing curfew and got the 'dead in the ditch' speech. Worry took on a whole new
meaning, bringing its close friend Paranoia to the party that had me hacking into all of the city's
camera feed looking for signs of him or signs that something was amiss at The Henchmen
compound in general.
After half a day and nothing to show except an alarming amount of drug hand-offs that no
cop seemed to spot and business-as-usual at the compound, worry and paranoia gave way to
righteous anger. If something was up with Wolf, surely there would be action at the compound.
They wouldn't let their road captain go missing without at least sending someone to the cabin
like they sent Cash a few days before. So... he wasn't missing. They knew where he was.
 The 'worst-case-scenario-is-the-likely-scenario' part of my brain decided that he probably
was at the compound. Most of the members had rooms there. So he must have had a room there.
And that pesky negative part of my thought process also latched onto another realization: that
where you found hot, dangerous biker dudes... you found hot, skanky, shameless club whores.
And, well, that made sense, didn't it?
He'd been holed up with me for a week, sharing close quarters, getting handsy with me, but
getting absolutely no relief that wasn't self-induced.
Of course he would seek out sex elsewhere. How stupid of me to not consider that when I
realized first thing in the morning that he was missing.
I took another walk with the dogs, I rummaged around in the closet, I ate, I showered. Then,
with nothing else to do, I hit the laptop again. But this time, I couldn't resist it. I found the forum;
I found the post. Then I looked over it until the memories felt as vivid as if they were happening
in real time, until the helplessness, anger, pain, and horror were as much a part of me as they
were eight years before, until I realized they always would be. I would never be free of them.
And on that, I threw myself into the bed, knowing the nightmares would come, but not
having any other way to keep myself from flying through the woods, tracking him down, and
taking aim again.
"Janie, wake up!" Wolf's voice demanded through my dream. I felt my shoulders being
shaken hard and flew up in bed on a silent scream. My heart was hammering in my chest, my
body broken out in a cold sweat. "Easy," Wolf said, his hand moving out and swiping my hair
out of my face where it was stuck there with sweat. "You're safe."
My head whipped in his direction, his massive body, his beard that tickled, his eyes that had
a depth I thought I could drown in, sitting on his knees in the middle of his giant bed secluded in
the woods. And I realized his words were false, that when I had believed them myself over the
past few days, that it was all an illusion.
"I'm never going to be safe," I choked out, my breath hitching on a sob that felt ripped from
somewhere primal and unstoppable inside.
"With me, you are," he objected.
I felt my head shaking roughly side to side. And then it happened too fast to fight. The tears
welled up and spilled over, running hot streams down my face. There was no stopping them. The
dam inside broke and I realized for the first time that the well it stopped was bottomless. It was
fed from somewhere deep and might never dry up. I could feel my face twisting into horror that I
finally lost the fight with my emotions after all this damn time. Wolf made some sort of rumbling
sound in his chest, his hands reaching out and brushing the wetness off my face. But it was just
replaced a second later.
"What is it?" he asked, his face a mask of masculine ineptitude when faced with feminine
tears.
"I can't," I objected, shaking my head as I dropped my face into my hands.
"I can take it," he said with so much confidence that I wanted to believe him.
"No... you can't," I objected. No one could. I barely could and I had lived through it.
"Janie..."
"Fine!" I screeched, flying off the bed, vision blurry with tears as I threw his laptop lid open
and started typing. "Fine. You think you can handle it? Fine. Look!" I demanded, storming away
from the laptop on the dining room table and sitting down in the center of the bed, arms crossed,
not bothering to try to stop the tears because I knew it was no use. Everything about me was a
challenge, daring him to go, to look, to see that he didn't have the stomach for it.
 But it wasn't anger that it stemmed from; it was need. I needed someone to know, to
understand, to see why I am the way I am.
He claimed he could take it. Well, I needed to see for myself if that was true.
Wolf watched me for a long moment, reading me, then slowly moved off the bed and
walked to the dining table. He sat down and moved the cursor down. I knew the exact moment
that it happened, the second his eyes relayed the message to his brain and he knew what he was
looking at. He physically jerked backward in his chair, his entire body going ramrod straight.
I expected him to look up at me, to see disgust and horror and pity in his eyes. But he didn't.
One of his hands balled into a fist on the table, the other moved the page down more.
He wasn't breaking.
He wasn't falling apart.
He was handling it.
God.
God.
On a loud sob, I flung myself back on the bed, burrowing under the blankets, curling up on
my side, and letting the pain leech out of me.
The bed depressed a few minutes later and a cool draft hit me as the blanket was pulled up.
The next second, I was wrapped up tight against Wolf's massive chest, his arms a familiar anchor
around me.
"Took it," he murmured during a short respite in my embarrassingly loud sobs. "Doesn't
change anything," he went on, his hand moving up to stroke my hair.
If I was paying attention, I would have felt the crack in my walls; I would have felt him start
to slip in. But I wasn't focusing on that. I was focusing on the strange mix of grief and gratitude
swirling through my system.
We stayed that way for a long time as my body wore through some of the long-buried pain,
until I was too tired to do anything but sleep. And with Wolf there, wrapping me up tight, it was
the first night in almost nine years that I didn't wake up screaming.
But I did wake up alone.
Wolf was gone.
But this time he left a note.
It was a message that changed everything.

J-
He can't get away with it.

-W
 ELEVEN

Wolf

The second I realized what I was looking at, I wanted to slam the laptop shut, throw it
across the room, and hunt down the mother fucker.
But she was watching. She was watching and searching for any tiny sign that it was
sickening me, that it was too much for me to handle. And it was sickening. It was too much for
anyone to handle. Up until that moment, I could only guess. I could only assume what happened
to her. Not that it was a huge mystery. If it involved Lex Keith and someone female, well, let's
just say that everyone knew what went down there.
It was one thing to know it.
It was a complete other to fucking see it. On the internet.
How many times had she tortured herself with the images?
How many times did she relive it?
I knew the answer to that, though. She relived it every single night of her fucking life. She
relived it whenever she felt a man's hands on her. It was in every training session where she
learned to make herself too strong, too fast to be a victim again. It was in the way she kept
everyone from getting close enough to learn the bloody details and therefore offer her pity.
I climbed into bed and held her until she cried herself dry then fell into what seemed to be a
dreamless sleep. I waited for just before dawn, left her a note, and headed out the door.
That bastard made her scream.
He made her uncomfortable in her own skin.
So now he needed to scream.
And have the luxury of his skin taken away from him.
I had to go hunting.
 TWELVE

Janie

I read the note twice before it sunk in, then charged to the door to check outside for his
truck. Harley and Chopper flew out the door to go hunt and sunbathe or whatever it was they did.
I simply started to freak the eff out.
He couldn't go after Lex. Even with my bugging out and culling his army a bit, I was sure
there were many left. It would never be a fair fight. Wolf might have been a Goliath, but he
wasn't bulletproof. If he went in there all hot and irrational, he was going to die.
I couldn't let that happen.
I went back into the cabin and found Wolf had left his cell, presumably for me, on the
counter in the kitchen. I snatched it up and hit the only number I could think of.
"Malcolm," he answered, sounding distracted.
"I need to talk to Cash right now," I said into the phone, my tone a little hysterical as I
swatted at my cheeks. I knew, I just knew that my eyes would never stop leaking once the dam
gave way.
"Jstorm?" he asked, immediately alert.
"Right now," I said again and I could hear him on the move.
"Everything okay?" he asked and I closed my eyes tight, shaking my head even though he
couldn't see me. "It's Janie," I heard him say. "She needs to talk to Cash."
"Hey kid, what's up?" Cash's easy voice reached my ear, sounding back to his old self.
"You need to get your brother and Repo and like... everyone else at the compound and you
need to go and find Wolf. Like... right now, Cash."
"Calm down," Cash said and I took a deep breath.
"What's going on?" Lo's voice asked in the background and the knife stabbed into my chest.
"Wolf is hunting Lex Keith."
There was a pause. "When?"
"I don't know. He was gone when I woke up. He left a note. That's all I got."
"Fuck. Shit. God damn it," he said, his voice low and I got the confirmation I was looking
for: Wolf on the hunt was about as bad as things could get. "Be there as soon as possible," he
said, sounding almost soothing suddenly. "I'm bringing Lo to sit with you," he informed me then
hung up before I could object.
Having done all that I could do, I wrapped my arm so it wasn't so incriminating and climbed
back into bed and waited.
"Janie?" Lo's voice reached me a while later. "You in here, babe?"
I couldn't do it. I couldn't face her. I was a mess. I burrowed deeper into the blankets.
"Honey." Her hand landed down on my shoulder. I flew up in the bed, crashing into the
headboard. "It's me. Hey, it's me," she did in the 'soothing a scared animal' voice. I tilted my head
up to the ceiling, taking deep breaths, willing the tears to stop flowing, trying to lock it all down.
"You alright, honey?"
Oh what a loaded, loaded question.
I didn't want to lie to her, but what choice did I really have?
I tilted my head down, getting my first good look at her since I left almost nine days before.
"Your face," I gasped, a spiraling feeling in my stomach. I knew she had been beat up, but it was
another thing to see it. I'd seen Lo all kinds of battle-weary over the years, in various degrees of
beat up. She always wore it well, like a badge of honor, never once even suggesting that it
somehow made her less of a warrior for getting her ass handed to her here and there. But it
wasn't the same. When it wasn't a fair fight, when it was one of her demons popping up out of
nowhere and trying to drag her back down into hell.
"Back is worse," she shrugged, as was her nature. "Your arm," she said, gesturing toward
the gauze. "Burn right?" she asked and I felt my head snap up. She knew. She knew. "Know you
like a little sister. Did you really think I'd miss the Jstorm signature? No one does explosions like
you, babe."
Of course she knew. What an idiot I was to think I would get away with it. I raked a hand
through the bird's nest I called hair. "You knew. How long?"
"Since about the minute after I picked myself up off the ground."
I exhaled loudly. "You weren't supposed to be there. You were supposed to be at Reign's. I told
Summer..."
"No effing way," she laughed. "Oh, that makes so much more sense now."
"What does?"
"That ridiculous dinner party. None of us understood why the hell we were there except that
Summer threw a holy fit at any of us who said we weren't going to be able to make it."
"I wanted to keep you all safe," I admitted.
"While you created chaos."
"I didn't want any of the friendleys thinking it was any of the other friendleys doing the dirt," I
said, referring to Hailstorm, The Henchmen, Richard Lyon, and the Mallick family- all the
organizations that, while they did less than legal things, had a moral compass. I didn't want any
of them to start pointing fingers and causing a war where there had always been peace, even
camaraderie.
Lo was quiet for a long minute, looking like she was struggling for the right thing to say. "That
night, babe, that night is burned in my memory," she said and I know she didn't mean the night
of the bombing. She meant the night that she found me when I was sixteen. "When I close my
eyes, some nights, I still see it clear as I did then. You were too young to be that broken. Sixteen
with scars a grown woman would never be able to walk around wearing. And not just all these
ones," she said, running her hand down the tattoos on my arm, tattoos I got to cover up what was
underneath. "I mean the ones you wear on the inside. I didn't know you. You couldn't even speak
to me your face was so swollen, but I knew you. I understood. Our souls spoke in the same
language- the language only women can fully understand, babe. And the second I picked you up
off that street, I knew I would give anything to see you able to carry your own weight again one
day, to see you smile or laugh, to see you start to heal."
"I tried, Lo," I said, my voice a desperate whisper. I did. I tried so hard to brush it off, to bury it
deep and move on, to be a better, stronger woman. I tried every day of my life.
Her hand grabbed mine and held tight. "No. You didn't try. You succeeded. It took a long time,
years, but you healed from the outside in. But because I spoke your language, babe, I knew that
there were some scars, the ones marked deep down on your soul, that might never heal. I
understood that. I never expected you to live one day like all of that never happened to you. It
would be hypocritical of me to expect that of you when I didn't expect it of myself."
"Lo..." I said, shaking my head. She was going to tell me about her past. She thought that by
telling me, by letting me in, that maybe I would feel comfortable enough to do the same. But I
didn't need that. I didn't need the gory details.
"I was wrong to hide it. I was wrong to think that what happened to me would define the way
others would see me. It wasn't my fault that I married someone who wasn't who I thought he
was. It wasn't my fault he beat me, that he pushed himself on me. It wasn't even my fault that I
stayed. I was young. Older than you were, babe, but way too young to deal with that. I didn't see
a way out. But when I finally did, I took it."
"Lo," I broke in, needing to tell her that I had already found out about him. "I know about
Damian Crane."
Her body jerked and I could see betrayal crossing her face. "Cash told..."
"I snooped, Lo. I know I shouldn't have, but I could never sleep. There were only so many books
I could read, so many articles I could browse. I looked into all of you at the beginning. I knew
you were married. I knew you left him. I didn't know he beat you." My lip trembled slightly
before I forced it to relax. "But you're right- it didn't change the way I thought about you. It
doesn't define you. You're you. You're the baddest bitch I've ever met and you taught me so
much about how to be strong, how to overcome, even though I didn't know there was something
like that for you to overcome, I think I felt it. I felt it in my gut."
"Wolf is hunting Lex, isn't he?" she asked, sounding like she already knew the answer.
But I gave it to her anyway. "Yes."
"I know it's not right of me, but I really hope he finds him before Reign, Cash, and Repo catch
up."
I exhaled a sharp breath, thankful she said it so I didn't feel so wrong to think it. "Me too."
"Then let's just sit here and be not-right together, yeah?"
"Yeah," I agreed, snuggling back down into the comfort of the big, warm bed.
A while later, getting in beside me, but on her side to avoid chafing her sore back, she broke the
silence. "One night, Cash came in while I was sleeping and picked up one of my books..."
"Oh no," I groaned, smiling at the awful thought. Lo, badass leader lady that she was, was also a
hopeless romantic. This was proved by the fact that she devoured endless smutty romance
novels. It was something I used to tease her about all the time.
"Then he started reading one of the sex scenes. Out loud."
At that, I felt a laugh, inappropriate given the situation, but uncontrollable, burst from my lips. I
threw my head back and let it wash over me, an image of the sexy blond biker sitting there
reading a dirty scene to an embarrassed Lo crossed my mind... it was just too good. "Were you
mortified?"
"Words can't even describe."
"Did he tease you about it?"
Her smile went soft. "No. He tried to force me to relax, not be embarrassed. Then, well, stuff
happened."
I felt my smile turn a little devilish, "Stuff, huh?" I asked with an eyebrow wiggle. "Is he as good
as the word on the street?"
"God, babe... so much better."
I laughed. "It's good his STD check came back clean last month then."
It was her turn to burst out laughing. "We should probably stop monitoring him so closely from
now on."
"Hey, if he's got nothing to hide then he shouldn't..."
"I think I love him, Janie," she broke in, the words tripping over one another. When I didn't
immediately respond, she gushed on, "I know it's fast. It's... too fast. It doesn't make sense and..."
I shook my head, silencing her. "Lo, when has love ever made any kind of sense?"
"I think he loves me too," she admitted, her voice a little hopeful.
"He fucking better," I said immediately and she smiled. "He doesn't see what a prize he's got
with you, he's an idiot. I mean... he is and idiot..."
"Hey," she broke in, trying for offended, but she was smiling too much.
"I'm kidding. He's good people, Lo. You know I'd tell you otherwise if I didn't think he was."
"Janie... I know he's got a wicked reputation of being a vicious son of a bitch," she started,
watching my face for a reaction, "but I think Wolf is a good man too."
I felt my face go soft and could see the anticipation on her face. But it was too soon. I didn't have
anything to tell her yet, not really. Her and Cash moved fast and furious, both of them with the
balls-to-the-wall personalities that they had. It didn't surprise me that once they got over their
initial hangups about each other that things progressed quickly. She had a whole night's worth of
stories to tell me. I had next to nothing.
So I stayed silent and listened while she talked.
Eventually, she tired from pain, me tired from tears, we both drifted off to sleep, Harley and
Chopper standing guard by the door.
We woke up with no word from Cash, though he had promised Lo he would keep her updated. A
knot of fear and panic twisted tightly in my stomach. Why weren't they keeping in touch with us?
Was there simply nothing to report? Or were things bad and they didn't want to tell us, worry us?
Lo attempted to keep the mood upbeat. She cooked. She caught me up on the goings-on at
Hailstorm and in the town in general since I went MIA. In a town as wild and mostly lawless as
Navesink Bank, a week out of the loop meant there was a lot that went down that you missed.
She passed out that night, I stayed up and read, trying to pretend I wasn't freaking out inside.
Her cell rang early the next morning, making her fly up on the bed, awake in a split second and
fishing her phone out of her back pocket. "Cash?" she asked almost frantically into the cell.
There was a pause, her face both fell and twisted in amusement, a combination I didn't know
how to interpret. "As if that's possible." Another pause. "What's up, Shooter?"
If she had been looking at me, she would have seen my entire body jolt.
Shooter.
There was only one person around with the name Shooter.
I knew him from reputation, being a contract killer, the best damn sniper I had ever seen.
I also knew him from the night of the bombing.

--

It all started on a night when I couldn't sleep. I sneaked out of the barracks and moved across
the quiet grounds to get to the command center where I could get some privacy. Then I powered
up the laptop and I just screwed around for a few hours. I wasn't looking for anything in
particular when I found a forum that had a thread by a woman named Alex who had information
on Lex Keith and was looking for someone else with either more information or a way to bring
him down.
And, well, I couldn't help myself. I opened the thread and I scrolled down. Not only was Alex a
brilliant hacker, she was dedicated. With the sheer amount of information she had on Lex, from
browser histories to where he got coffee, to the names of the foster families he had lived with
growing up. From the looks of it, she spent years collecting the information. Some of it was
useless, just nonsense. But she had other things too. She had information on the rape kits from
women who claimed Lex Keith had assaulted them. Worse yet, she had pictures and videos that
she must have stolen from Lex's hard drive.
I was a page in, stomach churning, when I came across them.
The pictures of me.
The pictures he took when he had me.

Eight years before, I was sixteen. I was young and invincible, fearless. I paid no attention to the
warnings my mother gave me about walking alone at night, about the buddy system, about the
parts of town not to cross into. We had the Third Street Gang to worry about, after all.
The ironic thing? I had passed by the Third Street guys a mile or so back, sitting on their stoop,
watching their hookers walk up and down the street. I had been catcalled, my young ego taking
the harassment as a compliment and I offered them a saucy smile over my shoulder. They didn't
chase me. They didn't do anything but nudge each other and offer me an invitation that I didn't
even need to decline.
That's the funny thing about a false sense of security... I thought getting past the Third Street
guys was the worst part of my walk home. When I crossed from the slums into the more suburban
area, I thought I was home free. What was to fear? There were working streetlights, nicely
maintained houses, white picket fences for fuck's sake. There was nothing to be afraid of there
except having someone call the cops because some teenage girl all decked out in gothic rebellion
was on their streets.
So when a car slowed and someone called to me, I turned easily, expecting to need to give
someone directions.
They created the phrase 'young and stupid' for a reason.
It didn't even phase me that the car had two men in the front seat and that I was alone and
defenseless. That danger didn't even register.
So when the car fully stopped and the door flew open and I realized my mistake, it was too late. I
was thrown in the backseat with the man who had been riding passenger, using everything in my
very small, very soft and untrained body to fight, to try to get free- nails, fists, teeth, feet. I tried
everything until a fist collided to the side of my head and everything went black.
I woke up a while later, shoulders screaming and colder than I had ever been in my life. My eyes
opened slowly, consciousness coming back to me in pieces. First, I realized my shoulders hurt
because I was hanging by my wrists. Second, I realized I was cold because my clothes were
gone. All of them. I was naked. I was also in a basement, all cinder block walls, cement floors,
and no windows. Third, I had the blinding, crippling understanding of what was going to happen
to me.
I was naked in a basement hanging from my wrists after two men abducted me off the street. I
might have been dauntless and a bit dense about my own mortality, but I wasn't dumb. They
weren't holding me in their basement chained up and naked to teach me how to play canasta and
talk about how much better things were before technology started tearing us apart.
No.
I was going to be tortured.
I was going to be, I swallowed hard at even having to think the word, raped.
And there was nothing, not a damn thing I could do about it.
At the time, I had no idea who Lex Keith was. He was still young, still paying his dues, working
his way up in the criminal underbelly. His name wasn't even on my radar. As such, I had no idea
that he wasn't just a rapist. He was a sadist. He got off on pain and he was very, very good at
finding new and inventive ways to create it. Some days I was sliced open, little superficial cuts
all up and down my arms, cuts designed to sting and scare me, but not cause any permanent
damage- just little white scars I would learn I could cover with tattoos.
But there were other days where he would open a cabinet and he would bring out his 'toys'. I
guessed that, in the non-kidnapping-torturing world that those types of sex toys had some kind of
audience that got off on using them- things with spikes, things with sharp edges, things too big to
ever put inside a body but designed to do so.
Those days were bad.
Those days I prayed for unconsciousness.
But then there were the other days. Those days when Lex would invite his men into the basement
as well.
Those days I prayed, loudly and without restraint, for death.
I wanted to die.
I wanted it so badly.
But it didn't come.
I learned to judge the days passing by the clothes Lex wore though I knew there were some days
when he didn't visit. Toward the end, I started to feel my body finally starting to give up, deciding
it couldn't take anymore. It was a weird thing to experience your own death, a slow, dragged out
affair of never ending pain, weakness, hunger, dehydration, and fear. When my arms were
released from the chain around the sixteenth day after I was taken, my entire body crumpled like
a rag doll to the floor, boneless, useless.
"Time to put this one to pasture, boss," one of the men said, kicking me in the ribs like a dead
dog on the back porch. I didn't even have enough left in me to cry out.
I was done.
It was done.
I was going to be free finally.
My body was hauled out of the basement covered in my blood and thrown in a trunk. Then I was
hauled back out of said trunk and dumped in an alley, left there to die.
And I would have.
My entire body was convulsing, covered in a sweat but too cold, way too cold.
"Jesus Christ," a female voice called. I had just enough energy to force one swollen eye open.
And that's when I saw her: a woman in Army green khakis and a tan tank top, kneeling before
me, her long blond hair tucked behind her ears, her brown eyes kind and horrified. "Hey honey,"
she said, brushing hair out of my face. "I'm Lo. I'm gonna get you out of here and all fixed up,
okay?" Her voice was fake chipper. Even mostly-dead, I knew that tone. It was the tone you used
on a dog that was run over by a car and you knew would never make it to the vet- falsely
reassuring.
"Wanna die," I objected, my voice weak, tears somehow streaming down my face despite the way
all my insides felt dry as sandpaper.
Her eyes closed on an exhale and she took a long minute before she spoke again. "I understand
that. But I'm not going to let that happen. One day you will look back on this and be glad I didn't
just walk away."
I was taken to Hailstorm and spent weeks in a bed in a makeshift hospital wing, attended only by
Lo or other women. I was patched up. I was hooked up to IV antibiotics and fluids. I was force
fed some awful smelling concoction which forced an early period.
I raged those first few weeks, when I was well enough. I hit and spat and lashed out at Lo with
everything in my weak body. I had wanted to die! I told her. I cried to her. I wanted it to end. I
didn't want to wake up and face what I had been through. I didn't want the memories to turn into
nightmares that would never let me sleep. I didn't want to be a god damn victim anymore.
"You choose to be a victim," Lo said, swatting the book out of the air before it hit her. "You can
be a lot of things right now. You can be a woman who went through some shit and came out of it.
You can be a survivor. Or you can curl up and cradle your pain to your chest and choose to keep
being a victim. But make no mistake my little Jstorm, that is a choice you make."
I fell back onto the bed, silently seething. But not because she was wrong. Because she was right.
I had two things I could do with my life at that point: I could end it or I could move on.
So the next day, I got out of bed. I built up a wall. And I started training to be a woman who
could never be made helpless again. I shot guns. I learned martial arts. I learned about pressure
points and poison. I figured out how to make bombs.
But I didn't become a 'survivor'. I hated that term. That term was weak, meaningless to me.
Plenty of people survived things. That didn't mean anything. You could live through something
and crawl up in a ball on the floor and never rise again. "Survivor" meant nothing but breath in
your lungs.
I didn't become a survivor.
I became a badass bitch.
That was the choice I made. That was the choice Lo gave to me when she picked me up off that
street.
It wasn't for years that I heard the name Lex Keith again, that I knew he had set up his operation
in the same town I lived on the outskirts of. I had become insulated at Hailstorm, training and
hacking and making plans. I wasn't always in on the action. I had no reason to go back on the
streets. I had nothing left out there in the real world.
When I was well enough, I had called home and told my parents I ran away. I told them it had
nothing to do with them, that I would keep in touch.
I couldn't face them again. I would never be the daughter they knew. The daughter they knew
wasn't covered in scars and living behind walls she was sure no one could break down. The
daughter they loved didn't know she could put a bullet in someone's body, end their life, and do
so without blinking.
So I sent them Christmas cards and anniversary cards and birthday presents and mother and
father's day presents. But I wasn't theirs anymore.
I was mine and mine only.

Until that night I found that forum, I thought I had moved on. As best I could. Not perfectly.
There would always be scars. There would always be ghosts and demons. But I had moved on. I
hadn't concocted plans of revenge. I did everything in my power to never consciously think about
Lex Keith again.
Then I found that post. I connected with Alex. I saw my past staring me right in the face.
I helped Alex escape though she eventually did get caught again and dragged to Lex's. But it was
okay. It was okay because I was already prepared. I had the bombs. I had the Molotov cocktails.
So when they dragged her in, I started setting the bombs. Her man, Breaker, breezed in sometime
later and though he was playing it cool like he didn't care that Lex had Alex, I knew his feelings
for her would bide me time as I rushed around his property, setting up things for the most
amount of damage possible.
I blew the gate.
I waited, watching everyone start to freak out. I needed to give Alex and Breaker a chance to get
free before I risked collapsing the mansion. I saw them running from the side of the property
with someone else trailing with them.
That someone else?
Yeah that was the tatted, pierced, post-punk looking, hot as all sin, sweet talking, panty dropper
by the name of Shooter.
They caught sight of me by the gate.
My eyes locked with Shooter for a long minute before he got in the truck with his best friend and
his best friend's girl and they tore out of there.
They were supposed to get out of town, disappear, get off the grid until things blew over. I was
counting on that.
Once they drove away, I pressed the button, and I blew Lex's place to kingdom come.

--

Why was Lo talking to Shooter? I knew she knew of him. Lo knew of every major player in the
game. But I didn't think they were on any kind of speaking terms.
"News. Channel five. Right now," Lo barked at me and I reached for the remote and turned it on.
"... Damian Crane, a decorated war hero, was shot dead in the doorway of his car early this
morning..."
Well then. That answered that question. Cash must have called in Shooter and had him do the hit
for them. Smart. Nothing could trace back to The Henchmen or Hailstorm.
"What?" Lo asked, then listened for a minute, her face looking almost amused and alarmed at
once. "You confuse me," she told him. "I think it's impossible not to love you a little bit, Shoot."
Love him? "I bet they do. By the balls one day, Shooter. Can't wait to see that." What by the
balls? They sounded downright friendly. How close could they have gotten in a couple of days?
"Famous last words. Thanks, Shooter. You got me free of him finally. I can't say how..." She
trailed off and a laugh escaped her. It was the kind of laugh I never realized I hadn't heard from
her before: completely open, beautifully happy. "Oh, I don't know... that might be difficult."
It was a laugh that I hoped like hell I could have some day.
But there was only one way to make that possible.
"One day," I said, my words heavy, "when I'm ready... we need to have a talk. The girly kind...
with feelings and shit. There's a lot you need to know. Not just about what happened to me way
back then... but about what I have done since then, behind everyone's backs. For the greater
good, I think, but still. Not good stuff. Not clean."
"Babe... nothing in our lives is clean. It's dirty and bloody and we have to fight so hard for
everything we get, but it's that fight that makes it worth it in the end."
We heard it then. Not her phone, not the call that was promised, but boots outside. We were on
our feet in seconds, Lo reaching for a gun she didn't have, me dragging two out of the nightstand,
guns I had found in the closet. Yeah, guns. As in he had an unlocked supply of them right there
for the taking the whole time I was staying there. I tossed Lo a gun, turning toward the door and
taking aim. There was a sudden surge of nostalgia flooding my system at that moment, taking on
a potential bad guy side-by-side with Lo. It was nice, familiar, right.
The door burst open and three men stepped into the small space of the cabin.
"You were supposed to fucking call!" Lo snapped at Cash, gun still raised.
"Things got hot. We didn't have time."
"Oh, no? The whole ride back from wherever-the-fuck you were... you couldn't call?"
"No."
Cash crossed the room toward Lo as I looked at the other two men.
Reign was opposite to his brother in almost every way. Where Cash was light, Reign was dark.
They were both tall and a thin kind of strong. Both were tattooed. But where Cash had blond
hair, Reign had dark brown. Cash's eyes were a deep green, Reign's a lighter shade. And where
Cash exuded his casual, jocular, laid-back aura, everything about Reign was deadly and
dangerous. I guess he had to be, given that he was the leader of a bunch of rough and tough
bikers who illegally ran guns.
Seeing him sent a sliver of fear through my belly. Maybe Wolf was right and he didn't hurt
women. But maybe I was right too in thinking that was only because a woman never threatened
him before. I threatened him. He didn't know that yet, but I still felt paranoid.
To Reign's side was Repo, the guy who Wolf said was the best shot in the club. Looking at him
now, I see I was wrong in thinking he was barely pushing twenty. There was a manly build to his
body, a wideness of shoulder, a development of muscle that younger men couldn't usually
acquire. He had dark hair and deep blue eyes and a scar that ran down the center of one side of
his face, cutting off at the very sharp, strong jut of his jaw. There was something about him, a
fierceness, a deep kind of wisdom that made him seem even older than twenty-four.
If Reign found out one day, would he send Repo after me? Would I never see it coming? Would
I be walking down the street somewhere, alive one minute, dead in a pool of my own blood the
next?
"Why the hell not?" Lo exploded.
"Because I was trying to focus on the road and not die on my way back to you."
I could see those words deflate her.
"I'm still mad at you," she grumbled, but I knew she wasn't. And so did Cash.
"I guess I'll have to live with that," he smiled, pressing his front into her front, his hands sliding
down her arms then wrapping around her ass before his mouth came down on hers. It wasn't a
quick peck either. It was long and wet and deep... with tongue. She was clinging to him,
blissfully oblivious to the three other people in the room. I looked away, feeling a bit like I was
catching my mom or big sister making out with some guy, creating all kinds of discomfort in my
stomach.
"Mind if we get this over with so I can go home and kiss my woman like that and Repo can... go
and kiss his cars or whatever the fuck he does?" Reign asked.
I almost laughed, caught off guard. I didn't think Reign had a joking bone in his body.
"Get what over with?" Lo asked, trying to slip into a serious voice, but her tone was still
breathless.
"We found Wolf," Reign said, looking at me suddenly, guessing or knowing the situation, giving
me the news I needed. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all. "He's... working through some shit," he
said, vaguely.
"Are any of us going to have to worry about an FBI raid?" Lo asked.
"Janie, wanna go see him?" Reign asked, his tone soft as he held an arm out to lead me outside.
Repo followed behind.
"That's not an answer!" Lo called at us as we walked away.
 THIRTEEN

Janie

"Where are we going?" I asked as they turned me away from the driveway and led me
further into the woods.
"Wolf has a shed a way back," Reign said and I could feel his eyes on my profile. "You know
anything about Wolf's past?"
I turned slightly to look at him. "He hasn't left much of a paper trail," I hedged. He knew when
he visited Hailstorm that we kept tabs on all of them. There was no reason to pretend I didn't
know things about them.
"Babe," Reign said, stopping suddenly. His hand grabbed my arm, stopping me too.
"What?" I asked as he paused, looking like he was trying to figure out how to tell me something.
"Reign, I'm not a shrinking violet. I've killed men. I've even killed men at your side. I can take
it."
He nodded, taking a deep breath. "Wolf has anger issues," he still felt the need to hedge.
I felt my lips quirk up. "Wolf? We're talking about the same guy here, right? Twenty-feet tall,
million pounds of muscle, perpetually underused voice box? The most self-controlled person I've
ever met..."
"Yeah, babe," Reign cut me off. "Ninety-eight percent of the time, he's the most even-tempered
fuck you'll ever come across."
"But that two percent?" I prompted.
"That two percent shows you why his name is very, very fitting."
"He rages out," Repo broke in, sensing Reign's urge to ease me into things and realizing I didn't
need it. "Full-on Hulk shit. He's not the man you know right now. We don't want you going in
there and expecting Wolf. He's not Wolf. He's a wild fucking animal."
"Okay," I said, nodding at him in thanks before turning to Reign. "Are you taking me to him or
are we going to stand here clucking like a bunch of fucking hens all day while he's locked in a
god damn shed?"
To that, I got one of Reign's rare and, therefore practically radiant, smiles. "I like you, kid," he
said, moving forward again.
You wouldn't if you knew what I did.
But I fell into step, flanked on both sides by two intimidating bikers as I tried to make sense of
what they were telling me. If they were saying he was wild and their general lifestyle was wild
by most standards, that was really saying something. It was hard for me to even imagine Wolf
not being calm, level, steady.
Then again, up until about a day ago, it was hard for me to imagine I could crumble into tears
that I couldn't stop no matter how I tried.
People like us, people with pasts, with scars somewhere deep inside, there was no telling what
could happen when we were pushed, when we were forced to confront the dark parts of our
psyches. He didn't judge me for breaking. I wasn't going to judge him for doing so either.
The shed was nestled a long distance from the house and was more like a mini version of his
already kinda mini-cabin, made of logs with a steep pitched roof, a normal door, but no
windows. As soon as we got close enough, I heard slams from inside. Something split against the
wall. And then I heard the sound I had heard many times before, a growling noise. He made that
sometimes, a low sound from somewhere deep in his chest. I kind of found it both amusing and
sexy before. But this was different. This was an animalistic kind of growling.
Reign and Repo stopped a few feet from the door, looking at the mini cabin. I turned to Reign.
"What are you being bitches about? Are we going in or not?"
To that, Reign made a short snorting sound, offering me a small smirk, pulling the door open and
cautiously stepping inside. I moved to do the same and felt Repo's presence behind me. I got into
the doorway and froze.
They had warned me.
I hadn't exactly disbelieved them either.
But it was a whole other thing to see it, to see a man you had started to think of as a less golden
version of Michael, become a completely different animal.
That two percent shows you why his name is very, very fitting.
That was what Reign had warned and he was right.
Because Wolf was no longer a man; he was a beast.
Every inch of him was covered in bright, vivid red. I didn't have to get any closer to know it was
blood. Nothing else was that exact color; nothing else carried with it the metallic smell that blood
did. And I wasn't exaggerating either. I could see his beard sticky with it, smears of it across his
face, staining his shirt and jeans in large splatters, and pooling around the bottom of his shoes
like he had been walking in a puddle of it.
His arms were in front of him, making his big shoulders slump forward. I looked down to find
his wrists were imprisoned in handcuffs. They felt the need to... cuff him? Was he really that far
gone?
"Key," I said, looking at Reign.
"Babe, no," he said as Wolf roared loudly enough for my ears to ring, picked up a shovel from
the floor and threw it at the wall.
"I wasn't fucking asking," I countered, squaring my shoulders. I wasn't about to deal with their
macho bullshit. "Give me the god damn key or I will knock your ass out and take it from you."
"Janie he's..." Repo tried to reason, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I grabbed it at the wrist, twisted, and used the momentary pain he was experiencing as an
advantage, grabbing his throat and shoving him back against the wall. I wouldn't be able to keep
him there. He was taller and stronger. But I was just making a point: don't fucking underestimate
me.
Repo smiled at me, nodding his head. "That was fast as fuck."
I smiled at the praise and turned to Reign. "Gonna give me the keys or you want a demonstration
on how Israeli defense training can beat your street fighting any day?"
Reign shook his head at me, chanced a glance at Wolf who was pacing the small space, huffing
out his breath like a boar, then reached in his pocket and held a key out to me. "You can let him
go, but we are staying until we're sure he ain't gonna split your pretty little head open."
I took the key, rolling my eyes. "If you think he could hurt a woman then you don't know a
fucking thing about him, do you?" I asked, seeing his eyes flash with something I didn't know
him well enough to interpret before I turned to Wolf.
He was still pacing and I had to throw myself in front of him to get his manic body to stop. He
made the growling noise, like he was trying to warn me off. "Don't you growl at me," I said,
raising a brow. "I was worried sick about you. How dare you make me think that 'dead in a ditch'
thing. How freaking cliche is that shit?" I asked as I reached out toward him, but he went back a
step, yanking his arms back. "You want to wear the cuffs? 'Cause they're soo comfortable," I
said, grabbing the chain between the bracelets and yanking it. He yanked back again, dragging
me with him. My feet stumbled over the discarded shovel he had thrown earlier and my heart
flew into my throat as I went flying through the air. I could make out the sound of Reign cursing
and Repo exhaling.
But just as I was sure I was going to have a nice face plant on the hard floor, Wolf charged
forward and I collided with his chest instead. His hands were low, the bracelets colliding rather
intimately with me. I yelped, planting my hands on his chest and pushing myself back. His eyes
were watching me, but they weren't Wolf's eyes, not really. They were detached, cold, untamed. I
reached between us a slipped the key into the lock, sliding until they clicked before he could
even register what I was doing.
He moved back from me and the cuffs clanged to the ground. His wrists were red like he had
been pulling against the bracelets.
"Where was he?" I asked, looking at Wolf but talking to Reign.
"Babe..."
"Don't 'babe' me in that tone. You do realize I'm the one that called Cash in on this, right? This
blood he's covered in... it's Lex Keith's, isn't it?" At their silence, my head swiveled in their
direction to see them sharing a look. "Well?"
"Most of it," Repo supplied on a shrug.
"And the rest?"
"Anyone who got in between him and Lex."
I turned back to Wolf, advancing, reaching out and moving to place my hand on his blood-
splattered forearm. His entire right hand was stained crimson. The second my fingers landed, he
flew away from me on another growl.
"Janie babe... you need to give him time to calm down," Reign said in a calm way that suggested
he had been through this before.
"How long usually?"
Reign shrugged. "Two, three days..."
"Oh fuck that," I exploded, eyes wide. "I am not leaving him locked in a god damn shed for three
fucking days so he can calm down."
"It's not safe to..."
"Are you big, bad biker guys really being bigger pussies than I am right now? Seriously? I need
to get him back to the house and clean him up. And maybe get some food in him. And he
probably needs sleep too."
"Babe, no."
"You know what I really, really like about not being in your little boys club?" I asked and went
on when all he gave me was a brow raise. "I don't have to take orders from you. So get in with
the plan or get out. I don't care. You have a woman at home. And apparently Repo has a car to
make love to. Go. I can handle this."
They shared another look, making me instantly jealous that men could apparently hold entire
freaking conversations with just a couple looks. What was that about? Repo winked at me and
headed out the door and Reign made his way toward me. He stopped when our toes touched, his
hand raising and moving to rest on my arm. "You've got some..."
I wrenched away from his touch, cringing internally at being so damn transparent about my
touch issues at times. Wolf made another growl, this time lower, more menacing.
"Guess that means I should keep my hands off, huh?" Reign mused, rolling back on his heels.
"You have a piece of what looks like intestines on your shoulder," Reign informed me, turned,
and made his way to the door. "If you need help, call Cash. We can have someone here in half an
hour."
With that, we were alone.
I took a deep breath, trying to figure out what was the best course of action, before turning and
walking toward him. He kept backing away until the wall blocked further retreat. "Alright so I
know nothing about how like... cognizant you are right now, but I am choosing to believe that
the Wolf I know is listening so... we need to get you back to the house and get you in the shower
and get rid of these clothes. I dunno how you handled this shit and what kind of evidence trail
you left so we need to handle this shit right now."
With that, I reached out and grabbed his hand, linking our fingers. Seeing it, I flashed back to the
first night be brought me to his place, submerging my burned arm in the sink water, his hand
holding mine to keep me in place.
I looked up and his eyes were focused on our hands too in a way that I thought maybe he was
remembering what I was. But when his head lifted, his eyes were still empty.
"So let's go," I said, moving forward, pulling him with me. He followed and I could feel his eyes
on me the whole walk back to the house.
But I was too distracted with a reality I had been waiting almost nine years for: Lex Keith was no
longer part of this world. He wasn't breathing my air anymore. He couldn't ever hurt me again;
he couldn't hurt any woman again.
Wolf gave me that.
Wolf gave me safety.
Again.
I owed him in kind. I owed him a lifted chin in the face of his kinda creepy, definitely scary,
altogether too bizarre rage-out. I imagined this was what it was like to meet a new personality to
someone with schizophrenia because it was a person you know and care about, but at the same
time, it really wasn't. It was freaky.
Harley and Chopper sat up straight at our approach, heads tilting to the side, noses up in the air,
taking in the smell of blood all over their owner no doubt. Wolf's truck was in the drive and I
looked at it for a second, realizing that I would have to scrub it down once I got Wolf squared
away. There had to be blood all over it.
I led a glamorous life, let me tell ya.
"Alright, shower," I said as I led him inside and toward the bathroom. I closed the lid on the
toilet and pushed him onto it. He complied, still watching me and I fought the insane urge to be
insecure. He wasn't even Wolf right then. There was no reason to feel any more insecure around
him than I would around the dogs for chrissake.
I reached for the hem of his shirt, scrunching the material up in my hands and lifting it slowly
upward. His eyes pinned mine and his arms went up over his head so I could free him of the
shirt. I felt myself swallowing hard, trying to keep my eyes on his face when my body was sort
of begging me to look down. Forcing down the ridiculous surge of hormones, I unlaced his boots
and pulled them off. Then his socks, before I stood up. "Okay. Up," I said, grabbing his arm and
pulling until he took his feet. I gestured toward his pants, hoping he might maybe clue-in enough
to take them off himself. But his arms were limp at his sides and I needed those pants off so I
could deal with them and the evidence they were covered in.
I took a deep breath and reached for the button. At the brush of my fingers, the muscles in his
abdomen contracted and his breath hissed out of his mouth. Okay. I needed to focus. I needed to
ignore the fact that my hands were a thin piece of material away from touching his cock.
Thoughts of that particular body part needed to stay the hell out of my brain right then. I pushed
the button through and pulled the zip before I could chicken out. My hands moved to his hips to
snag the material and pulled downward.
Yeah, well. At that point, it was pretty much impossible to keep thoughts about that particular
body part out of my brain because suddenly, there it was in all its glory, hard and straining.
I wrenched away from him, reaching inside the shower and putting the water on hot. "Alright,
um, you need to get in here and get that blood off." I sighed when I didn't feel movement behind
me. I turned back, grabbing his arm, and dragging him toward the enclosure. He stepped in with
encouragement and stepped under the spray. I yanked the curtain closed, hoping that when I
came back he would have at least thought to wash up as I gathered his clothes and shoes and
took them outside.
That far in my stay, I had yet to find a washing machine, leaving me stumped as to how he had
managed to clean my clothes from the night of the bombing. At a loss for anything else to do, I
overturned a five-gallon bucket full of rock salt and filled it with water and bleach from the
kitchen, submerging the clothes and shoes. It would ruin most of it, but at least it would eat up
the DNA. I found another smaller bucket and went to work on the interior of the truck which
wasn't nearly as bad as I had been anticipating.
There were many fun parts of working at Hailstorm: the guns, the bombs, the martial arts, the
blurred lines of legality that generally allowed us to end up on the right side of morality. But that
being said, it wasn't always a glamorous life. It was obnoxious how much time we had to spend
covering our tracks, cleaning up crime scenes, erasing evidence. I'd had so much freaking
practice that I could do it in my sleep. It wasn't the most impressive of skills to boast about, but it
sure came in handy at times.
Thirty long and sweaty minutes later, I went inside to scrub the floor where Wolf had walked,
washed my hands and arms in the sink, grabbed fresh clothes for Wolf who was still in the
shower, and went into the bathroom.
"Did you wash up?" I asked, not expecting an answer and not getting one. I pulled the curtain to
find him standing under the spray that had managed to wash a fair amount of the blood down the
drain. But he hadn't washed. In fact, the only thing he had managed to take care of was, well, his
raging hard on. But that was... kind of a relief especially given what I had to do now.
On a sigh, I climbed into the shower in my tee with nothing else but my panties on. "You're
determined to make this difficult, huh?" I asked, grabbing the bar of soap and sudsing it up in my
hands before reaching out toward him. His body stiffened as my hands pressed down onto his
shoulders. "Relax," I said, but I wasn't sure if I was telling him or myself. I scrubbed down his
chest, over his arms, down his stomach, pausing awkwardly. "Um... face," I mumbled, sudsing
up my hands again and reaching up to scrub the soap into his beard, eyes on his face, watching
him watch me. I reached up to wash his hair, making me need to press forward and go up on my
tiptoes. It was right then that I realized that Wolf, or Wolf-The-Animal-Version, had a really fast
turnover time for hard-ons.
His hands moved behind me, sliding down my back and landing on my ass with firm pressure,
using it to shift me down slightly so his erection pressed between my thighs. An involuntary
moan escaped my lips as my forehead fell to his shoulder. God. It didn't even matter that he was
out of it, my body still wanted him. And, obviously, his body wanted mine as well.
His fingers dug in and stroked me over him again. My hands curled into the skin on his back as I
tried to take a deep breath and think straight. On the third stroke that was driving me upward
faster than I could have imagined possible, I choked out a strangled, "No." There was a pregnant
pause, his hands still holding me hard, his cock still pressing against my pussy. Then his grip
lessened and his hands fell away completely. I went down on my flat feet as my body screamed a
painful objection to the loss of contact. I took a step back, reaching for the soap and pressing it
into his hands. "I can't," I said though I wasn't sure he was paying any kind of conscious
attention.
I pulled the curtain and walked out of the bathroom, stripping out of my wet tee and panties and
rummaging around for the jeans and tank I had worn the night Wolf picked me up. I slid those on
then threw on Wolf's flannel, buttoning it. Layers. I needed lots and lots of layers.
On a groan, I went to the kitchen.
I needed to make him food.
And, well, see, I have a bunch of talents. Cooking had never been one of them. As in, I couldn't
do it. At all. But if he couldn't exactly remember how to wash himself, I doubt he had been in the
right state of mind to feed himself either. So I pulled out the eggs and bread, deciding it was
pretty hard to fuck up scrambled eggs and toast.
Food done, I took a deep breath and went into the bathroom to find the water off and Wolf dry.
Though still naked. Because my hormones really needed that sucker punch.
"Clothes," I said, taking them off the counter and shoving them against his chest. "Then food.
Hurry up, it's getting cold." Not that I thought the warmth of it would make it taste any better.
The toast was burnt to shit and the eggs were the weirdest freaking consistency, kinda almost
rubbery. I don't know. Maybe that was how they were supposed to be. Whatever. He needed to
eat.
I sat down at the dining table, cradling a coffee cup. My stomach clenched painfully at the idea
of trying to shove food into it so I just stared at his heaping plate until I heard the door open and
Wolf walked out and sat down. He looked at the food for a long minute, brows drawn together,
before he stabbed a forkful of egg and brought it up to his mouth.
He chewed for all of two seconds before swallowing hard.
Then the weirdest thing happened.
His fork clanged down onto the plate and he threw his head back and laughed.
Laughed.
Not a chuckle or a those rumbling things I'd heard him do before.
This was a real, genuine belly laugh.
The deep, masculine sound of it boomed off the walls and shivered under my skin.
Then his head lowered, his honey eyes on me.
"Woman..." he said, grinning.
 FOURTEEN

Janie

It was stupid to say I missed his voice, but I did. I didn't even realize it until I heard it again.
I felt my lips tip up. "I thought we talked about how 'woman' isn't a sentence."
"You talked," he agreed, lips twitching.
"And you apparently didn't listen. Woman what?"
"Worst fucking eggs ever," he chuckled again, shaking his head.
I should have been insulted, but, well, they looked like rubber and they kinda smelled awful
too. Still, I had to say something. "I think you're supposed to say 'thank you for uncuffing me and
cleaning me up and making me food when I was all Hulked out'." If I hadn't been watching him
so closely and if he wasn't always so silent and often spoke in tiny nuances of expressions, I
would have missed it. As it was, I saw it. Guilt. "Wolf, it's fine. I really didn't min..." But then
the guilt got mixed with something else, something a little boyish, a little wicked. "You bastard!"
I said, half-angry and half-amused. "When did you clue back in?"
"When you stepped in."
When I stepped in... to the shower. Oh, that shit! There I was worrying about him and his
seemingly unbalanced mental and emotional state and the fucker was in his right mind again.
While I was in the shower with him. When he was naked and hard! "I soaped you up!"
"Yeah you did," he said, his face losing all of the guilt and looking almost devilish.
"That was so juvenile," I lowered my eyes at him, crossing my hands over my chest.
"Yep," he agreed, pushing his plate almost completely across the table toward me like he
didn't even want it anywhere near him. He took my coffee cup from my hands and took a sip
himself.
I wanted to be annoyed at him. I really did. He crossed a line. It wasn't a particularly bad
line to cross, but it wasn't cool and I wanted him to know that. But that being said, I was happy
he was himself again. I was too relieved to hold onto my indignation.
"Are you alright?" I asked when the silence stretched on.
"Yeah."
Augh. I needed more than that.
"You sure? Because you were pretty, ah, shaken up not that long ago."
"Over it."
Over it? Over it?
Alright so my hands weren't exactly clean. I've had blood on them before. I'd done some
things and I had gotten over them. Some things needed to be done. But still, he went full on rage
monster to the point where there wasn't an inch of him that hadn't been covered in blood. Hell his
hand looked like it had reached into someone's chest cavity and pulled out their heart. That was
how much blood he had staining his skin and shoved under his fingernails. He couldn't just be...
over that.
"Wolf..."
"Tired," he said, getting up so fast the chair scratched across the floor then tipped over. He
walked toward the bed without picking it back up.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself for beating my head up against a brick wall. I mean...
talking to Wolf. I righted the chair and skirted around the opposite side of the bed. He was facing
the door to the bathroom, away from me. I got on my knees behind him.
"You need to talk about it."
"No."
"Okay well then... I need to hear about it."
"No you don't."
I closed my eyes, willing myself to stay calm. How could he know what I did and did not
need to hear? "Did you kill Lex Keith?" I asked and when I opened my eyes again, Wolf had
rolled onto his back, his eyes boring into me.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You have nightmares."
"Plenty of people have nightmares. Are you going to kill the elementary school teacher who
used to make me wake up crying because of that one time he yelled at me in front of my whole
class?"
"Janie, he raped you."
Those words landed like a blow, pushing all the air out of my stomach. It was one thing to
know it, to have lived through it and tried to move on from it. It was another thing to hear
someone else say it. No one had said it before, not to me, not about me, not around me. Lo had
been careful to use phrases like 'what happened to you' or 'what that bastard did'. They were
phrases that almost detached me from the act, let it seem something impersonal. But putting it
the way Wolf just did, it threw me right into it. Lex raped me. It didn't get more personal than
that.
I swallowed hard. "Women get raped every day, Wolf. In fact, a woman is raped every two
minutes in the United States alone. Are you going to track down all those men and kill them
too?"
"Someone should."
"Answer the fucking question."
He sighed. "No."
"Then why?"
"Drop it."
"No."
"Fucking stubborn," he said, shaking his head before his arm swung out, snagged me around
the waist, and pulled me down to his chest.
"Yeah, well you're pretty fucking stubborn too. But, guess what?"
"What?"
"I'm pretty freaking sure I can out-stubborn you."
"You can try."
"You need to talk about..."
"Shut it."
I tried to jerk upward, but his arm tightened around my hips, holding me in place. "Did you
just tell me to shut it?" I sputtered.
"Yep."
Then I stole a page right out of his book; I growled. Which only succeeded in making him
chuckle, his body shaking beneath me. "Let me go."
"Nah."
"I'm angry with you," I reasoned.
 "You'll get over it."
"Yeah maybe if you stop being such a pain in my ass."
"Not gonna happen."
"This isn't over."
"Sure it ain't."
"It's not," I insisted, but I could feel my commitment to the argument dwindling. That was
always how I was- I burned hot and fast and fizzled out just as quickly. He could totally out-
stubborn me, damn it.
"Go to sleep."
"Stop being so freaking bossy."
"Stop making everything difficult."
"Did you just use two words with three syllables in each in one sentence? I think hell might
have just frozen over."
"Woman..." his voice held warning this time.
"Fine," I grumbled, relaxing onto his chest. It felt too good to be close to him again to keep
ruining it with useless arguments.
"Thank Christ," he sighed loudly, but tempered the statement with his hand moving into my
hair and stroking it in the familiar way he always did.
A while later, he slept.
A few hours after that, so did I.
For the second time in the better part of a decade, dreamlessly.

--

"You've got to be freaking kidding me!" I yelled into the cabin, making Harley and
Chopper's heads snap up. "Seriously? Seriously?" I ranted, storming over to the bathroom and
going in though I already knew it would be empty. I threw the front door open and stomped out.
Of course his truck was gone.
Needless to say, I woke up alone.
There was also no note this time.
So I figured he likely wasn't out mutilating more people because that was the only time he
actually left me a note. But still. We had things to talk about and argue about and...
"Christ," I cursed myself, running a hand through my wild hair. I wasn't his girlfriend. I
didn't get to demand he leave me notes and tell me his whereabouts. I wasn't even his little
hostage anymore so I couldn't rightfully be pissed that he left me alone at all.
It was my own damn fault that I didn't have a car there or my laptop and books and shit to
keep my mind occupied. I needed to stop planning my days around his days. I didn't do shit like
that. That wasn't the kind of girl I was. On a firm nod to the strong-woman yelling at me inside
my head, I turned back into the house, grabbed a gun, ammo, a coin, slipped into my boots, and
headed into the woods for target practice.
I had just paused to reload the gun for the second time when I heard a throat clear behind
me. I snapped the gun back together as I whirled, arm raised, ready to do what might need to be
done. Like I was trained to.
"Aw pumpkin, what'd I ever do to you?" Shooter asked, standing about two yards behind
me, hands tucked into his tight black jeans. Yeah, Shooter was the tight black jean kinda guy. He
was also the creepers kinda guy. And tattooed, pierced, devilish kinda guy.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I snapped, my voice dropping low as if someone might
overhear us, you know, all out in the deep woods.
"Nice to see you again, pretty girl," he said, giving me the smile I knew melted panties for
miles wide. "Your aim is better."
"How would you know about my aim at all?" I countered.
"Hailstorm might watch all of us, sweetheart. But all us small timers keep an eye out too."
Small timer? Ha. He was the best contract killer on the East coast. He got paid trunk loads of
cash for the jobs he did. The last thing he was, was a small timer. Even if he was a one-man
organization. When I didn't speak, his smile got a little boyish. "I know my attractiveness can
make women senseless, but we got some shit to talk about."
I felt my own lips tip up and lowered the gun. "Thanks for killing Lo's ex. He deserved to
get dead."
"He deserved to have his dick shot off first," he said, moving closer.
"You didn't!" I gasped.
"Oh, peaches, I sure as fuck did."
I snorted. "Enough with the pet names, Shoot." I bristled. I was nobody's 'peaches' or
'pumpkin'. "So what do we need to talk about?"
"We need to talk about Lex Keith."
My spine straightened. "What about him?"
"See? I like a good vacation, getting away from all the killing and pussy. It's good for the
psyche. I don't like being forced into a vacation in some sick fuck's basement with nothin' but
dimwitted lackeys to keep me company. So I was pleased as punch that you blew that place up
and got me, Break, and Alex out of there. I owe you for that."
"Is that why you're here? To offer me a marker?"
"I'm here because me and Breaker and Alex are down in fucking Mexico and I'd like for us
to be able to come back some day. Can't do that with Lex out there looking for us."
"That threat is neutralized," I said carefully.
A slow, appreciative smile grew, making his already handsome face almost unbelievably so.
"Look at you. Watch out Beatrix Kiddo, we got a new badass, hot as fuck assassin to inspire a
million wet dreams."
"Beatrix Kiddo is fictional."
He nodded at me, looked off in the distance, then pinned me with his deep green eyes. "So
you're saying we can come back anytime."
I exhaled. "That depends."
"On?"
"Who is Joshua?" I asked, bringing up the name of the guy with the bone sticking out of his
leg who screwed up my plans the night of the bombing.
"Fuck," Shoot said, shaking his head.
"I'll take that as a 'I know him and he's a problem'. Well, I was in the basement to get Lex
and he yelled for help. Had his freaking tibia sticking out of his leg."
"Nice."
"Yeah. So I helped him hobble his ass out of there. He can point me out and it is sounding
like he could point you out too. I don't think you have anything to worry about with what is left
of Lex's enterprise. And while the cops around here are generally inept or crooked, if they
decided to lean on him..."
"So you're saying we should enjoy the beach for a while," Shooter asked, smirking again.
"Lots of ladies I'm sure you haven't tapped down there."
"Sold," he smiled and reached out to boop me on the nose. Apparently he was the black
skinny jean, creepers, pet name calling, and nose-booping kind of guy. No wonder he got so
much tail. "Thanks for the heads-up, sweetheart. If you hear anything worth sharing, let me
know, okay?"
"Enjoy your vacation."
Shooter gave me a wicked grin. "Think one of them will say 'ay papi' when I get all up in
there?" he asked, smiling wider when I couldn't hold his gaze. I was used to dirty jokes; the men
at Hailstorm were as filthy as they could get. But there was something about the way Shoot said
things like that when he was looking at you, like he'd know what you sounded like saying that to
him when he was 'all up in there'. Yeah, it was disarming.
"Shoot, I think they will say anything you want them to."
He laughed and sent me a wink. "Enjoy your mountain man," he said, turning and taking off
where he had come from.
My.
My mountain man.
I stood there dumbly for a long minute, watching Shoot's easy swagger, his words still
heavy on my shoulders because I realized he was right; that was how I saw Wolf: as mine. It was
ridiculous and unfounded, but that was how I felt. I was staying in his house, voluntarily now. I
was sharing his bed. I washed blood off his naked body. I cooked him food and kinda hoped it
was at least edible even though I knew I had no culinary skills. I bonded with his dogs. I cleaned
up the evidence of multiple crimes.
I guess a part of me decided that meant I could claim ownership.
And the other part of me decided that even if I didn't currently possess it, it was a goal I
wanted to work toward.
It was crazy. Who based a relationship off of screwed up pasts and murder?
At that, I felt a hysterical little laugh escape my lips. Who? Yeah, I guess that would be
Reign and Summer and Cash and Lo. Hell, it even sounded like Breaker and Alex. None of us
had the luxury of a clean life, of nervous first dates and awkward third date kisses, of security
and comfort. We all dated and fucked and loved like we lived: hard and fast and dirty, never
wasting a second because we were never guaranteed the next one.
So maybe there was a chance for us, beyond all the scars and bloodshed and pain. Maybe
there was a way to move on together. I mean... not that I had any idea whether or not Wolf had
any interest in that kind of thing. Bikers weren't exactly known for their monogamousness. I
didn't blame them. I imagined if I had a dick, I'd want to stick it in a bunch of different club
whores too. But if Reign and Cash had settled down, there was hope.
I mean... not that I was hoping...
"Augh. I'm being such a girl," I growled at myself, tucking the gun into the waistband of my
jeans and making my way back toward the cabin.
I wasn't good with the girl stuff. There were some women at Hailstorm, but we were
definitely outnumbered. And the women that were there were like me and Lo, kinda closed off
and private. We chatted. They all bullshitted about sex and men and stuff like normal women do.
But we were all very closed-off about our feelings, all of us hiding our own emotional scars. It
was a defense mechanism. We all thought we needed to be so hard, stone cold, to be able to
compete with the men, to have them take us seriously. I couldn't imagine the wrath of shit I
would get if I showed any kind of feminine emotion around them. They would eviscerate me.
That was our life. And, up until right then, walking in the woods, I never saw anything wrong
with that.
I didn't want to be soft and feminine. I wanted to be a badass bitch who no one would ever
think to second-guess. But how badass was it to hide how you were feeling? I mean I emoted.
When I was pissed or frustrated or offended, there was hell to pay. I ranted, I raged. I made
grown ass men cower and hide. So what would be wrong with embracing some of the less fun
emotions? Like pain and desire, hope and maybe... just maybe... love.
"Oh god," I groaned at myself as I broke into the clearing to the cabin.
I was never like Lo in that department, drooling over romance novels, dying for the hero
and heroine to overcome the odds and get together. In fact, I tended to skim over the lovey-
dovey crap in the books I read. I guess a part of me rebelled against it because I never considered
it a possibility for me. Things had happened to me at such a young age that I hardly had a chance
to date, let alone entertain the idea of love. I had been too wrapped up in teenage rebellion and
driving my parents crazy to devote any real time to boys. And after, well, the idea turned my
stomach.
But here I was, all un-turned stomach with normal feelings for someone of the opposite sex.
And, make no mistake, there were feelings.
There was no denying it. It was in the way my body responded to him, even when I didn't
want it to. It was in the way I actually fucking cried around him, in how I hung on his every
word (no matter how few they were), and well... missed him when he was gone.
Hence my sour mood despite a run-in with a man who likely made all other women forget
about their boyfriends, husbands, and lovers altogether.
I dropped down in the middle of the bed on a huff and tried to concentrate on a book. For all
of three seconds because then I heard the sound of Wolf's truck rumbling up the drive. I resisted
the urge to spring up and run to the door.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Wolf lumbered in, hands full of bags.
"You went... shopping?" I asked, nose scrunching up at the idea. It was hard to imagine
someone like him doing every day banal tasks like shopping and getting hair cuts and taking the
dogs to the vet. Wolf made some kind of grunting noise as he put the bags on the dining table
and started fishing items out and putting them into the fridge.
"That's a lot of food. I think I've proved that I'm useless in a kitchen."
"I'll cook," he said simply like it was no big deal.
Meanwhile, it gave me that warm, gooey feeling again.
Still. Things needed to be discussed.
"Um, Wolf?" Another grunt. "We, ah, need to talk about some stuff." God, I sounded like
such a girl.
He stopped his unpacking and turned, focusing all his attention on me. "Okay." I fumbled
for where to start. Apparently all the talking I did was not the same as speaking. Because I was
shit at this. "Gonna talk?"
I took a deep breath. "Why am I here?" I went with.
"You wanna be," he shrugged.
"No like... augh!" Okay. I needed to relax. "Do you want me here?" I tried, feeling like a lot
was hanging on his answer, my entire future actually. Because if Wolf didn't want to keep me in
his cabin... what was left for me in Navesink Bank? I might never feel comfortable at Hailstorm
again. Lo forgave me, but would trust ever be the same? Could she convince the other
organizations to not come after me? Even if she managed that, none of them would ever look at
me the same. I would always be that chick that set bombs on their turf, making them look
vulnerable, exploiting their weak spots. If I couldn't find a new reason to stay, well, then it was
better to leave.
"If you wanna be."
"That's not an answer."
"It's my answer."
"Do you even... like me at all?"
"Killed for you."
"Yeah, but like... would you have done that for any random girl you saw in my situation?"
His silence was all the answer I needed for that particular question. It was an answer that was at
once crushing, because his actions weren't out of genuine feelings for me, but also uplifting
because, well, he was really just a good guy. I looked down at the bed, too mortified to ask what
I was about to ask to watch him while I did so. "Are you... attracted to me?"
The answer was swift. "Seriously?"
"Wolf..."
"Yes," he said and I could finally look up.
"Is that all you want from me?"
"Janie stop," he said, shaking his head, going back to unpacking his bags.
"Stop what? I've barely gotten started, Wolf. I'm trying to understand."
"Understand what?" he asked, back to me.
"What I'm doing here. If you actually want me here. If you're just being a good guy and
hiding me from the cops. If you actually want anything to do with me or you just want to fuck
me because I am close and have the right body parts."
"I want you here," he said, putting his fists on the surface of the dining room table, making
him hunch slightly forward.
"Right. But for what reason? Am I just another club whore to you? Like whatever one you
spent the other night with?"
"The other night?" he said, his voice getting lower, almost scary.
"Yeah, when you didn't come home. It's cool. I mean... you weren't getting any from me.
And I mean... we aren't like together or anything. It's... whatever. I'm just trying to make a
point."
"Then make it," he growled.
"That I'm not some slut you can hit and quit like the others."
"I've had women before."
"Obviously," I said, shrugging.
"Not apologizing for that."
"I wasn't asking you to."
"But no one since you."
Well, that was one way to shut me up. Unfortunately for me, he was angry and in the mood
to fight about it if his posture and the way his eyes were tossing daggers at me were anything to
go off of. "Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that!" It was a question, but it came out
like an accusation. "You don't fucking talk to me, Wolf."
 "Talking to you right now."
"But saying as little as possible."
"Can't change me, Janie," he shrugged in a very 'take it or leave it' way.
"I'm not trying to change you. I'm trying to figure out where I stand with you because right
now it feels like I have to constantly keep one foot out the door."
"Step in or step out," he said, waving a hand toward the actual door.
"I was being figurative," I spat.
"I ain't stupid," he shot back.
"God, we both suck at this!" I groaned, raking a hand through my hair, feeling the tangles
get caught on my fingers. I must have looked just wonderful right then.
"You wanted to talk."
"Talk, not argue," I clarified.
"Ain't arguing."
"Oh my god, we so are."
"Janie..." my name trailed off like he was trying to grab my attention.
"What?" I asked, sounding surly.
"Fucking spit it out."
"That's rich coming from you."
"What do you want from me?" he asked in an almost... sad tone.
And well, he wasn't using that to guilt me into letting it go. No way, no sir.
I jumped off the bed, crossing the room toward him. "Give me something, Wolf! Give me
anything. I refuse to fall in love with a padlock heart. I am not the kind of woman who will spend
her life sifting through boxes of forgotten keys, praying she finds the one that will unlock you.
So let me in... or let me go!"
On a choked sound that sounded a bit too much like a sob, I face planted into his chest,
trying to pull it together. I shouldn't have been emotional, but I was. It had been a weird fucking
week and a half. In a short amount of time, he had come to mean a lot to me. And I wanted him
to let me in. I wanted to know him the way he knew me, into all the dark, skeleton-filled closets.
He just had to... let me.
It felt like forever before his arms closed around me, pulling me until my body was flush
against his, his mass a familiar and comforting thing. I felt his chin lower down until it was
resting on the top of my head. "You're in," he said with a squeeze. "You've always been in."
 FIFTEEN

Wolf

If there was one quality you both had to respect and loathe about Janie, it was her tenacity. I
guess it came from years of being overlooked because of her size and sex in the male-centric
Hailstorm. And even though Lo ran a tight ship and would flip shit if she saw any blatant sexism
going on at her camp, that didn't mean the women didn't feel the pressure. So when Janie needed
to prove a point or she needed to get something she wanted, she was a dog after a bone.
What she wanted?
To get to know me.
I'd never been one for sharing. First, because I didn't need to air shit to understand how I felt
about it. Second, because none of my stories were pretty. And third, because men didn't, as a
rule, do that shit.
I ain't never kept a woman around long enough for her to want to learn my secrets. The club
bitches knew better. They were around for a good suck or fuck. Maybe if they got one of the men
pussy-whipped, they could end up with his name on her back. But it was rare and they knew it.
So none of them pushed.
Janie, yeah, she wasn't a club bitch.
But she sure as fuck was a pusher.
If you'd ask me why she was different, I wouldn't have a good answer. I liked Janie. I had
always liked Janie from the first time we met her and she and Reign went toe-to-toe, the tiny slip
of a girl holding her own against the most fierce biker in the region. Shit was sexy. Seeing her
charge in when the shit was hitting the fan when we were trying to save Summer, toting guns,
fearless as any hardened criminal I had ever met, yeah that was even sexier.
But seeing her on the side of that road, burned and battling her demons in the dirt... it
became more than an attraction.
It wasn't something fresh and new that I wanted to protect women who needed it. That shit
came from my mother's apron strings when I was too young to do more than ankle bite. I'd lent a
hand more than once before when the situation called for it. But I'd never invited a woman to my
place. Fuck, I'd never invited anyone to my place before. Reign and Cash and Repo sometimes
invited themselves, but as a rule, I liked my solitude. No, I didn't just like it; I demanded it. I'd go
to the club; I'd spend time with the men on the road. But then I needed to go home and get lost in
the woods. I needed to hunt and fish and get away from it all.
So wanting Janie there, yeah, that was out of character.
What was even more out of character? That I didn't want her to leave. Even though half of
what she did was badger me.
So if the only way to get her to stick around was to tell her some things about me that I
never told anyone, well, it seemed like a small price to pay.

--

My memories of my mother are bright, full Technicolor detail. She was light and warmth.
She was homemade cookies after a bad day at school. She was bedtime stories and trips to the
beach.
My memories of my father are highly contrasted black and white. He was the door
slamming after coming home late from the compound, smelling like whiskey and perfume. He
was a raised voice, a raised hand, a short fuse.
"What's the problem now?" he would growl at my mother who was already cowering away
from him, a badass former biker groupie who never took shit from no one, shrinking away from
the man she promised her life to. "Five words or less, bitch," he added, as he always did.
Five words.
If we couldn't get our points across in that, he didn't want to hear it.
"There's this kid at school that Wolf keeps..."
The rest of that sentence would never be heard because his fist knocked them out of her
mouth. "What fucking part of 'five words or less' is so fucking hard for you to understand, you
stupid cunt?"
Such was almost every conversation between my mother and father.
There wasn't a merciful or sympathetic bone in my father's body. Reign's father would never
allow that kind of weakness from his men. The problem being that training your men to think no
different than animals, meant they acted no better. For Pops, life was a constant battle of
reminding his pack that he was the top dog. His pack? Me and my mother. When I was little, I
needed very little reminding. But as I got older, I got bigger and I became a threat. And threats,
well, they needed to be neutralized. So at twelve years old, I was telling the guidance counselor
in school that I just got into a lot of fists fights to explain perpetually blackened eyes and bruised
arms and busted ribs.
As I waxed, Pops waned, getting older, frailer, less threatening. His strength soon was
nothing against my late adolescent brawn. So he did what any weak man did, he took it out on
the only person weaker than him.
The screams my mother would make would wake me up from a dead sleep, my body
buzzing with adrenaline, hands curled into fists so hard my nails drew blood from my palms. It's
a source of shame how many nights I would lie there and do nothing. It was a thought that would
break me if I let myself think about it, think about how she was suffering from my inaction.
It happened one week shy of my eighteenth birthday.
I learned my shooting, my fishing, my hunting from my Pops. He'd take me out into the
woods behind our property and he'd show me all the ways he thought a man needed to be a man.
We were sitting in a tree stand, waiting for a deer to step into sight, bows at the ready. Then
the stupid son of a bitch opened his mouth and started talking. About my mother. Stupid, stupid
move. Also, his last. I reached instinctively for the hatchet at my belt as the rage tore through my
system like a poison, like something that replaced all the blood in my veins with pure, undiluted
hate.
It wasn't that I wasn't aware what I was doing while I was doing it. I never blacked out, my
consciousness never fully went away. But the part of me that was normal, was human, became
like a spectator as the beast took over and swung, sliced, hacked.
When Reign and his father came looking for me the next morning after a frantic call from
my mother when we didn't return home the night before, they walked into a horror movie. My
father was in bloody pieces all over the forest floor. An arm here, guts there, his head rolled into
a pile of brambles.
Reign visibly paled, younger than me, insulated from the nastier parts of The Henchmen
lifestyle and, therefore, still rather innocent of the butchery. His old man, however, took a long
minute, looking around the scene, rocking back on his heels, his hands in his pockets. Then he
threw his head back and laughed.
"Guess you're the man of the family now," he said, whacking me hard enough on the back
to make huge, hulking me stumble forward a foot.
My consciousness had come back to me sometime around sunup, when the full reality of
what I had done weighed on me, making me wretch into the bushes until there was nothing left
inside to throw up. I was covered in blood, head to toe, every inch saturated. My hands had the
worst of it, stained bright red from the tips of my fingers to my wrists, and I got the vivid image
of reaching into my already dead father's chest after hacking open his ribcage, and pulling out his
lifeless heart.
"Well come on," Reign's old man said, clapping his hands together loudly, making both of
us start. "Gotta get this shit cleaned up."
'This shit' being my father. Even as horrified as I felt in my actions, I found that fitting.
And from that day on, in the prez's eyes, I was the man of the house. Just like he had said. I
was patched in as soon as I aged up. I was given jobs, usually the bloodier of the bunch. I
provided money for my mother. Then after the turf war that brought down Reign's old man,
Reign stepped into his place. He named his brother vice. He made me road captain. I stopped
having to be a butcher for a job.
But there were still occasions when the beast overtook me.
Cue walking into one of Lex Keith's safe houses, breaking the neck of the first guard,
beating the second half to death before ending it completely, then making a beeline for Lex
himself, cowering in a corner like the cowardly fuck he was.
I didn't try to control the beast.
I didn't want to.
I wanted to unleash him.
I wanted to watch as I pulled Lex's insides out.
I wanted to see his skin peel away at my hands.
So that's what I did.
I made him scream.
And I could sleep like a baby knowing that because of me, Janie would never have to worry
about his hands getting a hold of her again.

--

It took the better part of two days to share all of this with her, my upbringing still making it
too hard to put too many words together at one time.
But I did it.
I gave her what she needed from me.
I let her know me.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked when I finally got the last of it out. Her
head was cocked to the side, her dark brows drawn together.
"Like what?" I asked, reaching out for her hips and pulling her across the bed.
 "Like you're half expecting me to run screaming. Do I seem like the kind of girl who
blanches at a little violence?"
"It's dark."
"My past isn't all sunshine and rainbows either," she said, giving me one of those small
smiles that wasn't really a smile, just a turning up of the lips.
"Happened to you."
"So just because I wasn't the one doing the slicing and dicing doesn't mean I can't handle
that you were? It was a long time ago, Wolf."
"It was days," I reminded her.
She gave me a small shrug. "Do you rage out over normal, everyday stuff?"
"No."
"Then I don't think I have anything to worry about," she said, settling down beside my
body.
"Never," I said, firmly. She never had anything to worry about at my hands.
"What brings you back from it?"
I felt my shoulders shrug as my hand moved out to sift through her hair. She had a shitton of
it, each strand like fucking silk. "Dunno. Time?"
"Even this last time?"
"That was you." I didn't know how it was, I just knew it was true. She stepped into that
shower and everything else fell away.
Her head tilted up, a mocking smile on her face. Never met someone who had as many
different smiles as she did. "So I'm like the Wolf-whisperer?" she laughed. "That's what you're
saying?"
"Something like that," I chuckled. Cash was right about her having a smart mouth. But it
wasn't something to put up with or overlook. It was something I genuinely appreciated about her.
I wasn't an easy man to amuse. And because of my size and line of work, very few people felt
comfortable enough to tease or pick at me. Janie suffered no such affliction and poked at me
constantly. I liked that. I liked it even more that she managed to often do it in inventive and
clever ways, surprising me, pulling out of me some genuine amusement.
"So should we like... get you a collar and a lea..." the rest of her sentence ended on a shriek
as I pushed her onto her back and exploited the one weakness I found she had, thanks to Harley.
She was ticklish as shit.
"What about a fucking collar?" I asked, grinning, as she wiggled and laughed and gasped
and tried to push my hands away.
"Okay okay. No collar," she strangled out and my hands fisted on the sides of her body.
"How about a tracking device? Shoot it right here," she said, laying a hand on the back of my
shoulder. "At least when you rage out, we can come get you."
"We?" I asked, watching her face.
Her smile was warmer, softer. "Didn't think you'd be able to get rid of me now, did you? I'm
in."
"Yeah you are," I agreed, nodding. No use denying the truth.
"No getting me out now," she declared with a little jerk of her head which was too fucking
cute.
"Wasn't gonna try."
Beneath me, her body had relaxed, one of her legs going up against the side of my body.
With the shit she went through, it was no wonder she didn't do sex. I couldn't imagine the kind of
fears a man's hands on her skin brought up. But there were times when her body wanted me. In
the bed when I kissed her. In the woods where I gave her an orgasm. And, right then underneath
me. Without her seeming to realize it, her hips would work against me every now and again,
seeking fulfillment for a need she was too shy or too traumatized to tell me about.
It was a tough situation to navigate, knowing a part of her wanted to experience those
things, but also not wanting her to seem like I was pushing, like I needed that from her right
away.
My hand went to her face, brushing over her cheek, then down her neck. Her body shivered
against me and I slowly ventured lower, brushing over her breast then down her stomach. Her
eyes were on my face, her pupils dilated, her lips parted. I could feel her nails digging into my
shoulder as my hand brushed down her bare leg. I liked her in my tees for multiple reasons. One
being that it was a subtle claim-staking. She was wrapped up in my clothes, she smelled like me.
Two being that the access made it easier to tease her. My fingers shifted inward to brush up her
inner thigh and her leg fell heavy onto the mattress, giving me full access.
She'd stripped out of her panties that morning and I'd picked them up to pile them with the
rest of the clothes that needed to go to the laundromat. So I knew as my hand moved upward,
feeling her heat, that she was bare to me. Her body tensed slightly as my hand brushed over her
hipbone, my palm pressing down on the triangle above her pussy. I paused for a second, waiting
for her to pull away, to push me away. When she didn't, my hand shifted and I traced a finger up
her wet slit. I exhaled a harsh breath, working my finger up to her clit and pressing down.
Her entire body shuddered hard and I froze, unsure if it was a good or bad reaction.
Then her hips moved up against my hand and I felt a smile toy at my lips.
If she thought what I gave her in the woods was good, she was in for a treat.
There were so many things I could do to her that were so much better.
I leaned down, taking her lips in mine as I worked her clit faster.
 SIXTEEN

Janie

Okay. I so should have been analyzing what he had spent days telling me. I should have
been working out how I felt about all of that, about him, about what it meant that he was opening
up to me.
But, well, his finger was creating a chaos I couldn't, and didn't want, to fight. So all that
thinking shit could wait. I was into the whole feeling thing. I felt the orgasm building, fast and
frantic, the tightening in my core an almost painful thing.
It felt like a longing for something, but it was something I didn't understand or recognize.
But then Wolf's finger left my clit and moved a path back down my cleft, pressing at the entrance
to my body, pulsing there for a second, before pressing inside.
"Oh my god," I groaned, my free hand slapping down on his other shoulder.
The small, male-pride-filled smile on his lips and the warm sweetness in his eyes was
something I could get lost in and never want to find my way back. "You good?" he asked and I
understood the deeper meaning. One day, I hoped that that question would never need to be
asked again. But in that moment, it needed to and I appreciated his instinctively knowing that.
"Yes," I nodded, my hips grinding upward, begging for the friction.
"'Bout to be better," he promised, taking my lips again. But there was no soft sweetness in
his kiss. It was consuming, it was giving everything and demanding everything in return. My
fingers curled into his skin as my tongue battled his. Inside me, his finger started stroking, giving
my body what it wanted, what it needed. His palm flattened against my cleft, pressing down on
my clit as he thrust inward, his pace as furious as his lips on mine.
I felt the tightening deep, promising pleasure.
But then his mouth ripped from mine and his entire body shifted. Before I could even
realize his intention, his face was between my legs, his beard tickling over my inner thighs in a
way that was both foreign and arousing. His tongue replaced his palm, flattening against my clit
and drawing a loud moan from me.
There were things that were still new to me, that I was still innocent of.
A man's mouth on me, giving me pleasure, that was new.
It was new and it was fucking brilliant.
His tongue started working me in small circles as his finger retreated fully and two more
replaced it, filling me more, giving me more friction. His thrusts got fast, demanding release
before they finally twisted and stroked against the top wall.
And just like that, just that quickly, I shattered.
The orgasm was violent, breaking me apart as I held the back of his neck against me, my
body crashing through an orgasm that made the world go white and soundless for a second. The
first thing I heard when my ears started working right again was the way I was crying out his
name and the deep, growling noise he responded with. The sound somehow sent a shot of desire
through my already overwhelmed system. I felt my sex clench tight around his fingers, drawing a
groan out of him.
"More?" he asked, his voice muffled and I realized with more than a teensy bit of
embarrassment that it was muffled because I had a death-grip on his neck, holding his face
against my pussy. I released him and he popped upward, his honey-eyes looking heavy-lidded
and intense with desire.
More. Did I want more? I realized I did. In that moment, feeling safe, feeling protected, I
definitely wanted more. I wanted it all. I wanted to see if that was something I could have.
I felt myself nodding but before he could duck his head again, I was digging into his
shoulders and pulling upward. His head cocked to the side, his brows drawing together, but he
moved over me. I pulled him downward, bringing his mouth back to mine, tasting myself there
and something deep inside thrilled at the intimacy of that. I brought my legs up on either side of
his body, squeezing him tight.
Wolf pulled back against my hold, pushing up to look down at me. "Am I misreading this?"
he asked, his voice rough.
I shook my head. "No... I... want to try at least."
His head tipped down and his tongue traced a line from my ear to the neckline of my tee.
"Wanna stop, anytime, we stop."
"I know," I said, my voice a little quiet as my hands moved up and down his back.
He pushed suddenly back, sitting on his ankles and grabbing the hem of my tee. "Arms up,"
he said, his voice a little soft. I gave him a small smile and raised my arms. The material was
whipped off my body, the cool air making my nipples harden immediately. Wolf barely even
paused before his hands were there, covering the small swells with his giant hands. The rough
skin of his palms sent off electric shocks through my system. His thumbs shifted out, brushing
over the hardened peaks and making me arch up into him.
His weight shifted again until he lowered himself down on me, his beard tickling over my
belly as he kissed his way up toward my breasts. He let out a warm breath that made my sex
clench, before his mouth closed around my nipple, lavishing over it with his tongue before taking
it between his lips and sucking hard. His head shifted and worked the same torment on my other
nipple as his hand trailed between our bodies and started stroking over my clit again.
My hips ground up into his hand, knowing nothing was going to ease the ache until I felt
him inside me.
"Wolf, please..." I groaned, pulling his head up.
"Sure?" he asked, leaning down and nipping into my earlobe.
"Yeah." Mostly. All I knew is that it was worth a try.
He kissed me hard for a moment before moving back onto his ankles, reaching behind his
back and pulling his shirt off. His hands went to his pants, undoing the button and zip before he
moved off the side of the bed and pulled them off. Commando as always, his cock popped out,
hard and straining, promising to fulfill the desire I felt deep inside. He moved over toward the
nightstand, pulling open the drawer, taking out a condom and slipping it on. His eyes watched
me as he knelt at the edge of the bed. He paused then moved to stretch out beside me, rolling me
so I was pressed against him, both of us on our sides. His lips landed down on mine, softer,
deeper.
His hand moved down my back, cupping my ass for a moment before sliding down my leg,
snagging me under the knee and pulling until my leg was draped around him. His hand moved
back to my ass, pulling me closer until I felt his hard length press into my stomach. His lips
released me and my eyes fluttered open.
"You're in control," he told me, squeezing my ass.
I assumed that meant I had to, you know like... guide him inside me. I ran a hand down his
stomach glorying in the way his abdominal muscles jumped under my touch. Finding his cock, I
reached for it before I could chicken out, and shifted my hips upward until I felt him press
against my slick cleft. A shudder coursed through me as Wolf's hand tightened on my ass. I
shifted up further, feeling the hard, insistent head of his cock press against my entrance. I
released his cock, looking up into his eyes for reassurance.
My hand moved to rest on the side of his neck like he had done many times to me and I
pressed my hips downward, feeling his thick cock push past the entrance and slide inside me. I
was turned on, slick from a previous orgasm and the promise of another. But there was the barest
twinge of discomfort from either how long it had been for me or how large he was, or a
combination of the two.
I felt my face scrunch up as my hips jerked instinctively against the pain. "Hurt?" Wolf
asked, hand no longer on my ass, but whispering up and down the leg that was cocked over his
hip.
"Just a little."
"You'll adjust," he assured me, leaning forward and claiming my lips again, getting me lost
in the taste of him, in the feel of his tongue moving over mine.
Then like he promised, I adjusted. Hands cradling his face, and therefore a hefty handful of
beard, I was so lost in him that my hips sank fully down without me intending to. He filled me to
the hilt, spreading me around him. I never knew I could feel that full before. That that was what
my body had been craving every time I was around him, that fullness.
"Janie move," he grumbled against my lips as I stayed still, absorbing every sensation.
I pulled my lips from his, moving back to watch his face as I pulled my hips up slightly and
pressed back down, letting out a surprised whimper. "Feel good," he said, a compliment, praise. I
felt good. I had no such words because I knew of none that did how he felt justice. My hips kept
the same tentative pace, my body holding tightly onto each thick inch.
My orgasm felt trapped, stuck behind some unseen barrier that I couldn't break through. I
pushed against Wolf and let out a grumble.
On a small chuckle, his hand landed on my ass, holding tight, as he rolled onto his back,
keeping me on top. "Prop up. Wanna watch," he said when I rested my cheek against his chest. I
pushed up, planting my hands beside his shoulders.
"Watch what?" I asked, shifting my knees into place at his sides.
"Your face when I do this," he clarified with a devilish grin as he started thrusting up into
me, fast, barely-controlled. "There it is," he smiled, his free hand moving up to the side of my
neck and curling in hard.
Yeah it was. There, that is. Right there. My orgasm. After what felt like an endless game of
keep-away, I felt it getting closer, getting stronger.
On a moan, I found his pace, shoving my hips downward as he thrust up, taking him as deep
as my body would allow each time. "Wolf I..." I whimpered, losing the pace, staying still as he
drove it home.
"Come," he demanded, thrusting deep as my walls contracted hard around him. My arms
went to jello and I landed on his chest on a moan, my entire body going taut for a second then
shaking as the waves kept crashing. My fingers dug into his shoulders as he thrust through the
orgasm, drawing it out, giving every last bit of pleasure my body would allow. Then he buried
deep on a low growl, his body shuddering under mine as he came.
He went still beneath me, one hand heavy on my ass, the other limply holding my neck.
I came back down slowly. The shaking stopped; my breathing evened out; my heartbeat
slowed. My brain seemed the last to return home, feeling cloudy with the dopamine from an
orgasm. The full weight of what I had done settled down on me and I felt myself smiling against
his chest.
I had no way of knowing, but I had been missing out.
I didn't need an hour and a half of grappling to get rid of the anger and restlessness I tended
to carry around with me. Nope, I just needed a good roll in the hay. Every inch of my body felt
languid and heavy. Satisfied. I felt satisfied. And safe. With him still inside me, with his arms
around me, I had never felt safer. Unbidden, tears stung at the backs of my eyes.
"Jesus Christ," I grumbled into his skin.
His entire body went tense beneath me. "What?" he asked, hands going to my shoulders and
pushing me upward like I weighed nothing. Which, to him, I probably did. My hands planted on
his chest to take my weight and his hands immediately went to my cheeks and brushed at the
tears. "Janie..." he said, his voice deep and concerned.
"God, I'm being such a girl," I said, scrunching my face up which only succeeded in making
more tears slip out.
"You are a girl," he said, giving me a smile that said he didn't understand.
"Yeah but I'm not a girl. Augh!" I growled, sitting back on my ankles and wiping at my
cheeks myself. "Next thing you know I'll be crying over fucking greeting cards and shit." I felt
his chest start to shake underneath me and tried to give him a hard look which, well, was
impossible when you were still freaking crying. "It's not fucking funny!"
"Yeah it is," he countered with a smile before he pushed up to a sitting position, one arm
going around my hips, the other going to my jaw. "With me," he started, his eyes soft, "you can
be a girl."
"Fine. But you're not allowed to tell anyone," I countered, moving off of him and throwing
myself backward onto the bed. "Or I'll drug your morning coffee and while you're passed out,
shave off your beard. Got it?"
He was still chuckling, moving over me to plant a hard kiss on my lips. "Got it," he agreed,
moving off toward the bathroom.
"I mean it. Snip snip! Bye bye mountain man!"
"Heard ya," he said, coming out of the bathroom still gloriously naked and moving to
stretch out beside me, one arm cocked under his head, the other reaching for my hand and
entwining his fingers with mine.
"You don't think I'll do it."
His head turned to look at my profile. "You like my beard."
Yeah, well, he had a point there.
 SEVENTEEN

Detective Collings

"Got a body at the morgue," the young blood said. Without looking up, Detective Collings
could see he was practically pissing himself in excitement. Oh, to be young again.
"What else is new?"
"Doc Fenton just called. Said it wasn't just any body."
"The suspense is killing me," he dead-panned. He didn't want to take an unnecessary trip to
the fucking morgue. He wanted to finish his mountain of paperwork sometime before nine at
night and get home already. Not that he had anything to get home to, but that was beside the
point.
"Lex Keith."
If there was one name Marco could have said to actually pique Collings' interest, that was
the one. His head snapped up. "He's sure?"
"Positive. He wants us to come down though."
"Why?"
"Didn't say, but come on, it's Lex Keith. Curious to see how someone finally did him in."
Yeah, well, so was Collings.
He sighed, tucked his paperwork away, grabbed his gun and badge, then followed his new
blood out to the cruiser.
Collings hated the morgue. He imagined it was not really the kind of place anyone actually
liked except maybe those crime freaks who were always trying to sneak in. He told 'em once,
they wanted to see some dead bodies, become a cop. Sometimes he felt like he saw more dead
ones than lives ones: crushed against a steering wheel, through the windshield of a car, splattered
on the ground after jumping, overdosed in an alley, shivved for stepping over an invisible turf
line. Man, if he had a dollar for every body he'd seen he could... fuck... get the fuck out of this
godforsaken town.
The young blood was a ball of energy as they moved through the office and got onto the
elevator, hitting the button for the basement.
The walls were all sterile white with scratches around hip level from where the gurneys
sometimes scraped the paint. It was a marked twenty degrees cooler down there, half because it
was underground, and half because they kept it cold for the stiffs. Collings followed his new
blood through the door into the crypt, expecting to see Doc Fenton, but almost running into a
short curvy blond instead.
She let out a muted screech, her hand flying to her chest over her mint green scrubs. "Shit.
Sorry. I'm, ah, not used to anyone living down here," she fumbled, giving him a wobbly smile.
"Can I help you?"
"Detective Collings," I said, gesturing toward the badge on my belt.
"Is Dr. Fenton expecting you?"
"Got a call."
"Right, I'll just go get him for..." He didn't know if she was nervous for some reason or just
clumsy, but she ran right into the stainless steel cart covered in medical instruments and sent
everything, including herself, flying.
"Jesus Christ. Again?" A voice mumbled from his side and Collings looked over to see Doc
Fenton standing beside him, shaking his head at the girl in a way that suggested she was wearing
on his every last nerve.
Doc Fenton wasn't what you expected from a medical examiner. First, he was relatively
young, somewhere in his mid-thirties. He was also a good-looking man- tall and fit with dark
hair and dark blue eyes. Under his lab coat, he had on black slacks, a fitted dark gray dress shirt,
and shiny black shoes. Collings thought he preferred Doc Green, the man Fenton replaced two
years back, with his thin graying hair, fat face, drab, bleach-faded blue scrubs, and sensible
orthotic shoes.
"Ali relax," Fenton said, his tone at once frustrated and resigned. "You're going to cut
yourself again," he reminded her as the blade to a scalpel narrowly missed getting grabbed.
"Sorry, detectives," Ali said, piling everything onto the tray and lifting it off the cart. She
gave them a wobbly, insecure smile. "Didn't mean to paint this place in a bad light. I promise I'm
the only incompetent," she spat the word, looking at Doc Fenton like maybe that was a word he
used to describe her, "one here. I'll just go get these sterilized again and get out of your hair."
Collings gave Fenton a smile, gesturing toward his own new blood, showing he understood
what it was like. "She talks to the bodies," Fenton shared, shaking his head, but Collings was
sure he saw a bit of a smile before the doc turned away. "Alright so Lex Keith," he said,
sounding all-business again as he walked over to one of the fridges, pulling the handle, then
dragging out the tray. "He's not going to vomit is he?" he asked Collings, jerking his head to
Marco.
"We'll see," Collings said on a shrug.
"It's not pretty."
"They never are," Collings said as Doc Fenton pulled the sheet. "Christ," Collings hissed,
shaking his head.
Fenton was right; it wasn't pretty.
It was the absolute definition of 'overkill'. Someone didn't just want to take out Keith, they
wanted to make him suffer. His chest was hacked open, marks covered almost every inch of him,
looking like he had been clawed. The heart that should have been connected with tubes and shit
was completely separated from the rest of his chest... like it had been torn out.
"Looks like he was mauled by dogs," the new blood said.
Collings shook his head. "No. Not a dog... Wolf."
"We don't have wolves around here," Doc Fenton said, shaking his head.
Collings' lips curved up, but he stayed silent.
Oh, they had a Wolf alright.
 EIGHTEEN

Janie

I heard him rummaging around. From the tentativeness of his footsteps, I imagined he was
trying to do so quietly. But, well, a man his size could never really be quiet. When I forced my
eyes open, he was leaning down and tying his boots.
"Why do you always sneak out when I'm sleeping?" I demanded, still half asleep but always
ready for a fight.
"Never sleep. Not waking you."
That was nice. Considerate. But still.
"Why don't you leave a note?"
"You want notes?"
"They'd be nice. Save me from all the 'dead in a ditch' thoughts, y'know?"
He gave me a lip twitched and moved over toward the kitchen, grabbing a pen and a pad
and scribbling.
"I didn't mean now. I'm awake now. You can just tell me." God, he was so dense sometimes.
"Wanted notes, got a note," he said, moving to the bed and placing the note on the
nightstand.
I wasn't positive, but I was pretty sure he was fucking with me at that point. Humoring him,
I picked up the note. "You're going to the laundromat?"
"That's what it says." He lumbered over to where he had a giant bag stacked beside the door
and hauled it up.
The next words were out of my mouth before I could temper how desperate they sounded.
"Can I come?"
"Like that?" he asked, a wicked grin pulling at his lips and I realized I was sitting up in bed,
sheet pooled around my waist, shirtless.
I rolled my eyes, snatching up the sheet and holding it to my chest. "Real mature. No not
like this. I'll put on my..."
"In here," he said, jerking the bag up.
"I'll figure something out," I said, pulling the sheet with me as I climbed out of the bed. I
couldn't exactly wear his tee out in public. But maybe if I took his flannel and belted it so it
looked like a dress? That could work. I moved toward the hook by the door, snatching the flannel
off. "What?" I asked when Wolf just stood there staring at me, brows drawn together.
"Sheet."
"What about the sheet?" I asked, looking up at him.
"Fine naked last night."
He wasn't wrong. After we had had sex, we had both stayed on top of the blankets, both
gloriously naked, me babbling, him giving me his usual short answers. Occasionally, his hand
would move over and drift across my belly, down my thigh, over my breasts. But it was chaste,
like he was just trying to get to know every inch.
I hadn't ever been a particularly insecure woman. We had very little privacy at Hailstorm.
I'd seen Lo naked more times than I could count and she could say the same of me. Besides, I
didn't really have all that much going on body-part wise. I liked how I looked, but I was flat and
boyish, straight up and down. There didn't seem to be much to be insecure about to be honest.
 "That was last night," I said to cover my own confusion at my actions. "This is this
morning."
To that, I got an exaggerated eye roll. His arm moved out and snagged the tuck I had made
above my chest and pulled it free. The sheet pooled to the floor. "Better," he said with a nod.
"I needed to put this on anyway," I said with a chin lift as I slipped my arms into the flannel.
He wasn't going to get a rise out of me over that. Nope. No way. And I didn't feel a pleasant
flush of warmth as his eyes took me in hungrily as I buttoned up his shirt. "Do you have a belt?"
I asked, expecting an immediate yes as I cinched in the waist.
"Got rope."
I looked up, fighting a smile. "You can't be serious," I said, shaking my head. He shrugged a
shoulder and then, well, he got me some rope.
It wasn't high fashion, but it didn't look as absurd as it sounded either.
So off to the laundromat we went.
See, here's the thing: I'd never been to such a place before. Growing up, we had our own
machines and at Hailstorm, the girls co-opted their own set separate from the guys too. So I had
never been introduced to the washer and dryer-lined walls and the white folding tables down the
center. I use the word "white" loosely here because there was brown stuff of indeterminate
origins in the crevices. Why? I couldn't tell you because they were for folding the clothes, you
know... after they had been cleaned. At a machine in the center, a woman with a baby in a sling
was hauling crib sheets into the washer with a huge yellow stain in the center. Now, I'm no baby
expert, but I knew a piss stain when I saw one.
Wolf hauled the bag up into a metal cart and moved toward a washer close to the door,
looking over his shoulder at me because he had barked something about quarters to me as we
walked in which I promptly forgot all about because I had spotted two dudes in the back corner
doing a hand-off. Meaning... a drug deal. In broad daylight. In a laundromat.
"What's with the look?" he asked, head cocked to the side.
I wasn't aware I had a look, but given the level of disgust I was feeling, I imagined that was
true. I also imagined said look intensified when I turned to him, holding up a hand. "You are not
putting my clothes in that machine," I declared, making his brows raise and his lips twitch.
"This'll be good."
"Wolf that lady just put pee-stained sheets in that machine. I don't even want to think about
how many different bodily fluids are floating around inside that washer when you turn it on."
"It's a washing machine."
"Yeah."
"Self cleaning."
"If we're following that logic. You know dishwashers?"
"Yeah," he nodded, starting to look genuinely amused.
"Well one could say they're self-cleaning, right?"
"Yep."
"Then how come you're supposed to clean it with vinegar and baking soda once a month?
Huh?" I pressed when he didn't answer. "How much do you want to bet the owner of this place
doesn't bother running empty cycles with bleach to clean these cesspools out?"
Wolf exhaled on what was almost a laugh. "This a big deal?"
I pursed my lips. "I'm pretty sure I don't want to be wearing clothes with leftover pee and
god-knows what else on them."
Wolf nodded, grabbing the bag and hauling it over his shoulder as he made his way to the
door.
"Um... where are we going?" I asked as he tossed the bag into his truck out front.
"Buy a washer," he said, going to his side of the truck and climbing in.
So yeah... then we went to buy a washer.

"Janie..."
"I'm just saying... you're a big bad biker dude and your clothes are probably covered in
grease and blood more often than they're not. Do you really want a machine that you can't use the
extra strength, super sudsy laundry detergent with?"
"It's bigger."
"Yeah well maybe you'll just have to do a few more loads."
The salesman stood there, stoically silent, hopefully taking my "grease and blood" comment
with a grain of salt. But if he did, he was a fucking idiot. This was Navesink Bank, if we were
talking about blood, we didn't mean from falling down and skinning a knee.
"It's not the washing machine's fault that one pair of your pants take up as much space as
three pairs for a normal person," I added when he remained silent and the salesman checked his
cell discreetly. To his credit, he didn't even look uncomfortable. I guess people fought a lot in the
appliance department.
Wolf sighed, slamming his big fist down on the machine I picked. "This one," he said,
making the salesman jump. "This too," he said, hitting the dryer.
"Great, sir. Now would you like us to deliver and set everything up for..."
"No."
I looked at Wolf's profile and felt my own lips twitching. To the salesman or anyone else,
his no just sounded like a no, but to me, I heard more. I heard- no, I have a huge truck so I don't
need it delivered; I also heard- no, I don't need you to set it up. I'm a man who knows how to do
manly things like that.
"If you can just bring it to the back, we can load it into the truck," I supplied, giving the
salesman what I hoped was a sweet smile.
"Sure thing. We can just ring you up back here..."
So a washing machine, a dryer, two gallons of extra strength, super sudsy laundry detergent,
and a laundry basket later, we made our way back to the cabin. I was still a little jazzed up that
he had chosen the machine I suggested and even more jazzed at the idea of getting to watch him
set said machine up. If there was one thing that was guaranteed to be sexy to watch a man do, it
was pretty much anything that involved tools.
"Where are you going?" I asked as he drove past the cabin and into the woods.
"Shed."
"The shed?" I yelped, thinking of the little shoebox of a room where he had been shoved
when he was all nutso. "How can you hook them up in the shed? There's... nothing in there."
"Got electric. Got plumbing."
"There were no lights and no bathroom!" To this I got a shrug. "So you're telling me that
you built it, plumbed it and ran electrical but somehow forgot to put in a toilet and a lamp?"
"Something like that."
I shook my head, settling back against my seat. Okay so maybe the plumbing thing made
sense. He was a guy after all; the world was his urinal. But why not put some lights up? Maybe
he just never spent any time there because it was so far away from...
"Wolf, you do realize how long a walk the shed is from the house, right?"
 "Yep."
"So you plan to just trudge through these woods with a laundry basket all through the dead
of winter... even when there is a foot of snow on the ground?"
"Nope."
"What do you mean 'nope'?"
"Not me, you."
I clicked off my belt and turned fully toward him. "I'm sorry... what?"
"I cook. You got laundry."
Well then. That was kind of... fair. Except... "Yeah that would work if you had to you
know... trudge a mile through the woods holding a turkey and a bag of potatoes to get to the
kitchen."
Wolf pulled off beside the shed, cutting the engine, and hopping out. I hopped out too,
much less easily given my height, stumbling slightly until I righted myself. "Is this some kind of
punishment for throwing a fit about the laundromat?" I pressed as he hopped up into the bed to
get the climbing dolly we had rented at the home improvement store on the way back.
"No," he said, rolling the dolly toward the boxes.
I wanted to follow him up, but there was no way I could get into the bed without flashing
him. And I wasn't wearing panties. I had tried to get him to stop off at my car so I could at least
grab a bag with some clothes in it. For whatever reason, he refused. And unlike the argument
about the washing machine, he did not bend.
I watched as he got the first box on the dolly and let the awesome contraption do its job and
lower down to the ground. He brought it into the shed and came back out for the other. When he
got it down, I moved to fall into step beside him. But then he turned, grabbed me at the hips,
hauled me up onto the open truck bed and put me there.
"Stay."
"Stay?" I sputtered, slapping at his hands. "I'm not a fucking dog, Wolf."
"Need to work."
"Yeah, I know. I can help. I know all about tools. I can like... hand you stuff."
"Need quiet."
"I can be quiet." He gave me a look, the side of his lips turned up slightly in a mocking way.
"Alright, fine. I haven't given you a lot of reason to believe I can, but I can. I swear."
To that I got a chin jerk which I took for permission to enter (as if I would have stayed out
regardless) and followed him in.
Wolf didn't want tools handed to him. He wanted me to sit down on the discarded washer
box and keep my mouth shut. And I had a point to prove so even though after almost two hours
of sitting there, I kept my thoughts and opinions to myself though I was pretty sure he'd have had
an easier time at one point if he used pipe wrench pliers instead of an adjustable wrench. But that
was just me.
"Done," he said suddenly, making me start. I hadn't been sleeping, but I hadn't exactly been
fully conscious either. I pulled my legs up under me and got to my feet. The washing machine
was in the process of filling and the dryer was vibrating gently as it ran through an empty cycle.
"Awesome. It's a shame it's not going to get any use December through February."
Wolf snorted, reaching for my hips, sinking in hard, and hauling me off my feet. I made
some sort of gasp/shriek hybrid, unaccustomed to dangling in the air, until he dropped me down
on top of the dryer. I barely got a second to interpret the look in his eyes until he moved inward,
pressing into my knees until they parted around his body and he pushed in close.
 "What are you..." I started then trailed off as his hand went around the back of my neck hard
as his mouth crashed down on mine. I heard a groan escape me, muffled by his lips on mine.
There was no control in him, none of his usual tentativeness, giving me space to pull away. This
was consumption; he was devouring me. His free hand went between us as his tongue teased
mine, stroking up my slit and finding me already wet from the surprise, his lack of restraint, and
maybe a little bit because of the vibrating going on beneath me. His fingers slipped inside.
My legs tightened around him as his finger curled upward and stroked over my G-spot. His
lips ripped from mine, his heavy lidded eyes holding mine as his finger raked over the spot
relentlessly, the sensation almost overwhelming, making me tighten around him and rake my
hands down his arms.
"Wanna fuck you," he said, sending a shock through my body as his thumb brushed my clit.
"Okay," I gasped, needing that like I needed to take my next breath. I was mindless with the
urge for fulfillment.
"Sure?"
"Sure," I agreed, letting out a loud whimper when his fingers moved away from me.
Wolf reached behind him, grabbing his wallet, and pulling out a condom. He made short
work of removing his pants and protecting us. His hands gripped my hips, dragging me forward
so quickly I squealed, grabbing the sides of the dryer, worried I would fall even with his body
pressing against the front of the machine.
"Ain't gonna be gentle," he warned, his voice rougher than I had ever heard it, the need I
sensed there sending a shiver of desire through me.
"I don't care. I just need you," I said, grabbing his arms.
"'Kay," he said and then he was inside me, hard, to the root. My head fell forward onto his
chest on a cry. "You good?"
"Doesn't even cover it," I gasped as he withdrew, causing my body to clamp down tight,
trying to keep him inside. Then he was. It wasn't fast, but it was hard, each thrust making my
entire body jolt. Wolf's hands went behind my knees, hauling them up, and placing my feet on
the edge of the dryer, spread wide for him. Then my hands were no longer on his arms, but
around his neck, holding on as he picked up speed, threatening to send me flying with each
thrust.
This was something new, something completely immersive. Every nerve ending felt
hypersensitive, tuned in to the barest of touches, like the way his ragged breath rushed over my
cheek and neck and how his fingers dug in hard- one at my knee, the other at my hip. My heart
slammed, my skin heated, and my breath got completely caught deep in my chest, leaving me
choking out airlessly. Where I was strangled silent, Wolf was letting out growling huffs as he
buried deep and jerked upward, hitting a delicious spot I was pretty sure there wasn't even a
name for.
Just when I was sure it wasn't going to happen, his hand released my knee and his fingers
went between us, creating firm pressure against my clit. With each thrust, his finger hit me again
and in seconds, I felt myself clamping down hard as I teetered on the edge before crashing over.
Hard. Viciously. My air came back to me in a rush and I cried out his name, burying my face in
his neck as my body, head to toe, started shaking.
"Fuck," Wolf cursed, planting to the hilt and jerking hard as he came.
The aftershocks coursed through me, my body feeling completely overwhelmed. A laugh
welled up and escaped. "I think I like not-gentle," I told his neck, placing a kiss there in an
intimate, sweet gesture that never felt natural to me.
 "Like it any way with you."
It wasn't poetry.
But it melted me.
I pushed back slightly, wincing as I moved my legs out of their awkward position. "Ow ow
ow," I grumbled as they fell numbly down.
Wolf chuckled, reaching down and rubbing my calves roughly, working out the soreness.
"Forgot you're delicate."
If there was one thing he could have said to break through my sex-sated daze, that was it.
"I'm not delicate!" I snapped, slamming a hand down on his chest.
"Tiny."
"That doesn't mean I'm delicate. Anyone would have sore legs after being in that position
while getting fucked pretty hard."
"Pretty hard?" he asked, head tilting to the side.
"Figured you were still holding back."
"Could break you."
"Is that a challenge?"
"Want it harder, ask," he said simply and I realized with a swelling feeling in my chest, that
that was what I liked best about Wolf. It was always that simple. Wolf had no secret
expectations, no hidden agenda, no reason to lie or evade or make things difficult. He might have
been the least loquacious person I had ever come across, but he was also one of the most self-
realized as well.
It was right that second, him still buried inside me, the sweat on our bodies still drying, that
I realized he wasn't just under my skin. He had gotten into my heart as well.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
My body must have tightened because Wolf pulled back. "Gonna cry again?" he teased in a
way that managed to actually sound sweet. And for a second, I was genuinely worried I would.
Then I pulled my shit together and blinked that nonsense back.
"No," I said, rolling my eyes for good measure.
"Woman..."
"I'm fine."
"Fine is never fine."
"Let it go."
"No."
"Augh!" I growled, shoving at his chest with everything in me. But, well, he was like hitting
a brick wall.
"Got all day."
"I like you, alright? Jeez!"
His face softened, his eyes went all liquid. His hand moved up to brush along my cheek.
"Like you too, Janie."
My belly fluttered and the gooey thing happened again.
And right then I realized that what I thought was impossible was actually possible.
And for a moment, the Earth started to revolve around the moon.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't last.
Not even through the night.
 NINETEEN

Janie

The lights woke me up.

Blue and red, meaning only one thing.
All I could think as I shoved Wolf hard was: thank God I cleaned up all the evidence in the
house and truck. That being said, who knows what was left at the scene. While I'm sure Reign
and the guys had tried to clean some of it up, they probably weren't quite as good at it as
Hailstorm was.
Wolf got up slowly, seeming to take the invasion with the ease he took everything as I fell
over my own feet to get my clothes on. By the time they were slamming on the door, Wolf was
fully dressed, boots and all, and I was still fumbling to drag a shirt on. Ignoring the knocking, he
walked over to me, grabbed the shirt, rolled it up, and slipped it over my head.
"Relax," he said, giving me a look that was both sweet and firm, that said "everything is
going to be okay" as well as "pull your shit together". I sucked in a breath, giving him a nod as I
put my arms through the holes.
Seeing me fully dressed, he moved toward the door and pulled it open.
And there was a very resigned, tired looking Detective Collings and his new blood Marco
who Collings' made no attempt to hide his distaste for. Marco seemed energetic, excited to be at
Wolf's door, the testosterone practically stinking up the air. "Wolf Rostov?" Marco said, his
voice filled with obnoxious authority from someone who would probably wet himself if someone
shot at him. "We have some questions for you regarding the murder of Lex Keith."
Ten minutes later, Wolf was on the way to the station with an apologetic looking Collings
and a triumphant looking Marco.
I flew back into the cabin, slipping into my boots, tucking Wolf's giant shirt into my pants,
grabbing his cell and the keys to the truck and hitting the road.
Going down the drive, I scrolled through Wolf's contacts and found Cash. "Better be good,
Wolf," Cash's groggy voice met my ear.
"Cash it's Janie. Collings and Marco just took Wolf to the station for questioning."
"What!" It wasn't a question, it was an explosion. And, coming from someone as calm and
carefree as Cash, it was jarring.
"I don't know if they actually have anything, but I'm on my way there to see."
"Alright, kid. Thanks. I'm gonna call Reign then I'll be there myself."
"Okay, see you then," I said, tossing the phone onto the passenger and slipping on my belt
as I pulled onto the main drag. I realized I was driving without my license and laughed
humorlessly at the idea of getting myself locked up as well.
I'd been in the police station more than a few times in my life. In fact, most of the times I
was inside it, I was in one of those interrogation rooms Wolf was nestled away in. Hailstorm
generally managed to stay under the radar most of the time and Lo greased a fair amount of
palms to look the other way, but that didn't mean we weren't hauled in on occasion and asked
questions to keep up appearances. It was a particular joy of mine to screw with the detectives,
their measly interrogation training paling in comparison to my extensive counter-interrogation
training.
I sat down on the metal chairs by reception, smiling a little at the thought of how hard it
must be to try to interrogate Wolf. Talk about frustrating. He barely spoke when he wanted to. I
couldn't imagine the kind of stoic silence he could pull off when he was trying to be quiet.
Cash breezed in twenty minutes later, Reign at his side, both looking fully awake and
dressed in jeans, Cash in a white shirt, Reign in black, neither wearing cuts, but still both
extremely intimidating with their mouths set in hard lines.
"Hey kid," Cash said, wrapping a arm around my waist and leaning down to plant a kiss on
the top of my head.
"Any word?" Reign asked. I shook my head. "Babe, forgot to ask. After you got him
showered, did you happen to..."
"It's handled," I said with finality.
"Barbie, baby," Cash called, moving away from me and giving the woman at reception a
warm smile. A woman, I might add, whose name tag clearly said Barbara. She was past middle-
aged and looked like she had never smiled a day in her life so I imagined Cash's knowledge of
her must have come from one too many trips into the station, not because of a friendship or
anything more.
"What do you want, Cash?" she asked in a firm voice, but her eyes were dancing. She had a
soft spot for Cash. Who wouldn't?
"Care to scrounge up three cups of that toxic sludge you guys pass off as coffee?"
She shook her head, sighing in a way that made her ample bosom heave under her deep blue
button-up blouse. "Fine, but you're getting it black."
"You're an angel among mere women," Cash gushed and I could have sworn I saw the
woman blushing as she walked away.
"You're disgusting," I said with an eye roll and a lip twitch. "Does Lo know what a
shameless flirt you are?"
"Why do you think she fell for me in the first place?"
I snorted. "If you think she fell for some pet names and flattery, you don't know her at all."
"I know it wasn't that. It was my hot bod."
And to that, I laughed, right there in the middle of a police station, my stomach in knots and
almost nauseated with worry, I laughed.
"Yeah," I agreed, shaking my head, "that must be it."
Barbara came back with the coffee that was very much the consistency and taste of toxic
sludge and we all took chairs and waited in silence. It was a good hour later, coffee cups
disposed of and a stern looking male took over at the front desk, taking away our access to
refills, when the door to an interrogation room opened.
All three of us sprang to our feet in unison as Marco walked out, an arm on the forearm of
Wolf. My eyes stayed there for a split second before I realized they had cuffed him. They cuffed
him.
I sprang forward without thinking. "You're arresting him!" I screamed, making the chatter in
the station silence immediately. "You can't be fucking serious, Collings!" I accused, making my
way across the room, knocking over chairs in my way to get to the almost repentant-looking
Collings. "What could you possibly have..."
"Janie," Wolf's voice clipped, drawing my full attention. "Pull it together," he said with a
soft look that I imagined was supposed to be reassuring. But there was no way to calm me down
when he was being arrested for freaking murder! Because of me! "Reign," Wolf said, jerking his
chin and I felt my waist tagged by a strong arm, almost pulling me off my feet as I collided back
into a broad chest.
 "Take your fucking hand off me or I swear to Christ you will lose a dangling bit you hold
very dear to you," I warned, arching my arm back so I could elbow him hard in the gut. His air
whooshed out, but his arm only got tighter.
"Take her home," Wolf said, turning away from me.
"Wolf you..." but he wasn't turning back to me. In a few seconds, he disappeared behind a
locked door.
"You listen to me you son of a bitch," I seethed at Collings, "if you don't get this dropped..."
"Careful," Collings broke in, but not in the cocky way most cops would. It was almost soft,
understanding. "Don't want to say anything in here you can't take back." He turned his attention
to Reign. "Bail hearing will be set in the morning. There's nothing you can do here tonight. Do
what the man wanted, take his woman home."
With that, Collings turned and left us standing there.
"Come on, kid," Cash said, reaching for my hand as Reign set me back down. "I'll take you
back to Hailstorm. You and Lo can try to..."
"I'm going back to the cabin," I growled, ripping my hand from his and charging out of the
building before I could lose my shit. I was seconds from threatening Collings in there, from
hauling off and punching him. Thank god Wolf had the presence of mind to react and get Reign
to rein me in.
Self control, it was something I needed to learn and fast.

No bail was set. I guess when you were being charged with three counts of first degree
murder and said murders were horrifically violent, the judge didn't really think it would look
good to set him back on the streets, no matter how much Henchmen money lined his pocket from
day to day.
I drove Wolf's truck with Harley and Chopper to the docks where my getaway car was
parked, switching their spots and forcing the dogs to huddle together in the much smaller space
of my little sedan.
I parked out front of The Henchmen compound's gates, letting the dogs out, grabbing a
couple bags of my shit, and waiting for the curious Repo to nod at the boy at the gates to open it.
Everything that happened after this point would heretofore be known as "Janie's Reign of
Terror" or, the slightly more colloquial, "You Don't Fucking Mess With What's Mine, Mother
Fuckers".
I stormed into the compound, looking for Reign and finding him immediately standing
beside the bar.
"I was the one who bombed your compound," I declared, sensing every biker in the room
tensing. "Get over it," I added with a haughty chin raise.
"And why the fuck would I do that, babe?" Reign asked, unflappable even facing unsettling
news. He really was a good prez.
"Because I am going to get you your road captain back," I declared, ripping my laptop out
of my messenger bag as I swiped everything off the coffee table, sending it flying to the floor as
I propped my laptop up. "Besides, that shed was full of years of evidence of exactly how many
murders, Reign? Five? Eight? On top of countless beatings. You should be thanking me for
getting rid of that shit. Here," I said to a biker on the couch, tossing him Wolf's keys. "Wolf's
truck is parked down at the docks. Get it and bring it here. And you," I said to another guy
standing close by, "go get whatever the heck Wolf's hell beasts will need to hold them over for a
few days."
Both men paused, but moved to do what they were told.
"Babe, you can't just come into my compound barking out orders, trying to control the
place."
"Really? 'Cause it looks like I did just that."
"What do you need, kid?" Cash asked. Reign gave him a hard look and Cash held up his
hands, palms out. "Bro, if there's one thing I know about women, and I know a fuckuva lot about
women," he added with a wink toward me, "it's that when one of them is on a mission, you don't
stand in their fucking way. You fall into step or you get plowed over."
Reign sighed, shaking his head. "What's the plan, babe?"
"Nothing I can tell you about. Don't need anyone else getting locked up."
"Janie..."
"Coffee. Silence," I barked, scrolling into the internet radio station and blaring the metal.
Hours passed as I hacked into the NBPD database, figuring out who was on the case and
what evidence they had. It was a real clusterfuck weighing heavily on speculation like the
approximate weight and shoe size of the person whose boot print they found on the scene.
Luckily for me, Wolf must have taken the clothes and boots I had left in bleach and disposed of
them. He wasn't walking into the god damn police station with evidence on his feet.
Collings clearly wanted nothing to do with the case if the brushed over reports he filed had
anything to say. His new partner, though, was a problem. Marco was a wild card. He was too
fresh to Navesink Bank. He didn't get his ass handed to him by one of the syndicates yet. He
didn't live in fear of what might happen to him. He also didn't accept the bribes I knew Lex and
Richard Lyon had tried to throw at him. He was fresh out of the academy and looking for his first
big bust.
Never mind that one bad guy taking out the worst bad guy I had ever met wouldn't exactly
make for a good news story. No one would mourn Lex Keith's death. People wouldn't be rallying
behind the force when they realized Wolf took out a serial rapist with two dozen unfiled rape kits
sitting in storage in the NBPD database, "lost" because of Lex's financial contribution to the right
file clerks and detectives.
Yeah, well, those rape kits suddenly found themselves on Collings' desk.
He wasn't exactly a pillar of humanity, but the man had a daughter that was just starting
college. If there was ever a time when the idea of rape hung heavily on a dad's (especially a cop
dad's) mind, it was when their little girls were away from home for the first time in a place where
he knew rape was as rampant as STDs and Ritalin-fueled study sessions. He couldn't see all
those files of rape victims on his desk and not picture his own daughter, not feel the need to give
those women justice.
There was no punishing Lex Keith post-mortem, but it would make the news. It would
overshadow the story of Lex's killer. Or, more likely depending on the newscaster, it could vilify
Lex further and make his murderer suddenly a citizen-backed vigilante.
There was no way to guarantee that Collings wouldn't process the kits without making it
public, but there was a way to make sure it did get out.
On a deep breath that felt like acid fog, I opened up the forum that Alex had created when
she was trying to get help neutralizing Lex. I took the images, blurring the women's faces, almost
gagging as I did so to my own, and leaving Lex and his men's faces for all the world to see. Then
I packaged them up with the information about the unprocessed rape kits and shot it all off to
every news station in the state. A big juicy story wrapped in a big red bow. They would go
fucking nuts tearing down the NBPD.
I shot off an untraceable email to Collings.

Maybe you never wanted a war, but now you got one. Process those rape kits before the five
o'clock news or you'll regret it. You have one chance to make this right, Collings. You've kept
your pockets clean and your head down to what is going on around you. I respected you until
you took down a man who was righting a wrong you and your station overlooked for years as
endless piles of women suffered for your cowardice.
Those rape kits managed to get 'lost' for years. I think a little boot print could easily get
accidentally deleted, don't you?
Do the right thing.

"You think threatening a cop is the best move?" Repo asked, sitting down beside me and
shamelessly reading what I was typing.
"I think Collings understands how things work around here. I think he hates his job and
what it has made him."
"What has it made him?"
"Weak." I turned my head to look at him fully. "And if there is one thing a once-alpha man
hates to be, it's weak. He will finally get his head out of his ass and do something for once,
something that matters. Or he can get his ass swept up in the cleanse when Internal Affairs starts
smelling the shit festering inside the NBPD."
"You realize you are erasing the leverage The Henchmen, Mallicks, Lyon, and Hailstorm
had against imprisonment?"
I could see the tension in Repo, the barely repressed anger. He was a loose cannon like me
when he was riled and he was trying like hell to hold onto his calm. Repo was as loyal as a man
came and when he saw someone threatening the safety of his brothers, he felt the need to
intervene.
I reached out and hit the send button on the email. "It's done. You can be mad at me. You
can scream at me. But we both know you can't lay a hand on me. I belong to your road captain.
Your prez and vice like me. It would be the ultimate betrayal to fuck with me right now Repo."
"I'd never put a fucking hand on you," he said, his face twisting up like he was revolted at
the idea. "I don't hit women."
"Good then we understand each other."
"Hardly."
"Look," I said, sighing. "Worst case, IA comes in and wipes out the force, right? They all
get replaced with another batch of cops and detectives. I guarantee you they will be just as easy
to turn as this last batch was. There's also the chance that there will be pressure on IA to sweep
this under the rug, blame it on one dirty cop and let it go. From what I know, this goes way past
the force. It goes up to judges. It goes to juries. It goes to senators and governors. They start
pulling at the stray thread, the entire state will unravel. The jury tampering alone... people sent
away or let off based on a tainted jury? Any idea what a mess that is?"
"You better be right, Jstorm," Repo said, leaving abruptly, his every step weighted with his
anger.
To be perfectly honest... I wasn't sure I was right. I didn't know that this would work. All I
knew was I couldn't sit on my hands as the force and the news tried to paint Wolf as a bad guy.
Especially when he had killed Lex for me, to make me feel safe again, to give me peace of mind.
He did it for me. And he was being punished for that.
Not on my fucking watch. No sir, no way.
"Reign," I called, looking up into the room to find him talking with Cash.
"Yeah babe?"
"Most brutal fuck in the area who will work with me?" I asked.
Reign and Cash shared a look.
"Eli Mallick."
"Yeah but will his rage-out be controllable?" I asked, knowing all about Eli. The Mallicks, a
family of loan sharks from the dad to the five sons, had a reputation for ruthlessness. You missed
your payment, you got a warning. You missed it again, you got a visit from Shane or Mark or
Ryan. You missed it again... that was when Eli darkened your door. And if you got some kind of
false sense of security because you already got visited by one of the other Mallicks and were able
to recover after some stitches or a knee replacement, well, you were in for a rude awakening
when Eli set his sights on you.
Many said Eli was the most brutal of the Mallicks because he was the one with the
temperament least meant for a life of violence. He was an artist, a gentle soul. But Charlie and
Helen Mallick raised their boys to settle their disputes with their fists, with one another, with the
kids on the playground. Violence was a quality every human possessed, buried deeper in some,
almost never to surface. But it was a quality the Mallicks dug out of their sons, brushed off, and
polished, making them ruthless knee-cap breakers, making them salivate for blood the way
Pavlov's dogs did for a bell.
"That's the thing, kid," Cash said, shrugging. "He doesn't rage-out. He goes in so cold it's
glacial. Get in his way, get in his face and you'll get his attention. He'll stop. He's not like Wolf."
"Alright," I said, slamming my laptop closed. "Time to go see a man about an old school ass
kicking."
"Babe, be smart about..."
"About getting someone out of jail who killed the man who tortured me for sixteen days?" I
spat, my eyes going huge at what I had just admitted, not just to Reign and Cash, but to a whole
compound full of bikers. Shit.
"Kid..." Cash said, his voice sad.
Reign stayed silent, but his eyes spoke a thousand words. They wouldn't stand in my way.
They wouldn't say another word. They would let me do what I needed to do.
"Jstorm," Repo's voice called and I jerked before I turned to see him walking toward me, all
the anger gone, his light eyes on me. "I'll take you to Chaz's."
Great. I had their sympathy. Exactly what I never wanted.
"Look," I said moving back a step so I could address the whole room. "I don't need any of
your fucking pity, do you understand me? Pity is for victims. I am not a victim. I'm the badass
bitch who stormed into your compound and got you jumping to follow orders. I'm the woman
who is going to get your road captain off on three counts of murder. So take those sad looks and
shove them up your asses. I don't need that shit. I need..."
"A ride to Chaz's," Repo broke in, voice calm, hands in pockets. "So quit your bitching and
get your pretty ass in my car before I throw you in there."
Well then.
Normally, I'd want to gut him for the strong sexist undertone in that statement, but it was
better than the pity and he was giving me what I wanted. But still... I couldn't just let it slide now,
could I?
"Threaten to throw my ass anywhere again and I will find one of those beloved cars of
yours and tear out all her guts, then set the bitch on fire, got it?"
"Low blow," Repo said, holding his gut, but giving me a smile. "I got it, Jstorm. Let's get
going. Wolf doesn't like being locked up. We're wasting time standing here..."
"Clucking like a couple hens," I supplied, grabbed my bag, and took off outside.
I had a man to see about a good old fashioned passionate ass-kicking.
 Twenty

Janie

Chaz's was a watering hole for the local bikers as evidenced by the half dozen chrome
beauties parked out front at any time. The building was low and brick with a simple sign
displaying the name. Nothing to write home about.
I parked Repo's obnoxious bright green old school muscle car. He had about six of various
kinds of said cars that he was currently working on in the field behind the compound. Once they
were finished, he lost interest in them and ended up selling them. Apparently, he made a pretty
penny doing so.
"Try to tone down the 'tude in here," Repo said, grabbing the door handle at the same time
as me and giving me a look until I let my hand drop and he could pull it open.
"Why? I know Helen Mallick, she's a pretty headstrong woman herself."
"There's headstrong women and there's homicidal, batshit crazy chicks. Today, honey,
you're the latter of the two."
"Ew," I said, looking over my shoulder at him. "Don't call me honey, honey."
The inside of Chaz's was more upscale than the outside, thanks to Chaz's son Hunter who no
longer worked for his dad. He got out a couple years ago, choosing instead to spend his life
doing tattoos and making furniture in his spare time. He married a woman named Fiona who ran
a phone sex center in town and they had settled down and started a family.
Everything inside was dark, but in a sophisticated, not seedy way. To the right was a bar
and a pool table. To the left and back, were tables and booths.
At one of those tables, as was usual, sat Charlie Mallick and his son Ryan. Now there's
something everyone knows about the Mallicks, aside from them being trouble with a capital T,
and that was that they were all hot. As in hot. Each and every one of them was a towering wall of
muscle and tattoos. Each of them had chiseled, masculine faces and midnight black hair that just
begged you to run your fingers through it. On top of that, as if that wasn't enough, they all had
these impossibly light, almost see-through blue eyes. That against the dark of their black lashes
and brows... yeah... they were all panty-droppers to be sure.
Charlie was a perfect example of what all his sons would one day look like, still tall and
strong and proud, his face no less striking with a few creases near his eyes, his hair no less
touchable with a trace of gray at his temples.
"Hailstorm and The Henchmen today," Charlie said, tilting his head to the side. "You two
make a good couple."
I made a noise of disgust and Repo let out a vehement 'no' at the same time. "Hey," I said,
lowering my eyes at him. "That was rude."
"And your ick sound wasn't?" he countered.
"Passion makes for a good relationship," Charlie pressed kindly, but it hadn't escaped my
notice that his other sons had moved in from wherever they had been, like they needed to present
a strong front against us.
"She's Wolf's," Repo clarified and Charlie's eyes widened.
"Sorry to hear he got himself locked up, though I'm not sorry about why."
"I need to borrow your son for the day," I said, cutting through the crap.
Charlie smiled, waving a hand around him. "Which one?"
 I met Charlie's eyes and my tone got heavy. "Eli."
"Aw, girl," Charlie said, shaking his head, "I see where your mind is going. I can't say I
want to get one of mine involved though."
"If this was you, Chaz, and this was someone you loved being locked up for killing
someone who the law failed to get off the streets for years..."
"I understand how you feel, Janie dear, but you're risking one of mine getting in the same
position as your Wolf."
I sighed, looking over at Repo for a second, but seeing the TV flash with breaking news. I
felt myself smile. They weren't even waiting for five.
"Turn the volume on," I called to the bartender who immediately complied. I moved to the
side, folded my arms against my chest, and watched.
The newscasters delivered the story I spoon fed them with looks of absolute horror and I
knew they must have seen the images before they got edited for air. They saw all the gory details
that the general public could only imagine. They did exactly as I expected them to, detailing the
reign of terror Lex had inflicted on the women of Navesink Bank, covering the ineptitude of the
NBPD, then seamlessly launching into the story about Lex's violent murder, at first thought
inflicted by a wild animal, and then talking about the man who took him out. There was an image
of Wolf on his way to the court house that morning, standing flanked by two officers and a
glowing Marco, his honey-eyes looking right at the camera, his chin lifted. There wasn't a
repentant bone in his body.
The news story moved to a close, promising an investigation further into the actions of the
NBPD and I felt myself smile, wondering how hard Collings was scrambling to get those rape
kits over to the lab.
"You've been busy," Shane said, walking in from the front of the bar, leaving me to wonder
how long he had been standing there without me noticing. I was losing my touch. Shane was the
biggest of the Mallicks, tall and broad, the kind of strong that came from owning a gym and
taking liberal use of it. On his tail was his woman, Lea, who was just about the prettiest person I
had ever seen, tall and womanly, with a mass of wavy brown hair and a sharp face.
"You don't fuck with what's mine," I said, lifting my chin.
"Hate to get on your bad side," he said, giving me a wink.
"Don't need to worry about getting on her bad side," Lea said, raising a brow at him. "Right
now, you're on my bad side and, believe me, that's bad enough for you. So," Lea went on,
seamlessly losing her anger as she gave me a small smile then turned to Charlie, "what does she
want from us?"
"Eli," Shane supplied, watching me with keen eyes.
"Yes. Eli."
"For Marco," Shane went on, starting to freak me out with how easily he was reading the
situation. I never pegged him for the brightest bulb, figuring he was all brawn, no brain. I guess I
had to reconsider that stand.
"Yes," I agreed.
Lea pursed her lips for a second, then turned to Charlie in a way that tossed her hair like the
chicks in movies that I didn't think happened in real life. "If you don't let her have Eli, I will go
and kick that bastard's ass myself."
Something about the way she said it made it sound like she was capable. I made a mental
note to look into her when things finally blew over. I knew so little about Lea and how she came
to Navesink Bank. All I knew was she used to work for Fiona Mallick's phone sex business and
live in the slums, almost across the street from the Third Street gang's headquarters. Next thing
anyone knew, she and Shane were a thing, fighting and fucking and creating relationship goals
for everyone they crossed paths with.
But I could tell by the confident way she squared off with the Mallicks and the threatening
way she delivered her words, that she had a past of her own. She was, in some shape or form, a
badass bitch just like me and Summer and Lo and Alex.
"Baby..." Shane tried, his tone both sweet and sexy at once.
Seemingly completely unaffected though even I was feeling the effects a little, Lea rolled
her eyes. "Do you really think you can 'baby' me out of this? Have we met? Hi, I'm Lea and I
share your bed and your stupid warehouse apartment, and I put up with you never putting your
shoes in the fucking closet. And I never, as in ever, bend just because you turn on the charm.
That was for your little chippies before me. That shit has never worked on me."
"And don't I know it," Shane said, sighing dramatically, but he was smiling.
"For the love of God, I'll do it," Eli interrupted for the first time. All eyes swiveled in his
direction. He was a little smaller than his brothers, just as tall, but not quite as muscular. He
was... scrappy. That would be how Lo would describe him. Smaller and fast, wiry, good in a
fight because he could easily out maneuver a bigger guy. "Don't give me that look," Eli said to
his father, shaking his head. "We have two women threatening to start their own war and a good
man going to jail for killing someone one of us should have taken out five years ago. Time to get
involved, Pops, whatever the risks."
Charlie sighed, shaking his head. "Gotta do what you gotta do, E. But be smart."

With that, I got my muscle.

As soon as it was dark, it would be time to go get my man.
At this point, I know I wasn't winning any favors with people. I was planning on having one
of the very few not-crooked cop's ass kicked. It wasn't that I had no respect for law enforcement.
I did, though I found their rampant mistakes and conclusion-jumping absolutely despicable and
the amount of innocent men in jail was a statistic I could lay up at night being angry over. But
did I like that they, once in a blue moon, dragged in a wife beater and threw the book at them?
Sure. Did I like that they showed up at a car wreck and tried to save lives before EMS showed
up? Of course.
But, come on, their investigative skills were downright elementary and their holier than
thou bullshit was grating to anyone with two braincells to rub together.
Marco couldn't be swayed to accept a bribe or to leave the organizations to handle their
business like they had always done. No one had investigated when The Henchmen, Richard
Lyon, and Hailstorm took out V the year before. Because anyone with working gray matter
realized that we did the world a good deed, taking a heartless skin trader out of the game.
Whereas Collings and other members of the force managed to see a lot of gray in life, Marco saw
only black and white, only good and bad.
And, well, if it wasn't me and Eli doing it, it would be someone else introducing him to the
shades of gray. If he was particularly unlucky, it wouldn't be one of the friendleys. It would be
the Italians or the Russians. It would be the Third Street guys. It would be one of the syndicates
that didn't just want to scare him, but wanted to annihilate the threat.
Better he learn from me how things went in Navesink Bank than pay for that knowledge
with his life.
So that put us in the alley next to Marco's too ritzy apartment in a too nice part of town for a
cop salary. Eli gave me a look before he slipped into his gloves and mask. I tied my hair back
and brought up my hood, but didn't cover my face. I was going to be standing off in the distance,
keeping an eye on things, intervening only if I needed to.
"He drives a Mercedes?" Eli asked quietly as Marco pulled it into his space.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked myself, but out loud.
"Want to fall back till you know?" Eli asked, sounding deflated at the idea.
He hated the violence, but he also craved it. His body was humming with it. If I ventured a
guess, afterward, he would be in need of a hard fuck to get the feelings out of his system. Calling
him off would be like leaving him with blue balls.
"No. See what he says. Maybe he will give us something to go on. Who knows?"
Eli waited, then in a movement that was so fast I felt vertigo wash over me, he was across
the alley and on Marco.
It wasn't what I expected.
It wasn't what Eli expected either.
Marco didn't fight with the predictability of a cop, practiced moves from endless hours of
grappling. Marco fought like he was trained on the streets, not at the academy. I felt my heart
start to slam beneath my ribcage, frantic as a hummingbird's wings.
Something was off, seriously off.
Fuck.
I didn't vet him.
I just figured he was a stupid, cocky rookie.
And, well, that made me a stupid, cocky, rookie.
I started walking into the alley, wincing when Eli took a hook to the jaw. But his blood lust
was thick and he bent at the waist, running into Marco's center like a human battering ram,
slamming him up against the wall. Marco's eyes snapped up and I got a good look at him. How
had I missed the hollowness in his eyes before?
I watched as Eli finally let go of whatever control he was holding on to. One minute, Marco
was still up and fighting, looking almost cocky. The next, he was on the ground and unconscious,
Eli still pounding.
"Enough," I said, grabbing his arm before it landed another fist. "I said enough!" I yelled
when he didn't immediately back off.
His head swiveled, eyes finding me, and exhaled a ragged breath. "Right." He climbed off
of Marco's prone body, cracking his neck. "Was it just me or was something off there?"
"I need to find out who the fuck he is, because he's not just the squeaky clean cop I was
thinking."
"Fights like a street kid," Eli said, reaching up to rub his jaw through his mask. We walked
back out of the alley, Eli keeping his head ducked until we passed the last of the cameras, when
he ripped off the mask and looked over at me. "Think this is a good or bad thing for you?"
I shrugged. "Why is he so gung-ho to take down Wolf if he's crooked or connected in some
way? Is he trying to take out possible competition? If so, that's definitely a bad thing. Especially
if whoever he works for is after The Henchmen in particular. That means they want the gun
trade. The last thing this area needs is another war over the gun trade. Last time it was
disastrous," I said, thinking of Reign and Cash's dad and half of the other members getting killed
or locked away. In the end, they managed to push out the competition, but I wasn't sure if the
club had ever recovered enough to take on a new threat. They had systematically been vetting
and adding new members over the years, but their numbers were still depleted, Reign being
much more particular in the kinds of members he would accept.
"He saw your face," Eli reminded me as we closed in on his car, parked several blocks
away. Mine was a block down a side street.
"Yeah."
"If he's connected..."
"Yeah," I agreed. I never much worried about being seen by the bad guys. It was kind of
hard to be afraid of anything when you lived at Hailstorm with dozens of other people ready to
defend you at anytime. "I'm staying at the compound until this blows over," I informed him.
"Smart move. You need anything else..." he extended and I gave him a tight smile.
"I appreciate it, Eli."
With that, I turned and jogged off down the side street, suddenly a little more paranoid than
I liked to admit. I threw myself into my car and drove onto the main street, seeing that Eli had
waited to leave until he was sure I was safe.
I was surrounded by good men, I realized with a warm feeling in my chest.
The compound was buzzing when I returned, loud music blaring, alcohol flowing, club
whores on full display. I felt my lips curl up slightly, wondering how many of them Wolf had
slept with in the past before I reminded myself that that was ridiculous. He was a man. He had a
sexual history. I couldn't be pissed about that.
"It takes some getting used to," a familiar female voice said beside me as I realized I had
been standing there staring.
I turned, taking in the long, wavy red hair, the delicate face, the big gray eyes. The last time
I had seen her, I had asked her to hold a dinner party and invite Cash, Wolf, Lo, and her father. I
didn't tell her why, just that it would help keep them safe. In a way. She fed them as I set bombs
at all their headquarters.
Summer.
She was Reign's woman.
"What does?" I asked.
"The women mostly. I mean the music and the drinking can get old, but the women... they
can eat at you. Doesn't take a genius to know our men have slept with most of them," she said,
her lip curling much the same way mine had. As she said that, my eyes landed on one of the
women in particular who whipped off her top while she sat on the lap of one of the men. Yeah
she wasn't wearing a bra. And no one else seemed the least bit phased. "Reign is faithful. Cash is
too," she added, nodding to where the two in question were sitting at the bar, chatting with a few
of the older members of the club. "But you get it, it never sits right that they are around all this."
"That why you're here?"
"No, I usually avoid coming when the women are here. I come earlier in the day and leave
before they call them in. But Reign is worried about Wolf so I thought I should be around."
While she was speaking, her eyes were on Reign, looking soft and warm. As if sensing her, he
looked over and gave her a small smile before turning back to his men. "Come on," Summer
said, tugging the sleeve of my shirt. "I'll take you to Wolf's room. I put all your stuff up there
when they started showing up," she waved a hand to the place as a whole. "They're nice guys and
all but sometimes they forget that they can't rest an open beer on a laptop."
She led me up a hallway past a dozen or so doors, some open, some closed with
unmistakable noises coming from behind them. I was hit with a stab of longing so strong it was a
wonder my legs could keep me moving forward. Summer fished a key out of her pocket and
unlocked the door. "This is yours now," she said, handing it to me as we went inside.
 The room wasn't huge and it was dominated by another giant bed like at the cabin. This one
had a black and gray plaid comforter and I felt the tears sting my eyes at seeing it. The room
smelled like him too. I had been so busy working on trying to get him free that I hadn't given
myself much time to think about him, miss him. It all hit me right then, standing in the doorway,
making my heart hurt and the air hard to breathe.
"I washed the bedding," Summer supplied, snapping me out of my sadness. "When Reign
first stuck me in his room, he didn't think twice about sleeping on the skeezy sheets. Figured I'd
save you from having to strip the bed and bear the basement."
"Thanks. Basements and me... not a good combination," I shared, surprising myself. She
had that quality though, a warmth, almost maternal, that made you want to open up to her.
She gave me a wobbly smile. "When V had me," she started, recounting the months she
spent with a local skin trader who used her as a pawn to try to get her father to let V use his
shipping containers to bring in women, "the basement was where all the beatings and...
everything took place. It took me a long time to be okay with basements too. Anyway," she said,
her tone getting cheery again, "Reign and I are two doors that way," she pointed. "Cash usually
doesn't stay here anymore. He and Lo go to his place. But if you need anything, just ask."
"Thanks Summer," I said and watched as she moved into the hall. She turned away, then
back, looking like she was fighting whether or not to say something. "Just say it."
"I'm glad he's dead," she said, shrugging. "And I'm glad you came to me for help. I know it
ended up not really being much help, but still. Everyone always turns to the men. It's nice to be
thought of."
"We girls got to stick together," I said with a tight smile.
"That's for damn sure. We're so outnumbered," she said, closing the door and making her
way back to, I imagined, her man.
I grabbed my laptop and made my way toward the bed, the sheets smelling like laundry
detergent, not autumn like Wolf, and I sighed at myself for noticing.
I could think about Wolf later.
I had work to do.
Like find out who the hell Marco, the new blood, really was.
 TWENTY-ONE

Janie

I woke up screaming.
Five seconds later, pushing my hair out of my face and adjusting to the only mildly familiar
surroundings, there was slamming on my door. My heart flew up into my throat until Repo's
smooth voice called through the door.
"Janie open up!"
I sighed, climbing out of bed in one of Wolf's tees that was discarded on the sink in the
bathroom and, unlike his bed, still smelled like him. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.
"It's..." I started, but found myself hauled up against his bare chest, one of his arms around my
hips, the other at the back of my head.
"Jesus Christ. You scared the fuck out of me," he admitted, rawness in his voice as I heard
other voices in the hall. "Fuck off, she's fine," he called to them, pushing me backward into the
bedroom and slamming the door. He let me go and I sank numbly onto the foot of the bed,
feeling both a little disoriented and thrown off by his unexpected reaction. It wasn't that I thought
Repo was a jackass (okay maybe I did a little) but I didn't think he was the kind of guy to worry
and offer hugs. "Bad dreams," he half-asked, half-declared as he leaned back against the door
and crossed his arms over his chest.
It was the first time I got a good look at him without his shirt. He had a huge chest plate that
he was working on getting colored-in. It was American traditional style, two pistols crossing
butts, facing downward surrounded by roses and vines with two sets of fishnet-clad women's legs
poking out of it. Directly above the giant piece, the word "Henchman" crossed him shoulder-to-
shoulder in a bold, black font.
"Wow. That's some good work. Did you go to Paine?" I asked, thinking of the extremely
hot light-skinned black guy who was, next to Shooter and Cash, the most charming guy I'd ever
met.
"Nah. Hunter Mallick."
"Planning on branching out?" I asked, gesturing toward his bare arms and torso.
"Eventually. So stop changing the topic, Jstorm. Bad dreams?"
"I can't imagine how they're any of your business," I countered, my head turning to the side
slightly.
"Just curious, honey. I don't sleep either. Was just seeing if I had a non-sleeping buddy
'round these parts. These fucks all pass out around three, leaving me to sit awake by myself until
they crawl back out of their rooms around ten in the morning."
"Bad dreams too?" I asked, finding myself genuinely curious. So far, aside from knowing he
worked on cars and liked pulling open doors, was loyal, and in no way shy about calling people
on their bullshit... I knew nothing about him.
"I can't imagine how they're any of your business," he threw my own words back at me with
a smirk.
"Fair enough," I said, nodding. "I need coffee."
"It's brewing," he said, turning to the door and giving me a quick view of another outlined
piece covering his whole back, something with a snake and words that weren't filled in yet. "I'll
grab a shirt, you grab pants, and I'll meet you in the kitchen. I make a mean breakfast scramble,"
he added and my empty stomach suddenly clenched painfully.
Alright. So he was loyal, a bit of a jackass, a worrier and hugger, into cars and tats, couldn't
sleep because of bad dreams, lived on caffeine, and could cook? Oh yeah, Repo and I were
gonna make good friends.
I threw on pants and shoes, tamed my hair, brushed my teeth, and made my way quietly
toward the kitchen. It was a small and square room with reasonably white tile, white cabinets,
and stainless steel appliances. There was a window overlooking the backyard over the sink and a
small gray folding table with two chairs against the wall. Nothing fancy. But then again, it was
all men that lived there. Nothing about a biker screamed 'we should put curtains on those
windows and some decorative hand towels would really spruce up the joint!'.
"Cup by the machine," Repo said, back to me, now wearing a plain white tee along with the
black sweats, standing near the stove and whipping eggs in a bowl.
I walked over to the machine and poured a cup, hauling myself up onto the counter and
watched as he chopped peppers, onions, spinach, and mushrooms and mixed them into the eggs.
"So you cook," I observed.
He gave me a smirk, looking over at me. "And you don't."
"Did he tell you that!" I yelped, starting to get annoyed but then getting crushed with a wave
of sadness.
He caught the look, letting the smirk fall. "So how is Janie's Reign of Terror going?"
I fought the smile when I realized he used the same name that I made up in my head. "So...
Marco isn't just a cop. I mean he is a cop. He went to the academy and everything. But he's
something else too."
"And that is?" Repo prompted, pouring the contents of the bowl into the pan and pushing it
around as it sizzled.
"He's an Abruzzo."
"The mob?" Repo stiffened, turning toward me fully.
I pressed my lips together.
See... we already had our mob in the area. We had the Grassis in Navesink Bank who had a
restaurant and ran the docks, most especially the black market shit that came through the docks.
And then there were the De Lucas in New York who had their hands in everything as well as a
bar that they named Lam. Yeah, as in 'on the lam'. The head of the family, Vin, had a serious
'fuck you' attitude toward authority.
But if a third family was on the rise...
"Aren't they supposed to be out in fucking Long Island?"
"Guess they are... branching out?"
"Do you think Wolf is personal? That they are after our gun trade?"
"Mix that food. I'm not picky, but I prefer it wasn't burnt," I said and he turned to mix.
"Honestly, I don't know. I don't know enough about the Abruzzo family. I don't think anyone
does. They are small. I think they ran girls out in Long Island. Prostitutes, not skin trade."
"But that's the Third Street gang's gig around here. Why not target them?"
"Repo... I have no fucking idea. All I know is Marco, whenever he recovers from the
beating he took last night, is still a wild card. The best I can do is expose his link to the Abruzzo
family. He changed his name like ten years back, way before he joined the academy. But they
might give him the benefit of the doubt. You can't help what family you're born into."
"Know what I'd like?" Repo asked, turning off the heat under the pan and going to the
fridge to grab a bag of grated mozzerella cheese to pour over the scramble.
 "What?"
"To have one year, hell one... month that everything isn't a giant clusterfuck."
I felt myself smile as he plated the food and held mine out toward me. "You chose the
wrong profession if you wanted a tame life, Repo."
He snorted, grabbing forks, then lifting himself up on the counter a few feet from me. "So
what now?"
"Now I forward that info on his new blood to Collings. Let him dig around, report it,
whatever. I'm sure the whole force is feeling the heat. Besides, him getting his ass handed to him
might point them toward thinking it was some mob turf bullshit. Then we wait and see if
Collings lost the boot evidence."
"I refuse to believe you'll sit on your hands until maybe something happens."
He was right. I wasn't that kind of girl.
"I might be making a visit to the Grassis today. See if I can get a meeting with the old man
or Luca or Matteo."
"Always good to get that ball rolling. If they don't already know about the Abruzzos moving
in, they'll appreciate the intel. They'll be worried about their control of the docks."
We fell into sporadic conversation, just easing the silence of the early morning as we ate
and downed too much coffee. He was right, his breakfast scramble was amazing. And after my
second helping, I told him so.
Sometime around seven, Reign rolled in looking wide awake with a drowsy looking
Summer in toe. At my questioning look, she made a growling sound, rolling her eyes at Reign's
back. "He barely needs any sleep. It's obnoxious," she declared.
"Told you to sleep in, babe," he shrugged, pouring two cups of coffee, one black and one
with milk, sugar, and some caramel syrup he pulled out of a cabinet. He handed Summer the
fancy coffee and drank his. "So I called the station and talked to a very frazzled-sounding
Detective Collings," Reign said with a smile, picking at the food on my plate with his fingers
until I pushed it at him.
"And?"
"And they're moving Wolf to county today. They had a warrant they carried out at Wolf's
last night. Doubt they found anything."
"There was nothing to find," I assured him.
"If he gets settled in, we should be able to go visit him in three days. That's the next visiting
day."
I felt my heart fall at that. I couldn't face him in a jail. I couldn't stomach seeing him in
orange and chains. I had no worries for his safety in there because, well, he could crush heads
with his pinkie fingers. But the idea of talking to him through a glass? Yeah, no. That would not
stand.
"I have to go," I declared, jumping to my feet and running up the stairs to throw on
something appropriate before running back down stairs to get in my car.
The Grassi family owned the docks as well as the upscale seafood restaurant that
overlooked them. Famiglia was a raised dark blue building with an enormous wrap around deck
sitting on stilts right out of the water. I walked toward the side staircase and climbed, noting the
three late-model luxury cars parked outside. The restaurant may have been closed, but the family
was in.
"Closed," the huge specimen to muscle-bound male perfection wrapped in a nice black suit
that was Famiglia's version of a security guard told me.
 "Janie from Hailstorm. I need to talk to the Grassis about the Abruzzos being in town."
I got the tiniest of brow lifts at that and he nodded and moved inside.
And, well, I wasn't waiting for an invitation.
I grabbed the door and let myself inside, seeing the security guard shake his head as he
turned away from the table where the Grassi family was sitting.
Now, I liked me the rough and tough kinda guys, the frayed edges and tattoos and beards. I
liked guys who wore their street cred on their sleeves. But if that wasn't my type, I'd be brought
to my knees by the Grassi men.
Antony was the had of the family, a man past middle age with gray streaking his black hair
but with a strong face, deep, smart eyes, and the perfect skin tone that Italian men seemed to
possess even in the depths of winter.
His oldest son, Luca, was well over six feet with a swimmer's type of body clad in an
expensive gray suit, his black hair pushed back, his dark eyes framed with lashes that any woman
would die for.
Matteo looked a lot like his brother, the same chiseled face, straight nose, dark eyes and
slim but strong build. Matteo wore dark wash jeans with a thick-knit camel-colored sweater. He
kept his hair long, curling down almost to his shoulders.
"I don't remember the last time we had the pleasure of a visit from someone at Hailstorm,"
Antony said, waving away the security guard as they all stood. Luca actually buttoned his coat
then moved around the table to pull out a chair for me.
"I wish I could say this is a social call," I said, giving Luca what I could only call an
awkward smile, unaccustomed to old-fashioned manners like pulling out chairs. He moved
around the table, unbuttoned his coat, then sat back down.
"My doorman did say something about the Abruzzos being in town," Antony went on,
going for casual, but I could hear a sharpness in his tone.
"Long story short, my man is locked up..."
"For a crime he didn't commit?" Matteo asked, mocking smile in place.
"Oh he committed it alright, but that is besides the point. You guys know just as well as I do
that that never usually has any bearing. The only reason he is locked up right now is because
Collings has himself a new partner."
"Marco," Luca agreed, nodding his head like they had already looked into it.
"I see you guys dug about as deep as the rest of us did initially. Last night, I dug deeper. His
last name before he changed it? Abruzzo. And, sure, while it is possible he left the family behind
and started a new life..."
"It's unlikely," Antony said with authority. You were in the family, you were in for life.
Case closed.
"Exactly."
"And you're sharing this because..." Luca asked, trying to find my angle.
Hell, I wasn't even sure what my angle was.
"Just thought you should know. Maybe you want to have a talk with him. If you do," I said,
standing, and I'll be damned if all three men didn't stand as well, "you can find him in room one-
fourteen at Navesink General."
To that, I got three very similar white-toothed smiles.
"Let me understand this, Janie darling," Antony said, not ready to dismiss me. "You blame
Marco for Wolf's arrest. You have had him beat. And now you come to us to involve us in your
situation. What is your game plan here?"
 "Honestly?" I said, feeling my shoulders shrug and my voice take on a hint of desperation.
"I don't know. At this point, I'm scrambling to do anything I can. That news story last night about
the rape kits? That was me. I uncovered them and dropped them on Collings' desk with a
warning. I outsourced to kick Marcus' ass. I looked into his family. I'm doing whatever idea pops
into my head. I have no real plan. At this point, I'm just creating chaos. And I... I have no fucking
idea if anything I am doing is even making any kind of difference and I'm just so..." I trailed off
on a hopeless little hand gesture, shaking my head.
"Matteo, I think it is time to offer this lady a drink," Antony supplied. "Luca and I have an
appointment with a man in the hospital," Antony winked at me, touching my shoulder as he
passed.
"What's your poison? Usually it's only right to give a beautiful woman a nice glass of wine,
but it sounds like you're having a stiff two fingers of whiskey kind of day."
I snorted, shaking my head. "Or a whole bottle. Sure, whiskey is fine," I said, following him
toward the bar.
Matteo ordered us each a drink and took a seat next to me, turning on the stool to face me.
"I understand what you're trying to do here, Janie. But you are going to lose it if you don't slow
down."
"What other choice is there? Let him sit in jail endlessly while I twiddle my thumbs?"
"You've done more in twenty-four hours than anyone, even Wolf, could expect from you.
Have you even slept?"
I got an hour, if that counted. "I don't sleep. So I might as well work on this. Reign is on the
lawyer angle, but I am still counting on this blowing over before it goes that far."
"You realize the repercussions of leaking those rape kits, right? IA will be all over NBPD.
No one will get away with anything."
"Honestly, Matteo," I said, putting down my empty glass and standing. He did as well, of
course. The freak. "I don't give a fuck what happens to anyone else if I can get Wolf out of this.
Thanks for the drink."
"You love him," his voice called after me, making me stop dead.
Love.
I loved him?
Even as I tried to deny it to myself, I knew there was no way to push it away once it was
unearthed. Somehow, someway, sometime along the way, he had done something to my cold,
shriveled little heart. That was why I was working so hard, keeping myself too occupied to think
about why I needed to sleep in something that smelled like him, why it made my blood boil to be
around the club whores, why I was willing to threaten an honest cop to get him to do something
he had avoided all his career- erase evidence.
All of that so I didn't realize what the seizing feeling in my chest, the way breathing was
hard when I thought of him, the way I felt very close to tears most of the day, was.
I loved him.
Crap.
I turned back, lifting my chin. "Yeah. And some day, Matteo, you'll love someone like I
love him and you'll understand why I have to do what I have to do."
With that, I walked out of Famiglia and went back to my car.

--
 I walked into The Henchmen compound half an hour later, slamming the door closed, and
seeing the common area was cleared of all the bikers from the night before. All that was left was
Reign, Summer, Cash, Repo, and... Lo.
All eyes turned to me and, for reasons I don't understand in the least, I blurted it out.
"I love Wolf."
"No shit, babe," Reign said, rolling his eyes.
"Of course you do, honey," Summer said, squeezing Reign's knee like she was relaying
some silent message.
"He's a little old for you, kid," Cash winked, letting his arm fall from Lo's shoulders as she
moved to stand.
"Another one bites the dust," Repo mumbled under his breath, shaking his head.
"Janie..." Lo said, looking like she wanted to hug me or something equally as girly. Where
was my badass leader when I needed her? Had loved turned her sappy too?
"I need to hit or shoot something," I declared before she could say anything else.
Lo looked at Cash and Cash looked to Reign, who shrugged.
"Yes!" Summer said, jumping up. "Just us, none of the guys."
"Summer..."
"I won't shoot up the damn compound again, Reign," she said in a voice that had the effect
of an eye-roll.
"Look, I don't think..." Reign tried in a voice that suggested he was going to shut our idea
down, making all three of us close ranks, Lo with her hands on her hips, me with my arms
crossed over my chest, and Summer with a brow-raise any method actor would be envious of.
"Oh shit..." Repo said, smiling as he sat back in his chair.
"Bro, I think we both know you can try to fight this, but it's going to have the same result."
"Three women who love weapons a little too much in my backyard with guns," Reign
nodded.
"Someone let me into the gun safe," Summer said, giving her man a smile that promised the
kind of gratitude that came with nudity at a later time.
Fifteen minutes later, we were out in the yard, facing the targets the men kept up at all
times, the men themselves making no secret about them watching us from the safety of the picnic
tables about twenty yards behind us.
"I didn't know the AK would kick like that!" Summer insisted to us, referencing the time
she accidentally shot the side of the compound.
"He should have warned you," Lo agreed, loading her gun without looking. She could build,
load, and shoot guns in her sleep.
"I'm actually a good shot," Summer insisted.
"Let's see it then," Lo urged.
"First we need to talk about Janie's little admission," Summer said, giving me a look that
suggested she would never let it go if we didn't.
"Stupid fucking Matteo Grassi threw that at me when I was leaving."
"He's one good looking guy," Lo added and I felt myself smiling. It was nice to talk to a
woman again.
"Yeah, well, he's an asshole for pointing that out."
"Not to be the devil's advocate here, but... shouldn't you have known that without him
pointing it out?" Summer asked.
"I was a little busy!" I insisted, being the first to turn to the targets and squeezing off a few
rounds.
"Wow... you got better at that," Lo nodded.
"Wolf taught me a trick," I admitted and even I could hear the dreaminess in my voice.
Summer was right, I should have realized it before Matteo pointed it out.
"So you guys have been shooting together," Lo said in a way that was begging for more
information.
"Yeah and covered up evidence together, bought washing machines together..."
"And..." Summer pressed, her eyes dancing.
"That too," I agreed, looking away from them.
"Oh, Janie..." Lo's voice dipped.
"It's not a big deal," I insisted, taking aim at another target.
"I think we all know that it is a really big deal," Lo countered. She paused when I didn't
respond. "Well... how was it?"
I snorted, shaking my head. "I don't really have anything to compare it to, Lo."
"So what? Doesn't mean you don't know."
"Was he... good to you?" Summer asked hesitantly.
"Oh my god, could this get any cheesier?" I asked, shaking my head.
"Well... was he?" Lo pressed, starting to sound almost worried.
"It was good. He was good. Everything was good. Moving on."
"Babe," Lo said, sounding serious. "You're going to get him back. None of us will let this
go much further. You've done a lot. And if it doesn't lose steam before it makes it to trial, I
promise the judge and a few select members of the jury will be living well on Henchmen and
Hailstorm money. Or we can tattoo an escape map on Repo's back and he can get himself locked
up and bust them out ala Prison Break style," she added with a smile.
I felt a laugh well up and burst out, swiping away the dark cloud I had felt hanging over me
for two days. I acted on instinct and threw my arms around her. She stumbled back a foot and her
hands paused, surprised, before going around me.
"Hugging with loaded guns isn't the best idea, ladies!" Repo called and I could hear the
frustration there.
"Neither is yelling at people with loaded guns, jackass!" I shot back.

That night, I didn't sleep.

I wandered down the hall and into the common room, finding a shirtless Repo sitting on the
couch across from the giant TV, two beers on the table in front of him, one on either side of a
giant bowl of popcorn.
"Figured you'd come eventually," he said, his eyes looking heavy. He was on his last leg of
sleeplessness. He would crash eventually in the next twelve hours. I wondered if he was staying
awake for my sake.
"What are we watching?"
"Car show."
"Well that's one way to make me sleep."
And, with the first lights of morning, I finally did.
 TWENTY-TWO

Detective Collings

Things were seriously screwed.

Five years. All he needed was five more years of things going the status quo, no matter how
messed up that status quo was. He wanted to handle the cases he could, overlook the cases he
couldn't, and ignore the situations where the bad guys took out the worse guys because, well, alls
well that ends with a shithead in the pen or the ground.
He'd underestimated the new blood.
When he'd said that flippant comment about a wolf in the morgue, he never thought the guy
would put two and two together. As far as anyone knew, Wolf had no motive to take out Lex
Keith. In general, their two organizations largely ignored each other. If Collings hadn't been on
three other cases over the years, since Wolf was a young man, that had the same characteristics
that Wolf did have a loose connection with, he never would have placed it himself.
Then all of a sudden, he found out Marco was running the boot prints.
And from there, it spiraled out of control, leading to an arrest and the most frustrating
interrogation in his career.
The evidence was shit. Normally, it would never stand.
But Marco pitched a fit and the captain just waved a hand.
Then Collings got a desk full of files from a clerk who said there was an order for them, an
order he never placed. With it came the email.
He'd actually smiled when he finished reading it for the second time. It didn't have to be
signed for him to know who it was from. Janie. Hailstorm's favorite child. Lo's little prodigy.
See... if Collings had learned one thing from the dissolution of his marriage twelve years
before, it was that women will only take so much shit from their lives.
Apparently Janie hit her max level of shit-taking and she was going to take down every
mother fucker who had ever piled it on in the first place.
That included him.
Not because he had ever done anything to her, but because he had simply... not done
anything at all. So he bunkered down and he got all of the rape kits sent out to the lab well before
the first news story ever hit. The station had watched it in silence, the tension a palpable thing
humming off of every crooked cop in the building.
"Tell me there is something we can do to head this off," the captain yelled out, watching his
men duck their heads. They were all fucked and they knew it. And, by extension, so was the
captain.
"Those rape kits are at the lab," Collings supplied, making all eyes, including his new
blood's, fall on him.
"Come again?"
Collings shrugged. "I, ah, found them laying around. Figured there must have been some
kind of mistake so I re-opened the cases, properly labeled everything, and sent them off to the
lab."
The captain exhaled a loud breath. "You just saved your own ass at least Collings," he said
with a shrug. "Time will tell if the rest of us will be so lucky."
Up until that moment, he hadn't considered it an olive branch that Janie had sent him. She
gave him the only thing she had that could have saved him his job when IA finally came in to
investigate. That was why she asked him to bury the boot print evidence (which, in his humble
opinion, was not much evidence at all to begin with. How it was going to actually go to trial was
completely beyond him). She gave him his job security, the guarantee of his pension, by making
it seem like he was the only detective on the force who was doing his job.
But in exchange for that, she was asking him to do the exact opposite of his job.
Collings sighed, powering down his computer and going home for the night. He needed to
sleep on it.
He woke up to the news of Marco getting his ass handed to him in a back alley.
He deleted the boot print and hoped for the best.
Nothing happened for a full day, making Collings do nothing but sit and sweat.
And then he got the call...
 TWENTY-THREE

Wolf

I'd spent time in holding cells before. They weren't fun, but they weren't the worst places in
the world either. I had mine to myself, giving me nothing but time to think.
And those thoughts? Yeah, they were about Janie. As if anything else would occupy my
mind.
I'll never forget the raw panic on her face when she shoved me awake to the cruiser lights
dancing off the walls. It was such a strange thing to see on her face until I realized it was there
because of me. She wasn't the type of woman to worry about cops. Working at Hailstorm, she
had had more than a few run-ins with them herself. She was freaking out because she didn't want
me to get locked up.
And fuck if that wasn't one of the nicest feelings in the world, to realize someone gave a
damn enough about you to worry. Granted, I was pretty fucking sure she had no idea she cared,
but she did. It was in the look of helplessness on her face when they put me in the cruiser. It was
in the momentary relief I saw when I came out of interrogation before she realized I was cuffed.
Then it was in the devastation and outrage when she charged across that station toward me and
started hollering. It was in the momentary hopelessness I caught sight of before I was led away.
She cared about me.
And wasn't it some sad, sick, cruel twist of fate that I cared about her too and wouldn't see
her again except through a pane of resistant glass?
But it was okay.
I was alright with that.
I did what needed to be done.
I got her safe.
I slayed her demons.
And in return, I got several days with the most unpredictable, frustrating, interesting,
capable, headstrong, funny, and loyal woman I had ever met in my life.
It was a fair trade.
I was supposed to be transferred to county that day so when I heard the door open and
footsteps coming toward me, I stood up and stretched out the sore muscles from sleeping on a
bed meant for a man half my size.
Collings came alone, standing outside the bars and looking at me for a minute.
"I hope you have a clue what a lucky fuck you are," he said, shaking his head.
"What?"
"I had a good woman once. I constantly chose this job over her company until she couldn't
take it any more and left my sorry ass like she should have years before. I know a thing or two
about what it's like to lose a woman who did nothing but her best for you. So I hope to fuck you
don't make the same mistakes I made."
What the fuck was he talking about?
"Collings..." I said, shrugging a shoulder.
At that, he gave me a smile, unlocking the door and pulling it open. "Do you have any idea
the kind of hell and headaches your woman has caused in the past forty-eight hours?"
"Janie?" I asked, brows drawing together. I mean, 'hell and headaches' sure had her name
written all over it, but I had no idea what he was talking about. Last I heard when I saw my
lawyer, she was camping out at the compound. I figured Lo would drop in and drag her stubborn
ass back to Hailstorm and help her get her life back on track.
Collings laughed, the sound raspy like he hadn't made the sound in so long the vocal chords
they required got dusty. "The one and only."
"What'd she do?" I asked, feeling a pit settle in my stomach. Reign, Cash, and Repo better
the fuck have not let her get herself into trouble because of me.
"What hasn't she done?" Collings asked, shrugging a shoulder. "She uncovered unprocessed
rape kits and leaked the news to the press about them sitting in storage, implying a police cover
up I'm sure we all know has footing. She gave me an olive branch of letting me put my name on
those cases and get them off to the lab before the story broke."
"For?" I asked, knowing there was no way she did it just for the fuck of it. She was a
logistical pro. That was what she did, next to hacking and making bombs and refusing to use a
filter when she spoke.
"A boot print disappearing. It's the only evidence we had on you and she knew it." Of
course she did. That was my girl. "But that wasn't enough for Janie."
I felt my lips twitching. "'Course not."
"Now we can't prove any of this, but let's face it, we know who is behind this course of
events. My partner, Marco, found himself jumped in an alley next to his apartment. Beat him
unconscious. Janie is a strong fighter and all, but no way did she take him down. My money is on
her getting one of the Mallicks in on it. Eli, judging by the sheer violence he inflicted. But she
still wasn't done..."
Jesus Christ. Had she slept at all?
"She must have smelled something on Marco that didn't sit right with her because she did
some digging. In that digging, she found something that the force missed when they accepted
him. And that is a connection to the Abruzzo family. So naturally your little spitfire paid a visit
to the Grassi family who paid a visit to Marco who suddenly signed out of the hospital and
promptly went missing." Collings paused, shaking his head, a strange smile toying at his lips.
"I've got to say, I knew women could bring a wrath that makes the plague of locusts look
merciful, but Janie is in a league her own."
"Telling me things I know," I shrugged, though inside my heart felt like it was going to bust
free of the confines of my ribcage. She was on a tear. I should have known there was no way she
was just laying low over at the compound painting her nails and challenging the guys to
grappling contests.
"Well let me tell you a bit more about the repercussions of your woman's little rampage.
Such as IA coming in to investigate. Now I bet Marco is going to have a lot of blame fall onto
his head. He's the perfect scapegoat. He's gone. He wasn't on the force for long. All of his open
cases are being gone over by other detectives. And, well, it's the damndest thing..." he trailed off,
brows lifted in confusion, but he was smiling.
"Damdest thing?"
"All the evidence in your case seems to have never existed in the first place."
"You don't say," I said, feeling the smile spread.
"Crazy, that. Marco must have been one crooked son of a bitch to frame a good, upstanding
citizen such as yourself."
"Damn straight," I agreed.
"So needless to say, you're free to go with the full apologies of the NBPD for your unlawful
detainment. We'll get you your clothes back and call someone to pick you up. Janie, I assume?"
I felt my head shaking. "Reign," I corrected.
"Now listen here, son..." Collings started, sounding almost agitated at the idea that Janie
went through all she did for nothing. "Did you not hear a thing I said about good women? And
Janie, lawlessness aside, is as good as it gets."
"Know that," I agreed, nodding.
"Then why the hell don't you want her to come and pick you up?"
"What time is it?" I asked.
Collings' brows drew together and he reached for his cell. "Six-fifteen."
"Last time she caused chaos?"
"Yesterday afternoon," Collings supplied.
"She's sleeping."
Collings' head jerked back, brows drawing together. Then he considered me for a moment
and nodded. "You know, Wolf, all lawlessness aside for you as well, I think you're probably a
pretty decent man too." He paused. "When that news story broke, Wolf? There were pictures.
The women's faces were blurred out but what was being done to them..." he shook his head. "But
even masked, the resemblance was too strong to deny. One of those women was a very young,
very brutalized Janie." I closed my eyes tight against that image, swallowing past the bile that
rose up my throat. One day, I hoped that image would fade for me, just like I hoped it would fade
for her. Until that day, I was okay with shouldering some of that with her.
"Some men deserve to die, Wolf. That's why I believe in capital punishment. Some men
shouldn't be given the luxury of breath after the shit they have done. But that shit can take twenty
years. Twenty years sitting in a cell eating taxpayer money, wearing taxpayer money. If there's
one thing this job gives you when you've done it as long as I have, it's perspective. I'd rather
pieces of shit like Lex Keith meet a bloody end on the street then live large in a cell, still running
an enterprise built on blood and pain from behind those bars. These streets are safer for women
with that bastard good and dead. And if by making that happen, you bought your women a sense
of security and closure she never would have had any other way, well then, I'm happy for you
both."
With that, he walked out, coming back a few minutes later with my clothes.
Ten minutes later, Reign was walking into the station, trying his best to hold back a smile.
"Thank fuck you're free, man. I got my hands full with my own woman. I can't be dealing
with yours too. She had Summer and Lo doing target practice yesterday. I saw my life flash
before my eyes."
"She's a good shot," I objected as we walked out toward my waiting truck.
"Someone must have taught her the coin trick," Reign said, giving me a look from the
passenger side as I turned the truck over. "She's doing alright, Wolf. I know you were worried.
Keeping busy kept her sane. And having Repo to keep her company when she couldn't sleep
helped too. In fact, left the compound to find them both passed the fuck out on the couch in front
of half-finished beer and a mostly full bowl of popcorn."
"Good," I nodded, turning off toward the compound.
"Know we don't do this cheesy shit," Reign said when the silence stretched. "But when
Summer was new in my life, you told me she was a good woman. For you, that was practically a
fucking conversation so I figured now that you got yourself a woman, I should say something..."
"So say it."
Reign snorted. "I like her for you, Wolf. Someone told me a year ago that you'd end up with
someone like her, or anyone at all, I'd have said they were crazy. But I could say the same thing
about Cash and Lo."
"Reign..." I laughed, rolling my eyes at him.
"Fuck off. Ain't used to this sharing shit. What I'm saying is, she's good for you. And you're
sure as fuck good for her. Tame her a little bit."
"Janie? Tame?" I asked, smiling as I parked the truck. "Wouldn't want her tame," I added as
we climbed out of the truck and crossed toward the front door.
And I wouldn't want her tame. Did I like that she felt comfortable enough with me to show a
softer side on occasion? Yes. But I didn't want her because of her potential to be something other
than what she was. I liked the whole package. I liked the foot-in-mouth comments. I liked how
she could fight over the most asinine little things with as much passion as the shit that really
mattered. I liked that she was capable in everything she put her mind to, but was open to
suggestions to get better. I liked that she was a shit cook but a fucking spectacular crime-scene
cleaner. I liked that she obviously had no experience letting men in and that scared her and she
was hesitant, but she didn't try to push me away either.
It was a rare thing in life to find the person who complemented you, who was strong where
you were weak, patient where you were restless, giving when you were all used up. That was
what I had with Janie. It wasn't that one of us was always strong or patient or giving, it was that
we both had it in us to pick up the slack the other had to put down.
I was under no alpha-man delusions. She would fight me tooth and nail. She would rage and
rant and spit and claw. There was no controlling her, no taming her. But there was nothing more
beautiful that a wild animal. And there was nothing more heartbreaking than seeing one of those
wild animals broken in a cage.
"She needs to sleep," Repo said, eyes on me as I walked in. He was squished into the corner
of the couch shirtless, Janie taking up all the space even with her tiny frame.
"So do you," I said, nodding at him, taking in the red eyes and blue smudges beneath them.
Like Janie, he could go the better part of a week without sleep at times due to some trauma he
still hadn't felt comfortable sharing with any of us and maybe never would.
He nodded, moving Janie's feet off of his legs, and standing. "Good to see you free," he
said, nodding at me, then moving off toward his room.
"Well, I'll leave you to it," Reign said, giving me a knowing smile. "But make sure you ask
her what she came in here and declared to all of us when she got back from seeing the Grassis
yesterday."
"What'd she say?" I asked, moving toward the couch and crouching down beside her,
brushing her hair out of her face.
"That's for her to tell you, but make sure she does."
With that, he was gone and we were alone.
I should have done the right thing and left her there, sat down in the spot Repo abandoned
and let her get the rest she obviously needed. But I needed to have her close, pulled up to my
side, head on my chest. Being pretty fucking sure you'd never hold the woman you cared about
again, yeah, that did things to you. I needed her.
I reached out, slipping a hand under her knees and another around her shoulders, curling her
into my chest then lifting her up. The jostling motion made her grumble in her sleep before her
eyes snapped open at the motion as we moved toward my room.
"This isn't my usual kind of dream," she mumbled, brows drawing together.
"Not a dream."
 "God, even dream Wolf doesn't use complete sentences," she said on an eye roll.
I felt myself chuckle, leaning down and kissing her hard and quick on the lips. Her eyes
cleared of the sleep fog immediately, her mouth dropping open slightly as her entire body tried to
jolt upright. "Wolf?"
"You've been busy," I said, propping her up on my knee so I could free a hand to open the
door. I carried her in and kicked it closed.
"What? How?" Her mouth stayed open comically wide like she didn't know what to say.
"Speechless? You?" I laughed, setting her down in the middle of the bed. "Miracle."
"You can get back to being a smartass as soon as you tell me what the hell you are doing
here."
I kicked off my boots, reaching behind my back to pull off my shirt and tossing it aside.
"You wanted me out."
"Yeah..."
"I'm out."
"Yeah but..."
"Collings," I supplied, reaching for my button and zip. Her eyes followed the motion and I
watched as her eyes got almost instantly heavy. "Thinkin' 'bout something?" I teased, lips tipped
up at one side.
Her eyes shot up guiltily. "What? No! I mean... yeah. I was thinking about how Collings
managed to..."
I pushed my jeans down and stepped out of them. Her eyes drifted low again and I watched
as she crossed her legs restlessly. "Still thinking about Collings?" I asked and when she looked
up at me, she was smirking.
"I don't know. He's got a little something something if you're into that kind of thing," she
teased, leaning her head back to watch me as I climbed up the bed toward her.
"Are you?"
"Me? No. It seems I like big biker mountain men with beards and..." she gasped as I
lowered down onto her body.
"And?"
"Um..." She wet her lips as my face dipped into her neck, kissing down toward the neck of
my her tee. My hand moved up her belly and closed over her breast. Through the thin material,
her nipple hardened against my palm and I rolled it between my fingers until her body started to
writhe beneath me.
"Um?" I prompted, biting into her earlobe.
"I forgot what... oh god," she groaned as my hand left her breast and pressed hard against
her pussy through her pajama pants. Pajama pants that had guns printed on them, I might add.
Where the fuck she found something like that was completely beyond me, but they suited her.
"Miss me?" I asked, tracing my lips down her jaw toward her mouth.
"Y... yes," she gasped as my finger worked her clit in fast circles.
"Missed you too," I said, moving my hand away but only so I could slip underneath her
pants and panties and slide a finger deep inside her. "Especially watching your face when I..." I
trailed off as my finger curled and stroked over her G-spot and her arms slapped down on my
shoulders. "Like that," I nodded before ducking my chin and taking her lips, hard and fast and
hungry.
There was too much that needed to be communicated to do soft and tentative. Beneath me,
her body was just as demanding as mine. Her hands moved across my chest, slid around toward
my back, grabbed my ass, then slid back around toward my stomach and down. When her hand
closed around my cock, my lips broke from hers on a ragged breath.
When I lifted up to look down at her face, she had a look of feminine accomplishment. "I
can't figure out why I still have all these clothes on, can you?" she asked in an innocent tone that
was at once so unlike her, but at the same time, perfectly right.
"Fuck no," I agreed, pulling my finger out of her, snagging her pants and panties at their
waistbands and pulling them off in one rough tug. I was still getting her feet free when she
knifed up and ripped off my her tee. "Fuck," I growled, sitting back on my heels for a second and
looking down at her. Her dusky nipples were hard, her pale skin flushed, her thighs pressed tight
together to try to ease the ache I had started to create there.
There was always something beautiful about a naked woman looking up at you with need.
But it was a whole different kind of beautiful to see that look on the face of a woman who would
happily go through hell for you, on a woman who had.
I wanted her too bad; my balls felt like they were stuck in a vice; my cock was so hard it
was painful.
I sucked in a deep breath and lowered my head down toward her pushed together knees,
biting one hard until they jerked open reflexively and I pushed my upper body between, biting
down the inside of her thigh. Her other leg moved instinctively up and over my shoulder and my
hand slid underneath to grab her ass as my mouth found her clit and sucked it hard.
Her hips thrust up into me and with my free hand, I slipped two fingers inside her, stroking
in a circular motion as my tongue stroked out over her clit. There was nothing shy or guarded
about her responses to me right then, her breathing fast and shallow, moans following almost
every gasp she took. Around my fingers, her pussy clenched tight. I moved upward, still finger
fucking her wet pussy, but making the strokes unpredictable, slower, then faster, swirling, then
straight, making her confused body scramble to grab hold to her budding orgasm again. I reached
into the nightstand and got a condom, biting it open before pulling my fingers out of her, rolling
on the condom, and lowering down on her body.
"Legs around me," I told her and her legs closed tight around my lower back as I thrust hard
and deep, filling her to the hilt on a growl. Her whimper filled my ears, flooded my system,
drove me over the edge.
I fucked her fast and deep, barely pulling my cock halfway out before slamming back in,
needing her around me, needing her tight walls, her hot wet depths surrounding me, needing the
surprised moan she let out every time I hit that deep spot. Her hips worked restlessly against me
as I thrust, her pussy rubbing against the base of my cock, hitting her clit.
"Come Janie," I demanded, my voice low and rough, feeling the urge to bury deep and
come. "Come," I said again as I slammed forward. Her hips jerked and she cried out my name
loudly as her pussy clenched my cock in endless waves. On a growl, I buried to the root and
came hard, groaning her name in her ear.
I collapsed onto her, holding up some of my weight on my forearms as I struggled to control
my breathing. Beneath me, her body trembled slightly with aftershocks. I pressed upward, my
nose rubbing hers for a second before I looked down at her. Her blue eyes were opened, fully
focused on me and I smiled as I realized that just seconds after an orgasm, she was ready to talk.
"Hold that thought," I laughed, pressing a kiss to her lips before making my way toward the
bathroom. I disposed of the condom and washed my hands. I was reaching for the towel when I
felt her forehead press into the center of my back. Slowly, as if trying not to scare me, or maybe
herself, her arms moved up and around my stomach as her body pressed into me. "You okay?" I
asked, unable to see her in the mirror, my body completely blocking her from view. I felt her nod
against me then plant a kiss in the middle of my back. Her arms loosened and I turned in her
hold, reaching down to frame her face. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"It's never nothing," I said, stroking my thumb across her cheek.
She huffed out a breath before her eyes found mine. "Fine. So I love you, okay?"
As far as declarations went, it wasn't exactly romantic. But it was so Janie- abrupt, blunt,
mildly confrontational. It was so her that it beat out any other way she could have possibly
worded it.
"Okay," I agreed, nodding, fighting to keep my lips from twitching.
"Okay? Okay! That's how you respond to that?" she asked, brows drawing together. "I've
never told anyone that before. Not in years. Not even Lo. And you just say okay?"
"You done?"
"Um, no. I'm not done. That was really..."
"You're done," I said, grabbing the back of her neck and hauling her up onto her tiptoes as I
leaned down and took her lips, soft, long. My tongue stroked over hers until all the tension left
her body and she swayed on her feet, grabbing my arms to stay upright. Then and only then, I let
her go, waiting for her eyes to drift open before telling her.
"I love you too, Janie."
Her eyes went liquid and she blinked frantically. One tear slipped out and she swatted it
away before I could catch it. She was silent for a long minute before the light started dancing in
her eyes.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"That was actually a complete sentence!" she declared, smiling huge.
I found myself smiling back.
Not even a declaration of love could tame her.
And that was just how I liked it.
 TWENTY-FOUR

Janie

I'd like to say that Repo got his wish and we had an uneventful year, or even a month, or
day. But the truth of the matter was, everyone was on edge for the better part of the next year.
Internal Affairs swooped into Navesink Bank and tore every file apart. They glanced into every
officer and detective's personal finances, looking for kickbacks that everyone knew were there.
All the organizations stepped a little more hesitantly without their safety net to guarantee
protection from incarceration.
As predicted, a fair bit of blame fell onto Marcus' shoulders though he was completely
innocent. Once IA discovered how deep the corruption went, what it would mean to have to
reopen all the cases that had been closed involving half a dozen criminal organizations over a
decade whilst simultaneously investigating all the officers, detectives, county clerks, judges, the
district attorneys... yeah they decided a scapegoat was the way to go. They hung the weight of
Lex's dirty work on Marcus' shoulders while laying off or relocating a third of the rest of the
force.
Collings kept his job largely in part to what I had offered up to him in exchange for Wolf's
freedom, though he made it clear it was the first and only time he would ever make actual
evidence disappear. He would go on letting the streets run themselves so long as innocent
individuals didn't get wrapped up in it. He would give all of us the wide berth we needed to keep
doing what we were doing. He also assured us his new new blood was like a twenty-seven year
old version of himself- just doing what needed to be done, not getting personally invested in any
of it, but also not taking bribes.
As for Marcus, well, that wasn't something that was immediately clear. When he
disappeared from the hospital, I had figured the Grassis had, well, fitted him with cement shoes
or whatever-the-hell way the mob went about disposing of bodies. But when I ran into Luca and
Matteo a few weeks after, they were asking me what I had heard about his whereabouts. So yeah,
he was still a wild card. It didn't take a genius to know that made him a threat. But that threat was
most likely directed toward the Grassis. And while they were nice enough people, I didn't really
care what trouble they found themselves in so long as me and mine were left out of it. They
could handle themselves. The Grassis had a foot in Navesink Bank before it was anything more
than cherry fields and fishing villages. They weren't going anywhere. They certainly weren't
going to get pushed out by some two-bit pimps.
Six months almost to the date of the bombings, three old faces breezed back into town.
Shooter re-inhabited his lavish apartment down the street from the compound, dropping by every
weekend to grab Repo so the two of them could go out chasing skirts, always taking a few
minutes to charm the socks off of Lo, Summer, and myself and rib the hell out of Cash, Reign,
and Wolf for, first, not deserving us and, second, leaving all the 'fine young things' up for his and
Repo's grabs.
Breaker was never much one for hanging with The Henchmen, but he showed up one night,
standing behind his woman, all six-foot-something of solid muscle, blond hair, and a beard to
rival Wolf's.
"She insisted on coming to see you," Breaker supplied in a way that suggested they went a
couple rounds about it.
Alex was tall and lanky, all legs and torso with deep brown hair that brushed her shoulders
and big brown eyes that dominated her fine-boned face. She had a classic kind of beauty that
contrasted her rough and tough looking man.
"I insisted I come see her. I have no idea why you're here," Alex shot back. "I don't need a
babysitter, you know."
Behind her, Breaker gave me a smile. "I know, doll," he said in a patient tone. "But I
figured I owed Jstorm a thank you in person too. She saved all our asses that night and forced us
into a Mexican vacation."
"Where you threatened to beat up any guy who looked at me," Alex rolled her eyes.
"Yeah well if you didn't wear a bathing suit that covered only point-zero-two percent of
your body..."
"We are not having that argument again."
"Anyway, Janie," Breaker said, making no attempt to hide his smile, as if he maybe enjoyed
Alex's wrath. "Thanks for the distraction so we could get out of there. It was pretty iffy there for
a while. They had Shoot out in the shed and that Joshua kid was going to be taken out too."
He was another wild card. As far as I could tell, he didn't turn state's evidence. After his
hospital stay, he had never resurfaced.
"He's in Chicago," Alex supplied.
"What?"
"Joshua. He's in Chicago trying to pretend like he didn't get his ass handed to him in Jersey.
Got his hands in the Irish mob there. He'll never learn."
"Does Lo have any idea how valuable you are?" I asked, thinking of the sleepless nights I
spent trying to track his whereabouts and finding nothing. And I was the best hacker Hailstorm
had.
"She's freelance," Breaker answered for her, making Alex's eyes blaze.
"Well maybe I am considering..." Alex trailed off when Breaker tagged her around the waist
and leaned down to whisper something in her ear that made her cheeks blush and her mouth
clamp shut. I would find out a few weeks later when she, me, Lo, and Summer were having a
girls night, that he told her he liked her working from home because he could fuck her any time
he wanted then. "Yeah, I'm, ah, freelance," she said, giving me a smile.

A lot came from the storm of chaos that breezed through all of our lives in the course of a
year. Reign found Summer who needed saving, prompting The Henchmen and Hailstorm to join
forces. Summer helped me save Alex, Breaker, and Shooter. Cash helped Lo when her past came
back to haunt her. Wolf rid me a demon from my past and, in turn, I got him off of the charge.
And, somehow, in all of that, love had blossomed for most of the parties involved.
Lo and I had the talk I promised her back in the cabin. And after I had that talk with her, I
had it with Summer, then even eventually, I had it with Alex.
We had all forged together in friendship, all of us involved with dangerous men, involved in
the kind of lifestyle average women could never understand. We were all wildly different: Lo
was strong, but soft and romantic; Summer was sweet with an undercurrent of steel and a ticking
biological clock; Alex was a little reclusive, hard to get to know at first, but headstrong and
sometimes a riot. I was, well, me. But we were all badass bitches who had been through some
shit in our lives and came out stronger for it. This was evidenced by our unwillingness to let our
pasts steal from us our futures.
Futures we got to have with some of the most interesting men the world had to offer.
 EPILOGUE

Janie
3 Months-

"Woman..."
"What?" I asked innocently, my back to him allowing me to smile without being seen.
"The truck?"
"What about the truck?" I asked, pushing clothes into the washing machine and reaching for
the heavy duty, super-sudsy laundry detergent. I knew exactly what about the truck. See, it was
February and three nights ago, the sky had dropped a foot of snow on the ground. And we were
out of clothes. And he put the god damn laundry room in a shed in the woods. Like only a man
would do. Seriously.
"See the paint?"
Oh, I saw the paint alright. I may or may not have sideswiped a tree or two driving in the
woods in a truck that was hard to drive on dry pavement for someone as short as me, let alone
slippery, snowy forest floor. Hell, he was lucky it wasn't stuck in a tree in all honesty.
"Yeah, I guess it needs some touching up. There's a nice shop in town that will... omph."
My breath rushed out of me as his front shoved into my back, pushing my front into the washing
machine.
"Woman..." he growled again.
In my defense, I didn't know he was one of those guys about his damn truck. I didn't
constantly find him out washing and waxing it. He never made even a grunt of distaste at me
eating in it or getting in with dirty shoes. I didn't think he really gave a shit about it. He wasn't an
appearances kind of guy. Apparently he cared about the paint though.
"We needed clothes, Wolf," I insisted as his hands planted on either side of the machine, his
back arching over me, completely caging me in.
"Like you naked."
Yeah, well, I liked him naked too, but that was beside the point. "What if we need to leave
the house?"
"Don't."
"But what if we did."
"Christ."
"What?"
"You'd argue over the sun rising."
I felt my lips curl up. "And then bitch about it going down at night," I agreed.
His hand left the machine and moved up to move the hair off the side of my neck. He leaned
down and planted a kiss there, making my breath catch in my chest. "Next time, tell me."
"Why?"
"I'll drive."
"I'm perfectly capable of..."
 "Woman," he laughed, his body shaking around mine and I did kind of see his point. I had
just sideswiped his car a few times.
"Or you could just do the laundry."
"I cook."
"Yeah but cooking takes like half an hour. I'm stuck in this shed for hours on laundry days."
"Ways to kill time," he suggested, his hand sliding down my belly and cupping me between
my legs, demonstrating just how he liked to kill time.
"Well that only works if I put on the machine first," I moaned as his finger found my clit, as
I tried to reach out for the knob on the machine.
"Fuck the laundry," he growled, grinding his hard cock against my ass, making my arm fall
as I silently agreed. Fuck the laundry.
There were times when Wolf was surprisingly soft, gentle. There were times when I would
wake up to his fingers gliding over my bare skin almost reverently, his eyes heavy-lidded, his
cock hard, but he would go slow. His hands would tease me chastely until I felt like every inch
of me was humming, then move over me and kiss every inch his hands had traced, spread my
legs and eat me out slowly, the way you do a dessert that is too good to rush through. Then and
only then, he would come over me and slide sweetly inside, his movements unhurried, like he
was enjoying every small whimper, every arch of my back, every breath that gasped out of me.
This was not one of those times.
His hands grabbed my jeans and panties and yanked them down hard, not bothering to
unfasten my pants. His knees pressed my legs open slightly as his hand pressed into the center of
my back until I lowered down, putting my forearms on the machine to support myself. "Ass up,"
he demanded, squeezing my cheeks hard as I tipped my ass up for better access. His finger
moved around my body and found my clit as he slammed inside, hard and deep.
It was in that second that I was really thankful Lo dragged me with her to the gyno to get on
birth control. No more fumbling for condoms. No having to wait when my body was screaming
for him to be inside me.
Wolf's hand moved up and grabbed the hair at the base of my neck, giving a gentle tug that
sent off a rush of desire through my system.
It was one of the many things we learned that, despite what I'd been through, we could do
without my mind going in a nasty direction. I wasn't miraculously 'cured'. Love and safety didn't
fix everything. I still had things that would never be okay. Like toys. We'd tried. Wolf had taken
me to a toy store and I had even been excited about the prospect, but when we walked in and
some old, intimately familiar items were lined up on the shelves, I'd freaked and we had to leave.
We never tried again. We didn't need them. What we had was more than enough.
So when his fingers curled into the hair at the nape of my neck and pulled harder, hard
enough for my arms to leave the surface of the machine for a second, I felt nothing but the need
growing deeper as his pace quickened, his finger pressed my clit hard.
But just when I thought sweet oblivion was going to crash through my system, I lost his
cock. "No," I groaned, arching my ass up shamelessly.
"Want your ass," he said, leaning over me and biting into my earlobe.
It was another thing we had learned was okay after the first try or two.
"Okay," I groaned, keeping my ass tipped up as he slid his cock up toward my clit, rubbing
against it for a moment before sliding back down my cleft and up toward my ass. He pressed in
easy, letting me adjust until he pushed all the way in. His arm went around my chest, grabbing
both of my breasts, pinching the nipples hard enough to bruise before pulling me back against his
chest as he started thrusting, quick but gentle at first, until I started slamming my hips down with
each thrust. His hand ran down my belly and found my clit, working it in a side to side motion,
making the orgasm start to build again. His other hand went south, sliding underneath his other
hand and gliding two fingers inside my pussy. Inside me, his fingers curled up and hit my G-
spot.
That was new. He'd been in my ass before and he'd stroked over my clit until I had an
orgasm that made me understand why some women preferred anal sex. But he'd never penetrated
me in both places at once. I half expected to feel anxiety and maybe it had started to bud, but
before it could blossom, I felt myself driven up so hard and fast that I was pretty sure I was going
to explode.
"Come," he demanded as he thrust harder, faster, his fingers working my clit and G-spot
simultaneously.
And just like that, I did. My pussy clenched hard as a wave I'd never experienced before
crashed through my system, making every inch of my body feel electric, making every sense feel
dull for a moment as the pleasure shot from my core and pressed outward and I finally
understood the concept of a full-body orgasm.
Wolf pulled out, pressed me forward, and roared as he came, hot and wet, on my back.
"Fuck," he said a moment later, his hand squeezing my ass cheek.
"Yeah," I agreed, my brain feeling more than a little fuzzy, and my legs a little wobbly.
Wolf chuckled, reaching around me and pulling one of his tees out of the wash. He rubbed
it against my back, cleaning up his cum, before throwing it back in the machine, reaching for the
knob, and turning it on.
"See?" I asked, turning and pulling my panties back up, needing to unbutton my jeans to
pull them up as well. "Now what are we going to do for the next hour?"
Wolf chuckled, grabbing me and pulling me against his chest as his lips descended.
Well, then. That worked for me.
I'd happily kiss him till the end of time.

Janie
2.5 Years-

"Seriously, Lo, you can't have a third fucking shot," I said, shaking my head at her.
It was her wedding day.
I'd seen Lo in a lot of situations over the years. I'd seen her doing deals with bad guys in
back alleys; I'd seen her with a gun in her hand, shooting her way out of a bad situation; I'd seen
her going toe-to-toe with one of her men who disagreed with her. I'd seen her in every kind of
sticky, tricky, dangerous situation imaginable. Not once, not ever had I seen her the kind of
nervous she was sitting in her bridal suite in the hotel above the reception hall where she was
going to marry Cash.
Summer and Amelia (Shooter's girl. Long story. Good one too. Manwhore to monogamous
man) had fussed over her for hours, drying her hair, straightening it, doing her makeup then
having to redo it when she insisted it was too much until they got her looking like her everyday
self with a bit of extra eye makeup and sleeker hair. Her dress was understated, of course. No
one who had ever met Lo would expect her to wear a full on princess or mermaid dress.
Actually, it had taken everything Summer, Amelia, and Alex had it in them to convince her to
wear a dress at all.
I had sided with Lo on the matter, but even I had to admit that she looked beautiful in the
simple tea-length dress they had all chosen. It had a sweetheart neckline and a simple light pink
lace over the bodice before the skirt swept outward. Her feet was where she drew the line. She
wouldn't do high heels. She had on light pink ballet flats that matched her lace.
She had a hell of a time with her bridesmaids. Summer and Amelia wanted to wear dresses.
Alex was cool with a dress, but insisted it couldn't be too short because with her long legs she
would 'look like a streetwalker'. And me, well, there was no way she was getting me into a dress.
So, in the end, Summer and Amelia each had a dress- Summer's was something called "A-
line"; Amelia's was something called a "sheath". Neither were terms that meant anything to me
except to point out that they were different from each other because, apparently, certain styles fit
certain figures better or some shit. Both were in the color of the pink on Lo's dress. Alex and I
got to wear rompers in the same color, hers a little more loose-fitting with a flared leg and a tiny
white belt in the center. Mine was straight legged and skin tight from bodice to ankle. It was,
apparently, my punishment for throwing such a fit about not wearing a dress in the first place.
"Come on, we can all have one. For good luck," Lo said desperately.
"Don't try to drag us into your debauchery," Alex laughed. "And I'm sure our resident drug
and alcohol counselor here would agree that alcohol isn't the answer," she added, waving a hand
at Amelia who had been mostly silent, still really new to the girls club, but definitely a member.
Any woman who could neuter Shooter was a badass bitch in all our estimations.
"I'm Swiss," Amelia said, holding up her hands.
"Just saying, you need to be able to walk a straight line. You know... the aisle," I insisted.
"We all do."
"Stop being a bunch of pussies and have a shot with me," Lo declared, getting up and
moving toward the sidebar. She was clearly on a mission and there was no stopping Lo when she
got an idea in her head.
"I think she might be the only bride in history to say 'pussies' to her bridesmaids on her
wedding day," Alex said, smiling.
And with that, we were handed shots, and like the good bridal party we were, we threw
them back.
There was a soft knock on the door. "Everybody decent?" Shooter's voice called through the
door and we found it opening before anyone could answer. "Damn," he said, shaking his head
when he saw us all fully dressed. Then his gaze fell on Amelia and his dark green eyes went soft.
"Oh, angel," he said, moving across to her and dropping down by her feet. He took her hand and
kissed it dramatically, making Amelia almost wobble on her feet. They'd been together for
several months, but apparently there was no way to build immunity to his kind of charm.
"Beautiful," he told her quietly. "Anyway," he said as he linked his pinkie finger with hers,
"things are about to start. I was sent to rally the troops."
Summer rushed across the room toward the propped up pack-and-play, reaching inside and
pulling out the very pudgy, dark haired, gray eyed Ferryn in her pink dress and matching diaper
cover and socks. I'd never given much thought to babies, but if you saw her without a little weird
feeling in your empty uterus, you weren't human. It was hard to imagine a man like Reign with a
baby, let alone a daughter, but from the second he saw her, saw himself and his wife in her, he
had been putty. And she was an equally big fan of her father. Summer told me they chose the
name Ferryn because it meant 'adventurous' and they figured that if there was anything her life
was bound to be filled with, it was adventure.
"I'll take that," Shoot said, kissing Amelia's cheek and moving to take Ferryn out of
Summer's arms. "Thank god you have a whole army of men around you, beautiful," he told her,
holding her aloft as she smacked her lips at him, "because if you have one ounce of your mama's
pretty when you get old enough, the boys will need to be beat off with sticks."
"If Reign has his way, she's never going to date," Summer said, rolling her eyes.
"Smart dad. Ain't a good one of us men out there," he said with a wink as he walked toward
the door, Ferryn situated on his hip.
"Anyone ever stop to consider that there literally isn't a bad man in that bunch out there?"
Lo asked, looking around us, her eyes looking the tiniest bit glassy from the booze. "I mean...
we've all had such shitty experiences with men in our lives and here we are, surrounded by the
best of the bunch."
"And every last one of them is a criminal," Summer agreed.
Alex laughed. "So are most of us."
"And we're the best bitches around," I agreed, feeling all gushy inside. "Okay, enough of
this sappy shit. Let's get you married," I said, snagging Lo's wrist as I passed and we all fanned
out into the hallway.
I watched from the side of the doorway as the women walked out, Summer first, her eyes on
Reign. His eyes were on her too, a sweet smile on his face. Alex was out next. Breaker wasn't a
groomsman, standing in was Repo instead. But her eyes found his in the crowd and there was no
mistaking the heat behind his as he watched her. Amelia was out next. Shooter had handed off
Ferryn to Vin, one of the older Henchmen, and took his place beside Repo, his eyes on Amelia
and the new love there was enough to make Amelia fumble a step.
"You're up, honey," Lo reminded me.
I turned, giving her a small smile. "I know we don't do the girly shit, but Lo... I'm so happy
for you." Her eyes welled up and I moved quickly into the doorway before she could get me
blubbering too. I wasn't at the 'greeting-card-crying' stage yet, but I wasn't the dry-eyed stoic I
had once been either.
My eyes instinctively sought Wolf, as they always did when I knew he was around. I'd
never really been the kind of woman who paid much attention to things like how men dressed,
but damn... he cleaned up nice. Shoulders like his were why suits were invented if you asked me.
His eyes stayed on my face for a second before drifting downward, taking in my second-skin
pink outfit. When his eyes made their way back to my face, they were heated.
I took my place across from Cash who caught my eye and winked. "Hey kid," he said before
the Wedding March started and he turned to watch as Lo came into view. If I wasn't so close, I
wouldn't have been able to hear his breath hiss out of his mouth.
Lo's smile was infectious as she looked at her fiance. She did manage to walk a straight line
and her bouquet fell to the floor because Cash took her hands before she could hand it off to me.
It stayed there, between their feet, as they said their vows, not so much as glancing at anyone as
they did so.
"You may now..."
The rest of those words were never heard because Cash reached out, grabbing Lo around the
waist, and hauling her up around his waist, his mouth on hers before her toes were even off the
ground. His hands moved down to her ass, her hands to the sides of his face, as he turned and
walked down the aisle with her wrapped around him to the hoots and whistles of the audience.
"Crying?" Wolf asked, coming up by my side, taking my chin between his thumb and
forefinger and tipping my face up toward his.
"No, I'm not. Shut up," I objected, blinking away the wet that had pooled in my eyes.
"They're really good together," I said when his arms slid around me.
"Yep."
"Know what?"
"No, what?"
"We're pretty good together."
"No," he said, shaking his head at me.
"No?" I asked feeling anger rise up in me, mixed with a crippling fear that made me almost
feel sick.
"We're not good. We're fucking great."
I felt my smile spread. I wasn't sure he was aware of it, but more and more frequently, his
sentences went beyond the five words his father trained and traumatized him into allotting
himself his entire life. He still wasn't some sort of wordsmith, but he wasn't as hesitant to express
himself with seven, eight, nine, hell... even ten words at times.
"You guys going to need a storage closet too?" Shooter asked as he passed us, arm
shamelessly on Amelia's ass. She was desperately trying to discreetly swat it away and he was
pretending to not notice.
"Too?" I asked, smiling.
"Lo and Cash didn't make it to their suite," he smiled.
"Too much information," I objected.
"Oh, please. You will get all the gory details later," he said, walking off down the aisle,
hand curling harder into Amelia's butt cheek.
He was right; I did get all the gory details.
Wolf and I didn't get a storage closet. But we did get a room. We didn't use the bed. We
barely got into the door before he had me up against it, furiously trying to get me out of the
romper and I maybe understood the appeal of skirts for two-point-three seconds.

Janie
3 Years-
 "We're going to be late, Wolf," I barked inside the front door.
"Keep your panties on," he called back, but his footsteps were coming toward me. He
stepped out into the doorway in black jeans and a simple white tee. His leather cut was over it,
making the mountain man disappear and replacing him with the biker. "Never mind, take them
off," he said, eyes raking over me in my simple jean shorts and black tee.
"We're bringing the beer. We can't be late."
"Fuck the beer," he said, grabbing me and pinning me against the truck. His hand slipped
inside my panties and stroked over me as my hand moved to stroke his already hard cock
through his pants.
Yeah, we were going to be late.
And he was right. Fuck the beer.

In the end, we got there about twenty minutes after things got into swing. The Henchmen
compound was packed, bikers and club whores (yeah, I still referred to them as that in my head
because, well, nothing else was really fitting), and friends of The Henchmen milled around.
Wolf let out a loud whistle and nodded at a few of the probates who came running as he
climbed up into the bed to get the kegs down. Five kegs. I thought it was overkill, Wolf told me
they would probably need to send out the pregnant Summer and whomever else was sober later.
"Heya kid," Cash called, walking up with an adoring Ferryn trailing behind.
Shooter's, and Reign's, fears were realized in her and she was hardly more than a toddler.
She was twenty-five pounds and eight ounces of pretty. Her father's dark hair had stayed dark but
started to curl like her mother's, forever escaping whatever bands and bows Summer used to try
to tame it. She had a really weird outfit on, paying homage to both of her parents. She wore a
black faux leather pleated skirt and a pretty pink floral shirt with a pair of black Chucks on her
feet and sparkly butterfly clips in her hair.
"When are you guys going to make one of these?" Cash asked, scooping her up and
throwing her under his arm football-style to which her response was to throw her arms out and
make airplane noises.
Wolf's arm went around my hip and squeezed reassuringly. "Got time," he said, making me
take a grateful breath. I wasn't at that place yet. I was nowhere near that place yet. But while I
was barely pushing thirty, Wolf was well on his way to forty. We really didn't have that much
longer to think about it. This was evidenced by the fact that Wolf was making plans for an
addition to the cabin.
He told me the news and I remembered feeling my belly clench hard. Part of it was the
feeling of the end of an era. We had made so many memories in that cabin. I had lost some of my
fears in the arms of Wolf. I had found my first nights of dreamless sleep. I had felt a man's hands
on my skin in adoration and love for the first time. I found parts of myself I forgot were there, or
had never existed before. I found softness and love.
And part of the sensation was fear. I was losing that safety net that three years of stability
gave me. Things were changing. Our lives were moving in a new direction.
But I was not the kind of chick to be afraid of change and adventure. And that was exactly
what starting a family would be- the biggest change, and the grandest adventure.
So while it scared me shitless, I was also excited.
"Gotta marry her first," Wolf added, making me start.
 My eyes automatically went to my left hand where a ring was situated. Not a diamond.
When it looked like Wolf was getting the itch to ask me, I'd made sure I threw a well-timed rant
about blood diamonds so he knew to steer clear of that. He chose instead a ruby, telling me that
red suited me better anyhow. It was round-cut and on a white gold band and I freaking loved the
damn thing and what it represented- freedom, but at the same time, protection.
"Well, the fuck you waiting for?" Reign asked, stealing his daughter from his brother. "Hey
Repo," Reign called, a smile I didn't trust on his face.
"Yeah?"
"I think Wolf needs some help with these kegs," he said, still doing the weird grin.
"I'll get Maze on it," Repo called back, and I felt my eyes get small.
"Are you guys hazing her?" I asked, my tone sharp and I could practically feel the eye roll
Wolf was doing behind my back.
"She ain't getting special treatment," Reign said on a shrug. "You wouldn't want special
treatment at Hailstorm, would you?"
"That's a completely different situation."
"How?"
"Because Lo would never purposely make any individual life hard just to prove a point," I
said, preparing for the fight because everything he was saying was confirming my fears. They
weren't giving her a fair shot.
"Look you guys wanted us to give her a shot, we're giving her a shot. She ain't complaining
about the treatment so you don't get to either."
"Hey, what do you need?" Maze asked as she walked up, stretching out her legs to keep
pace with Repo. She had on black skinny jeans and a black wifebeater, an outfit which only
accented her feminine figure. She was slightly pear-shaped, wide of hip and small of waist. She
had breasts bigger than mine, but not quite as impressive as Lo's. Her face had a somewhat
squared jaw and full lips with dark brows over hazel eyes. Her hair was straight and fell to her
elbows, colored in the deepest shade of purple possible.
I liked Maze. I liked Maze the second I laid eyes on her a few weeks before. So did Lo and
Summer and Alex and Amelia. We couldn't tell you what it was, exactly, about her that made us
all band together and champion her cause, but there was something. And it was more than simply
being pissed that The Henchmen were just going to blow her off on the simple fact that she was
female. There was a quiet kind of strength about her, a grim determination, and the barest hint of
desperation that maybe women were better at picking up on. Or, perhaps, just women who had
been there before like we all had been.
"Kegs," Reign said, jerking his head toward the truck where two of the male probates were
lowering some down.
"On it," she said simply, but I saw her tense. It didn't take a genius to know how heavy a
keg was and she knew there was no way she could take one down, but she'd be damned if she let
that weakness show.
"You guys are assholes," I declared, turning away from them and jumping up into the bed,
shoving the shoulder of the probate who made some sort of comment about Maze's ass as she
hopped up. And, granted, she had an ass to kill for, but that didn't give them the right to
comment. "Funny, I don't hear you telling Cash or Reign or Wolf what nice asses they have," I
shot at them as I reached for the handles at the top of the keg.
"Don't want to fuck theirs," one of the probates said, shrugging.
"Are you fucking serious?" I asked, straightening and advancing him across the bed. "You
do realize this is a brotherhood right? You're not supposed to..."
"Have to deal with a sister? And her fucking mood swings when she's on the rag like you
obviously a..."
I bent low, planted my feet, and shoved with everything in me. I had the element of surprise
on my side, making the man who outweighed me by a solid seventy pounds of muscle go
toppling off the back of the truck, landing hard on his back.
"Hey, bitch..." the other probate, obviously his brother if their looks were anything to go by,
said as his hand landed hard on my shoulder.
Down on the ground, Wolf started to growl and Cash and Repo straightened. Reign put
Ferryn on the ground and patted her butt till she toddled off. But before they could even move
toward the truck, the probate's wrist was grabbed and twisted. Maze moved fast, spinning behind
him, locking his arm against his back, and slamming him forward over a keg.
"Apologize," she growled, hiking a knee up as he squirmed and pressing it into his lower
back.
"Fuck you."
"With what? While we're talking about our brothers body parts, I've seen you changing,
Moose. You don't have anything a woman wants in those pants."
"Maze..." Repo called, his voice holding warning.
"What?" she almost screamed back, frustration bouncing off of every nerve ending. "Last
night Duke and Renny got into a knock down drag out and all you did was stand there and place
bets! But because it's me you're going to pull the fucking 'boss' card a-fucking-gain?" she asked,
still yelling, pushing away from the probate. I was right; they were giving her a hard time.
There's no way she would be flipping out like she was if they were giving her a fair shot. This
was just the icing on the cake for her after god-knew how long of god-knew what she was forced
to put up with. "He put his hand on someone else's old lady. He's lucky it's still attached to his
body!" All her rage was focused on Repo who looked like he was struggling with some kind of
self-control, his hands clenching hard into fists at his sides.
What the hell was going on?
"She ain't wrong," Wolf agreed, reaching up into the bed and pulling my leg until I hopped
down toward him, his arm closing around me tightly.
"Maze you need to calm down," Repo said, his voice sounding almost like a sigh.
"You need to stop..."
"Alright, enough," Reign broke in, obviously done with the situation. "Moose," he said
inclining his head toward the guy in the truck bed, rubbing his wrist where Maze had twisted it,
"Maze is right; you don't put your hand on a woman. Ever. And you certainly don't put your hand
on your fuckin' road captain's woman. What the fuck were you even thinking?"
"She could have broken my brother's bac..."
"Then your brother should show a little more respect. You're out," Reign said in a lethal
way that brooked no argument. "Your brother can stay if he shapes the fuck up. Now you've
ruined enough of this party so get the fuck gone so we can all enjoy the rest."
Moose's face was that of barely-contained rage and he shoved Maze hard as he passed,
almost knocking her off balance. But she didn't react, just gritted her teeth and jumped down off
the bed after him.
"Maze..." Repo said, trying to reach for her arm as she passed, but she jerked it violently
away.
"Don't you fucking touch me," she hissed under her breath, taking off toward the
compound.
I waited a minute for Moose to clear out, his brother following him toward the gate where
they both started gesturing wildly, shoving at each other and, I assumed, yelling.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, looking at Repo.
Repo rubbed a hand down his face and shuffled away without saying anything. I turned my
attention to Cash who was scratching his cheek, trying to not look as guilty as he obviously was.
"Spill."
Cash smiled, shaking his head. "You won't like it, kid."
"Still want to hear it."
"Repo is in charge of making Maze's life a living hell until she quits or fucks up bad enough
to get kicked out."
"Did you know about this?" I asked, turning my head to look up at Wolf.
"Yep," he said with a nod, not even thinking about evading or lying. It was a quality I
genuinely appreciated about him, but I wasn't in the mood to be pleased by him. I wrenched
away and he let me, sighing hard. "You don't get it," he said with a shrug.
"You're god damn right I don't fucking get it. Have we met? On that note, have you met Lo?
Or Alex? Hell, even Summer and Amelia have got steady trigger fingers and good foot work.
You are surrounded by strong, badass women and you think you can pull some Neanderthal shit
just because..."
"Because of what just happened, babe," Reign said, tucking his hands into his pockets.
"What just happened was two immature dickheads pulled some immature dickhead moves."
"Kid, have you met the guys? They're all immature dickheads," Cash put in. "This kind of
thing would be never-ending."
"Only because you three, as the leaders here, don't set the precedent of respect."
"She has to earn that," Reign said.
"She just fucking did!" I shouted, waving a hand toward the empty truck. "But instead of
praising her and telling her she did the right thing, you had her chastised. She's not looking for an
easy ride here. If she wanted that, she wouldn't be here in the first place, putting up with your
sexist bullshit. And you guys can roll your eyes and think I'm on the rag all you want, but you
know that I'm right. I'm so fucking right. You're deliberately trying to make her quit and she isn't
bending, no matter how much you jump on her, no matter how much Repo is all up in her shit." I
paused, taking a breath, trying to calm down as I focused my attention on Reign. "How would
you feel if someone did to Ferryn what you just did to Maze, Reign? If she did something right,
but got scolded for it just because she's a girl? I know how you'd feel and I bet it's one one-
millionth of how fucking furious and disappointed I am in all of you right now. Shape the fuck
up."
I tore through the back of the compound, looking for Lo and Summer to tell them what
their, and my, men were up to.
To say it did not go over well would be an understatement.
To say our, and by extension, Amelia's and Alex's moods, made it a very tense party would
also be an understatement.
"Don't," Repo said when I moved to sit down next to him on top of one of the picnic tables.
He'd been sitting alone for the better part of an hour, nursing a beer and staring off into nothing. I
made sure I had calmed myself down before I approached him.
Repo and I... we'd gotten close over the years. Some nights he would come up to the cabin
and hang out with me when Wolf went to sleep, or we would meet up at an all-night diner. While
I still didn't know his story, we were as close as I had gotten with the girls club.
"I'm afraid I have to," I said, looking off to see where his focus was. I felt my lips turn up
when I saw Maze leaning against the fence, flanked by Lo and Alex and looking down at her
feet. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why would you agree to do it?"
"Got an order," he shrugged.
"Right and you're just too damn loyal to question an order."
"Something like that."
"She doesn't deserve it."
"Doesn't matter."
"So you have no moral compass of your own?"
"Brotherhood above all."
"So if Reign told you to put a plug between her eyes right now..."
Repo's face tilted toward me, his eyes empty, haunted. "I'd go get my gun."
"God Repo... that's so fucked," I said, shaking my head.
"How I am, honey, take me or leave me." With that, he hopped off the table and took off
toward the back of the yard to his mostly dismantled cars.
"Woman," Wolf's voice said from my side a minute later.
"No."
"No what?"
"No I don't want to talk to you right now."
"Too bad," he said, sliding onto the picnic table, snagging me around the waist and hauling
me up and between his spread legs, pulling my back against his chest. "Janie, won't always
agree."
I felt myself snort. "Obviously." We agreed on very little a lot of the time.
"You wanna talk?"
"No."
"Wanna fight?"
"No."
"Then get over it," he said, curling around me to rest his chin on my shoulder.
"No. I mean I've disagreed with things The Henchmen have done here and there, but this is
just unacceptable."
"Let it play out," he said, turning and kissing the spot right under my ear and making me
pretend it didn't send a shiver through my body.
"Why?"
"Look at Repo," he suggested.
I swiveled my head toward where he was down the field, sitting on the roof of one of his
cars, his gaze on Maze.
"Okay, so?"
"Janie, look at Maze," he said softly, his fingers moving down my arm until his hand found
mine and held it.
She was standing a few feet away from Cash and Shooter who both looked like they were
trying their damndest to make her smile, but she was apparently the only woman in the world
immune to their charm. She would nod at them or shrug, trying to look like she was paying
attention, but every few seconds, her eyes would drift across the field and spot Repo then look
away before she could be seen.
I felt my lips curving up and shook my head. "How long have you known?"
"She walked in," Wolf started, "he was interested."
"Does Cash or Reign know?"
"Dunno."
"But you knew," I said, leaning into him. I guess it came along with being so quiet, but
Wolf was hyper observant. He noticed everything.
"I knew."
"So you aren't being a Neanderthal," I said, turning my head backward so I could look up at
him. "You think that if they keep butting heads that it will eventually make something happen
there."
Wolf grunted. "Be good for him."
"Why's that?"
"Good man needs a good woman." His arm went around my belly and tightened. "Like
mine."
I pressed my lips together to keep the smile in. Three years and he still said stuff like that,
off the cuff, sweet things that made my belly do flip-flops.
"Think I'm a good woman, huh?" I asked, needing to lighten the mood.
"No," he said, making me jump and turn in his arms, sliding my legs up against his sides as
his hands went around my back. "The best," he clarified, pulling my body closer. "You gonna
marry me already?"
"Do I have to wear a dress?"
"Can wear my tee, you want," he said with a shrug.
I smiled then, big and as happy as I felt inside, long since over the fear that if I got too
happy, it might be ripped away. Three years ago, the Earth started revolving around the moon,
and for me and Wolf, it never stopped.
"Well, I guess I can marry you then," I said, resting my face against his chest.
Two months later, I did.
Though, not in his tee.
The girls had talked me into a simple white sun dress. For easy access reasons only. I hated
every moment of wearing it, but loved the three seconds it took for Wolf to pull it off me.
I stuck to my guns and we got married at Hailstorm with Lo ordained and officiating.
Simple. And my bridesmaids wore whatever the hell they wanted to. And we were surrounded
by so much love it was almost suffocating.
At the time, I had no idea that our son was with us on our wedding day. But he was. And
eight months later, he was with us in our cabin.
I may have led a life of action and intrigue, but the greatest adventure I came across was
that of loving a good man and being loved in return and pouring the overflow of that love into
our son until he overflowed too.
Oh, and Wolf was right about Repo and Maze.
And let me tell ya... their story was a doozy.
Though, personally, I would always think mine and Wolf's was the best of the bunch.

xx
 DON'T FORGET:
If you liked this book, please pop over to Amazon or GoodReads and
tell me your favorite parts. You can also help spread the word by
recommending the book to your friends or by buying them a digital
copy that can be sent right to the Kindle App on any device!
 Also by Jessica Gadziala:

What The Heart Needs

What The Heart Wants
What The Heart Finds
What The Heart Knows
The Stars Landing Deviant
Dark Mysteries
For A Good Time, Call...
Dissent
The Sex Surrogate
Dr. Chase Hudson
Reign
Monster
Cash
Killer

Keep an eye for the upcoming:

Savior
Repo
 About the author:
Jessica is a full-time writer from New Jersey who believes coffee is a food group and that her parrots can totally understand her
when she talks to them. She can not be trusted with houseplants or to respond to text messages in a reasonable amount of time.

Writing was the only acceptable career path for her from the first time she learned that with just twenty-six letters, she could
create whole new worlds. She attempted a string of odd jobs before quitting and taking the blind leap of faith that was trying to
make a career out of her passion.

Jessica is a firm believer in snark, strong secondary characters, and HEA.

When she is not writing (which is practically never), she is obsessively trying to read as many books as possible and has totally
been known to throw temper tantrums over fictional characters.
She is super active on GR and, in fact, is probably stalking your status updates right now.
You can find her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jessica-Gadziala-746940975355564/
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13800950.Jessica_Gadziala
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JessicaGadziala

♥/ Jessica
 Acknowledgments:

Nikks- for somehow making the time to beta read this book for me despite having way too
much on your plate already. You helped erase the crippling insecurity I felt while working on
this project. You truly are one of the best people I've ever met.

And for the ladies who fell in love with Wolf and Janie way back when they first met them
and stayed excited through three other books waiting for me to finally get to telling their story. I
hope you loved them as much as I did.
 Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page
Rights
Dedication
Prologue
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
DON’T FORGET:
Also by Jessica Gadziala:
About the author:
Stalk Her
Acknowledgments