Katharina

 

“Katie,” my best friend, Becky, purred. “You have got to come out with me tonight.” She relaxed on my bed and looked up at me through her sheaf of blonde fringe. “I met the hottest guy last week!”

 

I swallowed hard. This was Becky’s game; she always tried to con me into being her wingwoman. It had happened before, and I knew it would happen again, but I didn’t think tonight would be the night. Even though I’d had my share of boyfriends, I couldn’t compete when I stood next to Becky. Her blonde hair and killer figure made her stand out like a sore thumb.

 

“I don’t know, Beck,” I said. “Troy is still following me around.” I frowned, looking down at my thin knees pressed together. “I’m worried he’s going to try to break in here.”

 

Becky shook her head. “Don’t worry about him,” she said, waving her hand dismissively in the air. “After all, he’s a loser.” She pouted at me. “Come out and meet a real man, you know, someone who can scare him off.”

 

I frowned again. “I’m not ready to date anyone yet.”

 

Becky stuck her tongue out at me. “You’re ridiculous,” she said mildly. I watched as she leapt up from the bed and twirled around in a circle.

 

“You know what,” I said suddenly. “I think I’ll go with you.”

 

Becky stopped twirling around and stared. “Are you sure? I mean, aren’t you worried about Troy?”

 

“You just told me not to be,” I said, staring into my closet. “I’m sick of moping,” I added. “It doesn’t really even feel like me.”

 

Becky nodded. “You have been acting strangely,” she added. “I thought you were just down about Troy.”

 

I grimaced. “He kind of put a harsh on my buzz for a long time, I guess,” I said.

 

Troy and I had been together for almost five years. We’d met in college, and I’d fallen hard for him at first. He was the cool, dark-haired intellectual guy in all of my classes. It didn’t matter that later on I found out his hair had been dyed, that he was naturally blond. I loved how the way he’d question the professors, like he knew more than all of them put together. I loved his intense stare. I loved the way he wore a military surplus jacket all through winter, even though it had been freezing cold. Most importantly, I loved the way he made me feel flushed and breathless, like I had just sprinted uphill.

 

Before I’d met Troy, I’d been what you could have called impulsive. I always did what I wanted, when I wanted to do it, and I hated people ordering me around and telling me what to do. The more someone told me I couldn’t do something, the more I desperately would want to prove them wrong. With Troy, it was no exception. At first, whenever he ordered me to do something, we’d have a fight afterwards followed by a night of hot sex. I loved it. I got off on the energy, on the passion we had between us.

 

I remembered one night in particular. There was a dance at the school and Troy and I had plans to sneak in some vodka with our friends and get drunk. I wore this red silky dress I’d bought from a thrift shop earlier in the day. I’d always been slim, but in college I was practically a toothpick. In that dress, I felt about as good as naked. The material hugged my flat chest perfectly, making it look like I had some cleavage. I felt amazing in that dress, and I couldn’t wait to show it off to Troy.

 

But when he saw me, his mouth twisted and contorted into an angry scowl. Before I even knew what was happening, Troy had grabbed my arm and yanked me over to a side corridor. “You look like a slut in that dress, Katharina,” he’d told me. “Everyone’s going to see you and think you’re some kind of cheap hooker! Do you want to embarrass me like that?”

 

It was the first time I’d ever seen him angry, the first time I’d felt compelled to shut up and listen to him. Troy no longer seemed like my equal, but like something horrible I had to run away from as quickly as possible. But the oddest reaction happened just then, and even now, I don’t think I’ll be able to explain it. It was like my whole personality, the brashness, the way I always acted without thinking first just disappeared.

 

Unfortunately, it was just the first of a long series of incidents that involved Troy treating me like garbage. I hated him for doing this to me, but I still loved him. After all, I’d had a crush on him for a year before he’d finally asked me out. Didn’t I deserve to have this? And everyone got angry sometimes. It wasn’t worth telling my friends about because they would just give me weird looks.

 

So I stopped sharing with people. And after all of my friends stopped calling me, sick of their calls going unanswered and unreturned, I felt really alone. Troy was all I had.

 

The only friend who had stuck by my side was Becky. I hated to admit it, because I didn’t want to be right, but sometimes I thought she was just using me to make herself feel better. After all, before Troy, we’d both been popular together. But after things started to get bad, I never turned down plans with Becky or broke a promise to her. I was Old Faithful.

 

Now, I was starting to get tired of it. The past year had brought a lot of drama on me, including my father’s death. Becky and I had grown up on the bad side of town, across the tracks. My father was the leader of an MC, The Silent Havoc. I know it sounds kind of macabre, and, if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t have let her associate with men like that, but my upbringing had been pretty damn safe and rosy. Nothing bad or weird had ever really happened.

 

I loved being around the guys; they made me feel safe and well taken care of.

 

Then my father died. My father, Matthias, had been the leader of The Silent Havoc for a long time. His death was suspicious, and everyone thought the new leader had something to do with it. He was shot in his own home, after negotiating some kind of deal. I hadn’t been around at the time. I’d been fighting with Troy. Even though I’d had a nagging feeling that whole day, I hadn’t exactly listened to myself. Paying attention to my boyfriend had been more important.

 

I regretted that night fiercely. It was something that would haunt me forever. After my dad died, Troy didn’t seem like nearly as big of a threat. Sure, he was an asshole, but that didn’t matter now.

 

I didn’t get around to breaking up with him for nearly a year until after my dad had been in the ground. It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. On the upside, his abuse didn’t seem to frighten me much anymore. He didn’t stop hitting me—he’d been hitting me for years—but I somehow didn’t seem to feel it as much anymore. It was like it didn’t even bother me.

 

So going out with Becky tonight seemed like a good idea, if only to get this shit off my mind.

 

“Thanks for asking me,” I said halfheartedly. “But if I see Troy, you know I’m turning around and going home.”

 

Becky laughed. “Katie, don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “He wouldn’t dare show up to a club like this.”

 

I shivered. Becky didn’t know the worst of it. After I’d broken up with Troy, he’d continued acting like he was my boyfriend. Then, when I called him on it, he started stalking me. I was afraid he was outside my apartment right now, but I didn’t want to scare her.

 

“I have to go to the store,” I announced. “I need to get some snacks and stuff for later. You wanna come?”

 

Becky nodded. “I need smokes,” she said. “Thanks for the lift.”

 

She grinned at me and I rolled my eyes. There it was again: our uneven friendship coming to light.

 

As we walked outside and got into my little compact car, Becky lit a cigarette and stared out the window. She’d been so moody lately, it was like hanging out with a different person entirely.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Becky nodded. “Yeah, I’m gonna stay in the car,” she said, throwing me a guilty grin. “I just wanted to get some fresh air. I’m good on smokes for now.”

 

I rolled my eyes. When we pulled into the parking lot, I hopped out of the car and walked into the store. I didn’t have a ton of money on hand, but I needed to pick up some of the basics: bread, milk, maybe some late-night snacks.

 

The store was crawling with people. I let out a long sigh and darted behind a long checkout queue, managing to grab the last gallon of skim milk from the shelf.

 

“Hello, Katharina.” The voice was both cold and familiar and I jumped out of my skin.

 

“Troy, I don’t want to talk to you,” I said as calmly as I could manage. I closed my eyes and counted to ten, praying that when I turned around, he’d be gone.

 

But he wasn’t gone. He was standing right there in front of me, like a bad dream. Or a nightmare.

 

“Katharina,” Troy said in a pleading voice. “Come on, baby. I wanna talk to you! Don’t you know that?”

 

I wished more than anything that Becky had come with me into the store. Maybe Troy wouldn’t have approached if I was with my best friend; hell, maybe she would have even seen him first and given me a proper warning!

 

“Troy, please go away,” I said under my breath. “I really can’t do this right now. I can’t…I can’t talk to you! It hurts!”

 

Anger flashed in Troy’s blue eyes. His skinny frame looked even more narrow than it had before, and I had a feeling he’d probably gotten into drugs or something even worse. His blond hair hung down in front of his face and he pushed it away with a bony hand, leaning down in my face. He was so close that I could smell the stale booze wafting off his breath.

 

“You can’t leave me, Katharina,” Troy said in a deep, intense voice. He grabbed me by the wrist and I shrieked and twisted away. The noise I made must have startled him, because his eyes bugged out and he looked like he was going to faint.

 

Taking the opportunity, I dashed off in the opposite direction. My heart was slamming against my ribs and I had a bad feeling that today was going to be the start of a whole new attack campaign against me. I shuddered. I couldn’t believe I’d wasted years of my life with Troy, with someone who treated me like dirt.

 

“I hate you,” I mumbled under my breath as hot tears filled my eyes. I couldn’t stand him. All the things that had attracted me to him in the first place only repulsed me now. I couldn’t believe I’d ever found him sophisticated or intelligent. Now, I only saw a whiny baby who was hell-bent on his own destruction.

 

I realized I’d forgotten to grab the bread. Abandoning my corner, I hunted for the row of baguettes and chose one that didn’t seem too stale. Even though I’d only been inside for five minutes, I was already stressed and I wanted to leave.

 

It’ll be okay, I told myself. You’ll go out with Becky and have fun, and pretend like Troy never existed.

 

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still there, watching me.

 

As I nervously went through the checkout line and paid for my things, I was barely paying attention to the cashier. He was some skinny, reedy, slip of a boy, no doubt eager to end his day and move on. He barely even looked at my face as he rung up the purchases.

 

I swallowed hard. “Do y’all have security cameras in this store?”

 

The boy laughed. When he realized I was talking to him, he blushed. “We do,” he said, swallowing and making his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “But they don’t work, ma’am,” he added. “I mean, they’re just for show.” He pointed to a dinky-looking white plastic camera mounted on the wall behind him. “Do you have a problem, ma’am?”

 

I rolled my eyes. “I have more of a problem with you calling me ma’am than anything else,” I snapped. “I’m not that old.”

 

The boy blushed harder than ever. Part of me felt guilty, but the other part of me felt more indignant than ever before. I wasn’t a ma’am, damn it! I was only twenty-six!

 

When he’d finished ringing up my groceries, he shoved them into a paper sack and thrust it at me with little grace. I sighed and hefted it up, carrying it out to the parking lot.

 

Troy stepped directly in front of me. “Hi, Katharina,” he said with a sneer twisting on his face. “I thought we could talk a little bit more.”

 

I shook my head. “Fuck off, Troy,” I said under my breath. “I don’t have fucking time for you right now.”

 

Troy reached forward and wrapped his fingers around my wrist, yanking my arm forward and making me spill my bag of groceries. The milk crashed to the ground and the plastic container cracked open, bleeding white all over my shoes.

 

“Fuck,” I mumbled.

 

Troy tightened his grip on me. “You’re not going anywhere, Katharina,” he said under his breath. “You’re coming with me.”

 

“No,” I hissed. “Leave me alone!”

 

“You’d better come back to me, Katharina,” Troy said, his voice low and heavy with warning. “You’d better. This is your final warning.”

 

Finally, I managed to yank my wrist free of his grasp. Stumbling backwards, I turned on my heel and ran towards the car. My heart was pounding in my chest and I thought he was right on my heels until I finally turned around.

 

No one was there.

 

“What was that?” Becky climbed out of the car and stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “Katie, what the hell happened?”

 

“Troy,” I said in a shaky voice. “I need to get out of here, Beck. Let’s go.”

 

Becky got behind the wheel and gunned the car to life. I jumped in the passenger seat, gazing down at my wrists. Angry red bruises were starting to form right below the surface, and I knew Troy would have done a lot worse if we hadn’t been in a public place.

 

“I hate him,” I mumbled. “I hate him so fucking much.”

 

“Katie, it’s over,” Becky said in a soothing voice. She reached over to stroke my shoulder and I flinched. “I promise, he’s gone. He’s not going to bother you anymore.”

 

Right as Becky spoke, I felt my phone vibrate against my thigh. Pulling it out, I saw I had a message from him. Dread flashed through me and I closed my eyes, leaning my head back and letting out a long breath. It’s okay. He can’t hurt you. You’re with a friend, he’s not here, you’re going to be okay.

 

Forcing myself to open my eyes, I read his message: I’ll gut you like a fish and toss your body in a drainage ditch unless you come back to me, Katharina.

 

I shuddered. It was like he’d somehow managed to break into my head, to make everything even more chaotic and awful than it had been before.

 

For the longest time, I thought I could do this by myself. I didn’t think Troy was really capable of hurting me. That was rich, considering the amount of times he’d put me in the hospital while we were still together. I shouldn’t have been so stupid; I should have known better. But at least now I was starting to come around.

 

“Beck, I can’t go out with you tonight,” I said in an even, calm voice. “I have some things to take care of, okay?”

 

Becky looked at me and frowned. Her blonde hair was swept over one shoulder and despite the scene in the parking lot, she looked as calm and collected as ever. She shrugged. “Fine,” she said. “Suit yourself.”

 

I knew she was sore because she thought I was ditching her, but there was no way I could let her know the real truth: my life was in danger, and if I didn’t find someone to take care of me, I’d be dead before too much longer.

 

My stomach twisted into knots as I thought about my only viable options. Growing up with a father who led an MC had put me in contact with a lot of tough guys. In fact, I’d been around men who were bodyguard material since I was a little kid. But there was only one guy I knew who was capable of beating Troy at his own game. And that man was Jace Carver, the new president of The Silent Havoc. Jace was a few years older than me. He had shiny blue-black hair and dark eyes full of trouble. I could tell he was naturally pale, but all that time riding in the sun had given him an unlikely tan.

 

Oh, and there was one other little thing I hadn’t thought about. Jace may have killed my father to become leader of The Silent Havoc.

 

But now I didn’t have a choice. Killer or not, this man was still my best bet at protection from Troy and his evil plans.