The darkness clung to her and didn’t want to let her go. In her dreams, she could see the flashes of knives and hear the bravado of men taking what wasn’t theirs. She had to outrun it, but there was nowhere for her to go, and she still couldn’t move.

She groaned as she tried to roll onto her side, but she realized quickly that she wasn’t in a familiar place. She was on a mattress, but it wasn’t her bed, and there were bars up at the side, holding her in place and to stop her from rolling out. She rubbed her hands against them before she reached up and rubbed her eyes and dared herself to open them.

There were noises all around her and she could hear beeps and distant voices.

She swallowed and her throat felt like it had been grated. She winced and moaned.

“Shelby?” a voice came from across the room. A man’s voice. A voice she didn’t recognize.

She opened her eyes slowly and her vision was blurred, but she could make out the outline of a person standing against a wall about six foot away from her. He looked tall and muscular, but he was all mixed up and she couldn’t see any of his features.

“Where am I?” she croaked as she closed her eyes again.

She felt woozy and sick, and she didn’t want to try and move.

“You’re in the hospital,” the stranger told her.

His voice was deep and gruff. It was strong and masculine, like something dark and intimidating, and she felt her skin chill. 

And then she heard the tapping of keys and the sound of the man walking from one side of the room to the other.

“She’s awake, Sir,” he said and Shelby was even more confused.

What the hell is going on? she thought as she tried to fight her eyes open again.

She heard the sound of a door opening and closing, and of muffled voices, and then she forced herself to try and sit upright and see what was happening. She pushed her palms down into the mattress beneath her and tried to lever herself up against the pillows behind her. She managed but the room was still spinning and she held her hands up to her head to stop it from feeling as if it were about to come off her shoulders.

“Ow,” she said.

She wasn’t so much in agony but the dizziness was making her disorientated, and she had a throbbing pain in her stomach and sides.

“Shelby!” her father’s voice boomed from across the room as the door flung open and she heard him clatter inside. “You’re awake!”

He rushed over to her and swept her into his arms and hugged her tightly before she even had a chance to open her eyes, and she gasped out in pain.

“Dad!” she howled as she clutched her ribs.

“Oh God! I’m so sorry,” he said as he sat down next to her and held her hand over the side of the railings.

She opened her eyes and squinted as the stark light in the room made her wince. She tried to focus on what was around her, everything still swimming and her father’s face flashing in and out of focus.

“What the hell?” she croaked as she tried to get her bearings. “What’s happening?”

Her father looked at her with half gloom and half anger, and she could tell she was in trouble. Rapidly, as her mind awoke, she caught flashes of the last thing she could remember.

The drinking…

The men…

The alleyway…

The hard fist in the stomach.

“Oh no,” she whispered as she rubbed her forehead.

She was starting to ache all over and she just wanted to be left alone, but she could tell from the look in her father’s eye, that was likely to never happen again.

“What have I always told you, Shelby?” her dad said as he looked at her sternly. “You can’t roam around Iron Hill and act the fool.”

“I wasn’t,” she interjected, but he held his hand up to silence her.

“You were mugged and assaulted,” he said. “You were lucky it wasn’t much worse.”

His face was becoming red and furious, but she didn’t know whether he was more angry with her or what had happened to her. He had always tried to teach her so well, and now, they were finally experiencing something they had all feared.

Shelby had been attacked in her own town. Someone had stolen her purse and her money. And her father looked as if he were ready to kill.

“Dad,” she whispered gently. “It was just an accident. We weren’t acting out. We were just unlucky. I don’t think they knew who I was…”

“You can’t afford to be unlucky,” her father snapped as he cut off her sentence. “You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t,” she gasped with exasperation, but her father looked even madder than he had seconds before.

“You’re not at college now, Shelby,” he said. “You’re back here in our town and people know you’re my daughter. Luckily for us, tonight, it appears as if the men who mugged you weren’t aware of that fact. But it won’t be long before word gets around, especially after I’ve had them dealt with.”

Shelby lowered her gaze and felt tears welling up behind her eyes.

“What do you mean, have them dealt with?” she whispered.

Her father snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.

“It would send a pretty weak message if I didn’t retaliate to some two-bit little gang targeting my daughter,” he said. “Of course, I’m going to have to deal with them.”

Shelby closed her eyes. She really didn’t want to know.

“It was all just a misunderstanding,” she said. “We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Well, you won’t be again,” he said sternly as he rose to his feet. “I’m glad you’re home, Shelby, but I can’t risk having you in danger like that. I’m surprised you even went out late at night around here. Are you forgetting everything I’ve ever told you about this town and how it operates?”

He was glaring at her now with so much anger that she wanted to scream, but he was right. It was all her fault.

“You won’t go back to the apartment,” he said. “I want you back at home, for now, and I’m going to make sure you’re looked after while you get better, okay?”

“Get better?” she half laughed. “I’m fine. I’m just a bit battered and bruised. Not to mention, dizzy! What the hell kind of sedative did the doctors give me?” she rubbed her head again and her father glowered at her.

“This isn’t a game,” he said. “You’ve only been back in town for a few weeks and I’ve done everything to give you what you wanted. I got you the apartment, I didn’t try and warn you about how to behave. I mean, hell, I thought you would have known, by now, what was right and wrong. But clearly not. Drunk and on Main Street late at night, wandering from bar to bar, and dressed like a hooker!”

“Dad!” she screamed, but he held up his hand.

“Enough!” he shouted. His voice was so loud it bellowed around the room and made her jump.

“Please…” she sobbed. “Honestly, it was just a mistake.”

He shook his head and breathed out deeply through both of his nostrils. His face was so red he looked as if he were about to explode with anger.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you what this could mean,” he said sternly as he looked her in the eye. “From now on, I need to know you’re not going to put yourself in harm’s way. It’s only because I care.” 

Shelby sighed and nodded. She had to give him that, he was just looking out for her.

“You won’t go back to the apartment,” he reiterated. “I have to go out of town on business for a few weeks and I want you at the house. It’s safer there, and more secure.”

Shelby had to physically stop herself from rolling her eyes. She hated being at that goddam isolated mansion, manned by security and trapped in her gilded cage. But she knew she couldn’t argue with him, not right now.

“You’ll go there straight from here,” he said as he took a step toward the door and straightened out his suit jacket and tie. “And you will never put yourself in such a risky situation ever again, do you hear me?”

Shelby swallowed and nodded as she wiped away a tear.

“Hammer will stay with you, he’ll be your own personal security.”

“Hammer?” she asked with confusion as she looked up at him and shook her head. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Her father closed his mouth tightly and glared at her.

“Does it, in any way, sound like I’m joking?” he asked her.

He was a strong and brutal man for someone approaching his sixties, and he still scared Shelby, so she could only imagine what he was like with his enemies.

“I’ve arranged for you to have a bodyguard, his name is Hammer and he’s right outside that door,” he pointed behind him. “He’ll be there until you’re discharged and then he will drive you back home, where you will stay, until I say otherwise.”

Shelby felt as if she had been slapped in the face, but she bit her tongue and didn’t say a word. It would be better, all the way around, if she accepted her punishment and just admitted she had been in the wrong. Then maybe, just maybe, she would even be allowed back to the apartment before the end of the month, if she was lucky. Maybe her independence wasn’t all lost just yet.

“Okay,” she said quietly, even though, inside, she was screaming and kicking and wishing none of this was happening.

“I’ll be back in a few weeks,” her father said as he reached for the door handle. “I don’t ever want us to be put in this situation again, Shelby,” he looked back at her sternly. “I thought, by now, we would be on the same page with how everything operates in our family.”

“What family?” she snorted bitterly and looked down at her hands.

Her father breathed in and out deeply and, for a second, she thought he was going to retaliate, but instead, he swung open the door and marched outside before letting it bang behind him.

Shelby breathed in and held her hand up to her heart. It was racing from the nerves and anger. She couldn’t believe this had actually happened. Her father had always warned her when she was younger that if she ever stepped out of line he would come down on her like a ton of bricks. When it came down to it, she was all he had, and he knew as well as his henchmen, that Shelby would be a prime target for anyone seeking revenge. And it seemed to terrify her father more than it did her.

She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes.

No more apartment.

No more freedom.

Locked up in the family home.

She moaned and rolled to her side.

This was all her fault for going against her better judgement, but she still couldn’t help but feel mad at Molly. If she hadn’t listened to her and gave in to her peer pressure, then none of this even would have happened. And the men who had mugged them probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as violent either.

She pouted and pulled the covers up around her shoulders, feeling the tight pain thunder through her ribcage.

“Ouch,” she hissed as she rubbed them and tried not to cry out any more in pain. “God, get me out of here…”

As she said the words, she found herself looking at the door and at the little window in the top of it. Through it, she could see the back of the man’s head. The man she could only assume had been the one in the room with her who had summoned her father when she had woken up. She didn’t recognize the back of his head or his voice, so he was either a new bit of muscle her dad had hired, or he was the special bodyguard he had found for her.

Knowing her father, she could only assume it was the latter.

There was no way, after something like this, he would just leave her with one of his regular goons. He would have gone and found someone in particular. Someone especially dangerous and dedicated.

She hadn’t even seen his face but she already hated him. She let her eyes bore into the back of his head and she imagined she was burning holes into him, right into the back of his brain, making him scream and quake so she could disarm him and make a run for it. Right out of the hospital, right out of the town, right back to somewhere where she could live freely and finally be herself.

His hair was dark and short, and she could see from his neck and shoulders that he was clearly ripped. He was wearing a t-shirt and his neck was wide and thick. She looked away in anger and bit her lip.

This man on the other side of the door was, basically, her jailer. He was going to be ruling her life now, day in and day out, until her father returned and he decided what the next course of action would be.

He turned his head slightly and she tried to make out his features, but the way he was angled just wasn’t good enough. She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest and winced again at the pain in her ribs. She was really going to have to try and remember about that before she did herself even more damage.

She sunk down in bed and looked up at the ceiling. She could only imagine how the next few weeks were going to pan out, and she wasn’t looking forward to them. All she knew was she hadn’t been back to her family home, properly, in months and she was dreading it. It may have been big, beautiful and surrounded by amazing grounds, a practical mirage out in the desert, but she still didn’t want to be there. For her, that house was just a constant reminder of what she had never had and wanted the most.

A mother.

Pictures and paintings of her mother lined every wall and even though she loved to look at them, they also cut her right to the heart. She had no memories of her mother, only grainy old VCR footage of home movies and the paintings her father had had made of her long before she died. The photographs were a comfort, and she carried one inside a special locket at all times, but to be surrounded by them constantly always drove her to tears.

She regularly wondered what it would have been like if her mother had lived. If there had been more than just her and her father. Shelby often thought she may even have had a brother or a sister and the heat wouldn’t all be on her. But no, her harsh reality was that it was just her and her dad. The only remaining members of the Petrov family, all of the others were all dead, or still lived overseas, far, far away.

She looked back up to the door and this time, he was looking in on her. He was peering through the glass, his eyes the only thing she could see piercing through at her and holding her there, as if she had been startled into submission. They were just as blue as hers and they sent a shiver right through her entire body.

She pushed herself back in the pillows and broke his gaze. She felt instantly uncomfortable and exposed, as if she were on show for him and him alone. It was as if she were an exhibit, something to be caged and observed. And she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

She bit her bottom lip in frustration and rolled over so that she couldn’t see him anymore. She put her back to him and buried herself down and closed her eyes. She would lay quiet and ignore that he was even there, and she could only hope that when she was finally let out of the hospital, she would get back to her family home fast and not have to make small talk with him.

There was nothing she wanted to say to someone who had basically been hired to track her every move and not let her live her life.

She hadn’t even seen his face, but she knew she already hated him.

This Hammer was going to do nothing but get on her last nerve.