When Alyssa pulled up to the driveway in front of her parents’ house, she realized that her disastrous morning was far from over. There was a Harley-Davidson parked in the very same driveway, and a man waiting for her, sitting on the swing on the house’s front porch. He was the man she hated most in the world, and seeing him was like a stone dropping into her stomach.
She felt heavy, as she parked the car, got out, and walked slowly up to the house. Not even twenty-four hours since she had been back from Vancouver and already she felt weary. Already she was tired of all of this—of all of them.
Benedict “Bennie” Lenday was the President of the Devil’s Fighter Motorcycle Club. He had blond hair and dark eyes, a combination that would have driven women crazy if it wasn’t for the fact that any sane woman in Pinebrook knew who he was and how dangerous he was, and therefore steered clear of him. At over forty years of age, he still possessed a fit figure that belonged on the cover of a magazine. He had a clean-shaven face, angular features, and high cheekbones. If he hadn’t chosen to be a criminal, he could just as easily have been a model.
He stood when he saw her, and he smiled a wolf smile that gave his dark nature away, instantly robbing him off of any charm his physical qualities might have given him—at least, it did in Alyssa’s eyes. She knew there were also women crazy enough to find him appealing.
“Good morning, Alyssa,” he greeted cheerfully, with a lightness that did not reach his dark eyes.
Alyssa’s stomach was in knots. The last time he had paid her a visit, it had been to threaten her. She couldn’t quite imagine this would be a friendlier encounter.
“Bennie,” she acknowledged him. “What do you want?”
“A cup of coffee would be good,” he deadpanned. “And to talk to you.”
Alyssa felt her insides grow cold with dread. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll do the talking.”
Alyssa stared at him. “Get off my property.”
“Sorry, girlie,” he said, in the tone of voice of one who wasn’t sorry at all. “Can’t do that. Now, are you going to let me in or are we going to have to do this the hard way?”
Alyssa swallowed hard. She did her best not to let her fear show and ran her gaze carefully over him, studying him. “You just want to talk?” she asked cautiously.
“I just want to talk,” Bennie said. He lifted a hand to show his good intentions. “Scout’s honor.”
Alyssa looked at him skeptically. She didn’t quite believe him, but she also knew she had no other choice but to trust him for the time being. He would find his way into her house whether she liked it or not, and there was a truth to what he had said; she didn’t want anything to do with the “hard way.”
“Fine,” she finally said, relenting. “Come inside. I’ll brew some coffee.”
“Wonderful,” Bennie said, smiling his predator smile. “Lead the way.”
Against all of her instincts, Alyssa did.
They were both silent while she made the coffee, something she was very grateful for. She figured he’d do more than enough talking soon enough, and she would take the small blessing of his silence,—however brief that might be.
Still, the fact that he wasn’t engaging her in small talk as was his custom worried her. She took it as a confirmation that whatever the reason why he was there, it was probably very bad. Unwittingly, her eyes darted towards the back door in the kitchen.
“Relax,” Bennie spoke from behind her, seated at the kitchen’s table. “I’m not going to kill you, you know?”
Alyssa turned around. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid as to give herself—and her fear—away so easily.
“No,” she said, looking him straight in the eye, “I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m telling you. I’m not.”
He seemed sincere enough, and yet Alyssa was far from relieved as she returned her attention to the coffee maker.
“Still,” Bennie said, and his voice sounded suddenly very close. Too close. Alyssa spun around and she found he was right behind her. “You have ignored my warnings. You should know, I don’t appreciate being defied.”
Alyssa swallowed past her suddenly dry mouth. She stepped back, her back hitting the edge of the counter. She cursed inwardly when she realized he had cornered her.
“What are you talking about?” she said. “I haven’t—”
“Spare me,” Bennie cut her off, his usually mellow voice going dangerously sharp. “Let’s skip the part where you lie to me and I have to call on your bullshit, shall we? I know you’ve been seeing Prince. I know you’re the one who patched up Rick, and I know that night wasn’t the end of it.”
“Would you rather I’d let one of your guys die from internal injuries?”
Somehow, somewhere, Alyssa found the strength to talk back to him. There was a darkness in Bennie’s eyes that she had always known about but had never been on the receiving end of. It was terrifying.
He sneered at her. “No, I’m glad you patched him up. In fact, I have half a mind of recruiting you as our go-to medic.”
Alyssa’s own eyes flared with anger then. “Forget it!” she hissed.
“I won’t,” Bennie declared. “I’ll think about it. Carefully.”
“I will never help you,” Alyssa growled out. She surprised herself with her fierceness, but she really couldn’t stomach the idea of being even remotely connected to Bennie Lenday and his “club.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said. “But right now we have more pressing matters to discuss. Did I or did I not politely ask you to stay away from Prince Wheeler?”
Alyssa wasn’t sure threatening to have “something happen to her” if she ignored the warning could be considered “polite,” but she refrained from saying it out loud. Bennie was very close now, so much so that she could smell his breath. She thought it was somehow at odds with the situation that it didn’t smell foul. She thought it should smell sulfurous, like that of Satan’s. Why did the devils never look like devils in real life?
“I haven’t—”
“Again,” Bennie growled out, cutting her off sharply, “save it. I know.”
“How?” Alyssa asked. She said it defiantly, but she was also genuinely curious. “How could you possibly know?”
“I have my sources, and I have my ways.”
Alyssa stared at him in suspicion, and then realization finally hit. “You had him followed, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And you, too. I know he was here last night. I also know you’ve paid a certain other Wheeler a visit earlier this morning.”
Alyssa swallowed hard. “Mr. Wheeler doesn’t know anything,” she said. And how disappointingly true that was! She couldn’t believe she was in this awful predicament because of something that had turned out to be a huge waste of time.
“I know he doesn’t,” Bennie said. “He and Prince haven’t spoken in years. But you didn’t know that. What’s you’re angle, Alyssa? What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” Alyssa said. She prayed she hadn’t said it too quickly. “I’m up to nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Bennie spat. “You want him back, don’t you? Prince?”
“No.”
“Good,” Bennie said, even though it was all too clear that he didn’t believe her. “Because you can’t have him, you’d better get it into your thick skull right now.”
There was a savagery in his eyes and brimming underneath the surface of his voice, past the anger and the fury. She was very, very scared, and she didn’t feel any shame over admitting that to herself; she would have to be crazy not to be afraid of him right now.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next,” Bennie said. “You are going to board a flight to Canada, and once you get there you’re going to stay there. If you ever, absolutely have to come back to Pinebrook because of your parents’ affair or whatever the fuck goes on in your life, you are going to pretend that Prince Wheeler doesn’t exist. In fact, Prince Wheeler is dead to you starting now.”
Alyssa didn’t know what possessed her at that point, but all of a sudden she couldn’t take it anymore. The threats, the intimidation, the rage… Alyssa was angry, and in a split second, she decided that Bennie Lenday was going to see just how furious she was.
“No,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “He isn’t. Now get away from me and get out of my house. And once you’re out, stay out.”
Bennie Lenday didn’t move. He looked as though he had turned to stone. Alyssa couldn’t tell if he was trying to come to terms with her abrupt rebellion or if he was struggling to keep his infamous temper in check and not explode in her face.
They say that you’re not supposed to look a predator in the eye, because they’ll feel challenged and they will attack. And that was exactly what happened. Bennie Lenday attacked.
He stepped forward and grabbed Alyssa by the throat, pushing her so that the small of her back slammed against the counter. She let out a gasp of surprise, and before she knew it, she found herself immobilized and with a very limited air supply. Bennie’s crazed eyes were only a few inches apart, and her heart was slamming against her ribcage so hard and fast and furious that she could almost hear it.
“You are a very stupid bitch, Alyssa Kelley,” he growled in her face. His features were a mask of fury.
In the instant that he let go of her throat, he lifted his other hand. His open palm smacked hard across her face and Alyssa went flying. She crashed to the floor, and it took her a few moments to regain her bearings. She was bleeding from her nose, the blood running down her face and into her mouth. It tasted like iron and humiliation.
Bennie was towering over her, even taller with fury.
“This is my second friendly warning,” he spat. “If you choose to ignore this one too, the next time I can promise you I won’t be so kind.”
He stood still for a few moments, looking down at her with disgust written all over his face.
“Also,” he said, “you should know the only reason I haven’t killed you yet is out of respect for your father. But that only buys you so much time. You’d better keep that in mind.” He spat on her floor, the ultimate gesture of utter contempt. “I’d start packing if I were you.”
He left her there, bleeding and confused on the floor of her parents’ kitchen.
*****
It took her a long time to drag herself up. Tears of humiliation were streaking down her cheeks, and the pain she felt had little to do with her wounds.
She stumbled to her feet and to the kitchen’s sink, spitting blood and saliva into the basin. Before she knew what was happening, her stomach rebelled to all the tension and she was dry heaving in that same sink, her whole body shivering.
Her head was spinning with the remains of terror and with dazed thoughts that chased each other within the walls of her skull. She had been very stupid in underestimating Bennie’s threats and, more importantly, the tools at his disposal. Pinebrook was his. Did she really think he wouldn’t find out? Did she really think Prince could come to her in the middle of the night and no one would notice?
Stupid, she thought dazedly. So fucking stupid.
If anything though, this latest visit from Bennie Lenday convinced her that Prince needed to get out of there, and that he needed to be gone soon. She wasn’t a fortune teller, but she knew his fortune would be non-existent. She wasn’t a psychic, but she knew his future would be short-lived. It was only a matter of time before Prince got killed—whether in a fight or by the Devil’s Fighters themselves—and chances were that time was running out.
Still shivering, Alyssa grabbed a clean cloth and pressed it against her still bleeding nose. She stumbled to the kitchen’s table and sat down heavily on one of the chairs. Her hands were trembling—hell, her whole body was trembling. She knew she couldn’t leave. She couldn’t do what Bennie “asked.” She couldn’t hop on a plane and leave Prince behind. She had never realized just what madmen he had to deal with until now. Things had never looked so crystal clear before.
Bennie Lenday was a madman, a sociopath, and a murderer—and it was only a matter of time before that savage nature of his turned on Prince more fiercely than it already had when he had recruited him to fight in his rings.
Alyssa’s heart was still beating a mile a minute. She was terrified, but the more the minutes ticked by the more that fear morphed until it ceased being about Bennie Lenday. She was still afraid—terrified, in fact—but now she was afraid for Prince. She was terrified and horrified for him. She no longer cared what he thought. She no longer cared what he would do once he found out she had been to his father earlier that day and inadvertently revealed his big secret to the old man. Let him hate her if he had to. All Alyssa cared about at this moment was getting him out of Pinebrook and this pseudo-life he was living—no matter the cost.
The only trouble was, she still didn’t know how to go about it. Bennie’s visit had proven to her that he was much more dangerous than she had first imagined—which really was saying a lot—and that she didn’t quite have the tools to challenge him openly. Hell, she didn’t even have the tools to challenge him indirectly, seeing as how he had seen right through it at record speed.
She didn’t have a clue how to go against Benedict “Bennie” Lenday and his Devil’s Fighters. All she knew was that she had to do it, and she knew now that it was vital that Prince get on board. She just couldn’t do it alone.
A knock at the front door made her jump out of her reverie and nearly out of her skin. Her heart, which was just beginning to slow its erratic beating down to a normal cadence, picked up the pace again. Alyssa swallowed hard. The thought that Bennie Lenday may have forgotten something chilled her to the bone.