The disgusting rag that’s in my mouth smells of motor oil and decay. The rough, dirty feel of it on my tongue makes me want to gag, but I force myself to calm down and breathe through my nose.

The air is stale in the bag that’s over my head. I’m fighting a creeping sense of claustrophobia because I can’t get a deep breath.

My feet are tightly bound now, along with my hands, with what feel like zip ties. I’m lying on the back bench seat of a van. The seat material is slippery, and I have to keep my knees pressed against the seat in front of me to avoid falling to the floor. Except for the sound of the engine revving and slowing, it’s eerily quiet. I realize that none of the men — assuming they’re all men — has said a word since they abducted me.

Their silence is what scares me the most. They seem so calm. So deliberate. Whoever they are, they don’t seem to care at all about getting anything from me. Not money, information, or even sex. They’re treating me like an inanimate object. Like a package to be delivered.

Whatever they want me for, it feels like a done deal. They’ve already decided what they’re doing with me. And I’m helpless to resist. I can’t struggle, or beg, or even move. I can’t do anything.

I may already be dead, and not even know it yet.

My breathing speeds up as my heart begins to race. The thudding is so insistent in my chest that I feel like it’s going to burst through my skin. I wonder if it’s possible I’m starting to have a heart attack from the fear. Suppressing a moan, I take a long breath in and close my eyes, willing myself to concentrate and slow my respiration. Hold it for a second, then another. Then back out, just as slowly.

In. Out. In. Out.

My heart begins to thud a little less rapidly. I keep breathing, forcing myself to focus just on that. Not to think about anything else. After a minute or so, I start to calm down just a little. My eyes still closed, even though the bag’s still over my head, I try to take stock of my situation as best I can. I flex my feet. The zip tie around my ankles is tight, but my circulation’s still okay. Both my sandals are still on, the heel on the right one broken off and gone now. I flex my fingers, which are starting to go a little numb.

I shrug my shoulders experimentally, and feel the strap of my small bag pulling against my skin. They never took it off of me when they tied me up. The realization gives me just the slightest source of hope. Maybe, just maybe, I can keep them from noticing I have my bag long enough to get to my pepper spray…

A loud thud shakes the frame of the van as we go over a large bump. With nothing to steady me, I fly off the backseat and land painfully on the floor, hitting my head against something sharp. I let out a muffled cry of pain. In front of me, one of the men mutters a curse. I hear a body slide across upholstery, and then rough hands are pulling me up and back onto the seat.

Through the haze of pain, I hear a voice. “She okay?”

“Shut the fuck up!” another one hisses.

It’s not much, but it’s enough. Enough for me to realize that I recognize the second voice.

It’s one of my dad’s men. One of the Death Devils. Lazarus, I think.

The realization slices through the throbbing in my head, flooding my body all at once. I feel weak with relief for one dizzying second, almost to the point where I want to laugh. But then confusion starts override the relief, followed by dread. Am I sure that’s Lazarus, or only imagining it? I only heard a couple of words, after all. And why would Dad’s men fucking kidnap me?

Suddenly, I need to know for certain that it was his voice. I need to do something to make them talk more.

Tensing up and ignoring the pounding in the back of my head, I ready my body for the next abrupt motion of the van. Sure enough, about two minutes later, the driver hits the breaks a little abruptly, and I take the opportunity to roll back off the seat and onto the floor.

This time I take the impact on my knee and shoulder, so the sound of me landing is louder than the first time. It hurts like a motherfucker, which is helpful because I don’t even have to act: I double over and begin crying out as loudly as the rag in my mouth will allow.

“Goddamnit,” someone mutters, and I hear the scrambling again as I’m hauled up. I keep myself doubled up once I’m back on the seat and start to rock back and forth. A rough hand reaches under the hood and pulls the rag out. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” a raspy voice says savagely. I can tell he’s trying to disguise his tone, but it’s not enough.

“Why didn’t you belt me in if you didn’t want me to fall off the seat, Franco?” I spit back. The moment of silence that greets me tells me I’ve hit my mark.

“Shut up,” he grits next to my ear.

I could cry, I’m so thankful. But I will myself to calm my voice so it doesn’t shake. “What’s with all the drama, guys?” I continue in a taunting voice. “You could have just asked nicely, you know.”

One of the men snorts. “Just keep quiet and do what you’re told,” he barks.

“If you’re taking me to my dad, why don’t you just do it? What’s with the bag over my head? It’s not like I don’t know where the clubhouse is.”

“We’re not taking you to Oz.”

This news is a surprise, and it pulls me up short. The sound of a seatbelt unfurling hums past my ear, and I’m belted in roughly as I struggle to make sense of this.

For one terrible moment, I think…

But no. I know my dad has done unspeakable things to his enemies in the past. He’s killed more men, or had them killed, than I ever want to know. Still, he’d never hurt me. I can’t imagine it. Sure, there’s no love lost between us. And I piss my father off on the regular. Most of the time, it seems like he considers me more of an annoyance than anything. But even if he hated me, his sense of family is too strong to have me hurt or killed.

He could send you away, though.

As soon as the thought forms in my head I’m absolutely sure that’s what’s happening. A cold pit of dread opens up in my stomach. No! I resist the urge to scream, to fight, to argue, because it wouldn’t do any good, anyway. If I start yelling, they’ll just shove the rag back in my mouth. And besides, there’s nothing I could possibly say or do to get them to go against my father’s wishes. If I know one thing about the Death Devils MC, it’s that not a single one of them would ever disobey a direct order from their president. My father has an iron grip on authority in the club. He could tell any one of them to hold a gun to their heads and shoot themselves, and they’d probably do it without question.

“Where are we going?” I ask uselessly. My voice sounds defeated and small, and I hate it.

“None of your business.”

“How much longer?” I try again. “I have to pee.”

No one even bothers to reply.

We continue to ride in silence, the damn bag still on my head so I can’t see shit. I’m starting to feel a little woozy from the lack of air and the motion of the van. I ask once if they can at least lift the bag up a little so I can breathe, but it’s like I never even spoke.

Huffing with irritation, I slide my body so that my left shoulder is leaning against the back rest, and try to ease up on the tension from the zip tie cutting into my wrists. Goddamnit, I’m being treated like a fucking hostage. When I see Oz, I’m gonna tell him how rough these guys treated me, I tell myself with bravado.

If I see him.

Again, I wonder where the Devils could possibly be taking me. Someplace my dad thinks is safe, I assume. But more importantly, out of the way. Oz has been really on edge lately, and it’s only gotten worse in the last weeks. I know the club has been having some sort of problems, though of course I have no idea what they are. All I know is whatever is going on, my father has turned into a freaking tyrant where I’m concerned. Enough so that he saw fit to pull me out of the college I’ve been attending the next state over. He didn’t even tell me he was going to do it until he was knocking on the door of my dorm room with two of his guys to pack up my stuff. Three weeks into the fall term, to be exact. I almost had to take the entire semester off. In the end, I was able to cobble together enough online courses to keep it going, for now.

I have no idea why Oz’s solution was to bring me back home, rather than just letting me stay at college. But trying to get information out of him is like squeezing blood from a stone. The men of the club don’t tell the women what’s going on. Not even old ladies or daughters. They say it’s for our own protection. But it’s maddening as hell.

So, for the past month, Oz has basically had me under house arrest, and I don’t even know why. Every time I’ve pressed him on it, he just waves me away and says, “Not your place to know. Your place is to obey.”

Have I mentioned my dad is a bit of a neanderthal?

At first, I tried my best to be a good, obedient little girl — even though I’m twenty-one freaking years old. I’ve stayed at home, done my schoolwork, and waited as patiently as I could for the all-clear from Oz that life could go back to normal again. But instead, he’s just gotten more paranoid as time passes. And angrier whenever I try to find out what’s going on, or when I’ll be allowed to resume a normal life again.

I admit that I’ve been going a little stir-crazy.

So when Deb proposed going out for a few hours tonight, I figured it would be a harmless way to let off some steam. I knew Oz would be at the clubhouse dealing with some business, and estimated I had at least until midnight before there was any chance he’d be home. So, like a thirteen year-old stealing out into the night through her bedroom window, I took a chance and ignored Dad’s strict orders to stay home with the doors locked.

It never occurred to me that Oz might have me followed. And I sure as hell didn’t bank on being kidnapped by my own father.

And now I’m about to pay for disobeying him. Just like anyone in Dad’s world pays for anything other than total obedience. But unlike the Death Devils and their strict code of club justice, I have no idea what the price is that I’ll have to pay.