Hands hold me down, three sets of them. Whatever they gave me makes it easy for them to control my movements. I’m weaker.

I cry out as the man stands above my naked body and thrusts hard into me, breaking the barrier I held intact for twenty years.

“Fuck yeah. Virgin pussy, my favorite,” he grunts as tears fall from my eyes and pain courses through my body. Each movement hurts more than the next, like he’s tearing me from the inside out.

“Please stop.” My words are slurred and difficult to understand.

The man just laughs as the other men pull me harder, stretching me out and yanking at my muscles.

More cries of pain. More laughter.

Laughter.

Laughter.

I bolt upright in the bed, sweat coating my skin, my breathing erratic. The room is mine, not his. Mine. Only with that realization does my breathing catch and I’m able to take some deep breaths.

I reach over and turn on the lamp that sits on my nightstand, illuminating the space. My dresser is on one wall with the mirror hanging on the back of the closet door. My clothes are everywhere, and boxes line the room. Yes, my room.

I push all negative thoughts from my head.

The problem is, looking up JK on the flash drive and finding out more about him, it opened it all back up. The helplessness, the hurt, the anger—all of it bubbles to the surface.

That man took two things from me that I can never get back, and he must pay for it. He will pay for it.

He got away last time, when he sliced at my body, making me bleed and enjoying it like the sick, twisted fuck he is. The world needs to be rid of filth like him. I need to be rid of him. He needs to know what it feels like to bleed, inside and out.

After a shower where I tried to rid the dirt and dream from me, I pull open my laptop and scroll through the information again. There isn’t a lot to go on, which sucks, but there are some offshore accounts that I can suspend so he can’t get any money from them. Then, with a few clicks, I alter each account so the money spins around in cyberspace, jumping from bank to bank and making it so it dumps into an account for me. I’ll call it restitution. It’s the least he can do for me. Even his millions won’t fix all the damage he’s done, but maybe it’ll weed him out.

Adding a few worms to the email addresses he uses most is about the best I have so far, because I needed a break and fell asleep.

The brothers have been looking hard for him, but they have come up shy each time they get close, at least according to the notes Buzz has in the system. There are details of where JK was and at what times. Then how the club thinks he slipped away. They are trying to track a pattern, and their notes are meticulous.

As a knock comes to the door, I shut the laptop and open the door.

My father is standing on the other side. Emery must have let him into the apartment.

“Hey, Dad.”

He walks in, turns to me, and crosses his arms. This is the pose for when I’ve done something I shouldn’t have. Fear spikes that he figured out about me going into the computers. I don’t see how, though, considering I put everything back the way it’s supposed to be. He’s so damn smart; I wouldn’t put it past him to know. Shit.

“Care to tell me what that scene with Ryker was about?”

Part of me is relieved. Not that I want to talk about Ryker, but it’s better than the computers.

“Nothing. There’s nothing.”

“Bullshit. Don’t play games with me. Ryker isn’t a man who will accept that.”

Anger spikes, but I control it. “Thought you didn’t get involved in shit like this.”

“If it involves you, then yeah, I get involved.” He moves closer to me. “You’ve changed since that shit happened to you, and I don’t know what to do to help.”

I have in more ways than one. Some things will never be the same. I don’t think I’ll ever be back to the me before all this went down. That doesn’t mean I’m not a survivor. That’s what my parents taught me—how to fuckin’ survive.

“We all change, Dad. It’s part of growing up and becoming your own person.”

He steps closer. “Not like this. Not changin’ who you are and becomin’ somethin’ you’re not.”

My dad and I are close. There were times when he was so protective it felt suffocating. Then there were other times when I wished anything for him to be with me, yet he’d given me space.

He’s always said we need to spread our wings and fly, but it doesn’t mean he has to like it. With my brothers, it’s different. I know it. They know it. He knows it. I accepted it a long time ago.

It kills me that he sees it. That he knows what happened to me. That he lives with that. Lives with the thought that he didn’t protect me. He did, though. He gave me strength.

He blows out a deep breath, stepping away from me and moving toward the door. Then he stops with his hand on the handle. “Ryker comes off snarky with quips, but there’s more to the man than meets the eye. His loyalty runs deep, and he’s not a man to let go of something he wants.”

“Dad, you playin’ matchmaker?” I tease.

“Nah, just want you to know what you’ve got in store.” He winks.

“Don’t. Ryker was a childhood crush and nothing more.” At least, not now. Not ever. I could tell him that Ryker wants to be friends now, but there’s no point in that, either.

“Keep tellin’ yourself that.” He says no more, leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.

I move to let him out, but then I hear the front door shut and don’t bother. He’s locked it; I know it.

Ryker, I remember when he first started prospecting for the Ravage MC and coming around. The first moment I saw him, my world stopped and tilted on its axis. Something inside me changed. Even young, I felt it. I just didn’t know exactly what it was at the time. He’s ten years older than me, and I was only eight when he prospected, and nine when he joined.

Never. Not once did he ever show any interest in me, other than his brother’s kid or younger sister. He’d rub the top of my head jokingly, and I hated it. Even when I turned eighteen, nothing but more of the same, each time more irritating than the last.

I spent years making it no secret I wanted him, but he never wanted me. I got it. And it took a life-changing event to put that in perspective.

Now he’s suddenly taking interest. Like I’m a challenge or something, which is so far from the case it’s actually funny. If he knew everything, he wouldn’t want anything to do with me. It’s better this way. He wants to be friends, but I’m not even sure how to do that with him. I know spending time with him isn’t a good thing.

The ways he looked at me in my car. His pointed, no-holds-barred words. His body language and the way he held back from touching me when I knew he wanted to. He’ll be a diversion I don’t need right now. My mission isn’t Ryker. It’s JK.

I sit up, needing to get my mind off Ryker, and flip open the laptop. I click on a file, and my stomach bottoms out.

Pictures of the compound I was held in and hurt pop up. JK’s smiling face is in several of them. My gut squeezes so tightly vomit threatens to come out.

My eyesight is hazy, like there is a fog over it. I’m unable to see ten feet in front of me, though sounds of movement are all around me, along with murmurs from a stern voice. 

That voice. 

I remember it. 

I hear it in my nightmares. The ones that were only tamed when Deke stayed at my house. 

I desperately have to get out of here, far away from him. However, my arms feel like hundred-pound weights, yet light at the same time. I go to move them, but they don’t budge. It’s the same story with my legs and torso. 

Blinking, I try to make sense of where I am and what exactly is going on.

When I left my apartment, I looked everywhere around me before exiting. I didn’t expect a Taser to come shooting from a distance and knock me on my ass. He injected me with something, probably the same thing as last time, the same thing that made my limbs go weak, then my mind.

Last time … 

Panic fills me at just the thought, as the memories bombard me, ones I want to forget and move past.

This doesn’t bode well for me. I barely got away before. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to stand on my own two feet again. This time will be worse. I know it.

He’s evil. Beyond evil.

Cooper told me to get right to the clubhouse. He warned me the brothers would notice if I’m not there. They have to because, for once, no amount of the brute force my mother taught me is going to help. Not when my body is uncontrollable, and my brain is as high as a kite. 

My head jerks from a powerful force, maybe a hand. There are no cries or tears. I don’t feel the pain, only a slight sting and the movement. The drugs must be more powerful than before, because I felt everything last time. Remember everything. The brutality, the tearing, the burning—everything.

“You fucking little cunt. Get rid of my baby, now I get rid of you.”

Fear slices through me. I try to move my arms and legs, but it’s no use. 

He pulls my hair so hard my neck angles down in an unnatural way. Again, no pain, only pressure.

“Know it was mine. The other three, I made them use condoms. Not me. When I pushed through that virgin barrier, I wanted you filled with only me. Wanted you to remember who you belonged to. Then I find out you killed my baby!” The pressure becomes more. Now I do cry out. “Had my guys track you and found you after you murdered my baby! Bitch, you’re going to pay … in every fucking way possible.”

Bile rises up my throat, burning as I try to push it down. This man hurt me in more ways than just physical, and I hate him. Hate what he and his men did to me. I can still feel the pain of when he took me. Can still feel the guys holding me down by my arms and legs while I screamed out, trying to fight back. Every damn detail of what he did to me is etched on my soul for eternity.

My baby. I fight back the tears at thinking of the life that grew inside me for such a short time. 

Pain spears through my heart. The emptiness I feel in my stomach grows. 

Innocent. I can’t fight the tears as one falls out of the corner of my eye and rolls down my cheek.

A sharp pain comes to my side, and then wetness falls from my body. 

“Shouldn’t have given you so much. Want you to feel this.”

“Please don’t, JK,” I whisper, just as another slice of pain comes. Then another. And another. 

It would be better if I were dead.

I’m not dead, and now I’m coming for him. Come hell or high water, he’s going out.