Chapter 4

Faith

What I’m about to tell you, it isn’t pretty.

Can I adequately explain it? No.

Can I put it in a way that will make me come across as anything other than a complete whore? I doubt it.

But the truth is more important than perceptions, and the truth is what happened to me, the decisions that led to that fateful night, and the consequences I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.

So, the truth.

The truth is, I’d been standing in that motel parking lot for over an hour when Jackson pulled in. All I knew was that I was still in Nevada, and that wasn’t far enough.

It was raining and I was soaked to the skin. I was shivering. I had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. I took shelter under a big tree and I waited.

I’d know him when I saw him—that’s what I told myself. I just had to wait. God would help me. He had to.

And all I had to do was throw away everything I’d ever hoped for, sacrifice myself on the altar of fate, and pray I didn’t get into something even worse than the life I was trying to escape.

It sounds crazy, and maybe it was, but until you’re in that situation, you can’t understand the fear that led me to that parking lot.

Wolf Staten was a powerful man. A ruthless man. He made the rules, and my job was to obey. Earlier that night, he’d told me he was going to lock me up in a secret apartment of his villa. No one but him would ever look at me again. He said it was because he loved me so much, because I was so precious to him.

And a part of me wanted to believe him. As a girl I’d always dreamed of being someone’s princess, of being so desired by a man that he couldn’t bear the thought of other men looking at me.

But my life with Wolf wasn’t that. The way he treated me was not the way a prince treated a princess. The longer I stayed, the worse it got. The jealousy and possessiveness eclipsed all else. The violence finally knocked reality into me.

There was no room for love in that place. Even locked inside a prison, he’d find reasons to punish me, to brutalize me. And if I ever had his child, that baby’s life would be a living hell.

That’s what gave me the courage to take my life into my own hands. Scarcely two hours earlier, I slipped out of the party he threw in my honor. It was supposed to be my farewell to the world, the last time anyone but him would ever see me.

Fuck. That.

Fuck all of them.

Everyone at that party, all twelve members of Los Lobos, all our so-called friends, knew. And none of them even batted an eye. None of them raised a finger. In fact, they approved of it. Such was life with Los Lobos.

I’d heard rumors of the men locking away their families, treating their women like prisoners and slaves. I’d refused to believe it. Now I knew it was true. Wolf wanted me to live the rest of my life in a windowless bunker.

Like I already said. Fuck. That.

When I fled the mountaintop villa, I had no idea where I was going. I ran through the forest like a deer hunted by dogs. I fell on the rocks. I slid down the gullies. And when I reached the highway, I didn’t care who picked me up. I didn’t care what direction they were headed. I didn’t ask. I just climbed in and sat silently. I would go anywhere, with anyone. Nothing could be as bad as the life planned for me.

Los Lobos was not a nice gang to be mixed up with. They earn their livelihood off the pain and suffering of others. They were the worst kind of criminals. And the fact I was dating their leader was no one’s fault but my own. It was my own deeds, my own mistakes, that got me into that place. And it would be my own decisions that would get me out. That’s why I decided to do anything that needed to be done to escape. Anything.

Slipping into the clutches of Los Lobos had been so simple. And once I was in, there was no way back out. I’d seen the warning signs. I’d realized my mistake long before. Wolf cheated on me, beat me, routinely degraded and humiliated me in front of his gang members. He robbed me of all power, silenced my voice, and when he found out I wanted to leave, he built a concrete compound to keep me prisoner.

Until that night. The night I broke free. I couldn’t change the past, but I could change the future.

Within hours of making my decision, I was outside the motel. I didn’t have a penny to my name, no clothes, no belongings, no plan. It was only a matter of time before Wolf’s henchmen found me and forced me back to the hell of their world. I could feel my chance at freedom slipping away with every second that passed.

In desperation, I decided to do the only thing I could do. I threw myself at the mercy of fate. I opened myself, made myself vulnerable, and let God decide the outcome.

I asked for the help of a stranger.

All I needed was one good man. One man who was willing to stand up for me. He didn’t have to fight Wolf. He just had to help me escape, give me a ride to the city, or better yet, the border. I’d give him everything he asked in return. There had to be a man willing to do that. And if there wasn’t, so be it. Let me die. At least I’d die fighting.

A number of men walked in and out of the bar. Truckers, pulling in from the highway after a long haul, or workers, looking for a beer after a long shift. Others looked like drifters, gamblers, criminals, or nothing at all.

They were all men, and I didn’t know what to make of them. Which of them would help me? How would I choose?

I thought I’d know when I saw him, but I was beginning to have doubts. What if there was no one?

I had only one thing to offer. There’s only one thing men want from a woman in my position. But what if they didn’t want me? What if they rejected me?

Maybe that would be for the best. Giving up my body went against everything I believed, everything I held sacred. The only thing that made me even consider it, was the thought of a life of slavery at the hands of Wolf Staten. If the price of freedom was my body, I would pay.

And then he arrived. He rolled into the lot on a motorcycle as if chased by the devil himself. I only got a brief glimpse, but I saw enough to know he was the man I was looking for. Muscular build, tattoos on his arms and chest, a shadow of stubble. He was fiercely handsome, but that wasn’t even one of my criteria. I couldn’t afford to be picky. That was a luxury I didn’t have. What I was looking for was a real man. A man who would do what needed to be done, whatever that was.

The way this guy walked, the confidence in his stride, the determination on his face, told me I’d found my man.

And there was something else. I’d seen him before. I remembered it instantly. He’d taunted me, challenged me, and told me he didn’t give a shit about Wolf Staten.

Now, all I had to do was go through with it.

I had to ruin myself, offer up my body, throw away my beliefs, risk my life.

No problem, right?