A week had passed since my unfortunate kidnapping.

It was a good thing Gabe left when he had that morning because I was going to smack that look off his too handsome face, I swear to God. That smug asshole knew exactly what he was doing riling up Jolene, and I had to spend the better part of the day explaining exactly who, what, when, and why to both Jolene and Gerta until they finally left me alone to go to Bingo at the Lutheran church down on Summit Street.

They held me hostage for over four hours. Chaz Malone didn’t even have me captive for that long and I was pretty damn exhausted from answering all the questions Jolene was firing at me. Gerta didn’t say much, she never does, but she hung out the entire time, refilling Jolene’s margarita glass when it got low and nodding her head in agreement at the appropriate times. If Jolene was loud and colorful, Gerta was quiet and unassuming. They were the perfect foil for each other. They were also on my last damn nerve.

That was over a week ago. Since then Jolene had been relatively quiet, mostly on account of how I had lent her four of my last book releases from my personal stash. But I could feel her eyes on me through the window every time I left the apartment, and even though I knew the residents kept a close eye on the place as a rule, I felt especially under the microscope after the events of the past week. And it was all Gabe’s fault for riling them up.

He was another problem entirely. For a man who was super busy running the family empire, he certainly did have a lot of free time to blow up my damn phone whenever he felt like it. To check up on me, he said each time. I didn’t need checking up on. I needed to not be under Gabriel Anderson’s thumb. I needed to get ready for my gig tonight down at Nasta’s bar, and I needed to slap a little makeup on my face so I didn’t look like I hadn’t slept in days, even though I really hadn’t. Because the truth of the matter was I was pretty damn terrified.

I had been snatched by a gang of thugs and felt up by a junkie. I was rescued by someone I used to love, but was also still pretty mad at for reasons I have trouble remembering when he is in front of me, and who also seems to think, because he paid an astronomical amount of money for my release, he is somehow the master of my universe or something. Okay, so the money probably only bugged me. Gabe never said another word about it, but I couldn’t let it go. I hated thinking I owed him something, especially since I had never planned on seeing him again. I was in a crisis of my own making, and I wasn’t ready to talk to him about it.

Gabe, however, did want to talk about it. About everything that happened fifteen years ago, in fact, and I was not ready to take the lid off of that box of painful memories. I was being a coward. I was contemplating the symmetry of my eyebrows when my phone dinged from its place on the vanity.

Ignoring it, I made faces in the mirror, raising one eyebrow and then the other. Eyebrows are the frame for the entire face, they can make or break a look. Some people think eyebrows need to match perfectly, but that isn’t the case. They don’t need to be identical twins, more like sisters, and if I let my phone interrupt me while I was putting my makeup on, then they might end up looking more like kissing cousins instead. I had shit to do tonight, the phone could wait.

But it dinged again. And again. Aggravated, I picked up the phone and started scrolling. Of course it was Gabe. I knew it was him because he’d snagged my phone while I was still sleeping at his house and put his contact info in my phone under Handsome Devil. I hadn’t bothered to change it yet because I had been so busy. And tired. And, well fuck it, he really was a handsome devil, even if a very irritating one. The phone dinged a fourth time.

Angel, what are your plans for the evening?

Angel, if you don’t answer me I will have to keep texting.

Angel, seriously, I’m just checking to see if you are okay. If you answered a message, I wouldn’t need to keep doing it.

If you don’t answer me I am going to assume you have been kidnapped again and go scouring the city for you. Or call Jolene and send her up to your apartment.

That last part did it. I clicked the call button and he answered before the first ring was through.

“You are crazy, you know that? Do you have any idea what a psycho stalker you sound like in these messages?” His deep laughter pricked at my anger further. He thought this was just a game.

“Yes, I am sure it looks pretty bad, but it got you to pick up the phone, didn’t it? You’ve been avoiding talking to me again, and I want to know why. You came to me, remember?”

“Yeah I did, Gabe, and you helped me. I am really grateful, but I can’t help but feel like you paid all that money, and now you think I owe you or something. I’ll never be able to come up with that money, Gabe, and it bugs me that I feel that indebted to you. I need to find Melody, and if I do that, and she returns the money—then technically I can give the money to you, and we would be even, right?” It sounded harebrained when I said it out loud. It had sounded like such a kickass plan in my head.

“Are you nuts?” He was actually yelling at me now, and I had to move the phone away from my face to avoid hurting my ears. Overreact much? “You don’t owe me shit for that money. You needed help and I helped you. I never once mentioned anything about you paying me back, and I never will. It is my money to do with how I please, and if I had to do it over I would do the same thing with zero hesitation. What I think you do owe me, is a bit of an explanation.” I moved the phone back next to my ear as he had stopped screaming at me, and I could hear his sigh all the way through the phone.

“Angel, don’t think I forgot what we talked about before. There are some unanswered questions between us. I think we owe it to each other to talk about it. It’s been a long time. Whatever it is, I want to put it out there so we can move on. I miss my friend. I miss you.”

Ugh. Not fair.

I was only sniffling because I was getting a cold probably. My eyes were prickly because of allergies, I bet. I never had allergies before, but I read somewhere that they can manifest at any time, even as an adult. I should probably pick up some medicine for that. I didn’t have an excuse for the lump in my throat, though, and I swallowed it down and cleared my throat before I was able to speak again.

“I miss you too, Gabe. You don’t even…you don’t even know how much. I just need some time right now. I’m really overwhelmed, and I just need to process some things, okay?” Bullshit. I was avoiding him because I didn’t trust myself not to fling myself at him. He had grown up to be cover model material, and I needed to hang on to that fierce hurt from fifteen years ago. When my heart was broken and I learned a life lesson about how people act when they think you aren’t around.

“Your mom called my mom and mentioned that she hasn’t talked to you in a week. My mom casually mentioned it when she called me. You haven’t told them anything that happened have you?” Jesus, never underestimate the speed and power of the mom phone tree, apparently.

“No, I haven’t. And I would prefer to keep it that way, if you please. And actually, I really do have to go. I have work.”

“I’m not going to quit trying, Angel.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said as I hit the button to hang up. I’d run to Gabe without thinking about it when I had first gotten into trouble. Now I was being forced to confront a situation and feel feelings I thought I buried a long time ago. It was my own fault, and I knew it, but it still sucked. Stupid feelings. I needed to get my shit together so I could play my set tonight at Nasta’s. I needed to get back into my routine and feel normal again.

But what the hell was normal? I was beginning to think I didn’t know anymore.

* * *

I made it through four songs and a break before shit turned sour. I really needed to get in the game, so I picked some kickass girl power music and was just finishing up an acoustic version of P!nk’s “Just like a pill” when I saw him.

He was sitting in a back booth of the bar, face illuminated by the hanging light above the pool table. That light was the only reason I was able to see him at all. From that far back of my tiny little corner of the bar that couldn’t even be called a stage, everyone should have been just a shadow. But that pool table light was shining on him so brightly it was a wonder I was only just noticing him.

I recognized that olive complexion, those broad shoulders, and those full, sensual lips. Shit. It was one of Chaz Malone’s men. The one they called D. It could have been a coincidence. Toledo was a busy city, but not a massive one, and it was perfectly acceptable to assume I had probably passed by one or more of those guys in a social setting and not even known it. We may have even grocery shopped at the same stores for all I knew. But the look in his eyes as he stared at me while I played was so intense I couldn’t breathe. And even if he had come to Nasta’s just to have a cold beer after a hard day of knee breaking, or whatever the hell it was he did all day, there was no mistaking that he saw me now. He recognized me and he was staring me down.

I averted my eyes and let my gaze roam around the room, hoping he would think I couldn’t really see that far out into the bar and, therefore, didn’t notice him. After my song I declared break time, even though it had only been ten minutes since my last break, and I excused myself to Jesse, the bartender, and made like I was going to use the restroom. Instead of going all the way down the hall to the ladies room, however, I hitched a left through the kitchen and out the back door. Running so fast the teenager washing dishes didn’t even have a chance to squeak, “Hey, what are you doing?” before I was out the back door.

I left it all there. My guitar, my laptop with my music sequences, and my amp. Jesse would hold on to it for me, and hopefully, I could give him an explanation that made sense after I got the hell away from the bar and to safety. I couldn’t think of anything besides getting as far away from the bar and that man as I could. The memories of that car ride, of the bag on my face, and the smooth way Chaz Malone had said he was either going to kill me or sell me to the highest bidder played on a reel in the back of my mind.

I had to go go go.

I made probably half a block to the end of the alley before something hit me hard in the chest and I fell to my knees, gagging and choking, unable to get air back into my lungs. We take oxygen for granted, filling our lungs and exhaling without any thought at all until there is no oxygen to be had. The panic of not being able to breathe wiped my brain of any rational thought and I struggled to get back to my feet. But before I could recover, a booted foot kicked me in the small of my back and I fell the rest of the way to the ground, chest and face smashing into the brick road of the alley. This was still old town, and some of the alleys weren’t paved with asphalt but still lined with ochre bricks. The poorly maintained, jagged pieces of the road cut into my clothing and the skin of my hands and face as I was pinned to the ground by the unknown assailant.

I smelled him before I heard him speak.

The foul stench of a body that had been hanging out who knows where, and had been unwashed for who knows how long, assaulted my nose. I struggled to get away but the foot stayed on my back, grinding down harder the more I struggled underneath it. It was Tweak, or at least, that was the only name I knew him by. I recognized the stench.

“Hello, Angel,” he said above me, a high pitched giggle following his words. The pressure from his boot on my back was relieved, but only briefly before I was grabbed and flipped over, pinned on my back now by his weight on my hips as he straddled me on the ground. I swung up with both arms and tried to connect but he grabbed both of my hands and pressed them into the ground above my head, leaning forward and bringing his face even closer to mine.

“I told you I was going to keep you.” He leered, licking his cracked and peeling lips with his slimy tongue. It was a morbidly serpentine gesture and I shuddered involuntarily, wishing the road would swallow me, just to get me away from him.

No no no. Why was he so strong?

Noticing my fear and clearly getting off on it, he giggled again, a sharp sound of hysteria that grated against my ears. It sounded foreign, wrong somehow, and that was when I realized—he was high on something. He was strung way out going by the wild look in his bloodshot eyes. The skinny guy was half my weight soaking wet. I couldn’t figure out how he had the strength to hold me down when I should have just been able to buck him off of me. But if he was high it made sense.

He was cranked out and freakishly strong and I was going to die if he tried to touch me any more than he already was. I wanted to scream but he was too close to my mouth and I thought that if I opened mine, the foulness emitting from his own would somehow travel to me. It didn’t make any sense but I was frozen completely with fear, unable to move as his face came closer to mine. I tried again to free my arms and tasted victory when I was able to free my hands, but he was super-fast as well as strong and I couldn’t even brace for the punch.

It hurt so fucking bad.

It was just lucky for me he had shit aim in such close proximity, and the blow glanced off my cheek. Most of his punch ended up smashing into the bricks next to my head. Otherwise, he probably would have broken my cheekbone. As it was, the pain was so intense I was paralyzed from it, unable to move as his cackling face loomed closer and closer.

My stomach heaved, and just before his lips made contact with mine and my brain fractured into a million pieces from being unable to handle that reality, his body disappeared. I don’t mean he moved away on his own. I mean one second he was there and the next he was flying through the air, his body making a sickening thud as he connected with the brick wall of the building on the other side of the alley, and I was finally able to move and breathe and not lose my fucking mind.

Until I saw the face of my savior.

D had followed me from the bar. Fuck.

He held his hand out, and confusion blurred my mind because it seemed like he wanted to help me up, but that couldn’t be right. I couldn’t trust him. He had helped kidnap me and would have loaded me on the boat himself if Gabe hadn’t bought my freedom. He may have just saved me from Tweak, but I wasn’t falling for the Stockholm shit, no thank you.

He bent down to grab my hand and haul me to my feet but I scooted backward on my butt as fast as I could, scraping my palms on the bricks as I went. Basically crab walking, I scuttled backward into the alley a few more feet, putting enough distance between us where I could safely get up on my own. He cocked his head sideways but said nothing, just watched me with curiosity to see what I would do. He was standing at the entrance to the alley, effectively blocking my escape. There was a little more space to the left of him than to the right. If I made like I was passing him on the right, then made a dash at the last second to the left, I might be able to get around him and into the street where it was well lit and early enough in the evening that there were other people around. Someone to see. Someone to call for help.

He was bigger, and he was faster, but I was scared for my life and I would let that fear propel me through him if need be. He must have noticed my darting glances and he murmured out a soft warning. “Don’t run, Angel. Don’t do it, sweetheart. Just stop.”

“Fuck you,” I spit out angrily right before I launched myself at him. I never got a chance to go right or feign left. There was a zapping noise, and then a spark, and then there was nothing at all.

* * *

Groggy, disconnected, and mildly nauseous. That’s how I felt when I slowly regained my senses. My eyelids still felt heavy and weighted down, so I just let them stay shut as I tried to focus on the faint voices around me.

“I can’t believe you tased her. You couldn’t just calmly tell her what was going on, you had to render her unconscious and carry her in on your shoulder. That’s fucked up.” Fucked up indeed, I silently agreed with the feminine voice coming from somewhere else in the room. I didn’t have a very good sense of direction, but based on the softness under me and on my side, I deduced that I was lying on a sofa of some kind.

“You weren’t there. You didn’t see her face. She was going under, around or through me, and she wasn’t going to listen to any damn thing I had to say. She was terrified. I did what I could in that situation to get her out of there. As it was, I had to let Tweak get away. It was a good thing G had me keeping an eye on her because something bad would definitely have happened to her if I wasn’t there.” The smooth male voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was right on the edge of my understanding, like if I could reach out and grab it, the answer would be there, but right now it was just out of my reach.

“Something bad was going to happen to her?” the feminine voice cut in. “I can see her face now, Dino, she went through hell. G is going to flip his shit when he sees her. It’s a good thing he was on target when all this went down or he would have gone nuts. He’s on his way now, I’m not so sure he isn’t going to go crazy, actually, once he gets a look at her.”

“Better those cuts and bruises than what almost happened.”

That was it. What had almost happened? I was almost raped in an alley by a crazy, strung out stalker and I was saved by another bad guy whose voice I recognized. It was the same voice that was currently speaking behind me. I hadn’t been saved, I had just been moved from one fire to another.

Shit piss hell damn.

“She cusses like G,” came the voice of D, or Dino as the woman had called him. I must have spoken out loud without meaning to and as I cracked my eyeballs open I saw a very familiar face. There was no slick business casual bun, but the tortoiseshell glasses were there. Oh great, Jeannette. This just got better and better.

“Uh oh, she’s gonna bolt.” Jeannette was correct on that count. I had shot straight up to a sitting position and was very much getting ready to run when two strong arms came from behind and held me immobile, arms tucked down to my sides.

“Calm down, Angel.” This must be Dino. His voice was low and soothing, and close enough to my ear that his breath tickled. He wasn’t hurting me, but he was certainly not letting me up either. “No one here is going to hurt you. Just calm down and look around, Angel. Look at where you are.”

My breath was coming too fast, and I could feel the panic attack descending, but I did as Dino asked and I looked at my surroundings. I was sitting on a leather couch, across from a stone fireplace with a big screen TV mounted above it. I knew this place, I had been here before. This was Gabe’s house. Why were we at Gabe’s house?

I opened my mouth to ask that very thing but was interrupted by a loud bang as the front door blasted open so hard it slammed against the wall. In strode Gabriel, looking more upset than I had ever seen him look in his entire life. Even when he got strep throat and had to miss the championship basketball game his senior year. The first year the team had gone to the playoffs in almost a decade. He had been crushed then, he looked absolutely enraged now.

“Where is she?” he demanded, seconds before his eyes locked on me, still held immobile by Dino as he stood behind where I was sitting, pinning me in place. It took a couple of seconds before he spoke again, but when Gabe did, he didn’t yell. He roared. “What the fuck happened to her face?”