“Hand over your purse,” the man with a gun said to me.

I set my phone down and put my hands up, heart racing. “Please,” I begged. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

I looked into the man’s eyes. His face was sallow and sunken, and the rings around his eyes indicated some sort of drug use. “You’re right, you weren’t. But here you are in your nice car, rolling around here at this time of night. Give me your purse.”

I did what he asked, shoving my purse through the small opening of my car window.

He reached into my purse and pulled out a few bills. “Seven dollars?” he asked, dumbfounded. He dug into the pockets, stuff falling onto the street with soft pings and clinks. “That’s all you got?”

“Use my card everywhere,” I said, and as soon as I did, I regretted it.

The guys behind the sunken face laughed, their guns flashing in the light of the streetlamp. They were a mix of races, all with the same goal tonight.

“Now that’s a damn good idea you just came up with,” some other gangster guy stated. “Why don’t you get out and get into Jones’s car over here, and he’ll drive you to the nearest ATM.”

I hesitated, trying to weigh the options that might end with scenarios in which I didn’t die. I obviously didn’t have much choice. Just as I was about to do as they said, I heard the screech of tires behind us on the street as another car pulled to a halt.

“The fuck?!” one of the guys yelled and pointed his gun at the blue car, which had just pulled up.

I knew who it was before the rest of them did.

The door opened, and Jake got out of the car, long legs first. He was a towering presence even in his street clothes. Relief flooded through me, but as I looked back, catching a glimpse of him in my side-view mirror, I gasped a little. The look on his face was…nothing like I’d ever seen. He was past angry, with a kind of cold fury in his eyes that made me hold my breath.

“Who the fuck are you?” one of the guys yelled, his eyes red as Mars.

“Dude. Dude, that’s Jake Napleton!”

Jake walked toward their guns. “Yeah, I’m Jake Napleton,” he said, hands up and so calm. “Can I help you fellas?”

“Shit, that’s Jake Napleton,” said Red Eyes, way behind the ball.

Jake walked toward me. “Diggs. You okay?” he said, lowering enough to talk through the opening of my window. His expression was hard, but when he looked at me, I felt like all he cared about was me and my well-being.

“I hope so,” I croaked, a lump in my throat. I looked up at Jake, and I noticed that he was looking at Sunken Face, who’d put away his gun.

“Holy shit,” Jake whispered, staring.

“What?” I asked, gripping the door handle and trying to see what he saw.

“Fred. Fred fucking Bigginton?” Jake belted, pushing off my car. “What the hell?”

My eyes darted between the two. “You guys…know each other?”

“Know each other? Shit. We played fucking Little League together since we were four years old,” he remarked.

“Oh,” I said in a strangled voice. “How…nice.”

“In fact, I’ve known a couple of these guys for years,” Jake added as Fred got his buddies to lay off. They hung back, relaxing near their jacked-up cars. He approached us and I tensed, shrinking back in my seat. The other men standing at the ready with guns clearly had some gang affiliation and were ready to keep this up. They all stared back at Jake with a range of expressions.

“Fred, what the fuck is this?” Jake asked. “You’re robbing people for money now? You that hard up?”

They moved away toward the front of my car, and I couldn’t hear a darn thing they were saying, but their body language was all casual and friendly-like.

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe it. Jake was a shady-as-hell character, a one-in-a-million underdog story. He knew the worst of the underworld but had risen above it. My PR brain was firing in the face of this nightmare. Well, wouldn’t Steve be proud at how dedicated I was until the very end?

They did some sort of bro-thing hug, and Fred was nodding as he and Jake shared more words I couldn’t hear.

“That’s more fucking like it,” Jake said loudly, taking my purse from Fred’s hand. “Now get these damn cars outta the way.”

Jake turned to me as the cars disappeared like magic. I got out of my car, bewildered and shaken up, but relieved. I took a step toward Jake. He wrapped his arm around me, and goosebumps covered my entire body as I rested my head against his chest.

So this is what it feels like to have a guy make a horrible situation go away. He got bonus points for making me feel delicate. Unfortunately, he released me.

“So…um, you grew up with those guys. Wow. They’re so different from you, though.”

Jake’s light brown eyes glinted under the light of the street lamp. His expression was dead serious.

“That’s the scary thing, actually. I’m not much different from any of those guys,” he said grimly. “We all grew up in the same mile radius, went to the same shitty public schools, and came from messed up families. The only difference is that God gave me the gift of being able to throw a fastball one hundred miles per hour. The truth is, if I hadn’t had baseball as my out, I might be in their shoes. Hell, we even have the same—”

He cut himself off suddenly and looked at me with his lips pressed tightly together.

“The same what?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“Nothing,” he said in a snippy way that told me the conversation had come to a close.

I swallowed hard as my heart broke for Jake. I could tell he was struggling with admitting an unpleasant truth to me, and maybe even to himself.

I extended my arm and wrapped it around his bicep. I made sure he was looking right into my eyes as I spoke. “Hey. It’s not your fault. You realize that, don’t you?”

He chuckled, attempting to brush off my attempt at seriousness with humor. “Honestly, is anything anybody’s fault?”

I gripped his bicep a little harder. “No. I mean, seriously, Jake. You didn’t deserve to grow up the way you did. It’s not your fault. You have to realize that, don’t you? Your talent isn’t what got you out—it was you.”

He shook his head at me, almost sadly. “There’s a lot about me you don’t want to know,” he said ominously. “Trust me. It’s best that no one ever knows.”

I could tell Jake was uncomfortable from the way he was squirming. He’d had to deal with stuff I could probably only imagine. But I understood one thing. There wasn’t anything more uncomfortable than confronting ugly, dirty truths about yourself. Especially your past.

Our moment was over. I could see it on his face, and I let it go, because pushing Jake would be useless, and frankly, I needed a moment to think and process everything that had happened this evening.

“I’m following you home,” he said. His tone brooked no argument as he handed me my unharmed purse. But he gave me a quick smile. “Need to make sure no other bad shit happens to your pretty ass at this hour.”

My pretty ass, I thought as I got inside the car. My mom would have a fit if she heard how many F-bombs Jake dropped on a regular basis. Yet something deep inside me drew me to him. It’d started at dinner, seeing him with Tate. Knowing there was more to him. I thought about Grant, how I’d thought the same things, but this was different. Grant had never been gentle, or vulnerable. He’d just wanted what he wanted, and I knew he hadn’t factored me into his world. Somehow, me in Jake’s world…it mattered. And that scared me in new and different ways. Despite my weariness, I saw a glimpse into Jake that touched me. After tonight, it wouldn’t be anything but personal for me, either.

It’s probably why I didn’t object at all when he offered to tail me home. Besides, if there were any more of these situations, I might need his pretty ass.