I’d been cold for hours. My jaw was so tightly clenched to stop my teeth from chattering that it felt locked, and I was so frozen that I was numb.

But not numb enough to stop the pain when my whole world went upside down.

Literally.

I screamed when the vehicle I’d been in for hours suddenly smashed to the side, and then went weightless through the air before it started to roll, and then crash. I screamed at the initial impact, and then it just felt like I kept on screaming until everything came to a thudding stop.

The wooden crate that Angelo’s men had stuffed me in had splintered open during the crash. And when I went tumbling out across the cold, frozen, metal floor of what felt like the back of a pickup truck, the world had spun for a second. And then, I’d started screaming. Screaming and hammering at the frozen metal wall.

Because I was not going to die here, freezing in the back of a crashed truck in the middle of winter. Even if I was pretty sure that dying was better than whatever “Mr. Black” had in mind for me. Because that’s where I was headed. Or, that’s where I’d been headed, before now.

This whole thing had started with a poker game. Well, no. It’d started with me not knowing how to leave my abusive piece of shit boyfriend Tony. But, that’s how abusers work. They make it hard to leave. I guess I’d never really gotten that, even when I heard it from other women, until it was happening to me.

Besides smacking me around and sticking his limp dick in basically anything that moved besides me, Tony worked for Angelo Capello. Yeah, the Angelo Capello. Tony was hardly a heavy hitter in the crime family, but he did work for some really bad people. He also liked to gamble with them.

Now, most people are smart enough to understand how to interact with their boss. If you work in an office, and your boss treats everyone to drinks, you have one, smile, and say thanks. That’s it. But Tony never got that memo. So when he managed to get invited to the biggest poker game of the month and found himself at the table with the freaking head of the whole mafia family, he was an idiot.

Everyone else basically humored Angelo, and let him win. But Tony had to go for it. Tony decided his way to a higher position was to play hardball at the card table with the most dangerous crime boss in the country.

And in the end, Angelo had him so deep in a hole, there was no crawling out.

All the money Tony had in the world wasn’t enough. So he did what any abusive, shitty boyfriend who sees their girlfriend as a piece of property would do.

He offered me as payment.

I’d screamed when they’d come for me that night and yanked me right out of bed. But it was useless. Angelo owned the whole city, and his word was law. I’d almost vomited on the way to his headquarters, thinking the worst possible thoughts of what he had in mind for me. But as it turns out, Angelo didn’t want me for himself.

He had far worse plans.

I didn’t know who “Mr. Black” was, except that it was obviously a fake name. But when I saw the look on everyone’s faces when Angelo told me he was handing me over to him to “settle a debt”, my gut knotted.

…Anyone scary enough to make a room full of mafia captains pale, and anyone who the head of a mafia family owes something to sounded like the last person in the world I wanted to be “gifted to.”

But like I said, Angelo’s word was law.

Gagged and bound, they’d stuffed me into that fucking box and then dumped it somewhere dark and cold. The engine told me it was a truck of some kind, and hours of freezing half to death later, here I was.

I’d long stopped hoping for a miracle to stop me from being sold like cattle to this terrifying sounding mafia guy. But then here was my miracle. A car crash, or whatever had just happened. And I had to try. I screamed and hammered at the walls — after all, if there was a crash, there’d be people around, right? And if I just yelled and pounded long enough, someone would—

The door to the back of the truck suddenly wrenched open, and I whirled, ready to lunge to safety until suddenly, my eyes landed on him.

I blinked, my heart skipping, and for one frozen second, everything went still.

Holy shit, he was gorgeous.

It was his eyes I saw first — these piercing blue diamonds searing into me, sending this shiver through me as they drank me in. Dark lashes, a scruff over his chiseled jaw, and the hint of tattoos peeking out from around the hood of his huge snow jacket.

Good Lord.

Of all the people to come rescue me? Well, yeah, I’d take the hot one with the sexy eyes any day. Except suddenly, I saw it. My eyes dropped down over the open front of his coat, over his muscled chest, and down to his waist.

…And onto the gun, shoved into his belt.

My pulse thudded, my eyes darting over him, my sore muscles coiling. Fuck. Clearly, it was one of Angelo’s guys. Probably the driver. I glanced past him, seeing swirling snow and blinding white light, and I took a shaky breath. If we’d been in a crash, there was going to be people rushing to help. And even if the driver was the first one to get to me, what was he going to do, tell people to ignore a girl in her underwear screaming about being kidnapped?

All I had to do is make it past him. Just make it past the hot, dangerous mob guy and start screaming for help, and I’d be out of this whole nightmare in a second.

His eyes burned into me, making me shiver with their intensity.

“Are— Where…” I blinked, trying to look as disoriented as possible as I looked wildly around the truck. I saw his shoulder relax, his guard down.

…Big mistake.

I screamed as I charged him swinging my fists. The man moved a step back, hands up and those eyes blazing into me before suddenly, I jerked my knee up as I came flying out of the back of the truck. The man grunted, doubling over as I caught him right in balls before I lunged past him…

...And into snow up to my fucking waist.

I gasped, shock and cold ripping my breath away and sending warning sirens blaring through my brain. My body trembled, clenching, trying to shut down at the sudden cold. And when I glanced around, my heart sank.

No, there was not going to be anyone running up to rescue me. Because we were in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Blinding white snow howled and whistled around me, and I cried out as the sharp swirls of icy sleet stung my bare skin. But when I glanced back and saw the man with the piercing blue eyes and the gun swear as he slowly got to his feet, I knew I couldn’t wait.

It was now or never.

I screamed, lunging with my arms and trying to swim my way through the waist-high snow. My breath came panting out in thick white clouds, my throat burning with cold and my body aching from the snow and the adrenaline.

“Where the fuck are you going?”

The man’s booming baritone voice carried into me over the wind.

“Get away from me!” I screamed, not daring to turn to see how close he was.

I could feel my body shutting down, my tired, sore muscles slowing, my lungs slowly freezing, until suddenly, his hands were on me.

I screamed, trying to wrench away from him, but those hands were so fucking strong. He yanked, and when I found myself being lifted up in the air and flung over his damn shoulder, I swore and kicked. My knee jerked up, but this time, he was ready for me. Big, powerfully strong arms held me tight, pinning me across his shoulder with one wrapped tight around my thighs.

He turned, swearing as my fists rained down on his back, and started marching back towards the truck.

“Let me go! Let me go! Let me—!”

“You want to die out here?” he roared, making me gasp as he suddenly slung me off his shoulder and pushed me back, pinning me to the side of the truck. My breath caught as those gorgeous diamond-blue eyes burned right into me, sending a tremor through my core that had nothing to do with the snow.

“I’d rather that than you…” I shook my head, glaring at him defiantly.

“Than me what?” he growled, his big hands holding me tight, pressing me into the cold metal of the truck.

“Whatever you’re going to do to me!”

He frowned, his brow knitting as he shook his head. “I’m not—” he growled, and suddenly, his hand shot past me and yanked open the side door to the back seat of the big truck cab.

“How about get your ass in there and keep you warm and we make sure you don't fucking freeze to death.”

His look hardened, burning right into me as I swallowed, shivering but trying not to show it. My teeth chattered, and I could feel my toes going numb as we stared each other down.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled, his eyes darting over me.

“Says the man who was just trafficking me!”

His brow furrowed. “I didn’t know—” he growled. “Look, get the fuck in the truck, princess. You’re freezing.”

“I’m fine!” I spat back petulantly through chattering teeth.

“Get in or I’m picking that bratty ass up and throwing you in.”

“Don’t you fucking touch — asshole!”

Big, strong hands grabbed me, lifting me as he swung the door wide before tossing me across the bench back seat of the truck. He climbed in after me, ignoring my swears and kicks as he slammed the door shut.

A rumbling suddenly shook the whole truck, and just as the both of us turned to glance out the window, the avalanche wave of pure ice and snow came crashing down the hillside, burying us in pale white darkness.

And just like that, I was trapped. Half naked, frozen, wet, and trapped in the backseat of a pickup truck with the gorgeous, rough criminal who’d kidnapped me.

Now what?