Running through the streets with the sting of cold wind on my face and fear riding at my heels feels too much like one of my nightmares, those where I’m trying to save Livvy, save myself, but can never stop the crash from happening, the impact, the pain, Livvy’s death.

I mean, what the fuck was that? I remember the press of the knife into my ribs and wonder if dear old dad only wanted to scare me or decided to get rid of me for good.

Then Jason’s hand tightens around mine, and my mind enters another loop as we run. He came for me? To save me? Or he just happened by? Those thugs knew him, and what was all that talk about a certain Simon and a club?

“Raine. Stop.” Jason pulls on my hand, his fingers slipping away from mine, and I turn to face him. “Shit.”

He bends over, hands on his knees, struggling to catch his breath. A cut on his arm is seeping blood. It’s running down to his hand, a shiny red line that has my stomach roiling.

“You’re hurt,” I whisper. I’m so worried about him, I barely feel the burning pain in my side.

He shakes his head, staggers back. “I’m fine.”

“Your arm.”

“Jesus, listen.” He glances down at his arm, sighs. “Why did Simon’s men have you? What the hell, Raine? What’s their beef with you?”

“My dad set me up. And how the hell do you know them? They your buddies?” I shake my head. “Do you bend over for them, too?”

He flinches but doesn’t reply, which is a reply all by itself.

Christ. “Did they invite you in on the fun? Is that why you showed up right on time? I thought…” Fuck, I don’t know what I thought. “Who is Simon? What’s the Club?”

Jason is staring at me, his jaw working, his mouth pressed in a thin line. He doesn’t look like he’s about to answer.

Dammit.

“Why were you there?” I take a step toward him, and he lifts a hand, taking a step back. “Jason. Just answer this one question. How did you know?”

A street lamp is behind him, casting his face in shadow. “What’s the use? You’ve already made your mind up about me. I’m a scammer, a dirty whore, a junkie and a liar. Am I forgetting anything?”

He’s messing with my mind. Or maybe my mind’s messed up anyway. “I didn’t say that.”

“Oh fuck you, Raine Storm.”

He turns around and starts walking away, and I’m frozen in place, feeling cold all the way to the marrow of my bones.

Hell. I kick at a piece of trash and rub a hand over my face. I did accuse him of all those things. Was I wrong? The things he said to the thugs in the alley… and he did show up out of nowhere. I need the truth.

But maybe I was too harsh. He gets under my skin, that much is true, but that’s no excuse, especially for a guy who fought off those guys to save my ass.

“Jason!” I finally get moving, going after him, still unsure what to do or say. Should I apologize? “Jason!”

But the whistling wind is my only reply. He’s disappeared in the shadows of the small park. I keep looking, worried that the thugs will catch up with me—with him—but it’s all quiet apart from the random passing car.

He’s gone.

I keep seeing the blood running down his arm. Hearing his words, the slight crack in them I hadn’t paid much attention to. Fear. And sadness. Pain.

Pain that echoes through me. Shit, my side really burns. Bringing a hand up, under my jacket, I find blood soaking through my sweater, and remember the knife in the thug’s hand.

Fuck.

And still I’m not worried about myself. I’m more concerned about Jason.

What if he has a good explanation for everything? What if he has his reasons for not talking? He’s pissed with me, and scared.

I shove my scraped hands into my pockets, the sting in my knuckles joining the burning pain in my side, reminders of what went down in the alley, of Jason distracting the thugs, giving me a fighting chance, then joining the fight himself.

He fought them. They sure didn’t look like they were his buddies as he kicked and punched them. He got hurt trying to help me, and like always I was an ass to him.

Goddammit. What have I done?

Various more aches wake up all over my body as my muscles cool down. I trudge to where I left my truck, an itch between my shoulder blades. Nobody’s there whenever I turn around, though. Good, because I don’t think I can run anymore.

My truck is where I left it. No smashed windows. No flat tires. Nobody waiting to assault me.

Still, my hand shakes as I fish the key out of my pocket, unlock and climb inside. I rev up the engine and drive away from the curb, my movements jerky and uncoordinated.

My hand’s covered in blood from where I pressed it to the cut in my side.

It finally hits me as I make my slow way through town, my teeth chattering with cold and reaction, that my father had me beaten. Roughed up to ensure I’ll comply with his demands. Maybe he thought to kidnap me and extort money from Ocean.

Fuck. I can’t keep this to myself. I could be putting my brother, his family and our friends in danger. Dad is more dangerous than I’d ever imagined. How is it possible that he has thugs at his disposal, like a mafia overlord?

And who’s this Simon guy that Jason mentioned? What’s the Club? I have names, and faces.

Now all I need is answers. Always the hardest part.

My own father. I grip the wheel until my knuckles turn white. How fucked-up is that? Extorting me is one thing, but trying to kill me and threatening all the people I love… Jesus. And here I was thinking I had a grip on the situation. Just goes to show how out of my depth I am in this.

I’m shaking, the adrenaline seeping out of my system, the confusion over Jason’s role in all this making me feel even colder as I drive on home. Why was he there? How did he know those thugs?

Why did he put himself in danger to help me?

Once I inside the apartment, I deadbolt the door and jump into the shower to warm up and wash the grime and blood off me. I wince as the hot water hits various sore spots. The cut in my side is shallow, bleeding sluggishly, turning the water swirling down the drain into rust.

It reminds me of the cut on Jason’s arm.

My throat is bruised—and it reminds me of Jason, too. His throat had been bruised, too, a few times. My ribs are mottled, my arms have rings of dark fingerprints where I was manhandled.

Like Jason regularly is.

Jason, Jason… I slam my fist into the tiles, bow my head. He said he enjoys it. But is it true? Is that really what he said? Was he taunting me? What is true, and what is a lie?

This is driving me up the wall—knowing he’s out there, bleeding and probably more bruised than I am, in the cold, thinking I don’t give a damn about him.

I step out of the shower, throw on some old jeans, and shoot a text to Ocean, letting him know we need to talk. Tomorrow.

And I head back out.

Of course Jason is nowhere to be found. What did I expect, that things would be easy for a change? That I decide to fix what I did wrong and things would go my way?

Nah.

I cruise the streets for hours in the rain, up and down through town, before I give up and return home. Memories of Jason won’t let me rest—in the alley, at my feet, his dark eyes watching me.

I find my bottle of Jack and take it to bed with me.

And I wake up with a shout dying on my lips, my throat raw, my body stiff and drenched in cold sweat. Livvy. Oh fuck, that nightmare again, with Livvy—

No, it was Jason. In my dream, it was Jason in the car with me, covered in blood. Dead. And it was all my fault.

Livvy had been there, too. I grasp at the fading images from the dream. She was standing outside, on the street, staring at me, dressed in the yellow shorts and flowery blouse she’d had on that day.

Waving, and smiling.

I hunch over, feeling sick. What the fuck, mind? Is this some sick joke? And it’s almost time…

Ah fuck. I grab my phone, check the date. Yeah. The anniversary of her death is coming up.

Bile rises in my throat, and I don’t know if it was my drinking binge last night, the worry, or the memory, the real one, of the accident. Not this fake, distorted one that has Jason in the seat beside me.

Dead because of me, like Livvy is. Fuck, no. I shove my hands into my hair and fight the urge to go rock in a corner. Or throw up. In fact…

Bile rises in my throat, and I scramble out of bed. I stumble into the bathroom just in time to hug the toilet and empty my stomach.

Fucking dream.

I slide down until my back hits the wall and I try to catch my breath. My throat burns with acid.

Times like this, with my defenses down, the bad memories hit me hard. The trailer park, the hunger, the cold, the misery. Mom who never even looked at me. Dad who was never there except to beat the shit out of me and Ocean. The sadness and dejection. The teasing of the other kids about our filthy, ratty clothes and lack of shoes.

The anger. Is that where it’s coming from? Is it the flip side of sorrow?

My cell phone is ringing, and I make myself get up and rinse my mouth, then splash cold water on my face until I’m shivering.

Mostly awake, the dream shoved as deep in my mind as it can possibly go, I trudge back to my bedroom and pick up my phone from the nightstand.

“R, hey.”

My brother. Figures, after the disjointed message I sent him last night. “Hey, Shun.”

“Oh, man, did I wake you up?”

Guess my voice is more of a croak this morning. Puking can’t have helped. “Nah, I was awake.”

“That text you sent me…”

I sink down on the bed and rub at the ache spiking behind my eyes. “Yeah, about that. We need to talk.”

“About a Simon? That a friend of yours?”

Fuck, what did I write in that text? Granted, I was drunk by then, but still. “We should talk about Simon, yeah. We also need to talk about our parents.”

“Our parents.” His voice drops an octave. “What about them?”

“Thing is, Dad contacted me, and he wants—”

“The hell you say? When?”

Shit. “A couple of weeks ago. He—”

“Jesus Christ, R. When were you gonna tell me about it? What did he say? Don’t let that guy come near you.”

Um, too late. “I met him last night. He wanted—”

“You met him? Where? Why?”

“Fucking shit, Shun, can I finish one fucking sentence?”

Hell.

We’re both breathing hard by now, and the headache is pounding against the inside of my skull like a sledgehammer.

“Fine,” he says, voice clipped. “Talk.”

Looks like I managed to piss off all the men in my life, from dad to Ocean to Jason—and no idea why it should matter now, or why I put these men side by side in my thoughts, as if they have anything in common.

Dad is a fucking bastard.

Ocean is my caring, good older brother.

And Jason… I don’t know where I stand with him. From the start, he was a wild card, and now, after everything that’s gone down, the picture is even murkier than before.

I need to talk to Jesse Lee. He’s known the guy for a long time. But Jesse Lee is in Chicago this week, Micah with him, meeting up with Soul Stain and preparing the upcoming event.

I press a hand to my side, over the bandage I slapped there, over the shallow knife cut.

Last thing I wanna deal with right now, this damn event. Yesterday I spent hours staring at my To Do list—the catering, the graphics I need to go get and have approved by Rafe Vestri. Then the requested journalist interviews, the table and chair rentals—and managed nothing. I wonder how long it will be before I’m kicked out and fired for missing deadlines and botching things up.

Goddammit, I never thought I’d amount to much, and these past weeks it looks like I’m living up to that promise. Motherfucking loser, my dad used to yell at me. Useless little punk. Worthless piece of shit. Then my aunt finished the job, never missing a chance to tell me what a freak I am.

Yeah. Try finding any faith in yourself after nearly twenty years of being told you’re good for nothing.

If I didn’t have my brother, I don’t know where I’d be. He counteracted the poison, always telling me I could do this. That he believed in me.

“Raine, you there?” he barks in my ear, and I blink. “Raine.”

I wonder how long he’s been talking to me with no reply that he had to resort to my full name. He rarely uses it. Hates it, like he hates his own. It was a cruel joke our mom played on us. She thought it funny to call us, Storms, by these names. Ocean Storm—and Raine Storm.

Fuck her. Any goodwill I might have harbored toward her, even after everything, vanished the moment she swindled Ocean out of his money and his last shreds of belief in humankind’s kindness.

He deserves better. So how much can I tell him?

“Raine! Come on, man, you’re giving me the creeps. What did our old man say? What did he do? I swear, if he as much as touched you…”

“I’m okay. I’ll meet you—”

“Stay put, I’m on my way. Be there in ten.”

And he hangs up.

Older brothers. I sigh and toss my phone on the bed beside me, brace my hands on the edge of the mattress and stare down at my bare feet.

I wanted to keep Ocean out of this. Looks like it’s out of my hands now.

It fucking sucks.

When the doorbell rings, I realize I’m still in the kitchen in my underwear, so I go pull on a pair of sweats. By the time I reach the door, my ears are ringing from the incessant noise.

“Stop leaning on the goddamn doorbell,” I mutter, open the door and step aside to let my brother in.

He enters like a man-shaped storm, blue hair standing up, eyes narrow, pointing a finger at me. “You’re freaking me out.”

My muscles are locking up with tension just looking at him. “I said I’m fine. Cool down. I just made coffee. Want some?”

“I don’t want any fucking coffee.” He’s giving me a once-over, and I know the moment he zeroes in on the bruises. “What the fuck?”

Hey, they’re hard to miss. My arms, my ribcage, my neck, and then there’s the white bandage over my ribs. I’m so colorful this morning.

I back away from him. “Easy, Shun.”

“He did this to you?”

I bristle at the implication our old man could do this to me. “I’m a grown man, Shun. Takes more than one old guy to beat me up.”

“So someone did beat you up and slice you open.”

Of course he’d pick up on that immediately. “Just… sit, okay?” He may or may not want coffee, but I need my caffeine. “Be right back.”

“Not going anywhere,” he mutters darkly.

Right.

I return with two steaming mugs and pass him one as I settle on the sofa. He’s taken the armchair, shoulders tense, jaw set, brows knit, looking ominous, like Iron Man or something.

Don’t ask.

My brother’s always seemed bigger than life to me. I forget sometimes I’m now a couple of inches taller and slightly wider at the shoulders. He’s always been my older brother, the one with all the answers, but I want to protect him.

I wonder if that’s how he feels about me all the time, this crushing weight of responsibility, this fear that he’s failing me—like I’m feeling now.

“Just…” Ocean puts the mug down on the coffee table and gestures at me, frowning. “Tell me what happened.”

So I tell him, starting from Dad’s phone calls and his increasing demands and threats, culminating in his threat against the families of everyone we know.

“That fucking bastard.” My brother’s hands have tightened into white-knuckled fists on his thighs, and there’s a vein throbbing in his forehead. Good thing he put the mug down when he did, or it might’ve ended up thrown against the wall.

Ocean keeps a lot of his anger and frustration locked up inside, unlike me. I fire off my stupid mouth whenever I’m upset and overwhelmed, but he keeps quiet, letting that anger boil over. But he’s quite good at controlling it.

Again, unlike me.

“You met him,” he finally says, his voice low. “Last night.”

“He had me meet him at this small park near the big Starbucks. Baited me into an alley, and had a bunch of thugs jump me.”

“A bunch of thugs. You fucking kidding me?” He gets up, his face dark with fury, then starts pacing behind the couch. “How did you get away?”

“I used some of the moves you and Rafe taught me at the gym. And…” I open my mouth to tell him about Jason, and nothing comes out. “And I ran,” I finish lamely.

Better keep him out of this for now, or else Ocean will start asking more questions—why Jason showed up, why he’d care. A question I don’t know the answer to myself.

“And this Simon? Was he there?”

“No.” Jason mentioned him. “His name came up.”

“Jesse had a run in with a Simon once, long ago. Nasty guy. Jesse put him in prison, around the time you came to town.”

Could it be the same one?

“You sure our father was behind that?” Ocean asks.

I manage not to roll my eyes. My brother believes in me, but sometimes he also believes I’m an idiot. “He was there, Shun. He talked to them. Told them to get me. And he said that this is a taste of what will happen if I don’t pay up.”

“We.”

“Huh?” I lift my head. Didn’t realize I’d dropped it in my hands.

“If we don’t pay up.” He’s stopped pacing and is staring hard at me. “This isn’t on your shoulders only, R.”

I stare back at him, unblinking. It strikes me that in the past he would have taken the responsibility on his own shoulders, no questions asked, and although the thought of dealing again with my dad leaves me feel slightly queasy, I’m also glad.

That Ocean sees me as an equal now, that he trusts me to pull my weight.

“Okay, we,” I agree and hide a small smile. It fades quickly, though. “He wants fuckloads of money. What are we gonna do? Neither of us has that money, plus… This has to stop. He can’t show up whenever his funds run low and suck us dry.”

Ocean nods. “We will put a stop to it.”

“How?”

He folds his arms over his chest. “When I said we, I didn’t just mean the two of us.”

He lets this sink in. “But…”

“We’ll figure it out, together with the other guys, okay?”

“But I wanted…” To end it myself. Protect you. Protect everyone.

He comes around the sofa and leans over, puts a hand on my shoulder, looks me in the eye. “You’re strong, little brother. One of the strongest people I know. You may not think so most of the time because everyone’s told you that you’re weak, but you and me, we’ve been through hell and came out alive to tell the tale.”

And just like that, he’s laid me open. “Shun, listen.”

“No, you listen. I’ve tried to do things on my own. I fucked up a thousand times. And you know why? Not because I’m stupid. Not because I’m incapable. But because I was alone. Families shore you up, have your back, support you no matter what. We never had that, you and me. We only had each other, and then we had no one. But now, R... Now we have a family, a big one, and those guys? The Inked Brotherhood and the Damage Boyz, they’ve been through their own hell. They understand. And they’ll help us, you’ll see.”

I nod, not convinced. “If you say so.”

“It’s not all darts and pool and drinks, man. We help each other, always. They’re the reason I landed back on my feet after what our parents pulled. Them, and you.”

He’s looking straight into my eyes, those eyes that look so much like mine. It’s like staring at my reflection, with a difference: in his gaze there’s a confidence that I’m not feeling right now.

“Okay,” I whisper. If Ocean believes we can do this, then I have no choice but to believe it, too. His belief is what saved us both all those years ago in the trailer park—the trust that we can make it. “Fine.”

“Gotta go now.” He glances at his watch. “Kayla’s waiting for me, I promised I’d be there.”

“There where?”

“She’s buying fabrics for the event.”

Right. “Hey, one last thing. This Simon guy… What else did Jesse Lee say about him? What happened?”

“A violent bastard.” Ocean frowns, his hand already on the door handle. “He’s involved with the Mexican mafia, I think. Bad news.”

Fuck, and Jason is somehow involved with him. I have to tell Ocean about Jason, but dammit, not now, not before finding him and talking to him first.