When the bus reached Albuquerque, we jumped on an Amtrak train bound for Los Angeles. Only Arizona stood between California and us now, and with every passing mile, my anxiety levels rose.

Staring out the window, I watched the platform move away from us, and the city flashed past as the train picked up speed. The central part of town morphed into an industrial zone, and then the factories melted away into the wilderness. Overhead, the sky was blue, and below, the earth was scorched.

The train was more modern than I’d been expecting. We had a little private room with a shower and toilet, and when I said little…it was a shoebox.

There was a sofa with reclining sections and a separate chair. At night, the sofa somehow converted to a bed, and above it was a fold-down bunk. The room itself was on the top level of the train car, flanked by other rooms, with ten or so smaller compartments further down, and below us were even more, including a fancier family suite. Train travel went and got itself upgraded.

Everything was gray and blue, which reflected my mood perfectly.

“You want a shower?” Chaser asked.

I nodded and peered into the tight space, making a face. The shower was so small it sat over the toilet. It would have to do. I smelled and felt like a giant wad of stinky trash. My hair was still full of grit and grime from the accident.

Stripping, I left my dirty clothes on the seat and closed myself in the cubicle. Dousing myself with warm water, I tried not to focus on the bruises that had flared overnight and allowed my thoughts to wander.

I scrubbed off the filth of our Texas slash New Mexico car crash drama as best I could with the little square of soap provided.

The image of the world tumbling around and around filled my mind, and I pressed my palm against the wall to steady myself. It didn’t help the train was moving, and I breathed deeply. Calmness only made my ears ring with the sound of the fatal gunshot…and the horrific crack and splatter of the man’s skull being ripped apart.

He was a bad guy. He deserved it. It was him or me. I didn’t even know who they were.

Forcing myself to squash down the memories, I washed the suds out of my hair and smoothed through some conditioner. As I rinsed, I made plans so I would have something else to focus on.

Within a day or two, Chaser and I would arrive at the Fortitude compound, and our whirlwind romance—if you could call it that—would be all over. Chaser, Gunnar, star employee of Fortitude MC, branded lackey to my father… Time was limited if I wanted to solve the one mystery that would haunt me for the rest of my miserable days. Who was the man I’d fallen in love with?

Scratch that. Who was the man I’d fallen in hopeless love with?

My core flared at the thought of him, and my heart twisted. Too many emotional responses in such a short amount of time had me overloading. I was spiraling into a one-way ticket to a psych ward.

I had to stop caring.

Shit, I’d killed a man to save him.

This was my last chance to convince Chaser to either let me go or come with me. I could tell him how I felt now or forever hold my peace and die a slow, miserable death at the hands of Fortitude.

Emerging from the little cubicle, I pulled on my clothes, bumping against Chaser as the train moved from side to side. The accidental touch made my pussy constrict, and I scowled. Maybe it was only physical between us… No, it wasn’t. Not to me.

Sitting in the seat closest to the window, I toweled my hair and watched as he rifled through his stuff, taking out a T-shirt and a pair of dark-colored jeans and boxers. I wrinkled my nose as he sniffed the T-shirt, checking for freshness.

He didn’t speak as he closed himself in the cubicle. Turning my head, I realized his bag was still lying open on the seat next to me, his belongings on show. Inside, I could see his wallet, gun, spare ammo, and my ziplock bag of money. All the things I wanted to steal from him way back at the beginning of our fucked up road trip. They were just lying there, ripe for the picking.

Glancing at the door, I knew only a handful of inches separated me from Chaser. It made the thought of rifling through his things even more exhilarating.

Reaching out, I picked up his wallet and ran my fingers over the soft leather square. After all we’d been through, he finally trusted me, which made what I was about to do all that much more terrible. I could’ve trusted him in return and told him how I felt, but there were just too many secrets he was holding back from me.

So I opened his wallet.

Inside were a few twenty-dollar bills and the usual bits and pieces. There was a credit card with the name Gunnar Mason and a matching Californian driver’s license. Tilting the card back and forth, I studied the photo. It wasn’t half bad, the lucky bastard. The address was likely a fake one, so I didn’t pay too much attention. It was starting to bother me that I didn’t know Chaser’s real name until now. It felt like he’d been touting a lie this entire time, but did I have any right to be pissed about it? I knew what he was and fell for him despite it.

Checking his wallet again, a piece of paper tucked into one of the card slots caught my eye, and I pulled it out. Turning it over, I froze.

It was a photograph of a woman. A beautiful woman with long brown hair, pale skin, and big green eyes. She couldn’t be a day over twenty-five—the same age as me. She was sitting on a stone fence with the ocean behind her, the sky a brilliant shade of blue, and smiling at whoever was holding the camera. There was this sweet and wholesome look about her that didn’t fit Chaser at all.

Who was she? She was obviously someone special to him. Otherwise, why carry her picture everywhere?

Jealousy burned in my gut, and I scowled. Maybe it was his secret girlfriend, and she was the real reason things had never quite changed between us. Whoever she was, I didn’t like her.

The bathroom door opened, and I jumped, my heart skipping a beat. Chaser’s gaze fell to the wallet in my lap and then to the photograph in my hands.

“Get a good look?” he snarled.

I swallowed hard and held up the photo. “Who is she?”

Chaser’s expression was pure anger, and for a split second, I faltered. Then he said the last thing I was expecting.

“She’s my wife.”

Everything fell away, and my hands trembled, the photograph shaking. It was as if my body was tearing apart, my heart barely holding on. The world shook, and the foundations of everything I believed in shattered.

Destruction only took a second after all.

His…wife? My gaze fell to his hand. He didn’t wear a ring, and there wasn’t a mark… There wouldn’t be, though, would there?

At the beginning of our road trip nightmare, Chaser and I had sat at that diner and argued about trust and death. I’d found no one I would die for, not until I’d shot that guy by the side of the road before he could kill Chaser. Not until his life was on the line.

At that moment, I knew I would die for him because that was what you did for those you truly loved.

Back then, at that diner, he’d told me I was naïve, but now I saw I’d fallen for just another trick. One of the oldest in the book. Give a girl a little cock, and she would believe anything. She would even believe she was in love if you could give her a half-decent orgasm. She would give her life to save your selfish ass.

It was the ultimate manipulation.

“You did,” I said. “You found someone you’d die for.”

And it wasn’t me. It was the most selfish thing I could’ve thought at that moment, but it hurt. I would never have Chaser like he had her. I was nothing to him. After everything we’d shared, after everything we’d been through, I was nothing to him.

I’d always been the package he was ordered to deliver to Fortitude.

I was no one.

“You said… You said there wasn’t any point hiding shit anymore,” I began, my voice trembling. “You were never going to help me, were you?”

“You know I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because of her.” He snatched the photo out of my hands and shoved it into his jeans’ pocket.

His admission only drove another hot pincer into my heart, and I glanced away before he could see my welling tears.

“I told you Fortitude helped me with something big,” he went on, his voice thin. “That I’m indebted to them for life. They—”

“I don’t need to hear it,” I snapped.

“You do.”

“You’re dead to me.” I seethed. “Dead.”

“That’s what they did to her,” he said, sitting beside me.

“Stop it.” I leaned my forehead against the window, the cool glass numbing my skin.

Chaser growled and grasped my arm. Wrenching me toward him, I let out a cry as I hit his chest. His gaze caught mine and wouldn’t let go.

“Let me go.”

I didn’t want to hear the words come from his mouth. I didn’t want to hear him say how he loved another woman. Alive or dead, it didn’t matter. He loved someone enough to marry them and throw away his entire life for revenge. How could he love me? I was nobody compared to what he was doing for her.

“Those men who are after you?” he continued, his expression pure thunder. “They’re the same men who took her from me. History will not repeat, Sloane. You hear me? I won’t let it.”

I froze, trying to make sense of this whole fucked up mess. His wife had been murdered by the same men who were trying to kill me. Was that why he cared? I was his redemption? His second fucking chance? This had nothing to do with love and had everything to do with closure.

I was a pawn. Always had been.

“I made a deal with Fortitude,” he said. “They help me get revenge, and in exchange…”

I shook my head and felt a black hole of sadness open up inside me. “You haven’t got it yet.”

He didn’t reply. He just stared at me, his forehead creasing.

“I should never have let you touch me.” I snarled, wrenching out of his grasp. He looked as if he’d been slapped, and it only made my rage intensify. “You piece of shit. You used me for sex. You used me just like I was…” My voice broke, and I turned away from him, focusing on the landscape rushing past outside the window. “You’re just like all the men I ran from when I left Fortitude. You’re just like my father. Small, manipulative, sadistic, and power hungry. I killed a man for you.”

“Sloane.”

I felt his hand on my shoulder, and I shook him off with a violent jerk. “Don’t touch me. You never get to do that again, understand?”

“No, you don’t understand.”

“You don’t get to command me,” I said with a snarl, rising to my feet. “I am not yours! I don’t belong to you, Chaser. I understand plenty. I’m the Band-Aid on a festering wound. Nothing more, nothing less. You just couldn’t help yourself to a little pussy to soothe the ache left behind by your dead fucking wife!”

“Shut your fucking mouth.” He snarled, standing before me.

In the small space, we had no room to move, so we were right up in each other’s faces, an inch apart. Instead of falling into his arms and him kissing me, we were on the verge of tearing each other apart. If only we’d gone this way that day on the side of the road when we’d first kissed. If only we’d leaned a little more toward hate than love.

If only…

“I’m such a fool…” I said, my gaze searching his. “Never again.”

It was a promise, a threat, a motherfucking contract written in blood.

Never. Again.