by Em Petrova
His heart jerked—hard. His throat slammed closed, cutting off any air he might try to drag into his lungs.
Selena had called. When? While he sat on a barstool brooding over her? When he was dragging the drunk out of the bar?
His lungs burned from lack of air, and he forced a breath into them. When he hovered his thumb over the screen, he noted how it shook.
The moment he’d waited for was here. A chance to win her back.
Disgust crawled through him, and he threw his phone onto the bed. After a month, she decided to call? He wouldn’t take her back—he tried and she didn’t give him so much as a text in return.
A month of not knowing if she was furious with him. With no way to remedy the situation—she’d simply cut him off completely.
Screw this. He wasn’t going to give her the time of day for what she’d put him through.
He dropped his aching hand into the ice again and stared at the shabby, threadbare motel carpet, wondering how the hell to move on with his life without her now that he’d made his choice.
A guard walked by Selena’s open door.
He pretended as if he didn’t glance inside, but she knew he was paid to do exactly that.
To keep tabs on her every waking—and sleeping—minute. He and three other guards she saw on a daily basis all reported to Kenzo.
Even thinking the man’s name made her shudder, and Selena wrapped her arms around her middle. The guard continued past her door, but she knew he would report that she was cold or frightened. Not that either one mattered to Kenzo. The animal would continue ignoring her requests to leave his house.
Of course, she begged him to come here, to take her sister’s place as what he called his ‘prime piece’, which only meant being dolled up in beautiful dresses and high heels and forced into a room full of men who would buy the drugs she carried with her.
Selena knew for months that something was wrong with Alexus. She withdrew from her, and eventually didn’t return any of her phone calls or requests to see her. She was seeing a man named Kenzo, and thank God that bit of information had been enough for Selena to find her.
The minute she realized her sister was a high-class drug trafficker, held against her will by the man who persuaded her with money and the promise of love, Selena knew she had to take action.
This landed her here, in this prison that appeared to be nothing but light and beautiful things. But she knew those windows were watched by more guards outside as well as closed circuit cameras.
She’d agreed to stay here. At least Alexus was free.
Her stomach cramped, and she folded over. Her stomach always hurt, and she suspected the past month had given her one hell of an ulcer. Being unable to eat or sometimes drink, as well as the constant worry and terror of what would happen to her, she expected more than one ulcer.
One month she’d been in this place, held captive, forced to sell Kenzo’s cocaine, crack and meth with no hope of ever getting free.
The only person she had in the world capable of breaking her out of here was the man she’d walked away from. Judd. They called him Diesel, which only made him sound rougher and more bad ass, which he was.
If only she could get word to him—
“Selena.”
She jerked her head up at the sound of her name on Kenzo’s lips. When she saw him silhouetted in her bedroom doorway, his broad shoulders nearly filling it, his fit body sickening her with the thought of what he kept pushing her for but she continued to deny—but for how long? He knew she was helpless if he wanted to force himself on her.
Her stomach burned as acid sizzled through the hole there.
“I brought you a present. Stand up.”
She had taken to sitting on the floor between her wall and bed. The guards had started looking there for her automatically, after seeing her so many times. Kenzo did too.
He stepped into the room, and her muscles locked with the terror of what this present may be.
Would tonight be the night he made her come to his bed? Or would she be donning makeup, a beautiful dress and selecting a pair of designer heels to wear to one of his drug parties?
On the streets, she could sell drugs wearing rags. But wealthy, influential junkies liked their women sellers to look like models.
She waited as Kenzo approached the bed. She wished the wall at her back would dissolve and she could fall through it.
He crouched before her. The scent of his cologne and the leather jacket he wore made her stomach flinch. As he extended a hand to her, she saw the small bag he held. A silver paper bag filled with some jewel or bauble that kept up the ruse that she wanted to be here and was really a cherished, pampered woman.
Judd’s suggestion that she quit her job and he would take care of her now sounded like a lovely dream compared to her horrific reality.
“Take it,” Kenzo urged.
She twisted her face from him. “I don’t want it. I want to leave.”
He sighed. “We made a deal, sweet thing.” He reached out and dumped the bag on her lap but cupped her face.
Her stomach churned. She might throw up. How long before he demanded more from her? She was lucky to have escaped it these past weeks.
She kept her gaze downcast as he studied her. After a moment, he dropped his hand and stood from his crouch, hovering over her. She held her breath, waiting for what would come, but in the end, he turned and walked out of her room.
Shivers overtook her, but she steeled herself against them. Without even looking at the contents of the gift, she stuffed the bag beneath her bed and pushed to her feet. She was going to be sick.
She ran into the adjoining bathroom and knelt on the floor in front of the commode, but after taking big gulps of air, her fear subsided with some of the nausea.
Now that she’d given the guards a show, she got off her knees, went to the door, and she closed and locked it. She was allowed a measure of privacy for personal needs, but if she took too much time in the bathroom or something appeared suspicious, they’d barge in.
She had approximately five minutes.
She rushed to the bathtub and hit her knees, scrabbling at the tile she’d managed to tear off using a fingernail file and glued on again with thick toothpaste. She pulled off the tile and fished in the hole she’d made in the backer board until she touched her cell phone.
Kenzo didn’t know she had it—she told him she’d lost it, left it on a park bench and when she returned for it, someone had picked it up. All innocent stories and a pack of lies.
She grabbed her phone and stared at the black screen. Please don’t be dead.
When she pressed the home button, it came to life in her hands, a living link to the outside world—and help. One call might bring the police and feds here for the drug bust of the century, but she only wanted to get a call out to one person –Judd. Diesel had to know that she might have been angry and hurt by their talk, but in the end, she’d forgiven him.
Seventeen missed calls.
Her heart plummeted.
On the day she’d gone missing, after taking her sister’s place, Judd called five of those times. Then once a day for a full week. Finally, it seemed as if he’d given up and stopped trying to contact her.
She hit his number and brought the phone to her ear. Heart thudding, she wondered what to say…how to explain she was a prisoner, hiding in a mansion up in the hills and acting as a drug dealer to the rich and famous.
Her call went unanswered. She frantically dialed again. This time his voice rang out in her ear, that deep, low rumble that made her insides clutch and her heart shatter with longing for him.
“Judd!” she rasped in a hushed whisper.
A beat of silence followed, and he grated out, “Selena.”
“Judd, I’m so sorry! I—”
A door slammed in her bedroom. Her heart gave a wild flip. Someone was coming.
She cut off the call and stuffed her phone into the excavated hole. She scooted to the sink
and grabbed her toothpaste, hastily smearing it over the tile back to keep it in place.
Shaking inside and out, she returned to the toilet, threw up and flushed. She washed her hands and splashed water on her pale face.
A knock sounded on the door, making her jump.
“Everything okay, Selena?” One of the guards checking on her.
She was right—five minutes.
“Yes, just feeling a little under the weather. I’ll be out in a minute.”
She threw a look at the tile. It didn’t fall off, and God help her if it ever did and someone discovered it before she did. She would put Diesel in danger, something the man would never back down from.
Her heart leaped. She was counting on that.
Chapter Two
“Fuck!” Judd threw the bucket of ice across the room. It hit the wall with a sharp crack and ice scattered all over the ugly carpet.
He paced to the door, grabbed the handle with the thought to leave, to go to Selena.
But go where?
He strode to the bed and snatched up his phone, staring at the screen as though it would give him some clues as to where she was and why she called.
Judd, I’m so sorry!
That one breathless, despairing cry wrenched his goddamn soul. Thanks to a fucked up home life, he didn’t trust easily, and once that trust was broken, he struggled to give it a second time. Backstabbing and cruelty was a daily occurrence in his childhood, and he’d come to expect it from everybody in the world.
Until he became friends with a great group of guys in high school, he believed every human operated in this manner. So reuniting with Dixon, Tank, Patriot and the others had renewed his faith in humanity, and he trusted those guys with his life.
Then Selena walked into his world, and he slowly began to tear down some walls for her. Her leaving devastated him—made him bitter.
But her rasped apology raised the hairs on his arms and nape.
That didn’t sound like a woman who realized after a month of not speaking that she’d made a mistake. Her tone sounded with soul-deep desperation.
He dialed her number but it went to voicemail the same as all the other times. “Call me,” he grated out and ended the call.
Dropping his head into one hand, he massaged the strain forming at his temples with his thumb and middle finger. Dammit, there must be some answer. His mind replayed the call again.
Judd!
Judd, I’m so sorry!
The faint noise of a door slamming. Selena’s sharp gasp.
He played it over in his memory a second time, then a third.
On edge, he paced to the door again, kicking the ice bucket out of the way. He hurried to his bike, taking long strides with his mind locked on one thing—finding some answers about that phone call.
And now, he was starting to wonder if Selena had stayed away this past month against her will.
The door slam and her gasp told him somebody was coming, someone she didn’t want to hear her talking on the phone.
As he threw his leg over his bike and settled his helmet in place, he had one goal in mind—get to Mersey and talk to his brothers. He’d shared very little with them about Selena. He wasn’t one of those guys who fucked a honey at the club and everybody knew it. Selena was different. She had her life together. So why hadn’t he thought to walk into her office where she worked and demand she speak with him over the course of a month?
His pride got in the way, pure and simple. She refused to give him a second chance after that argument, and instead of asking forgiveness face-to-face, he took the coward’s way out by calling.
What if something happened…something that kept her from picking up? His parents ran in rough circles, and he and his sister Lily had been around a lot of criminals growing up. So he knew what people were capable of. The thought that Selena had gotten wrapped up in something to prevent her from reaching out to him burned a hole straight through his gut.
He laid on the gas and hit the highway, taking the road to Mersey at high speeds. He slowed for the twisty curves, remembering how his fellow Dark Falcon, Tank, had wiped out on one of these curves a while ago. Fucked up his bike and himself.
He didn’t have time for mistakes.
He’d made too many this past month as it was.
When he rolled into the club parking lot to see several motorcycles still out front, his fingers numbed with relief. Someone would be there to talk to about his situation. What he needed was a friend to tell him he wasn’t crazy in thinking something might have happened to Selena to keep her away from him.
He quickly parked and entered the club. As soon as he opened the door and smelled the familiar wood of the paneled walls, he calmed a measure.
He looked to Blade, who was kicked back with a beer in hand, staring at the game highlights on the big screen on the club wall. “Where’s Dixon?”
“Went home with Fiona. What’s up?”
“Get him. I’m calling a meeting.” Any club officer had the right to demand the brothers all sit down at the big table. Until now, he never needed to, but he couldn’t think of anything more worth doing so for than Selena.
Blade got off the chair and walked out to collect Dixon, who lived a short walk from the clubhouse. Judd located Tank and Rio poring over an order for more T-shirts with the Dark Falcons logo on them. While they were very selective about membership these days, ever since Patriot had experienced hell with a prospect who betrayed him, their numbers in the club were swelling. Everybody wanted to be a Dark Falcon or associated with one. If they couldn’t help Judd now, what the hell was he doing here?
He grabbed Tank by the shoulder, and he looked up. Concern creased his brows. “What happened?” he demanded.
Rio stood. “What’s going on, Diesel?”
He looked between them. “I’m callin’ a meeting.”
They stared at him for a moment, faces blank. Tank shoved away from the table where he sat and gained his feet. Eye-to-eye, he and Judd faced each other. Tank rested a hand on his shoulder.
The unspoken camaraderie was exactly what he needed at that moment. He walked into the meeting room of the club and switched on the light. The big table was illuminated, the logo of the Dark Falcons in the center seeming to jump off the hand-hewn wood.
Under other circumstances, he might have choked up at seeing it. A gnawing fear for Selena’s safety consumed his mind.
He walked to the table and braced his hands on the warm wood, bowing his head. When the guys began to filter into the room, silence abounded.
Finally, Dixon walked to the head of the table, waiting. “What’s going on, Diesel?” he asked quietly.
He dragged in a deep breath. All of a sudden, he wondered if he was overreacting, if his imagination had gotten the best of him. After all, it was a door slam and a gasp. It could mean nothing.
He didn’t think so, though.
He looked up at his prez. Their gazes met, and he started to talk. He told them about how he’d gone to the motel to have time away from his thoughts—his misery—and then he got the phone call from Selena.
When he finished, they remained still.
Dixon nodded. “Your instincts have never been off, Diesel, in all the years I’ve known you. If a guy on the football field was going right, you sensed it and blocked him. I’ve trusted you since, and that extends to right now. If you think your girl’s in trouble, I believe you.”
Relief washed through him, a tidal wave of emotion that he battled to control for a moment. Finally, he issued a long, low breath. “Thank you.” Until this moment, he didn’t know how much it meant to him to have this support, the backing of his brothers.
“I believe you too, man. I’ll do anything you need me to in order to find her.” Patriot’s voice grated out with a roughness that had Diesel looking up and meeting his stare. Understanding passed between them. While he’d never told Patriot how he felt about Selena, his friend possessed strong feelings for his own old lady Aarica
.
“Means a lot, man,” Diesel returned.
“We’re all with you,” Blade told him with a measure of force.
He gave a nod.
“So where do we start?” Dixon asked.
“That’s the trouble—I have no fucking idea.” Energy exploded out of him, and he couldn’t sit still any longer. He bolted to his feet and paced to the wall of windows, looking out at the yard between the club and Dixon’s family garage. It was too dark to see, but he knew that out there, somewhere, Selena was in trouble and counting on him to save her.
Selena woke to Kenzo barging into her room. She had no sense of time, and having nothing to do, she slept at odd hours. It could be seven in the morning or the middle of the afternoon.
Her time was not her own, nor was her privacy, so she’d taken to sleeping fully clothed for such a circumstance. The last thing she wanted was to encourage the man if he caught a peek of her exposed.
Blinking at the sunny bedroom and all the beautiful things surrounding her, she centered her gaze on the man wearing jeans and a designer button-down shirt standing in her doorway.
His dark hair was slicked back and oiled into place. She didn’t need to be near him to remember the smell of that oil and how it made her stomach twist.
“Get up. I want you to wear the white dress. We’re going out.”
She swung her legs over the side of the mattress. He looked her up and down, seeing her jeans and hoodie.
“You slept in that?” he asked.
“Fell asleep early and forgot to change into pajamas,” she lied.
His stare lingered on her breasts. “Wear the white dress. Meet me downstairs in half an hour.” He waved his hand around his head. “I like your hair up too, with some hanging down around your face.”
Her stomach churned, but she nodded nonetheless. What choice did she have? It was either she perform this duty or her sister did. She was stronger. Alexus would eventually break and Selena didn’t want to think about what the woman might do then.
Kenzo left the room, closing the door behind him, thank God. Selena dropped her face into her hands, breathing through the tears that threatened to fall. Each time she went out with Kenzo, her mind was bombarded with what-ifs.