Prologue

PROLOGUE

EVIE

" I 'll see you tomorrow," I said and waved goodbye to my coworker. After picking up some extra shifts, I hadn't had a day off in over two weeks, and I was exhausted.

As I walked to my car, I was going over my upcoming expenses and the money left in my account instead of paying attention to my surroundings like I should have been. The hospital wasn't in a bad area of town, per se, but it was dark, and anyone could be lurking around.

When a dark figure appeared out of nowhere and a hand covered my mouth, I was completely disoriented. It took several seconds for me to realize I was being pulled in the opposite direction of my car.

"No!" I tried to scream when my brain finally caught up to what was going on.

"You better shut the fuck up if you know what's good for you," a gruff voice said.

I struggled to break free from his grip on me, but it was no use. He dragged me to another vehicle and tossed me inside with ease. As soon as he let go of me, I reached for the door handle, but another set of hands latched onto me before I could make contact.

Moments later, my hands were secured behind my back, and a piece of duct tape was placed over my mouth. Fear like I've never felt before hit me. Whatever was about to happen wouldn't be good.

"Get her keys and follow me to her house," the man with the gruff voice said. It had a hint of familiarity, but I couldn't place it.

I felt someone tug at the purse still strapped across my body. "I can't find them," a new voice said.

"Where are your fucking keys?" Gruff asked.

I mumbled a series of unintelligible sounds from behind the duct tape that was silencing me. Seconds later, the tape was harshly ripped away. "Give me your keys," the second guy demanded.

"I-I dropped them," I stammered, "wh-when he grabbed me."

"Fuck," the guy spat, and slapped a new piece of tape over my mouth.

"Hurry up," Gruff barked.

Second guy got out of the car, presumably to look for my keys and subsequently follow us to my house. I had no idea why they were forcefully taking me to my house, but I planned to use the fifteen-minute drive there to think of a way to get away from them.

"Don't even think about trying anything," Gruff said and turned in his seat to look at me.

My eyes widened in surprise and dread settled in my gut when I saw his face. The man sitting in the driver's seat was none other than my father, which meant the other man was likely my half brother.

As the pieces started to come together, I had a pretty good idea of why they were essentially kidnapping me. If I was right, there wasn't anything I could do besides cooperate with their demands, and I would. I refused to become collateral damage because of someone else's mistakes.

When we arrived at my house, I was yanked from the car and frog-marched inside. "Where is he?" Muzzle asked. I refused to call him by his given name or refer to him as my father. On the rare occasions I had to use something to indicate him, I used his road name, just like I did when it came to my half brother, Snarl. They were both members of the Mad Dogs MC, and I wanted nothing to do with either of them.

They both stared at me, waiting for me to answer. I stared back at them, wondering how they could be so stupid. When it seemed like they weren't going to realize their mistake, I once again tried to talk with the tape sealing my mouth shut. For the second time that night, tape was painfully ripped from my lips.

Grimacing, I glared at both of them.

"Where the fuck is he?" Snarl snapped.

"I don't know," I reluctantly admitted. I knew it wasn't what they wanted to hear, but it was the truth. "He doesn't tell me where he goes or when he'll be back."

"You better not be lying to us."

"Why in the hell would I lie to you?"

"To protect your little boyfriend," Muzzle said.

"He's not my boyfriend, and I have no interest in protecting him. You want him, you can have him," I said. There was a time when I would have tried to protect Randall, but that was long gone. He'd changed, and not for the better. If it came down to him or me, I was choosing me. The presence of Muzzle and Snarl in my house was proof enough for me that Randall had also chosen himself.

"We don't have all night. You better figure out a way to get him here, or we'll take you back to the clubhouse and let you work off his debt," Muzzle said. His words confirmed my earlier assumption. Randall owed them money, likely for meth, and it was time for him to pay up.

I knew exactly how to get him to come home, but I needed my hands free to do it. "Can you remove the tape from my hands so I can call him?" I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral. I didn't want to do anything to piss them off more than they already were.

Without a single word, Snarl grabbed my arm and cut through the tape that was binding my wrists together. The moment I was free, I located my phone in my purse and called Randall, silently pleading for him to answer.

"What?" he said when he accepted my call.

"I was wondering when you were going to be home," I said. "They gave out surprise bonuses at work today, so I thought we could place an order for delivery from that restaurant you like. The one I can never remember the name of."

"You got a surprise bonus?" he asked, sounding far more alert and interested than he had when he answered. I knew he'd come running at the possibility of getting his hands on some money.

"Yes," I lied. "Our department came in way under budget. They decided to reward the employees by giving us a percentage of the leftover funds. I thought we could celebrate."

"Yep. Great. I'm on my way," he rushed out and ended the call.

I placed my phone on the counter and turned to the two assholes invading my home. "He says he's on his way."

"How long?" Snarl asked.

"I didn't ask," I said. "I never do, and I didn't want to do anything to make him think something was going on." Randall had become increasingly paranoid and suspicious over the last six months.

"You better not be fucking with us."

I wanted to roll my eyes. "You heard everything I said to him," I pointed out. "Trust me, I want him to show up as much as you do."

"What's the matter, sister? Are you not happy to see your family?"

He couldn't be serious. Regardless, I threw caution to the wind and answered him honestly. "Family is not the word I'd use to describe you, and no, I'm not happy to see you. As soon as Randall gets here, I want all of you out of my house. I don't know why you're looking for him, and I don't want to know. I want nothing to do with any of it."

"That's not how this works," Muzzle sneered.

His words sent a wave of fear rolling through me. Randall's mistakes were not mine, but I was beginning to think they felt differently.

Before I could ask how it worked, I heard Randall's car in the driveway. "He's here," I announced, in case they didn't hear him pull up.

Snarl moved to stand beside the front door while Muzzle yanked me to him and wrapped his hand around my throat to keep me in place. Randall walked through the door, saw Muzzle holding me by my neck, and turned to run, but Snarl grabbed him by the back of his shirt and threw him to the ground. Any residual doubts I had about handing Randall over were extinguished when I saw him turn to run. He wasn't even going to try to help me before saving himself.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Snarl spat.

Randall scrambled to his feet and glanced around the room with panic-filled eyes. He shook his head and scratched at his face. "Uh, hey, guys. What's going on?"

"You know what's going on. Where's our money?"

Randall turned to me, where I was still being held in place by Muzzle's disgusting hand. His eyes shifted to Muzzle. "Evie just got a bonus. We can go to the bank and get your money."

"I didn't get a bonus, dumbass. I lied to get you to come home. Whatever you've got going on with them has nothing to do with me," I told him.

"You what?" he asked and started pinching the skin on his arms. "You don't have any money?"

"No, Randall," I snapped. "I don't have money because you stole everything I had!"

"How am I supposed to pay them?" he yelled back.

"I don't know, and I don't care," I said and pulled away from Muzzle. Thankfully, he let me go. My skin was crawling from being so close to him. I just wanted all of them out of what used to be my safe space. They were tarnishing it more and more with every second they stayed.

"Are you telling us you don't have our money?" Snarl asked.

"I'll have it soon," he blurted. "She gets paid tomorrow."

"No, I don't," I said. I didn't have time to do anything other than answer honestly and hope it would be enough to save myself. "I don't get paid until the end of next week, and most of that paycheck has already been spent."

Snarl's fist plowed into Randall's face, knocking him to the ground. "We don't like being lied to."

"I'm sorry. I thought it was tomorrow," Randall whined. "I'll figure out something and have it for you next week."

"That's what you said last week," Muzzle said. "And the week before that. And the week before that. Time's up, Randall. I'm going to ask you one last time. Do you have our money?"

Randall pushed himself off the floor and sat on his knees. After a few beats, he exhaled heavily and admitted, "No, I don't."

"When you started selling for us, what did we tell you would happen if you didn't have our product or our money?"

Randall swallowed audibly. "You said you'd kill me."

"Do you have any of our product to return to us?" Muzzle asked.

"No," Randall said quietly.

"No product, and no money. Seems like there's only one thing left to do."

"No! Please, no!" Randall begged. "Do something, Evie. You have to help me."

It was too late for me to do anything. He and I both knew that. I'd offered to help him months ago, but he wasn't interested. After he stole my phone while I was sleeping and emptied my bank account, I was done with his shit. Instead, I focused my attention on working extra shifts and saving up enough money to get a new place for myself since we were about to be evicted. I didn't care if he had to sleep on a sidewalk somewhere, I was moving out and he was not coming with me. The Randall I once knew was long gone, and I had no desire to be around the meth monster who had replaced him.

I gave Randall an apologetic look and raised my hands in surrender. "There's nothing I can do."

"No!" he screamed. "Don't let them do this. Please. Please!"

I turned my head and closed my eyes. I couldn't stop what was about to happen, but that didn't mean I had to watch it. Or so I thought.

"Oh, no you don't," Muzzle said and roughly grabbed my arm to turn me back around. I struggled to break free from his hold, but was no match for his strength.

Snarl looked at me and grinned maniacally before he plowed his fist into my face. After the second hit, I agreed to comply with whatever they wanted.

"Good," Muzzle said. "Here's how this is going to go."

As I listened to his plan, I tried to disconnect from what was happening. Randall was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. The only thing I could do was cooperate in order to save myself.

When he finished explaining, Muzzle looked at me expectantly.

"The knives are over there."

It took everything I had to keep from vomiting. Twice, I felt bile rise in the back of my throat and forced myself to swallow it back down. I didn't have time to be sick. I needed to get my stuff together and get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

When Muzzle and Snarl finally left, they promised they'd be back and told me to have the mess cleaned up before they returned. The mess they referred to was Randall's dead body and the blood he spilled after having his throat slit. They didn't specify how much time they were allotting me to dispose of the body and clean up the crime scene, but I didn't want to wait around to find out. I also wasn't going to do anything to disturb the plethora of evidence they left behind. Instead, I thought it would be better to pack my stuff and run.

As I was gathering my things, I realized how little I had left. Randall had stolen so much from me. I was partly to blame for letting it go on for so long. It took me a while to realize he had developed a problem. I started to suspect something was going on when he couldn't pay his half of our bills. He hadn't had a major unexpected expense, so there was no reason for him to have no money to contribute.

Then he started taking things from the house and selling or pawning them. First, it was things we didn't use very often, like certain small kitchen appliances and miscellaneous electronics. After he ran out of those, he moved on to things we did use. I caught on when the coffee maker wasn't on the kitchen counter where it should have been. As I started going through the cabinets looking for it, I realized the coffee maker wasn't the only thing missing from the kitchen. When I confronted him later that day, he was very apologetic and admitted he had a problem. I offered to help him in any way I could, but he said he needed to do it himself. Unfortunately, I didn't see that for the red flag it was.

I thought he was doing better and even praised him for his hard work. Little did I know, the only thing he'd gotten better at was hiding his actions. It became clear when my debit card was declined during my lunch break at the hospital. I opened up the banking app to check my balance and almost died when I saw the amount available. Instead of having over two thousand dollars, I only had two dollars. After frantically scrolling through the transactions, I found a Zelle transfer for two thousand dollars to Randall Myers. I confronted him as soon as I got home from work. He denied stealing the money and became extremely defensive. When I showed him the receipt, clearly showing the money was transferred to an account in his name, he tried every trick in the book to blame anyone other than himself. But it didn't matter. I was done. He'd stolen from me. Again. As a result, we weren't going to be able to pay our rent and some of our other bills. When the eviction notice arrived, a part of me was relieved. I could move on without Randall and put the whole mess behind me. Little did I know, that's exactly what I would be doing but in a very different way than I thought.

Carefully avoiding the area on the floor where Randall's dead body lay sprawled in an unnatural way, I glanced around the small house one last time. I hoped I hadn't forgotten anything, but I didn't have time to double and triple check. I needed to hit the road and put as many miles between me and Fairbanks, Georgia as possible before anyone noticed I was gone.

As I drove away from the place that I called home for a large part of my life, my anger grew. I couldn't let them get away with what they'd done. Yes, Randall owed them money, but it was for illegal drugs they shouldn't have been selling in the first place. Two wrongs didn't make a right, and two wrongs certainly shouldn't go unpunished. And I couldn't spend the rest of my life hiding from them. If they were in prison, I would be free to live my life.

Before I could think better of it, I pulled over at a gas station. Once I found a phone I could use, I called the Fairbanks Police Department and anonymously reported Randall's murder. I identified Snarl as the murderer and Muzzle as the accomplice, as well as where they could find the murder weapon. Then I told them they abducted the other occupant of the house, and they could check the hospital surveillance cameras to verify. After answering a few questions and refusing to give them my name, I got back into my car and drove until I couldn't drive any more.