Prologue

T his was a stupid plan.

Carpenter’s Auto Services may as well be Fort Knox with how daunting it feels. My nerves are all over the place. My stomach feels queasy as I reach for the door, stopping to inspect the logo. Carpenter’s Auto scribbled in front of a skull with two wrenches for crossbones.

Somehow, I can’t think of anything more fitting for a business owned by Mason Carpenter.

I should have gone home and changed. Maybe brushed my hair. It’s braided and frizzy from the heat, despite there being low humidity on this hot LA summer day. I’ve covered it with a Laker’s hat, but the wild strawberry blonde hairs surrounding my face still escape.

Not that I’m here to look pretty. Those days of secretly wanting to impress Mason are long over, but . . . it would have been nice to show up wearing something a little nicer than a pair of old jeans and a worn t-shirt—it was moving day, okay?

It’s been two years. He doesn’t know I’m coming. A fact that I have reminded myself of for the last twenty-four hours since moving to LA. I also can’t seem to stop thinking about our last conversation. The brush of his tongue against mine. The feel of his fingers gripping my hair while he ground out my name.

Oh, and the way he ghosted me after the fact.

Rejection still burns in my stomach when I think back to that night. How stupid and young and na?ve I was to think I could mean anything more to him.

Still . . . I need his help and I’ll be damned if I walk out of this place without it.

Tugging on the glass door to the lobby, I step inside . . .

And almost step right back out.

The place is horrifying. From the dirt on every surface to the papers stacked high on the counter, it’s a wonder anything ever gets done around here.

I can hear the sound of an impact running in the garage, but no one is up front.

“Hello?”

No answer.

Grumbling under my breath, I step toward the door that leads to the garage and peek my head out. I can’t see him, but I can smell him.

Sweat, grease, and that little bit of essence of hot man—in the attractive sense.

“Hello?” I try again.

The impact drowns out the sound of my voice, so I step fully into the garage, looking at the space around me. In contrast to the office, this area is well organized. The tools are all in their places and the floor has been swept. Though I know nothing about garages this one seems . . . comfortable.

I step around the car that’s being hammered into oblivion by the old, tired impact, spotting long, strong legs covered in denim leading down to old work boots. The shirt covering his torso rides up just enough to catch a glimpse of hard, trimmed abs underneath and I swear, my heart beats just a little bit faster.

Yep, that’s Mason, alright. All six foot, five million inches of him.

Suddenly, the impact stops and he’s sliding out from under the car on a creeper, those hurricane-colored eyes I’ve tried to forget glaring up at me like I’m here to tell him he’s been denied from participating in the rapture.

Okay. Maybe this was a bad idea.

“Hannah.”

There’s no question behind it. Just my name. Like he’s acknowledging my presence, but he’s pissed about it.

Yep, definitely a bad idea.

My mind struggles with words because all I can think about is the way he touched me. As if I were precious to him. Like I mattered.

And also his muscles.

This must be some sick joke the universe is playing on me. Like Punk’d: Fuck Hannah edition.

Two years have been good to him. He’s not just the strong guy I once knew, but a whole ass man, now, complete with every ingredient to make the perfect dirty fantasy come to life.

Heavy, broad shoulders. Tattoos rippling over strong muscles that slip up his arms and into the sleeves of his t-shirt. Harsh jawline.

Stop it, Hannah, I chastise myself. He’s probably married with children now. We’ve got other priorities that he wouldn’t understand . . .

“Are you going to speak?”

Shit.

“You know, you should really hire a receptionist,” I ramble because that’s what I do when I’m nervous. “Someone could rob you blind and you’d be none the wiser. Though, I’m not sure there’s much of a market for dust bunnies right now.”

He’s not amused.

“I mean, you know what they say about a clean . . . garage, right?”

I have no idea what they say. Again, I tend to ramble when I’m nervous.

And Mason Carpenter has always made me nervous.

“What are you doing here, Hannah?”

The silence hanging in the air between us is palpable. Tense.

Fuck.

“She’s missing, Mason.”

His jaw ticks, but apart from that, he doesn’t react.

He has no reason to help me. After his stepfather was arrested for heinous crimes, I’m sure Missy is the last person anyone in his family is concerned about saving. Hell, it feels like she’s the last person anyone is thinking about right now.

Except for me.

Stay strong, Hannah. The worst he can do is say no.

“No.”

Everything is doomed.

“Mason,” I start, but he chooses this time to stand, his big self towering over me and every bit as wide as the best linebacker in the NFL.

I’d forgotten how tall he is . . .

His muscles ripple under the thin black t-shirt he’s got on. Those aren’t gym muscles. They’re earned over a lifetime of hard work.

My mouth is suddenly very, very dry.

“You’re the only one I can trust. My mother’s brushing it under the rug because of who she was involved with and the cops aren’t looking. I mean, they say they are, but not really. The FBI is after her and God only knows who else.”

“I said no.” He stalks toward a tool cart, away from me, but I follow him. He doesn’t appear to like it judging by the tension in his shoulders.

“I know something bad has happened. Missy’s smart, but she’s not very good at hiding.”

“Your sister is being accused of some very bad shit, Hannah,” Mason bites, still not looking at me. “And you want to help her?”

“ No ,” I snap. I know what she’s been accused of. I just don’t believe it. I mean that’s my twin. My sister. She wouldn’t do those things. “I just want to make sure she’s okay and convince her to turn herself in. I just . . . I don’t have a good feeling.”

“I have enough problems to deal with without having to worry about you, too.”

Rude.

“What if I agreed to work for you? For free?” He starts shaking his head before I’m even done speaking. “I could clean up. I could organize. I know all about invoices and billing.” I help run the charity my mother founded for children overseas. Coincidentally, that’s how no one knows I’m here right now.

“Not happening,” he grits, voice rough as he slams a drawer on the tool cart shut. Finally, he turns back to me and I realize, with some panic, that he’s entirely too close. Like a foot away.

My head spins at the proximity. Strange for me, but then again, everything has always been strange where Mason and I are concerned.

“Tell me,” he murmurs, voice dark and his eyes like a Category 5 hurricane. “Where is your dear mother? She know you’re here?”

He would ask about her.

“No,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “And she doesn’t need to. I’m not a child.” He chuckles, shaking his head in disgust. “And I live in LA now. I don’t need permission from her to visit an old friend.”

Okay, friend may have been a poor choice of words. I don’t know what I’d call Mason, but even before, he was the furthest thing from a friend you could get. Sexy acquaintance? Object of every dirty fantasy I’ve ever had?

Still . . . my mother is not a topic we need to discuss right now. Or ever.

“I’m not asking for anything else. I just . . . I can’t do it on my own. I’ve tried. I’m failing miserably. No one will speak to me because of who my mother is.”

And because my twin is wanted for murder and human trafficking, but I digress.

“Then give up.”

If I were a violent person, which I’m not, I would kick him in the shin.

—Then run away as fast as I can because I’ve seen Mason’s dark side. We’ll just say a grizzly looks tame.

“What if it were your sister?”

It grows so silent, you could hear a mouse queef in the back of the garage.

His gaze hardens, his jaw ticking in that way I used to think was endearing. Now that I know it seals my fate, it’s more like a stab to the chest.

“No. It’s final.”

Without even a word, he nods over my head to the door, and with bitter embarrassment, I realize I’ve lost.

Defeat crushes through me, but . . . it’s not like I haven’t been here before. It was a long shot, anyway.

“Goodbye, Mason.”

He doesn’t seem to like that response because his eyes narrow dangerously, but he doesn’t say a word as he watches me leave. As soon as the door shuts behind me with a metallic finality, I suck in a shaky breath and head toward my old, beat-up bumblebee yellow VW Bug—It was cheap, okay?

That was . . .

Rough.

Mason looked at me like I was sin incarnate. As if everything that happened was my fault. God knows, sometimes I feel like it.

I fall into the front seat of my car, forcing the tears burning in my eyes back. I refuse to cry. Not here.

My gaze catches on the picture in the dash. Missy wouldn’t cry. She’d take the rejection with class. She’d wait until she was home and completely alone before a single tear fell.

She smiles back at me as if reminding me of who she was. That was nearly six years ago. What may as well be a lifetime. I was seventeen and everything made sense. I knew my next move. I knew what life would be like when I reached the age I am now. I was going to marry that boy in high school who told me I was pretty because of course, he didn’t just want to get in my pants. He wasn’t like other guys.

Boy, was I wrong?

I lean forward, laying my head against the steering wheel and toss my hat on the passenger seat, hair be damned.

“Where in the world are you, Missy?” I whisper to the picture, ashamed when a tear manages to break free and fall to the old Polaroid, sun-faded and covered in dust.

A sharp rap at the window causes me to let out a squeak and throw myself back in the seat like I’ve been shot, but . . . it’s Mason, staring down at me like he’s studying a map to some forbidden treasure he really doesn’t want to go out and find, that makes my heart hammer in my chest.

Like he’s already regretting what he’s about to say.

My heart bottoms out, laying in shambles in the pit of my chest as I prepare myself for more of the mental lashing that comes with Mason Carpenter and roll down the window.

“Be here at nine. Don’t be late or you’re on your own.”

My mouth falls open like a chicken waiting for rain. Unfortunately, he doesn’t give me time to ask questions because he turns and stalks off back down the sidewalk. All six foot, five inches of him.

Scrambling, I hurl myself from the car, banging my head painfully on the doorframe, but I don’t stop.

“You’ll help me? Tomorrow?”

He stops up the sidewalk, turns around, and regards me with a bored expression. One that says he really doesn’t care if I show up or not.

“If that’s a problem for you, you’re welcome to continue searching on your own.”

Jesus. He’s so harsh now.

“Nope,” I say, popping the P. I really want to tell him to shove it, but I need his help if I’m ever going to find Missy. “I’ll be here, bright and early.”

I hate early mornings.

He doesn’t say anything else, but his gaze lingers for a second longer than it should. As if he’s looking for something. Waiting for some big gotcha moment or for Missy to pop out of the trunk like a mentally ill Jack in the box.

Then he shuts the garage door behind him.

What the fuck just happened?

Did I just get rejected and then . . . I don’t know . . . un rejected all in the course of ten minutes?

By Mason Carpenter, no less? The man who’s haunted both my wildest dreams and my darkest nightmares since I met him?

This is either going to go really, really bad. Or . . . really good. I’m hoping for the latter. I’m betting on the first.

With Mason, there is no in-between.

“I’m going to find you, Missy,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to my fingertips and then pressing those same fingers to her picture. “I promise.”