Chapter 2

2

brITTA

T he past two years had been pretty good to me. My mom and I were safe in the small town where we’d settled. Money wasn’t as tight as it’d been growing up since she was working in a bar owned by the Hounds of Hellfire, a club with which the Iron Rogues apparently had a loose connection. I’d been so far ahead in schoolwork when transferring that I was able to graduate a semester early last month. And my mom had stayed away from men, which had done wonders for our relationship.

The only thing missing from my life was Stone.

None of the boys I’d met in school had caught my interest the way he had. They all seemed so…young in comparison. Which made sense when you considered they were only teenagers and he was in his thirties. But weirdly, I felt as though there was more of a gap between those boys and me than what I had with Stone.

My childhood had left a mark on me, and I felt older than the eighteen years I’d celebrated with my mom a few months ago. Being abandoned by your father, your mom getting hospitalized by her abusive boyfriend more than once, and running for your life tended to do that to a person. So did being mostly on your own.

Since I had serious trust issues from my dad, I’d always had a hard time making friends. Everything that had happened with Tommaso had sent my walls higher, so I hadn’t made any close ones since we left Chicago. And I wasn’t allowed to talk to Izzy because it wasn’t safe for her or me. We had to go to those lengths so my mom and I couldn’t be traced. Cutting off contact with everyone we knew from our previous lives.

These were deep thoughts for the grocery store, so I shook them off and headed toward the checkout area. I flashed the cashier a half smile as she scanned my items.

“Having a good day?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yup.”

“You’ve lived here a couple of years now, right?”

I pressed my lips together to hold back an irritated sigh. “Mm-hmm.”

Her gaze darted around to make sure nobody else was nearby before she leaned forward. “I could swear I’ve seen you talking to a few different members of the Hounds of Hellfire. Are you a club girl or something?”

I’d learned as much as I could about club life since we came here—figuring that it would help if my dream of being with Stone ever came true—but I had no idea what she was talking about. “Am I a what?”

“You know…a club whore or whatever the Hounds of Hellfire like to call the women who are there for them to sleep with whenever they want.”

My head jerked back, my eyes going wide. “Absolutely not.”

Her gaze raked down what she could see of my body and back up again, her lips curving into a smirk. “Yeah, now that I think about it, that’s kind of a ridiculous question. You look way too innocent to be banging a bunch of bikers, most of whom are twice your age.”

With the Iron Rogues and Hounds of Hellfire looking out for my mom and me, I’d spent a few days each at a couple of different clubhouses. Not once had I ever seen anything like this woman was describing. But I didn’t bother correcting her or defending my looks since she wasn’t worth the effort—and I would never betray a club secret, no matter how small or unimportant. Not when they’d done so much for us. Or with my feelings for Stone.

Instead, I just murmured, “You almost done?”

She pursed her lips and nodded, picking up the pace as she finished checking me out. I helped her bag my stuff, and then I loaded everything into the car that the Hounds of Hellfire president had gotten for us before we moved into the apartment. I drove straight home and hurried inside.

“I’m home,” I called, kicking the door shut behind me before heading toward the kitchen to drop the bags on the counter. “And you won’t believe what happened while I was at the store. They definitely need better customer service training with the way the cashier who helped me talks to shoppers.”

There was no answer, and I assumed my mom had fallen asleep in her bedroom. Working nights wreaked havoc on her schedule, and she squeezed in extra sleep whenever she could. So after putting away the groceries, I tiptoed down the hallway until I noticed her door was open. “Mom?”

Finding her bed a wreck and the lamp on the floor, I gasped. “No. No. No.”

I searched the apartment, but she was gone. And now that I was paying closer attention, I noticed little things that I had missed when I first got back. Her winter coat was on the floor beneath the hooks we used to hang them by the door. The end table next to the couch had been pushed forward about a foot, and the book she’d been reading last night was on the floor in front of it.

Her purse still hung on its hook, and I had our car. So there was only one explanation that made sense…someone had taken my mom.

I hadn’t seen or heard from Stone in all that time, but he was the first person I thought of. There were a couple of Hounds of Hellfire prospects who lived in the same building, but I didn’t even stop to consider going to one of them. Or the Hounds of Hellfire clubhouse.

Instead, I ran into my room and packed a few changes of clothes and my toiletries. Then I dug through my mom’s purse for the cash from her tips last night. Only I found more than I was looking for and not in a good way.

There were four threatening notes shoved all the way at the bottom. They all had the same theme—keep your mouth shut if you want to live. The last one I read scared me the most.

Whores like you can’t be trusted. Such a shame that your daughter will have to pay for your mistakes.

I was being threatened, but she hadn’t said a word to me about the notes. And my guess was that she hadn’t told the Hounds of Hellfire either. At the very least, they would have wanted to help track down whoever sent them. More likely, they would’ve moved us again.

I didn’t know what she’d been thinking, and the only way I’d ever find out was if I got her back. I needed help for that, so I turned the three-hour drive to Old Bridge into a little over two as I broke every speed limit.

A prospect was manning the entrance to the compound. His eyes went wide when I stopped within an inch of the gate. Rolling down my window, I didn’t give him the chance to say anything before I demanded, “Get Stone. Now!”

“Who do you think you are to tell me what?—”

Undoing my seat belt, I flung my car door open and jumped out. “I’m under Iron Rogues protection. If you turn me away, you’ll never get patched in.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, eyeing me speculatively. Then he pulled out his cell and stabbed his finger against the screen. It wasn’t long before someone picked up, and he growled, “Need you to come out to the gate. A girl here says she’s under our protection and needs help. She’s asking for you.”

A few minutes later, the gate opened, and the prospect waved me through. As I approached the clubhouse, the man I’d been dreaming of for two long years stalked out. I was back with Stone. Finally.