Prologue

Five years ago...

“Papa, please!”

His response was swift as the back of his hand rocked me to my core. With my body collapsing onto the couch, fear consumed me, and I quivered in terror as he ominously hovered above. Throughout my entire life, there had never been a time when I wasn’t afraid of him. It was evident that his evil and sadistic nature rendered him unfit to raise a child. With his presence, he became the nightmare that haunted my sleepless nights and the fear that consumed every ounce of air, leaving me breathless.

I hated him.

With my hand pressed against my cheek, I made no attempt to hide the tears that were flowing freely. In a display of aggression, he formed a tight fist and menacingly shook it, bringing it dangerously close to my face.

“You will do as you are told and seal this alliance.”

As waves of fear surged through me, I trembled and shook my head in defiance. “No, I won’t.”

The intensity of his actions escalated as he firmly seized my hair, swiftly pulling me away from the couch, and without any hesitation, he proceeded to unleash a forceful punch directly toward my stomach. Overwhelmed by agony, I collapsed to the ground, gasping for air as the pain consumed every ounce of breath within me. My pitiful state did not stay his hand; he proceeded to forcefully yank my head back, following it up with a harsh and painful slap across my face, leaving me disoriented, and then he callously hurled me onto the cold, unyielding floor.

“Get her out of my sight!” my father bellowed, his voice filled with rage, while one of his bodyguards callously lifted me up, treating me as if I were insignificant. With no further communication, the bodyguard pulled me out of the room.

“Just do what he says, Aksana,” Mikhail whispered, escorting me to my room. “Defying him will only anger him more.”

“I can’t, Mikhail. That man is a monster.”

“Yes, but he’s the only way you will get away from your father,” he reasoned, opening my bedroom door before pushing me inside. “Marry the dirty biker. Solidify the alliance and then make your escape. Find Vladmir Ivenok. He will help you.”

Looking up at Mikhail, I couldn’t believe he just said that to me. The man was loyal to my father. He never went against his orders, yet he just explicitly told me to run and to find my father’s known enemy.

“There is a war coming, Aksana. Be on the right side of it.”

With that, he closed the door, locking it from the outside, leaving me to figure out what he just meant.

My father wasn’t a man to trifle with. He was everything everyone said about him and more. The combination of his vile actions, vindictive behavior, and murderous rage made him an extremely dangerous person. He ruled his kingdom with an iron fist.

Me included.

Four weeks later...

In the presence of my father, who observed my every move, I found myself frozen in place. Standing before a man I detested, every fiber of my being burned with hatred.

I meant absolutely nothing to this man.

All I represented to him was a transaction, a convenient way for his club to secure the arms my father had been offering. In exchange, he made assurances that his club would rally behind my father’s cause and take decisive action against a rival club that had been grabbing headlines as of late.

Sitting next to my father was a man I knew all too well.

A man named George Stone. He and my father had been friends for many years.

I thought it odd that my father would personally invite Mr. Stone to this farce. It wasn’t like he and my father ran in the same circles. Both were different, like night and day. Yet, when he showed up, my father was happy to see him and greeted the man with a hearty back slap.

“Aksana?”

Startled by the sound of my name, I quickly spun around to face the Russian Orthodox Priest who was standing beside me.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Do you take Matthew James as your lawfully wedded husband?”

Feeling a sudden rush of fear, I quickly glanced at the man who was staring at me with anger, causing me to grimace instinctively in response. “Don’t really have a fucking choice now, do I?”

In response to my crude manners, the Priest visibly flinched, and it was at this moment that Matthew James, who also went by the alias Steele and served as the President of Satan’s Angels Motorcycle Club, emitted a threatening growl before forcefully grabbing hold of my neck and applying an intense, viselike grip.

“You better fucking change your tune, bitch.”

My father laughed. “She’s got spirit, Steele. You must break her in hard.”

“Oh, you can fucking count on that, Konstantin.”

“If she’s anything like her mother, she should be easy.” Mr. Stone roared with laughter.

“She fucking accepts,” Steele sneered at the Priest. “Now say the fucking words. My dick is fucking hard, and I have a fucking cunt to fuck.”

When the Priest didn’t speak, several men from the Satan’s Angels produced guns and pointed them at the Priest’s head.

The man paled and whispered, “Married. You are married.”

The second the Priest said the words, my now husband didn’t waste time before he bent me over the dais and ripped the back of my wedding dress open. Fighting him as hard as I could, the vile man grabbed me by my hair before slamming my head down, instantly breaking my nose.

Through watery eyes, I watched as my father and Mr. Stone got up from their seats and walked away, as my now husband raped me right there in front of all his men, laughing as he sealed the marriage before the eyes of God and everyone watching.

Three years later...

Just an hour ago, it had been raining, but now a fierce snowstorm blanketed the landscape, with my car at the center of its chaotic dance. The windshield wipers desperately swished from side to side, struggling to clear the snow obstructing my view. The temperature had dropped quickly after the heater stopped working over thirty minutes ago. It was so cold I could see my breath in the air. This was the first time I had ever felt a cold of this magnitude. I had spent all of my life in areas known for their warm and sunny climates.

This... this coldness was unthinkable.

On top of everything else that was happening, I had the unfortunate realization I was running out of fuel. Taking care to drive safely, I peered into the obscure night with desperation. It was a breathtaking sight, with nothing but little white orbs of snow, one after another, flying towards me. But nothing could quell the fear that was surely behind me.

I had no other choice but to continue, slowly.

Initially, I held the belief that by increasing my speed, I could potentially improve the circumstances. However, my perception drastically altered when I found myself perilously close to veering off the road and landing in a ditch. Consequently, I immediately reduced my speed to a mere fifteen miles per hour, adopting a more cautious and unhurried approach.

Safety was paramount.

It wasn’t just me at stake.

I still didn’t know where I was going, but any place was better than where I’d left.

The second I peed on the stick and saw the positive result, I knew it was now or never. For three years, I endured that piece of shit, and I flat-out refused to let him hurt my child.

A man like him should never be a father, anyway.

I saw the way he treated his daughter Joanna. Fucking prick pimped her out and used her like some fucking whore.

The second she defied him, he killed her.

No.

I wouldn’t end up just like her.

I knew the second he found out I was gone he would send some of his men after me. Mainly Scab. Never in my life had I ever met or seen a man like him, and I prayed I never did again.

For the last several months, I slowly planned my escape and started scouring the internet for help. When I came across a chat room for abused and battered women looking to escape, I reached out and started talking to a woman name Valhalla. Over time, she told me she ran an underground haven and if I was serious about leaving my abuser, she and her friends could get me to safety. When I learned I was pregnant, I didn’t think. I messaged the woman and begged her to help me.

It took me a few weeks, but I saved enough cash and purchased a piece-of-shit car off some two-bit hustler without him asking too many questions. And one night, while Steele fucked a club whore in front of his friends, I discreetly snuck out of the clubhouse and never looked back. For the next two weeks, I traveled all over the central United States, meeting people along the way willing to help me, with everything from changing my hair color, new identities, to even offering me a safe place to lay my head at night before I needed to get back on the road again. Every place I stopped, there were fresh clothes, hot meals and a new car for me to use.

Valhalla thought of everything.

And soon, my travels would be over, because tonight, I would finally meet Valhalla. That is, if I could get through this fucking winter storm. I saw the weather before I left Denver and while I wasn’t happy about the possibility of getting caught in a major blizzard, I refused to stay another day. I couldn’t take the chance of Steele finding me.

No.

I had to keep going.

No matter what.