Chapter One

Onessa Charles clutched the steering wheel in her hands, continuing to glance behind her, checking for someone tailing her. She took one deep breath in and blew it out slowly. Then another. She had to stay calm. She relaxed each hand, stretching her fingers, then re-gripping the wheel. The stress wasn't good for her or her baby.

Concentrating, she glanced at her odometer. If her math was correct, they had about sixty more miles. She'd made the last turn she had to for a while. She was trying to follow the directions exactly as he'd said—her rescuer. Just a little further to safety. She'd been forced to stop a couple more times than he'd suggested, but she couldn't avoid it. Being eight months pregnant meant that whenever her little tot jumped on her bladder, she had to go. She'd even stopped drinking an hour ago because the road looked deserted. She didn't want to have to stop alongside the road. It was darker out here without all the lights from the city.

"Mom, are we almost there yet?" Her heart hurt hearing her eight-year-old son sound entirely too grown up. Mom was the appropriate term, courtesy of her former husband. Mama and mommy were too babyish, he'd said. Her son had seen things she'd never wanted him to see and known he had to obey his father. She'd protected him as best she could. His father hadn't cared if their son saw him abusing her. He considered it a teaching moment on how women were treated.

Today was the start of her making sure Ambrose didn't turn out like his father, uncle, or grandfather. This was their break, and she was going to make sure they never went back. She was thirty years old, and this decision about her life was the first she'd ever made. Her marriage had been an arrangement between families. She'd been sixteen the first time she was told her life was already planned.

She'd known something was off about her family because she wasn't allowed to have friends from school or go to school activities. Straight to school and back home. After all she'd learned, she was thankful she'd been allowed to graduate.

She'd considered trying to run before she was married, but how? She had no money of her own. She wasn't allowed to work. She even had a guard with her if she went shopping. The only solace she had was when she went to the library and checked out books. She made friends with the librarian because her father would have stopped the visits if he saw some of the books she checked out. Each visit she checked out a couple romances. For a moment through each book, she dreamed of a man who would rescue her. She also used the library to expand her knowledge. She read books on history, battles, self-help, and war. She learned how to crochet, knit, and cook from books. Her son would not be so stifled.

"I think it's maybe another hour and then we can rest and get something to eat."

"I'm good."

Of course, he was good. He'd seen her husband, well, her deceased husband, abuse her for the slightest infraction. Her son had learned from a young age not to complain. It's one thing she would be teaching him. He would get to have opinions now and to be a boy. She wanted him to whine because he didn't like something, not sit stoically by, scared to move. She wanted him to stay up too late playing a video game or reading a book. He was much too young to act like an adult.

She thought back over the last six hours and couldn't believe how her life had changed. A tall, handsome dark-haired man with tattoos covering his arms and a leather vest had been waiting inside her doctor's examination room.

He'd explained he could help her and her son get away from her husband's family. He'd known about her brother-in-law and father-in-law's plans to have her marry one of them.

Because the time she'd lived with her abuser wasn't enough. She'd had a brief time of hope after her husband was killed that she could get away, but they'd immediately informed her that she and her son would be staying and one of them would become, as they called him, "the boy's" father.

Her doctor confirmed she knew the man and had called him for help. Onessa had decided to take a chance. She'd made a decision and changed the course of her own and her children's lives. Honestly, she didn't see how anything the man offered could be worse than the hell she and her children would endure under the rule of her husband's family.

The doctor had manufactured a crisis, necessitating an ambulance ride for Onessa and her son. She was then admitted for tests. She'd been moved all over the hospital until she and her son were slipped out of the hospital in a delivery truck. From there, they'd been taken to a couple different places before being driven to a tow yard where a car was waiting for them.

Her rescuer had thought of everything. She had cash, directions, a burner phone, along with a cooler of snacks and drinks. He'd had three bags of clothes for them. The last being a couple things for a baby just in case she needed things before she could go shopping. He'd also slipped his card into her purse, telling her she could always call on him for help. She would be forever grateful to Justice. He might not have gotten her justice for what she'd endured, but he'd given her and her children a chance at freedom.

The sun was dipping toward the horizon, making it harder to see. Her belly was large enough that she had a hard time driving as it was. She'd been taught to drive in high school only because the school required it. She hadn't been allowed to drive a car in years. She breathed in slowly again, holding it for the count of ten, then blowing it out again. The technique had been in one of the books she'd read on stress. She reached one hand to rub her lower back. The ache had been almost constant the last hour, but she'd endure any ache to make sure her children weren't in danger.

She crested the hill, her headlights illuminating a deer running across the road. She lived in the city and had never even seen a deer. What was it doing running across the road?

She barely thought—thank goodness she'd missed it —when a second and third deer ran in front of her. Slamming on her brakes, she tried to steer and avoid them, but it was inevitable. A loud thud and a shudder of the car had her working to keep her car on the road.

Please let her keep her kids okay. They were almost there. Freedom was so close she could taste it. A fourth deer scampered across in front of her and she jerked the wheel. Her tires hit the softer shoulder at the edge of the asphalt, causing her car to slide down into the ditch. She held on tight as the car bounced down the side of the ditch. The front bumper crashed into the other side and came to an abrupt stop. The car impacted hard enough to set off the airbags, smacking Onessa in the face. Her last thought before everything went dark was—please let her children be okay.