GRACE
WHEN BRIAN SMILES AT ME, I know I’ve made the right choice.
His hand is warm and steady in mine as he puts the ring on my finger, his gaze never leaving
mine. In just a few moments, all my nerves are washed away, and as I listen to him recite his vows,
happiness and calm fill me.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the priest says.
Brian leans down to kiss me, sweetly bringing his lips to my own. He’s always been a good
kisser, but modest in public. I know that later tonight, I’ll get the real bridal kiss, not just this
innocent, honey-sweet brush of his lips against mine that melts all of the old women’s hearts in the
audience.
The guests clap as we pull away, turning to face them. Taking my hand in his own, Brian begins
to lead me back down the aisle. My father smiles at me from the front seat, wiping away the blood
that covers his face.
Wait.
The blood...
My footsteps slow, my feet dragging against the polished floor as my heart stutters in my chest.
The blood...
I tug my hand from Brian’s, looking down at my open palms. My hands and forearms are
covered in blood, slick and red with it. It drips onto the floor, each dark droplet landing with the
finality of a hammer falling.
Pop!
A bullet pierces my side, and pain explodes through my body.
WAVE AFTER WAVE of a dull pain washes over me as I float somewhere between awake and the realm
of my dreams, head pounding. My whole body feels like it’s been run over by a car, and though my
mind is foggy from sleep and pain, I know that everything is wrong.
Deep inside, something doesn’t feel right.
I try to roll over, to move—anything to feel some control over my own body—but gravity weighs
me down, pressing me into the hard mattress beneath me. My limbs are slick with sweat and my body
feverish. My mind is a confused mess.
Why am I so weak? I don’t remember being sick.
Groaning, I try to arch my body off the bed, but I barely have the strength to lift a finger.
My eyes feel glued shut as I struggle to open them, needing to see the familiar and comforting
walls of my bedroom. The dreams about the wedding have been haunting me for weeks now, but I
know it’s just nerves. Cold feet, maybe. It’ll be fine.
But the survival instinct embedded in my chest pulses out a steady rhythm, the message strong and
unchanging.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
This is wrong. Something is wrong.
A rush of adrenaline helps clear some of the pain and grogginess from my system, and I force my
eyes open. I’m staring at a blank wall, painted a dull beige color with water stains near the
baseboard.
That’s not my wall.
This isn’t my bed.
At that thought, everything comes rushing back. The church. The gunshots. The blood. My father,
dying in front of me.
I surge upright with a choked gasp. Pain instantly floods my body, and a wave of nausea sweeps
over me. But I ignore both sensations, crawling toward the edge of the bed and scrambling off of it,
looking around wildly for an exit. The world tilts in my vision, and my knees go weak before I’ve
even taken two steps.
“Not so fast, kitten.”
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
I hear the sound of chairs scraping the floor behind me, and I know it’s too late, but I still try.
I lurch forward, throwing myself toward the door as though if I can just touch it, just reach it, I’ll
find salvation.
But I should’ve known better than to even hope.
Zaid and Lucas are quick, far quicker than I could ever be in this state. Within seconds, they’re on
me. Strong arms wrap around my waist, hauling me back and throwing me onto the bed again. A fresh
wave of nausea and pain bursts through me, and panic beats like a drum in my chest. I struggle against
their hold as two large bodies pin me to the bed from either side.
Memories come flooding back at the familiar feeling of being trapped between them. Memories of
being sixteen and a little tipsy on stolen wine from a party the adults were having downstairs. Of
feeling wild and free, wanton and brave. Of wanting something but not wanting to choose.
Zaid and Lucas always share.
That night, the feeling of being pinned between their bodies was the most exquisite thing I’d ever
felt. Four hands explored my body, touching me in ways I’d never been touched. New feelings
blossomed in my chest—feelings that took my breath away, feelings I wanted to explore and chase.
Zaid and Lucas were relentless, determined only to give me satisfaction.
It only happened once. Just one night between the three of us right before my mother died and my
father and I fled.
But if I had stayed...
My heartbeat feels erratic and unstable, as if the overtaxed organ is about to give out at any
moment. I can’t seem to catch a full breath. Vivid memories of the past collide with the harsh reality
of the present, and my body and mind feel paralyzed, unable to sort out one from the other. Unable to
separate what’s real and what’s just a memory.
Unbidden, a flush of arousal burns through my veins, chased away almost immediately by pain
and fear.
These aren’t the boys I had one wild night with back when my life still made sense.
They’re bigger now.
Harder.
Colder.
Zaid’s green eyes burn as his gaze locks on mine, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. Is he
remembering that night too? Does he ever think of it? Or has he nearly forgotten me in all the years
since I left, erasing my memory in the dozens of other women he’s probably fucked in the meantime?
The thought sends something hot and fierce burning through my veins, and I jerk my head forward,
trying to headbutt him.
He jerks his head to the side at the last moment, just barely avoiding my attempted blow, and all I
get for my trouble is a rush of dark stars in my vision and a wave of nausea that makes me gasp for
breath, the coppery tang of bile coating my tongue.
I’m panting, grunting, struggling like an animal in a cage, and I don’t even know what I hope to
achieve. Just that I want to hurt these men. To hurt them like they hurt me.
When I squirm against them, trying to get an elbow up to lash out, Lucas wraps a strong arm
around my waist from behind, his muscled forearm pressing against my exposed stomach.
A shock of pain bursts through my side, and when I cry out, he hisses and loosens his grip a little.
Between the pain in my head and the pain in my side, I can barely see straight, and the two of them
use my moment of weakness to pin me firmly to the bed, stopping me from struggling at all.
“You need to calm down,” Zaid says firmly. His voice is deeper than I remembered. Rough and
masculine. Less boyish.
“I’m too weak to go anywhere, okay?” I rasp, closing my eyes against the barrage of agony—both
physical and mental—that assaults me. “You can let go of me.”
“Yeah. Fat fucking chance of that, you wildcat.” Lucas chuckles, and the sound vibrates through
my body. But there’s no real humor in it.
Before I can respond, the door opens. At the sound, I force my unwilling eyelids to open again,
blinking at the assault of light. Ciro steps inside the room, barely even glancing at the three of us as he
moves to the nightstand and sets down a small box. He flips it open, and the sound of the wooden lid
hitting the nightstand makes shivers crawl down my spine.
I don’t know what the fuck is in that box, but I’m terrified to find out.
“Am I interrupting something?” Ciro’s gaze finally flicks to us, his steel-gray eyes impossible to
read, his face impassive. There’s something... blank about him that only adds to the fear building
inside me.
Zaid and Lucas have filled out and gotten harder-edged since I saw them last. But Ciro has
changed completely. Although his features haven’t changed all that much in the transition from
boyhood to manhood, there’s something about him that’s almost unrecognizable to me—as if the
person he is inside has been altered irrevocably.
“Nope.” Lucas releases his hold on me, pulling his body away first. The cool of the air hits my
back in his absence, and I shiver in spite of my relief at his absence. “Thought she could be clever
and try to escape. With a fucking bullet wound in her side and no idea where the hell she even is.”
Zaid lingers a second longer, his gaze catching mine again. At his brother’s words, something like
pity flashes across his face, but it’s there and gone again so fast that I can’t convince myself I really
saw it. Then he moves away from me and gets off the bed too, straightening his clothes. He’s wearing
well-fitted jeans and a dark blue long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. He
looks casual but commanding, something I’m sure wasn’t an accident.
Ciro gives the twins another look that I can’t decipher, so I don’t even try. My throat is dry and
sore, and as the adrenaline in my veins dies away, an overwhelming tiredness washes over me, the
weight of my situation finally settling.
Lucas is right about one thing. I don’t know where I am or why I’ve been taken. And just because I
once knew the men who’ve taken me captive, I doubt I’m any more likely to survive this than if I’d
been taken by strangers. I saw the way Hale looked at me after he dumped me on the seat of the van.
With pure hatred in his eyes.
Disgust.
Resentment.
Hell, maybe I’d be safer with strangers. There’s too much baggage between me and these men,
and I can feel it infecting the very air around us.
The mattress shifts as Ciro sits on the bed next to me. I make a move to scramble away, but his
hand clamps around my uninjured wrist. His expression doesn’t change one bit, and his grip isn’t
tight, but his hand seems to engulf my wrist, making me feel tiny. Vulnerable. Breakable.
Without even uttering a single word, he’s issued me a warning.
“I need to check your stitches,” he says, releasing me once he sees in my expression that I’m not
going to move. He leans over and grabs the box he brought in, then pulls out antiseptic and a fresh roll
of bandages. “You were shot.”
As if summoned by his words, pain flares in my side, along with a vivid memory of the bullet
tearing through my skin.
Right. No wonder my whole body fucking hurts.
I lie still and try to control my breathing as Ciro lifts up my shirt and peels the bandages away
from my side. His fingers are deft and sure, moving confidently as if he’s done this dozens of times
before.
He probably has.
“It’s going to scar,” he notes absently, setting the discarded bandages aside.
“Yeah, I know. I’m not an idiot, Ciro,” I whisper. It’s meant to be a taunt, but I’m too weak for it
to have much bite. And I suppose I should take it as a good sign that he thinks I’ll be alive long
enough for a scar to form.
The room goes quiet as he works. Zaid and Lucas stand sentry from the foot of the bed, watching
with their arms crossed over their chests. They’ve fallen into almost the exact same pose, something
they used to do all the time when we were younger—like they were bookends, mirror images of each
other.
I thought it was charming then. Now, it just makes me hate them more.
Ciro doesn’t seem bothered by their steady stares. He works quickly, disinfecting the stitches on
both the front and back side of my abdomen before reaching into the box and pulling out some large
gauze pads.
I can’t help but stare at him too. I don’t know what the hell to think of him. He’s always been the
quiet one out of the four men. Only now, his quietness is different. Unnerving. It’s almost as if he’s
empty inside, void of any emotion. His lethal silence terrifies me more than any show of power Zaid
or Lucas could ever pull.
In fact, he scares the shit out of me.
“That’s new.” I swallow, then point to the tattoo on his right forearm. I’m not sure why I’m
bothering to talk to any of my captors, but the silence is making my skin prickle. “It’s... nice.”
He looks down at his arm as if he’s forgotten the piece of ink is there, gazing at the dark tattoo
that’s been added to the full sleeve of ink on his right arm. It’s a black snake, covered in white roses,
coiling around his arm. It actually is beautiful, but if it has meaning, I know he’s never going to tell
me. As frequently as we used to be in each other’s company, I was never close with Ciro. Only close
enough for me to know that he’s an extremely private person.
I don’t have time to blurt another pointless comment, because a second later, the door slams open
again and Hale walks in. A bolt of tension follows him into the room, as if he’s brought a fucking
thunderstorm with him.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demands, stalking toward the bed. He stands to one side of where
Ciro is sitting, towering over me like an avenging god. “Look at me, Grace. I want fucking answers.
Now.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Goose bumps break out over my skin as fear and anger war inside
me. Ciro finishes with my bandages and slides out of the way, leaving no barrier at all between the
furious man glowering down at me.
“You know exactly what I mean, smartass,” he says. “Your dad was up to something, wasn’t he?
What the hell kind of shit was he into?”
“Nothing!” I scoot away from him on the mattress, but Zaid moves to block the other side of the
bed, trapping me between the four of them. Fuck.
“Really?” Hale cocks his head, his dark blue eyes burning. “You were always a daddy’s girl,
Grace. You really expect me to believe he didn’t tell you anything?”
“There’s nothing to tell.” I swallow, my scratchy throat dry as cotton. “He isn’t into anything. He
has a good job at a bank. He pays his fucking bills. He’s just a normal guy.”
“Was.”
I blink. “What?”
“You said he is, Grace.” Hale’s voice is hard. “But he’s fucking dead. He isn’t anything anymore.
Everything you’re telling me is what he was.”
My stomach seems to shrivel in on itself, leaving a hard lump inside me. Tears burn my eyes as
the reality of my situation hits me full-force once again. My father is dead. He died in my arms, his
blood covering my torso and neck. He’s gone. He’s gone.
It’s hard to draw a full breath. Grief and shock are crawling through my limbs like ice, turning me
numb.
Hale’s jaw clenches, and he shakes his head like his chastising himself for something. Then his
expression softens a bit. “It’s okay Grace,” he says quietly. “You don’t need to protect him anymore.
You can talk.”
I don’t need to protect him.
Because he’s dead.
“I told you, I don’t know anything!” I spit the words like venom, almost snarling at him. “And
even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you shit, you fucking asshole!”
“What was your dad up to?” Hale’s voice is still soft, but I can’t find it comforting. The calm in
his voice is lethal—he’s a ticking time bomb, and I’m the target.
“If he was up to anything, he didn’t tell me!” My hands claw at the sheets, trying to ease some of
the tension in my body. “We were living a normal life until you decided to show up at my fucking
wedding!”
A fresh wave of pain hits me as the words tear from my throat. Not physical pain from my
wounds, but the pain of regret. Of hopelessness. Of the enormity of what they took from me.
They just took away the life I worked so hard to build—the one that may never have made me
deliriously happy, but that never made me feel agony like this.
And for what? For revenge?
Didn’t they get enough of that when my father’s blood bathed the church floor? What more can
they possibly want?
They could take whatever vengeance they still think they’re owed out on you, a small voice in
my head whispers, making a shiver run down my spine.
I don’t want to believe that, don’t want to consider the possibility. But they have me captive. I’m
completely at their mercy.
They can do whatever they want to me.
“If my dad was doing anything, he didn’t tell me.” I repeat the words, my voice dull and subdued.
Exhaustion is blackening the edges of my vision again, and I don’t have the strength to keep screaming
at Hale. “Maybe he was into something shady and never told me, but I never suspected it. I never
knew about it. When I say we were living a normal life, I mean we were living a normal life.” I huff a
breath that’s almost a laugh. “Not that any of you would know what that is.”
Silence settles for a long moment as Hale and the other men absorb my words. I hope like hell
they can hear the truth in them, because if they keep pushing for a different answer, I don’t know what
I’ll do. I have no more information to give them.
“What about the other men?” Hale asks, shifting his line of questioning. I don’t know if that means
he believes me about my dad, or if he’s just letting the subject drop for now. “The other group who
showed up. Do you know who they are?”
“What other men?” I blink at him, my brows pulling together.
“The other men who attacked in the church.” He narrows his eyes at me, as if he thinks I’m trying
to pull a fast one on him. “We weren’t shooting our own guys.”
Thinking for a moment, I try to recall the other men in the church. Even if I did know any of them,
it’s not like I would remember now. The whole terrifying event can’t have lasted more than five
minutes, but time seemed to both slow and speed up, leaving me with a spotty recollection of the
details. It all passed by in a blur; I barely had enough time to register that I was being taken, let alone
to identify the individual faces of a dozen gunmen.
“No...” I shake my head slowly. “I’d never seen any of them before.”
“Could there have been anyone at the wedding who knew about your past life?” Hale’s questions
are relentless.
“Besides my father... no.”
“Not even your fiancé?”
“No.”
Hale stares at me hard. My skin prickles, but I hold his gaze, refusing to look away. He can either
think I’m lying or that I had a terrible relationship with my husband-to-be—one based on secrets and
massive omissions. I don’t care which conclusion he draws. It’s none of his goddamn business what I
did or didn’t tell my fiancé.
“Was there anyone you invited who would have been able to find out about your life?” He leans
closer, slowing his words as if the reason he’s not getting the answers he wants is because I’m too
stupid to understand.
Irritation begins to crawl over me. I just want him to leave me the fuck alone. I want to let the
exhaustion that’s pulling at me drag me away from consciousness for a while, to float in blissful
oblivion and pretend none of this is real. “No. None of them knew anything. We never talked about it.
Ever. It was my father’s only unbreakable rule.”
Hale’s jaw clenches, his eyes bouncing between mine. Then he curses and straightens, stepping
back from the bed. “Fucking hell. All right, we’re done here.”
My heart doesn’t even jump with hope. Whatever Hale might think, I’m not stupid. I know “we’re
done here” doesn’t mean they’re going to let me go. It doesn’t even mean they’re done interrogating
me for answers. It means I get a momentary reprieve, nothing more.
“Zaid.” He jerks his chin toward his two friends. “Rope.”
The man with copper-blond hair nods, then crosses over to one corner of the room and unzips a
large black duffel bag. When he strides back toward us with several lengths of rope dangling from his
grip, my body jerks. I scoot backward on the mattress, but Lucas stops me before I can slide off.
Zaid tosses the ropes to Hale, who catches them without turning around. Then Hale kneels on the
bed on one knee and grabs my ankle, pulling me toward him. He grips my wrist and pins it above me,
pressing it to the cool metal above my head.
His hands make quick work with the ropes and the headboard, his body leaning over mine as he
binds one of my wrists. His clean, masculine scent trickles into my nostrils, and my eyes flare wide.
“What the hell are you doing?” I rasp.
“Tying you up to the bed.” He yanks the knot tighter. “So you don’t escape.”
My heart races. “I’m not gonna try to escape.”
“You’re such a fucking liar.”
Crossing over my body, he grabs the other wrist, tying it just as tight as the first. I ignore the
weight of him pressing into me, the closeness of his chest to my face, as I yank against the bonds that
hold me. But they’re unforgiving and unbreakable. I’m not going to move unless someone lets me out.
My breath quickens. I don’t like being out of control.
“I can’t move anyway,” I say desperately, and edge of panic bleeding into my voice. “I’m in too
much fucking pain. I’m too weak.”
His cobalt eyes flicker as he glances down at me, his gaze skating over my side where the bullet
wound is. I’m no longer wearing my wedding dress. I’m in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and I refuse to
even let myself think about who changed my clothes.
“Yeah, well.” Hale meets my gaze again. “Ciro’s a good medic. You’ll heal up quick. And
besides, I know you, Grace. You’re a fucking fighter. Too weak isn’t in your vocabulary.”
It’s not a compliment. Or at least, I don’t take it as one. How can I, when his words feel like the
final nail in my coffin?
For some reason, I find myself looking to Ciro for help. He knows exactly what condition my
body is in—he’s the one who stitched me up. I’m not going to be able to escape, even without being
tied up, and he should know that.
Never mind that Hale is right. Even if I had to crawl on my knees through broken glass, I’d try
anyway.
Maybe Ciro knows it too. Because he doesn’t speak up or lift a finger to stop his friend as Hale
gives the knots on my wrists one final tug.
“Zaid, you’re on watch.”
That’s the last thing Hale says before they all leave the room.