“Elliot,” I say firmly. “I’ve dreamed about this for years. I’ve danced in the dark after the lights were switched off, teaching myself the things I needed to know. I’ve memorized every single thing about Dornan Ross and committed it to memory. I am doing this with or without your help.”

 With my final outburst, I turn to leave. I am bluffing, but he doesn’t know that. I think of the last time we were together, three aching years ago, and I can’t bear to think about how he walked away from me.

 It was hot and dusty. It was always fucking hot and dusty. It had been a year since I had “died”, since I had been smuggled out of a hospital room circled by men who wanted to kill me, and delivered to a safe house thousands of miles away from everything I had ever known.

 Elliot was my one constant. He was gentle and kind. He listened to all of the demons inside me that were clamoring to smother me, to kill me. He held me while I cried. He wiped away my tears.

 And then, inexplicably, he fell in love with me.

 We waited for a long time to do anything more than fool around, but once we took that final step, I was his, body and soul. I loved him. He was my world.

 Only, he wasn’t enough to chase away the demons. Nothing was. 

 For the first three years after I escaped, I was a broken shell, trying to survive, trying to forget. The scars, my constant reminder. The sound of a motorcycle. The touch of leather under my fingertips. Being in confined spaces. 

 I was broken, destroyed, and although he tried, Elliot couldn’t put me back together again.

 The first time I tried to kill myself, I swallowed a bottle of pain pills from his grandmother’s bathroom cupboard. It didn’t work. I woke up and I was still alive.

Elliot begged me to promise I’d never do it again. I did, and then the next day, I hooked up a hose to the exhaust of his car, locked the garage, and waited for sweet release.

Of course, he found me. Cut through the garage door with an ax and saved my sorry ass.

 The third time, I was so pathetically obvious that he found me in the bath before I’d even had a chance to drag the razor blade down my wrists.

 After the third time, he left. Because I was darkness, and he was sinking inside that darkness, and every time he tried to pull me out, I’d hold him under with me. 

 I understood. His life had revolved around saving my life for three whole years, and he couldn’t save me anymore. 

 “I have nothing left to give you,” is what he said, before he climbed into his car and drove away.

 It was only after he’d left me that I realized I had been going about things all wrong.

 That it wasn’t forgiveness and forgetting that my soul truly craved.

 Once I set my sights on vengeance, life made perfect sense.

 But by then, it was too late for Elliot and me. Our time was up. He was already with another girl, his baby in her belly.

 So I stayed in Nebraska and learned to dance, and dreamed of my revenge.

 “Wait,” he says.

 I stop, still staring at the door that will take me downstairs.

 He sighs audibly. “I’ll do it. If you promise to tell me what you’re up to.”

 I spin around, the smile on my face impossible to fight. “I told you,” I say, grinning like an idiot. “I’m going to take them out. Dornan Ross will rot in jail for life, and his sons will suffer, too.”

 Eliot looks at me quizzically. “The cops have never been able to get anything to stick on Ross OR his sons. What makes you think you’re different?’

 I laugh. “Well, I’m the dead girl, aren’t I? I’m going to find that tape he made of me, and send it to every single TV station in the country. They’ll have no choice but to charge him with my murder.”

 Elliot nods, and a slow, sweet smile spreads across his face. He takes the three steps across his apartment to reach me and pulls me into a bear hug so tight, I can barely breathe.

 “I missed you,” he says, his arms pressed tight around me.

 I think of how we were strangers once, pulled together by circumstance and a burning will to survive. How, even though we haven’t laid eyes on each other in so long, Elliot is the one person on this planet who truly understands me and my past.

 “Missed you too,” I murmur sadly, wishing it didn’t have to be like this, but knowing without a shadow of a doubt that it does.

Seven

Four and a half hours later, I’m running to the address Dornan gave me. Of course, I don’t need to look at the card – I know exactly where the clubhouse is. I’m almost there when it occurs to me that the address looked a little off, and I stop to fish the card out of my bag.

Sure enough, the address on the card is not for the clubhouse at all. I stand under the yellow glow of a street lamp, trying to massage the stitch out of my abdomen without touching the fresh tattoo gouged into my side.

I unlock my iPhone screen and navigate to the maps section. I plug-in the address that Dornan has written down for me, and wait impatiently as it loads. The little red dot is telling me to go in the opposite direction – 200 yards to what appears to be an abandoned warehouse.  I jog the 200 yards and come to a stop in front of the warehouse, my fear a living thing inside me. My heart sinks as I wonder why Dornan wants me here instead of down the road at the clubhouse.

I jump suddenly as a dark figure materializes out of the shadows. I immediately recognize him as Jazz, Dornan's fifth son. He is painfully thin, and it doesn't take a genius to realize he has some kind of drug problem.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he calls out to me. “What's your name?”

“Sammi,” I reply, my heart hammering in my chest.

“You're late,” Jazz says, pushing open the enormous old roller door and gesturing inside. “You'd better hurry up and come inside.”

I hesitate for a moment, my feet itching for a decision.

Fuck it. I sling my bag over my shoulder, set my jaw, and walk to the doorway, ducking underneath the roller door. I try not to cringe as it is slammed shut behind me, the sudden rush of cold air nipping at my heels.

It is dim inside the warehouse, and I struggle to see more than superficial figures as my eyes adjust to the lighting.

There are figures moving casually about. From what I can see, all male. Before I can make out their faces, Jazz has snatched my bag from my hand and immediately begins rifling through the contents.

“Hey!” I protest. Another set of hands pulls my arm behind my back, forcing it up in a painful V. I am slammed into a brick wall and the wind is knocked right out of my lungs.

Be cool.

I feel hands patting me down, efficiently at first, before slowing down when they reach my inner thighs. I stay perfectly still as someone - who, I have no idea – gently teases my clit as they search me. I don’t react.

“Where’s Dornan?” I ask. “He told me to meet him here.”

“Shut up,” another voice says, and I turn to follow its owner.  It seems the fingering body search has ended, and I am allowed to move freely again. Dornan’s oldest son, Chad, is standing in front of me, my iPhone in his hand.

“What’s the password for this thing?” he asks me.

I smirk. “D…I…C…”

I’m about to finish that word when he throws the phone at the ground, so hard it explodes into a million tiny pieces. I look at the ground in disgust and then back up at him.

“Oops,” he says, raising his eyebrows for effect.  I don’t say anything, just hold his gaze without wavering.

“What’s your name?” Chad asks, repeating Jazz’s earlier question.

If you knew who I was, you’d shoot me in the head right now where I stand.

I look over at Jazz as if to say, why don’t you tell them? He doesn’t speak.

“It’s Sammi,” I say. “Samantha.”

Jazz tosses my purse to Chad, who pulls out my license and studies it intently.

“What’s your address?” he asks. I act bored and recite my address perfectly, followed by my date of birth when asked.

“What’s your license number?” he asks. I know it, but I also know that most people don’t. That it’s probably MORE suspicious being able to rattle it off than it is to feign ignorance.

“How the fuck should I know?” I say incredulously, tossing my long hair over my shoulder. “Do you know your license number?”

He laughs and shoves my fake license back into my purse, tossing it to Jazz, who hands it to me along with my bag.

“Where’s Dornan?” I repeat. “I’m supposed to start working for him. I don’t want to be late.”

Dornan steps out of the shadows, and I jump minutely, unaware that he’s been watching the entire time.

“Baby girl,” he says, his deep voice commanding respect among his sons, who seem to stand to attention all of a sudden. “You’re already late.”

I smile nervously. “I’m so sorry. The tattoo artist took forever–”

“Tattoo artist?” Dornan cuts me off sharply. “What tattoo artist?”

I shrug. “Some guy near the pier. You wanna see?”

He smiles, and despite my hatred for him, I can definitely understand why so many women throw themselves at him. His deep, booming gravel voice; his unmistakeable good looks that he’s inevitably passed on to all of his sons; those coal black eyes that miss nothing and give nothing away. Yes, I can see why he has seven sons to five different women. He’s just got something I can’t quite put my finger on. A charisma, an allure, a larger-than-life presence. Even at forty-eight, he’s only getting better looking with age.