Her face tilts the slightest bit, but her gorgeous hazel eyes don’t open.
“Megan,” I snap a little louder. “Open your eyes, baby. Let me know you’re going to be okay.”
I clasp her hands in mine as her eyes flutter weakly. The shadows in the car are too dark for me to see them clearly, but I know what they look like. I memorized them that night.
The cut on her face seems superficial, although it’s bleeding. Keeping a hold of her hand, I scan down her body to assess for other injuries. The steering wheel pressed to her chest and the spider-webbed windshield are both concerning, but a ragged breath draws my eyes back to her face.
“Help me,” she gasps.
“I’m here. We’re going to get you out of here.”
The minuscule amount of grasp she had on my hand disappears, and the tension in her body eases. Her flushed skin turns ashen so quickly it’s as if someone waved a wand from her hairline to her neck, taking all her coloring along with it.
She’s gone.
This isn’t the first fatality accident scene I’ve responded to. Objectively, I know she’s dead.
I know I’ll never speak to her again.
I know I’m going to have to notify her family of their loss.
I know she’ll never be a teacher.
I know I’ll never get to brush my mouth against hers, again.
I know I’ll regret not getting her number that night, but at the time, I didn’t realize just how obsessed with her I’d become, how she’d manage to take over my thoughts.
I know all of this, but accepting it seems like an impossibility.
“Move.” I’m shoved out of the way, seconds from clocking some asshole in the face when I realize it’s the paramedics finally arriving to help.
In stunned shock, I stand to the side watching as they take vitals, watching as one guy shakes his head with a frown, watching as they pull a blanket out and drape the side of her car with it.
“O’Neil! A little help?”
Warren is standing in front of a frowning man of about fifty, but all that registers is his flailing arms as he points at his truck. My feet move on their own, carrying me toward my training officer and the man involved in the accident. His face is bleeding, a cut on his forehead leaving streaks of red down his pale, ashen cheek. Bloodshot blue eyes dart all over the place as if he can’t seem to focus on any one thing.
“The truck will be towed,” Warren is explaining as I join them.
“It’s fine to drive. I’m not paying towing and impound fees.” I hear the words, but it’s the alcohol on his breath that tells me all I need to know.
“You’re going to jail,” Warren says. “You caused this accident.”
“A fucking fender bender,” the man counters. “I have fucking insurance.”
“She’s dead,” I mumble. “She’s fucking dead!”
Most people claim they black out when they go into a rage, that they just snap and don’t realize what they’re doing.
That isn’t the case for me.
When I charge this piece of shit, I feel the power in my legs moving me forward. I feel the scratch of his shirt under one palm and the slam of my knuckles against his face. I feel the spittle leaving his mouth and landing on my cheek when I make impact. I feel his boots skid against mine as he goes down. I feel the heave of his chest when we both land on the ground. I feel each blow to his face as I rain down my own judgement on this man.
What I don’t feel is Warren tugging on me. I don’t hear him cussing and telling me to calm down. I don’t feel the other men required to drag me away.
All those things were caught on our body cams. Not only will I get to see what happened that night, reliving it over and over, so will a jury of my peers.
Chapter 1
Isabella
Several Months Later
“I’m telling you. It’s not going to happen that way for me.”
My best friend Sophia snuggles closer to her boyfriend, a frown marking her pretty face. “I’m sure my dad would be mad if I got pregnant, but he’d come around, eventually.”
“My dad isn’t the problem. My mother will never accept this baby.”
My hand flutters protectively over my huge belly.
“Didn’t your mom have you even younger?”
“Seventeen,” I confirm. “But I was supposed to learn from her mistakes, not make the same ones.”
“You’re grown,” Sophia reminds me. “Graduated college and everything.”
I nod, agreeing with her, but this isn’t the first time I’ve had this conversation with her. My mother is sticking to her guns. She won’t accept my phone calls and definitely doesn’t want anything to do with news on the baby. It’s as if she believes if she ignores the entire situation, it’ll go completely away.
In a way, it has. I’m living with my dad now. His house is finally finished, and although he didn’t anticipate his daughter getting pregnant, he had a room ready for me when I came home with the news.
Came home with the news isn’t exactly how it went down. I told my best friend and she let it slip many months ago. It just so happens everyone was around, including my dad and my stepmother. The craziest part, aside from getting pregnant from a one-night stand that happened in a parking lot on my Toyota Corolla—a story I fully plan to lie about when my child is old enough to start asking questions—my stepmother is also pregnant.
Dad and Gigi’s story is about as wild as the one I’m keeping close to my chest. I can’t even trust Sophia with the details. It’s not that I feel shame, but yeah, getting pregnant by a guy whose first name I don’t even know? Not really the things fairy tales are made of, you know?
Back to Dad and Gigi. Georgia Anderson is not only just a few years older than me, she’s also the daughter of Diego “Kincaid” Anderson, the Cerberus MC president.
When Dad told me he was joining an MC, my head went straight to guns, drugs, using women and hurting people—all the things television has portrayed motorcycle clubs to be. Cerberus is nothing like that. If the bad MCs are one-percenters on one end of the spectrum, Cerberus is on the opposite. My dad, as well as all the other members, are good guys, all retired Marines, all working together to help people who have been sex trafficked. Their job repeatedly takes them out of the country, putting them in harm’s way, but over the decades, the MC has managed to build a family, a group of people willing to go above and beyond for anyone welcomed into the fold.
Dad, working for Kincaid, somehow got Gigi on his radar, and as fuzzy as the details surrounding that situation are, I prefer to keep them that way. Those two are like horny teenagers, and I doubt they care that they aren’t fooling anyone with side-eyes and whispered comments. When I first visited, they were a little more closeted about their bedroom lives, but as I’ve gotten older, they either aren’t hiding it as much or I’m now understanding what certain looks can lead to.
I got those looks once—eyes drilling into me with suggestion and wishes. I run my hand back over my belly. Those looks are how I’m in this situation.
“She’ll come around,” Sophia assures me, and I just nod my head in agreement.
Sophia’s dad, Dominic, is Kincaid’s brother and although he works with the MC, he’s never officially joined. He’s the only one around here without a leather cut, but that doesn’t make him any less imposing when he’s in a room.