We were a few hours from the Oregon border when I signaled the boys to follow me off the freeway. My phone had been blowing up in my chest pocket for the better part of an hour, and while I felt justified ignoring one or two calls when I was riding, something felt off. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing straighter with each call, and by the time I shut off my bike, I was ready to strangle whoever had messed up my Zen.

I scrolled through my missed calls, seeing about fifty of them from both Slider, my club president, and Deke. My mind was racing with possibilities, but before I could call my prez back, Deke called again.

“Grease, man, Poet’s been calling my phone. Didn’t even realize it—want me to call him back?” Dragon called out to me from a few feet away. He was still sitting on his bike, but the relaxed posture of the last few hours had faded and his body was tight. He was feeling it, too—whatever it was.

It was bad.

I nodded my head at Dragon as I connected with Deke.

“Deke, what’s up, man?” I asked him cautiously. He was my brother and I loved him, but I would have preferred to talk to Slider first. If they were both calling non-stop, it was nothing good and I’d need my boys at my back. Deke might be family, but he was also a Jimenez.

“Grease. Boys down here weren’t real hot on how things went down with Jose,” he told me haltingly, pausing at the end and pissing me off that he wasn’t getting to the point.

“Yeah, brother. I figured. I’m fuckin’ hours away from there. Can’t do shit to me now, and once I’m home they can talk to Slider—”

“No,” he interrupted me, and the next words out of his mouth were like a punch to the chest. “They’re going for the girl.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” I roared into my phone, causing Tommy Gun’s head to snap toward me. I glanced to Dragon, wondering what the hell Poet had said, and the look on his face confirmed what I already knew.

I’d unknowingly left her to the wolves.

Deke starting scrambling, “It’s probably already over. I started calling you hours ago, man. Nothing you can do about it now. She was nothing—but they don’t know it. I didn’t tell them she wasn’t yours. So now it’s equal brother—” He was actually trying to explain how a fucking drug dealing gang could justify going after an innocent sixteen-year-old girl. I couldn’t deal with him. I flipped my phone closed and stood staring at Dragon as he got off the phone.

“It’s a warning. No need to call Slider back—Poet says they just wanted you to know what was going on.” He paused and ran his hand over his beard and then nodded once. “Said to tell you, next play’s up to you. We can head back to San Diego or get to Oregon and deal with it from there.”

I just stood there, my mind racing. I was goddamn hours away from her. There wasn’t anything I could do. I could feel every muscle in my body tensed in preparation of heading back to San Diego and killing those fuckers myself—but it wouldn’t do anything but get the three of us killed. We’d be in their territory, and without back up it would be a suicide mission. But, God, I wanted to go back and get her. I wanted to go back to twenty-four hours before and shoot to fucking wing Jose instead of hitting him with two in the chest. I wanted to tell Callie’s Gram to lay low for a while. I wanted to have never left her there without protection.

Goddamn it—I’d been so fucking concerned with getting away from her jailbait ass that I hadn’t considered the possibilities of leaving her. That was on me.

I reached my hand up and pulled the rubber band out of my hair, pulling it out of my face to give me a few more seconds before I had to make the hardest decision of my life. I had to fucking leave her down there, possibly alive and hurt, or lead my boys into a situation that none of us would come out of. It was a fuck of a decision—but I wasn’t going back.

I started to slide my phone back into my pocket, opening my mouth to let Tommy and Dragon know what was up, when my phone rang again. I didn’t know the number, but with all the shit going down, I answered it anyway. Thank fuck I did.

“Grease?” she whimpered in my ear, her voice so quiet I had to plug my other ear with my finger.

“Yeah?” I thought it was her, but she was so fucking quiet, I wasn’t sure. Fuck, could they be playing me? Trying to get me back to San Diego?

“Asa? I’m scared.” she sobbed quietly—and I knew it was her. No one called me Asa.

“Baby, you okay?” I asked her gently, climbing back on my bike and nodding to the boys whose faces had hardened.

“I’m hiding,” she whispered.

The last twenty-four hours had turned into a long list of complications and bad decisions—and it looked like I was going to make one more.

Fuck the consequences.

“Stay where you are and keep quiet, sweetheart,” I ordered her as I strapped my helmet on. “I’m coming to get you.”

Chapter 8

Callie

I was startled awake in the middle of the night, and it took me a second to figure out that someone was banging on the front door. My heart started racing as I hopped out of bed, my feet tangling in my sheets when I reached for my phone that was charging on my nightstand. Any knocking in the middle of the night signaled bad news, and my mind sifted through scenarios of policemen telling us someone was hurt.

I scrambled to the door of my room, meeting my mom in the hallway as I saw the back of my dad as he walked down the stairs. His bare shoulders were straight and tense, like he was preparing himself for whatever was on the other side of the front door, but his hands were loose at his sides. It took a lot for my dad to lose his composure.