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“I couldn’t agree more.”

Another wail emanated from the nursery. I sighed and rolled over, glancing at the clock. 2:39am..

Since sleeping all afternoon, Emma started to fuss sometime around 10pm. She’d been restless ever since. Nathan and Connie were practically dead on their feet with exhaustion, so I volunteered for baby duty.

I tried everything—rocking her in my arms as I paced through the house, singing to her, bottle feeding. Nothing worked for long. She quieted down for twenty minutes or so. Then she would be back to squirming and whimpering, until she worked herself up into crying with the full force of her lungs.

I recognized that oncoming wail now. In less than two minutes, she would be sounding off. I pushed the sheets aside, scrubbing my gritty eyes with my palm. I wasn’t sleeping anyway, my mind too preoccupied with thoughts of Neil.

Shuffling out of the guest room, I made my way down the corridor to the kitchen. Might as well warm up a bottle before—

My heart froze.

Standing in the kitchen was a man, dressed all in black and nearly invisible among the shadows. Except for the Halloween mask he wore—the same ghoulish, pale-faced mask the thieves wore at that bank robbery. The side door that led to the backyard was open, but I knew it had been locked when I went to bed. I checked. Twice. Almost three times.

Just as I took a breath to scream for help, the intruder lunged.

He slammed me against the wall, bracing his forearm across my throat. I wheezed for air, black spots dancing across my vision.

“Don’t say afucking word,” he hissed in my face.

Hot breath on my skin. Venom seething with every word. Spittle flecking my cheek.

Then the metallic snick of a switchblade sliced through the tension. A flash of gleaming metal caught my eye. The bite of a knife's edge pressed to the thin skin of my throat.

This guy wasn’t here to stop me from testifying. He was here to hurt me. Probably my sister, too.

Anger incinerated my initial shock. And I rammed my knee into his groin.

He doubled over, loosening his grip on me.

“Youbitch—” he croaked.

I took advantage of his momentary distraction and darted to the stove. Snatched up one of Connie’s heavy cast iron skillets. There was no way I could get to the knives in time, barricaded by a child-proof lock in a drawer.

I cocked the skillet back, prepared to swing.

A blur of movement flew through the open door. A second man hurtled into the kitchen—no mask, his face exposed, barely visible in the dim half-moon light.

He collided with the first intruder, sending them both sprawling to the floor.

That’s when I glimpsed the cut on the second man’s back and the familiar patches that identified him as a biker. Blackjacks arched across his shoulders in grungy white letters.

The two men struggled for a moment or two. Then the biker managed to get the upper hand, pinning the robber face down with a knee in his back.

Emma let out a piercing, blood-curdling shriek.

Then the light flicked on. I squinted as the kitchen flooded with illumination.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Nathan. Looking utterly horrified and bewildered, with a baseball bat in hand.

The biker’s icy blue gaze flicked to me with an assessing look. As far as the Blackjacks were concerned, I was still Kingpin’s Old Lady and their primary focus. A divorce didn’t hold much weight in the face of club code.

“You all right?” he asked.

I nodded, my tongue seemingly glued to the roof of my mouth. Something seemed familiar about him—the hint of a down-to-earth accent, his lithe cat-like movements, his muscular frame flexing so effortlessly as the intruder struggled beneath him to escape.