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CHAPTER ONE

Violet

I just wanted a decent cup of coffee.

I’d spent the last seven nights braving no fewer than eighteen sticky-floored, dimly-lit dive bars full of regulars who didn’t ask questions and didn’t appreciate being asked any either. I’d endured far too many Cross Canadian Ragweed songs, cheap, warm beers, and ass-grabs in the search for some idiot frat boy who’d skipped out on his bail for stealing a luxury sports car from his job as a valet, then promptly crashing it into the back of—of all things—a police car.

I was running on four broken hours of sleep on a cheap motel room mattress, the inner springs poking out and jabbing me in the back, making me wonder when I’d last had a tetanus booster.

And the cold, flip-flop-clad rinse in the moldy shower with the dribbling water pressure hadn’t exactly woken me up the way I wanted.

So, yeah, coffee was needed.

I’d just made it up to the counter and tapped my card for my extra-large, extra-sweet, lightly creamy coffee when I saw him.

Right there.

Five feet away.

In that same Limp Bizkit T-shirt for the Anger Management Tour —with the weird, naked alien dudes sitting on a pile of hotdogs—he was definitely not old enough to have attended.

All my bleary eyes could see were dollar signs. And all of the take-out it could buy me for the next six weeks while I sat on my—likely widening—ass, not even caring to look to see what other idiots skipped their court dates.

“Hey! Freeze!” I mean, not my best line. But I wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.

Then I followed it up with an equally unimpressive, “You are under arrest! Sort of.”

I mean, I wasn’t a cop. But “you’re being taken into custody” just didn’t have the same ring to it, y’know?

I wasn’t exactly expecting the guy to shrug his shoulders and thrust out his wrists to me or anything, lamenting about his crimes and apologizing for making me chase him around the tristate area for the past week. But he didn’t have to go and toss an iced coffee at me—cubes and all—and turn to run.

“Oh, so we’re doing this.” I sighed, then leapt over a recently abandoned chair and knocked over another as I pushed through the crush of people in the small café.

All eyes turned toward me. And, I imagined, several cell phone cameras. It wouldn’t be the first time I would find myself posted onto social media while just trying to do my job. With hashtags like #crazychick #notacop #abuseofpower #hotbountyhunter #arrestme.

I wasn’t exactly mad about the last two. Even if the video glitched on a particularly unflattering frame of me as I tried to wrestle a guy twice my size to the ground—teeth bared, looking like I was going to rip the man’s throat out like some cheesy, low-budget horror movie.

But, yeah, later, I would likely be eating a metric ton of tacos while rewatching the vertical videos of me knocking some poor schmuck’s seven-dollar latte out of his hand as I followed my skip out of the front door.

“Stop!” I yelled as the guy paused, trying to decide which way to turn. “Fine.” I grumbled and ducked down to run.

They always did it the hard way.

I took a running leap toward him, tackling him just as he started to turn to the right, sending us both flying toward the ground. But at least I had his body to cushion my fall.

As he groaned and cursed, I reached in my back pocket for my handcuffs and clipped them on his wrists.

“You can run, you can hide,” I said, getting to my feet and dragging him up to his. “You can force me to endure one too many ‘What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this,’ but you—” I turned him. “Wait… who the hell are you ?”

He was the right height and build. He had the same brassy brown hair cut in that ridiculous alpaca haircut that was shaved close at the sides and all curly fluff on top. Hell, they even had the same dark brown eyes.

That wasn’t even accounting for the very niche vintage nu metal band tee.

But this guy was not my skip, whose face I’d become very familiar with as he ducked into men’s rooms only to escape out the window, as he smiled at me while moving through the crush of a crowded bar to elude me, leaving me to try to get away from a dozen drunk old bikers who wanted my number. Or to take me for a ‘fun’ quickie in the bathroom.

“For chrissake.” I sighed as I reached for my handcuff key. “If it helps, you look like someone who should be arrested.” I kind of felt bad for the bloody scratches on his cheek. But, hey, he was the one running from someone who said he was under arrest. He was probably guilty of something. “Where’d you get that shirt?” I asked.

But his gaze wasn’t focused on me; it was looking past my shoulder, something he was seeing making a muscle twitch in his jaw.

When I turned, I saw my skip.

With his damn phone out.

Filming me with a grin on his face.

A growl bubbled up as I worked the other bracelet off the guy’s wrist. “Well, now you have a nice icebreaker for your next date,” I said, then turned and ran.

My skip had already tucked his phone away and started off at a mad dash, shooting off into traffic to a blare of horns and curses out the window.

I took off after him, ignoring the beeps and squeals of brakes. This wasn’t my first pursuit on a busy road. It likely wouldn’t be my last. And, honestly, I’d take a little jog through traffic over an endless run through an open field—leaving my chest burning and my legs feeling like jelly—any damn day.

At least this way, there were an abundance of roadblocks in his way—cars, pedestrians, lampposts, the occasional tree or sign set out on the sidewalk.

Clearly, though, Frat Guy’s four years of high school track were putting me and my grudging—often sporadic—dedication to the gym and martial arts classes to shame.

We cleared a full city block with him effortlessly gliding along ahead of me, while I huffed and puffed and occasionally shoved someone out of my way.

“Stop!” I yelled with what little breath I had left as he flew around a corner.

I was just rounding that same corner when he popped out of nowhere, ramming into me so hard that I actually went airborne for a split second before I landed hard on my side.

I folded up with a curse that would make both my parents—connoisseurs of foul language themselves—proud.

He didn’t know it—with his smug little smirk before he turned and ran again—that he’d just screwed up.

I could handle a little chase down the road. Hey, my heart sure appreciated a workout after all the many fast food meals I’d made it endure the past week. I was even fine with leaping over chairs and tackling someone to the ground.

But taking a cheap shot and shoving me to the ground?

He’d just taken me from a professional on an—admittedly frustrating—job to simply a pissed-off woman who wanted someone to pay.

I dragged myself off the ground, feeling the gravel biting into my arm and the warm trickle that had to be blood sliding down my skin.

I could see Frat Guy a couple blocks ahead, casting glances back at me as he waited for the rush of traffic to slow so he could cross to the next street.

He might have been younger, more fit, and determined not to spend the next few years in a cage next to someone who liked to tell him what pretty eyes he had. But I had a bruised ego—and hip—along with the promise of thirty grand to motivate me.

I didn’t have the home field advantage, but I did have the memory of the maps I’d pored over when I’d gotten a lead to him being seen in this town.

So I opted out of following him, cutting up the next street instead, allowing me to make my way up the less crowded street, then cut back across.

I didn’t beat him.

But now I was only a few feet behind him.

I was so glad that he looked back over his shoulder, so I could see the shock on his face just a second before I tackled him to the ground.

“Hey, that’s assault,” he grumbled after I cuffed him and my hand patted his back pocket, then fished out his cell.

Whipping him over, I used his face to unlock it, scrolled to his videos, then deleted the one he’d been filming of me—along with his brilliant commentary about the poor idiot I’d tackled the first time that had literally offered to buy the nu metal shirt off his back.

“Pro tip,” I said as I hauled him to his feet. “If you’re going to skip out on bail, maybe go further than the tristate area. I know it might mean you’d actually have to finally cut the umbilical cord, but at least you would have saved yourself this embarrassment.”

I swear there was some sort of unwritten law that guys who were gonna skip out on bail were horrible mama’s boys. This guy’s mom had actually taken to her social media to insist that her son would never have stolen a car from work if he’d known he wasn’t allowed to joy ride in it.

Like… what?

“My lawyer is going to sue you for attacking me.”

“Shut up, or I will actually attack you.”

“You’re not allowed to manhandle me. There’s a reason there are laws against excessive force.”

“Newsflash: I’m not a cop. That law doesn’t apply to me. And considering I’m the only one actively bleeding right now, not even that fancy suit your daddy hired is going to sue me.”

Even if he was dumb enough to, that was what liability insurance was for. Hell, I was pretty sure my mom—a retired bounty hunter herself—was a little disappointed that I hadn’t been sued yet.

“It’s a rite of passage,” I remember her telling my father when she’d been informed she was getting sued for the fifth time. “If he didn’t want to be punched, he shouldn’t have had such a punchable face.”

My mom was my personal hero. For obvious reasons.

“I’m just gonna climb out,” Frat Guy said as I shoved him into the backseat of the car. On the passenger side. History had shown me that if you stuck a skip behind you, they would kick and shake your chair for a full six-hour trip.

“They all say that,” I said, grabbing one of my spare sets of handcuffs and connecting his bound wrists to the door handle. “Out of curiosity, have you ever heard of something called child locks ?”

I slammed the door on his roar of outrage.

Leaning against the car, I glanced at a few spectators and their worried glances. “It’s our foreplay. It’s not cool to kink-shame.”

With one last longing look at the coffee shop and my not-forgotten cup inside, I sighed and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Ahhh!” Frat Guy screamed, thrashing in his seat. “Somebody help me!”

“Out of curiosity,” I said, “what’s your favorite Limp Bizkit album?”

“What? Who?”

“The band shirt you sold to that other guy I tackled.”

“I don’t know. It was my dad’s shirt.”

“Well, then, allow me to introduce you to nu metal,” I said, toggling in my music app, and then cranking the volume up to ear-splitting.

He could scream all he wanted now.

No one would hear him.

On the whole drive back to Navesink Bank—and the police station to drop off Frat Guy, who looked like he was sporting a massive headache thanks to my musical selection—all I could think about was a comfortable bed, a clean shower, and lots of food. Not necessarily in that order.

I had no intentions of working for at least two months.

“No. Nope. Absolutely not,” I said when I walked into the office to find my mother leaning against my desk in her usual outfit of dark green cargo pants and a black tank top—showing off the great rack I’d inherited from her, and the body she kept just slightly fitter than I did. She had a piece of paper in her hand, waving it at me as her brows rose over her dark eyes.

“Oh, trust me, kid,” she said, passing me the paper, then reaching to tie up her long wavy brown hair. Another trait I’d inherited. “You’re going to take this one on.”

“I just made thirty grand. I plan to sit around for weeks doing nothing.”

“Look at the paper.”

I could be out-stubborned by exactly one person. And she was standing in front of me, waiting for me to do what she said.

“Fine,” I grumbled as I lifted the paper. “Oh.”

All the air rushed out of me.

“Told you so,” my mom said, shooting me a smirk. “I packed a bag for you.”

Going behind my desk, she grabbed a familiar duffle as my eyes scanned the paper again and again, some part of me refusing to believe what I was seeing.

But no matter how many times I read it, the same words jumped out at me.

Securities fraud.

Insider trading.

Missed court date.

Five million dollar bail.

If my eyes had been seeing dollar signs with Frat Guy, they were spinning like a slot machine at this one.

“What percentage is the bondsman offering?”

“Ten.”

Ten.

That was half a million dollars.

“Give me that,” I said, reaching for the duffle.

Tacos, it seemed, were going to have to wait.