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His words work magic for drying up any physical attraction I might have had for him. A mix of hot headed rage that I inherited from my mother, the stubborn streak she tells me I got from my father, and a whole lot of dread swamp me. “Where?”

“Wherever it is that I can keep you from doing stupid things like this,” he snarls. “You’re in need of a babysitter. Great. You’ve got one now.”

“More like a baby smotherer,” I retort.

A muscle in his jaw ticks. He glowers at me for a few seconds, his hat pulled low over his face to cast shadows over his sharp features doing wonders to make him look even scarier.

With a full beard, long blond hair knotted at the base of the hat, and bright blue eyes, he’s disguised surprisingly well.

I saw the real him thirteen months ago. He didn’t have time to hide then.

Not like today. Today, he took care. Regular scary Dravin became Anonymous Scary Motherfucker Persona One.

Two? Ten? Thirty? How many does he have?

He resumes dragging me along. I know it could be worse. He could pick me up and haul me over his shoulder. He could tighten his fingers, so they bite into my skin. Even now, in his fury and haste, he’s not gentle, but he is careful .

Careful not to squeeze too hard.

Careful that I don’t trip as he tugs me along.

Careful to stick to the shadows that the few still-working streetlights cast over the parking lot.

Most of Orlando is completely unaware that the casino over here holds illegal underground fights. It’s just past eleven, but given that it’s a Saturday night, the city is still very much alive.

“Consider yourself smothered, then,” Dravin claps back, so delayed that I have to trace back the conversation for it to make sense. “I won’t give you room to breathe. You’ve proven that you can’t be trusted, so you’ve forfeited your rights.”

“To oxygen?” I sass back, skittering over the pavement as he quickens his pace. I have no idea where he’s taking me, but probably to his getaway vehicle or his bad guy chopper reserved just for his villainous use.

“To everything .”

“Fuck you,” I snap as my patience crumples in on itself like wadded up paper. I realize that this only proves him right about my maturity level.

He turns back around, releasing a low chuckle that raises the hair on the back of my neck for all the wrong reasons. “Not a chance. My tastes don’t run to airheaded, immature twenty year olds.”

Scratch the cold chills. I go from shivers to stabby within two point eight seconds. “I’m twenty-six, you prick.” Hilarious. The fucker’s got a sense of humor. My fake ID says that I’m Sarah Manford. Age twenty. And I’m also, unfortunately, blonde at the moment.

“Pardon me. Twenty-six year olds. The rest stands , especially the airheaded bit. I came to stop you from getting squashed like a bug, but an insect would use more common sense.”

I wrench my wrist away from him, the rub being that I’m only successful at doing it because he lets me. “How did you even know where to find me or what I was going to do?”

I refuse to call Dravin’s face handsome.

His overbearing attitude completely ruins his distinguished looks and good bone structure.

He hides the scars along his forehead and temple well.

Even that first time I saw him, he was so skilled with the makeup he wore that I could barely tell there was anything wrong with his face.

As my world was ending, I distinctly remember leaning into him as my legs collapsed from under me and thinking two things—firstly, that I never should have answered the door or let him into my apartment, and secondly, that he’d carefully penciled in the gaps in his right eyebrow.

It’s odd, how receiving the worst news can stop your heart, but hyperfocus the rest of your body.

Thirteen months ago, my first impression of this man was that he was a beautiful and lethal as a Greek god and I’m kind of into Greek myths and history, More than kind of. I’m obsessed. But then he tore my heart out of my chest, ripped my life apart, and left me alone to suffer.

He crosses his arms, in no hurry now to get wherever it was we needed to go.

We’re just standing here in the middle of the sidewalk next to a busy street, me with my hands still wrapped and taped, in a sports bra and tight black shorts, my hair carefully parted and braided next to my scalp.

I’m probably a magnet for drawing attention.

It kills me to admit it, but he’s right. We should probably go. Now .

Maddeningly, he just stands there. And then he grins at me in that mocking, condescending manner that I find so beyond infuriating.

“I believe that I explained in full, painstaking detail who I am and what I do. Did you think that I would just be content to dump you here with a fake ID? Is that how you think someone should fulfill a promise to your dead brother? You haven’t taken a single step this past year that I wasn’t aware of. ”

I shove down the fury at him mentioning Marcus again, especially using that word. I’m well aware that my brother was killed, his entire club wiped out, and most of the men’s families hunted down, including children.

It’s not something I’ll ever forget. The thought of those men slaughtering innocent children as their mothers tried to flee to safety with them, churns my stomach so badly that I almost retch right here. Those faceless men in black suits have haunted my dreams every single night for over a year.

“You let me train,” I say, just so I can swallow past the bitter acid coating the back of my tongue.

He jerks one shoulder up. “Why not? You kept to yourself otherwise. You’d altered your appearance, as I told you to do.

You never went out, other than to go to work or to that gym, and the job I got you involved sitting at a desk making phone calls where no one could see you.

You’ve been a very successful debt collector.

Your boss will be so sorry to lose you.”

I guess that’s it for the little break he gave me. He snaps his hand up, snags my elbow, tucks me in against his side, and hurries along the sidewalk.

“How many times did my brother save your life?”

His head tilts down, the light glinting off a chin sharp enough to do damage to diamonds. “You already know that.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“Seven,” he grinds between his mouth gone slack with displeasure.

He can disguise a lot of things, alter his appearance dramatically, but he can’t do much for his voice. It’s guttural. The first time I heard it, I was stunned and not in the worst way. I still remember the volley of goosebumps that broke out over my skin.

It’s easy for me to tell myself that I’ve detested the sound of it ever since.

I keep pace with him, though I’d like to stumble, just to piss him off. “If the average cat has nine lives, can you go somewhere and lose the last two? I—wait. That was mean. Can you just lose one and spend somewhere nursing your last one enjoying your golden years in sweet, sweet seclusion?”

He snorts. “How old do you think I am?”

“Old enough to be my father.”

“I’m thirty-four.” The only hint of his displeasure is the fact that he picks up his pace, though at tight range, it means I have to basically run or take us both down.

Two scraped knees might totally be worth it.

“Leaning well into the silver fox look, aren’t you?”

There wasn’t a single gray hair in his head of lush mahogany—I mean drab brown—the day I met him and with the hat on and all that blond hair sticking out, it’s not like that’s true at all.

He marches us down the sidewalk at a pace near insanity. I’ve been training hard, so I don’t even begin to pant, but neither does he. It’s impossible for me not to notice the way he angles his body towards mine, using himself like a shield.

We hustle a few blocks and then a few more.

How far away did he park?

The answer is at least a mile. What he thought he was going to accomplish with that, I don’t know. He opens the back door of the tinted, and probably armored, black SUV and shoves me in.