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CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

THE AIR WAS sweet this morning, warm with the scent of honeysuckle drifting through the trees. Lucy had the windows rolled down, her elbow resting on the sill as her hair danced in the wind. Her old car rattled over the cracked pavement, but it held together, just like everything else in our lives finally was.

“Spinner is taking me on a ride down the coast,” she said with a little grin. “He’s got it all planned out.”

I smiled, watching the trees blur past. “He loves you a lot.”

“He does.” She said it softly, like she still couldn’t believe it herself. “And I love him back. It’s weird, you know? I thought I’d spend my whole life chasing justice. But now I’ve got someone who fights for me.”

“How is it going with Jaycee?” I asked, adjusting the seatbelt across my chest.

“She’s amazing. I don’t know how we got so lucky finding her hiding in the club. She’s already helped track two more girls who went missing from up north. We’re building something, Zey… something real. Something good.”

I turned my head to look at her, feeling the peace settle in my bones like sunlight. “You deserve good. After everything.”

“So do you.”

I blinked. “Sometimes I still wake up waiting for someone to tell me it’s all a dream. That I’m still trapped. That I don’t get to be free.”

“You are free,” she said firmly. “You’ve got Mystic. You’ve got a family. And you’ve got a choice now.”

I nodded slowly. “For the first time in my life, I get to choose who I am. What I want. I don’t belong to anyone anymore.”

She smiled wide. “Except a certain biker with a scarred face and a big heart.”

I laughed. “Maybe just him.”

We were still smiling when the engine roared behind us.

The first sign something was wrong came with the sound of a second vehicle— too close . I turned to look out the back window. A black SUV. No plates. The windows were tinted dark as obsidian.

Lucy’s hands gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“He’s tailgating,” I said, my voice soft but tight.

She nodded once, pressed the gas a little harder.

The SUV stayed with us.

“He’s not backing off,” she muttered. “What the hell…”

The road ahead narrowed, trees rising like walls on either side, sunlight flickering like strobe lights through the canopy. The SUV surged forward.

“What is he—?”

She didn’t have time to finish.

The SUV clipped the rear of the car. Just enough. The tires shrieked. Lucy yanked the wheel, but we were already going off-road. The world tilted. My scream caught in my chest as we slammed into a ditch.

Pain hit like a wave, my ribs, my neck, the glass that rained down in sparkling shards. I was gasping, dazed, blood in my mouth, the seatbelt digging into my collarbone.

Lucy groaned beside me, head lolling forward.

Then… footsteps.

Heavy boots. Crunching gravel. Slow. Deliberate.

I blinked through the blood on my lashes, turned my head. A man. Masked. Black from head to toe. He moved with calm certainty, like this was something he did all the time.

I looked at Lucy, her body sagged, unconscious, but before I could even begin to check on her, my door was jerked open.

“No,” I whispered, trying to undo my belt. My fingers were slick. Shaking as he reached in and started pulling me out.

“Don’t,” I cried, twisting, but my limbs were slow and clumsy. “Please, don’t—”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t grunt. Didn’t show emotion. His gloved hand curled into a fist.

The last thing I saw were those cold, steady eyes behind the mask— eyes I swore I’d seen before —and then everything went black.