Chapter 9
Grace
It’s been a week.
Seven whole days without a message. Without a threat. Without a car creeping behind us on a back road or a biker lurking in the rearview. The kind of quiet that should feel like peace.
But I don’t trust quiet. I’ve lived in the silence between storms. I know what it means.
Still, I try to let myself breathe.
Diesel hasn’t left my side unless he had to. We’ve slept tangled together every night since the rescue, his arm around my waist like a vow. His touch is steady. Gentle. Like he’s memorizing the places where it used to hurt and promising me it won’t again.
His voice has become the one thing that steadies me when the memories creep in like smoke.
I tell myself I’m safe.
I almost believe it.
When Sage asks if I’m ready to teach the art class at the children’s center, I say yes before I can talk myself out of it.
I’ve always loved kids. Maybe because I was one no one saved.
Maybe because I owe it to the girl I used to be, the one who still believed in color when everything around her went dark.
So I go.
The community center is bright and warm, its walls covered in paper flowers and stick-figure masterpieces. The kids file in slowly, curious, loud, open in a way I forgot was possible. I show them how to draw faces. How to shade hair. I let them borrow my pencils and they treat them like treasure.
I don’t know who smiles more, me or them.
For an hour, I forget.
And then I feel it.
A shadow. A shift. The kind of tension that creeps along the floor before the air even changes.
I turn.
And I see him.
John.
Leaning against the doorway like he owns the place, like he isn’t a monster in human skin. His smile is the same one he wore before every bruise. Wide. Crooked. Mean.
My blood goes cold.
"Hey, princess."
That voice. That name. I haven’t heard it in more than a week and it still has the power to turn my stomach.
I stand frozen, heart hammering so loud it drowns out the rest of the room. I can’t scream. Can’t run. There are kids everywhere.
That’s the point.
This isn’t chaos. It’s control. He wants me scared and silent. He knows I won’t make a scene with children in the room. He’s always known how to make me small.
“Time to come home,” he says softly, like it’s a joke only we’re in on.
The kids don’t understand. They laugh and keep coloring. One of them tugs on my sleeve, showing me a drawing of a monster truck. I nod, not even seeing it.
John’s eyes don’t leave mine.
I walk toward him because I have no choice.
Because if I don’t, he’ll make this public. He’ll hurt someone to get what he wants.
His fingers close around my arm the second I’m close enough. He grips like always. Too hard, too sure, like he owns me.
“You scream,” he murmurs, “I kill someone.”
I don’t scream.
I let him drag me out the back door, into a black car with tinted windows. The door shuts behind me with the cold thud of a coffin.
I’m gone.
And no one sees it.
No one stops it.
I think of Diesel like a prayer and a curse.
I don’t want him to come. Because if he comes, he’ll get hurt.
I want him to come. Because he’s the only one who ever has.
Because I love him. I realize that now.
And because I’m terrified. To not see him again.
John ties my hands behind my back with the ease of practice. I don’t fight. Not yet. He’d enjoy it. He thrives on the struggle. I won’t give it to him.
“Did you really think crawling into some biker’s bed made you safe?” he spits. “You were supposed to spread your legs, not fall for him. Seduce him. Feed us intel. Instead, you played house with the enemy and sold out your family.”
I don’t flinch.
Don’t give him the reaction he wants.
I keep my eyes on the window, jaw locked, heart steady.
Fear’s already in me. But he doesn’t get to have it.
He backhands me so fast it stuns the breath from my lungs. My head slams against the window.
My cheek blooms with heat and pain, but I don’t cry out. He wants that too.
He mutters something I don’t catch and makes a call. Short. Precise.
Then he throws the phone to the floor and drives in silence, breathing too calmly for a man like him. It’s scarier than rage.
He has a plan.
He’s going to hurt me.
He’s going to hurt Diesel.
When we finally stop, it’s somewhere isolated. A cabin, maybe. Or a warehouse. It smells like mold and oil and old blood.
He forces me into a chair and ties my ankles.
He takes out his phone and points it at me. Click. A photo. My swollen cheek. The ropes.
“This should get his attention,” he says.
And then he sends it.