Chapter 17 Reno #4
I was in a vehicle—a van, from the sound of the engine, the way the floor vibrated beneath me.
My wrists were bound behind my back, the zip ties cutting into my skin every time we hit a bump.
The hood over my head was suffocating, hot and dark, and I forced myself to breathe slowly through the fabric rather than give in to the panic clawing at my throat.
Stay calm. Count the turns. Track the time.
FBI training. The things they taught you for exactly this situation—how to stay oriented, how to gather intelligence, how to survive until rescue came.
Left turn, thirty seconds after that a right, then a long stretch of straight road.
We were heading away from the warehouse, deeper into the desert.
But rescue wasn't coming. Not this time. Tank was back at the warehouse, fighting for his life. Blade was down—maybe dead. The club was scattered, wounded, outgunned. And I was here, in the back of a van, heading toward whatever Cross had planned for me.
You've survived him before. You can survive him again. The thought should have been comforting. It wasn't.
A hand caressed my face through the hood.
I flinched backward, hitting the wall of the van hard enough to send pain shooting through my shoulders.
The touch didn't stop—fingers tracing my cheekbone, my jaw, the curve of my throat.
Gentle. Possessive. The way you'd touch something you owned. Something you'd missed.
"Hello, Tyler."
My blood turned to ice. The hood was pulled off in one smooth motion.
Light stabbed my eyes—afternoon light, filtering through tinted windows—and I squinted against it, blinking rapidly. When my vision cleared, I saw him.
Marcus Cross sat across from me in the van's interior, one leg crossed elegantly over the other, looking nothing like the FBI agent I knew, nor the wannabe biker he’d been pretending to be.
He'd shed the leather and denim of the Wolves MC entirely—traded it for expensive clothes that spoke of the legitimate businessman he pretended to be.
Dark slacks, a charcoal sweater that probably cost more than most people's rent, polished shoes that had never touched a motorcycle peg.
The silver hair was immaculate, swept to the side from a face that could have belonged to a politician or a CEO or a movie star.
The Wolves' VP had become something else entirely. A shadow operator, running the corrupted pharmaceutical empire from behind the scenes while the club’s members acted as both enforcers and shields.
His hands were folded in his lap—clean hands, soft hands, hands that had given up doing their own dirty work.
But his eyes. His eyes were the same as they'd always been.
Cold. Calculating. Hungry. "I've missed you," his voice was warm, a sincere tone hiding the poison underneath, the voice of a man greeting a long-lost friend.
The voice that had told me he loved me while he was breaking me down piece by piece.
I met his eyes and said nothing. Three years ago, that silence would have cost me.
Cross didn't tolerate defiance—didn't tolerate anything that challenged his control.
Three years ago, I would have apologized, would have scrambled to appease him, would have done whatever it took to avoid the punishment that silence inevitably brought.
But I wasn't that Tyler anymore. I held his gaze and let the silence stretch, let it become a statement of its own.
Something flickered in Cross's expression—surprise, maybe, or irritation. Then the mask was back, the warm smile firmly in place.
"You've changed." He leaned forward, studying me like a scientist examining an interesting specimen.
"There's something different about you. A.
.. hardness that wasn't there before." His smile widened.
"I wonder who put it there. The motorcycle club?
Or is it something more specific? Someone more specific? "
He knew. Of course he knew. He'd had a mole in Phoenix, had been watching us for months. He knew about Tank.
"I saw the way that man fought to reach you." Cross's voice was soft, almost pitying. "The big one, with the tattoos. He loves you. It's obvious, really—the desperation, the recklessness. He would have died trying to get to you."
I kept my face blank, refused to react, but something must have shown in my eyes because Cross's smile turned sharp.
"Don't worry. I didn't kill him. Not yet.
" He reached out, traced a finger along my jaw.
I held myself perfectly still, refusing to flinch.
"I want him alive. I want him to know what's happening to you.
I want him to imagine it—every moment, every sound you make.
And when he finally comes for you—because he will, men like that always do—I want him to watch me take you apart. "
My throat tightened. My hands clenched behind my back, the zip ties cutting deeper into my wrists. "You won't break me again." The words came out rough, raw, but steady. "I'm not what you made me."
Cross laughed—a genuine, delighted sound that was somehow worse than anger would have been.
"Oh, Tyler." He leaned back, that terrible smile still playing at his lips.
"You think you've escaped. You think you've become someone new, someone strong, someone who doesn't belong to me anymore.
" He shook his head slowly. "But you're wrong.
You've always been mine. You will always be mine.
And I'm going to remind you of that—slowly, thoroughly, until there's nothing left of whoever you think you've become. "
I held his gaze. Refused to look away, refused to show fear, even though my heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it.
"This is going to be fun," Cross said softly. "I've been looking forward to it for a very long time."
The van drove on, carrying me deeper into the desert, further from everything I had built, everything I had become.