He lowered himself next to me, his mouth close against my ear and I tried to roll away again. “Do what I say.”

I stilled. Why was he whispering?

“Gus hasn’t left yet,” he continued. “That fucker is waiting in the other room to make sure I’m going to follow through. I am going to hurt you. Scream. It helps. I promise.”

What the fuck?

“Okay?” he asked. I nodded, oddly trusting the man who was now holding the same wrench Gus had just used to pull my tooth out.

It’s not like I had any other options.

“The louder you scream, the more satisfied he will be and the sooner he’ll leave.” Jake pushed the wrench into my mouth and clamped it around another molar. Tears ran down my face in anticipation of the pain.

“Scream as loud as you can, because if you don’t he’ll just stay longer and I’ll have to take more teeth.” He paused. “And do God only knows what the fuck else.”

Screaming wouldn’t be a problem.

He yanked, and I screamed as he ripped another tooth from my mouth, flooding it with more blood. But unlike Gus, it was over almost instantly, almost painlessly. “Keep screaming,” he whispered, long after the tooth had been extracted, so I did, until my lungs burned. Until my vision blurred.

The door opened and Gus stepped back into the room.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Jake asked, picking up the drill and selecting a bit from the toolbox. Blood from my mouth dripped down his hand. I continued to scream although no sound came out.

“I was about to leave, but I wanted to make sure you were doing your job. Wanted to make sure the rumors weren’t true about you going soft.” Gus said, taunting Jake.

“You want to finish this? Finish it. Fuck it. I don’t need this bullshit,” Jake snapped. He stood, and on his way out the door, he tossed something to Gus who held up my bloody tooth with a look of approval. A phone rang and Gus answered. “Yes. He’s got it all handled,” he said into the phone. Jake stopped and turned back around. “I’m on my way, now,” Gus said, hanging up. “She’s all yours,” Gus said. He was about to close the door when he spied the camera in pieces on the floor.

He looked to the camera and then Jake, narrowing his eyes. The look lingered and anyone else would have crumbled under the scrutiny, but not Jake. He just shrugged. “Told you I don’t fucking like cameras.”

“So much for watching the fucking replay,” Gus muttered, closing the door and again leaving me alone in the room with Jake.

Jake walked over to the only window in the room, which had been painted over with black paint. He crouched down and looked out from the corner of the window where a chunk of glass was missing. “Scream,” he ordered, and so I did. When he was satisfied that Gus had left, he waved me off to stop.

When he came back over to me and leaned down with the drill still in his hand, I flinched and again tried to roll away, but he held me by my chin, ripping the spreader bar from my mouth. The fresh holes in the back of my jaw throbbed. My jaw ached. I spit blood onto the tarp when he sat me up.

Jake separated the chains of my cuffs with a pair of bolt cutters. “I don’t have the keys,” he explained.

“I can’t move my shoulders,” I said. “I think they’re dislocated. I don’t know how long I was hanging there.”

“This is going to hurt,” Jake said, crouching down behind me. Without warning he pushed my arms down and back. This time I didn’t need any prompting to scream. “Roll your shoulders,” he ordered.

I did as he said and instantly the pain started to subside. “How—” I started, but Jake shook his head.

“No time for questions. Here,” he said, handing me a bottle of vodka. “Swish this around in your mouth.”

The vodka burned as it entered the new gaping holes in the back of my mouth. I don’t know if he intended for me to spit it out or swallow it but I swallowed. “More,” he said, pushing the bottle back into my hand. I took another long pull and swished it around. It burned less the second time around.

Jake pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons before shoving it back in his pocket. “We have to go. Now. Can you walk?”

“I’m not sure.”

“No time to figure it out,” Jake said, lifting me into his arms. “Stay quiet. I mean it. Not a sound.” He carried me effortlessly out the door and down a flight of steps. When he kicked open a back door, I’d never been so happy to be met with the wet heat of the stagnant night air. A black van was waiting.

A minivan.

The automatic door slid open as we approached. Jake set me across the middle row of seats. He pulled out his phone and pressed a number. “Fuck. Bear’s not answering.” He leaned into the van. “I’m going to the MC. Take her to King’s and don’t stop anywhere, you got it?”

“Who are you talking…?” I asked.

“He was talking to me,” a feminine voice said. A girl turned around in the driver’s seat. Long, straight, red hair framed her perfectly round, pale face. Both of her arms were heavily tattooed with colorful yet feminine colors, one arm rested over a hugely rounded pregnant belly. “I’m Abby.”

I groaned as I sat up. My head spun. I looked to Jake. “But I’m going with you, Jake. And we have to go now. Bear went to the MC. It’s a trap,” I said as my adrenaline started to take over, muting the pain in my arms. There were more pressing matters than pain.

“No,” Jake said simply, and started to walk away.

“Wait!” I said, but it didn’t matter what I said because he wasn’t coming back.

“Jake?” Abby called out, and immediately Jake circled back and ducked his head inside the van. “My water sort of just broke.”

After those words I ceased to exist.

Jake jogged over to the driver’s side and much to my surprise he lifted Abby out of the van and carried her over to his bike, setting her down on the seat and getting on behind her. “Take the van,” Abby called out to me with a calm smile. Jake muffled her words by setting his helmet on her head, and she rolled her eyes and laughed. He started the engine and tossed me a gun. With one hand on the handlebars and one hand on Abby’s belly, they took off.

There wasn’t a second to waste. God only knew what the hell Gus was up to or why, all I knew was that I had to get to Bear before Chop or Gus did.

Our story, it wasn’t over yet.

It couldn’t be.

I’d come so far.

Bear had come so far.

We’d both been through so much.

Too much.

We deserved our chance at life. At love. At figuring out what any of this meant.

It was far from a romance.

But it was still a love story.

And it was ours.

I was going to stop at nothing until we had our happy ending.

I used the cell phone sitting in the center console to call Bear, but just like when Jake tried earlier there was no answer. I ended the call and made one more as I drove to the MC at breakneck speed. There wasn’t anyone or anything in this world that was going to keep us apart, including the chained gate at the entrance of the MC, which is why I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal…and drove right through it.