Page 1 of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

1.

Livvy

three months ago…

God, he’s so loud. Every breath, through his nose and mouth simultaneously. The room. I’m in the room, not the box. I’m in the room. Next to him. The black, just black.

The black, just black.

I grab my head, holding my face with my hands, squeezing, tears streaming down my face again. Heart palpitations. Pounding. Pounding.

And he sleeps.

I keep gripping my face to keep from gripping his neck to shut up that damn loud breathing or from grabbing those scissors just a pullout drawer away.

I could stop him.

But I couldn’t stop him.

Because I can’t move.

I can’t breathe.

Houdini is still out there, plotting. Waiting. He got me before. He could do it again.

I feel the box filling up.

Sloshing.

Wet.

Wearing nothing but my man’s T-shirt, forcing the panic down, I will my legs to move. Quietly, so quietly, keys in my hand and purse snatched from the dresser and slung around my shoulders, I creep out of our room. I leave my phone. Phones can be traced. Especially by people like my brother.

So late, it’s early. A few hours before dawn. No one remains awake in the compound. Not with the way bikers like to party. Even with the VP’s old lady, my friend Elise, and their new baby, Gunner, taking up residence until that piece of shit Houdini is captured. They got to go home. Shit happened. Doesn’t shit always happen in the club? Now they’re back—as a precaution. That’s what they tell us. Not to worry. They’ll handle it. Trust your man.

Trust your man.

But Elise is back, isn’t she? Elise and Gun, they’re back. Because shit never ends.

Gun, the sweetest baby in the world, keeps her up but keeps her sane. Despite the badass biker name, Gun got his name from our friend Crass. Biker name Crass. Given name Gunner.

He lives back in Chicago, part of the Illinois chapter, no matter how many times I’ve, well,we’vebegged him to transfer down to Kentucky.

Maybe Crass would take me in.

No.

Gage, Chaos to the club—he’d find me. Biker name Chaos. Given name Gage, also known as my man. That would be the first place he’d look.

Damn him for coming back into my life. I couldn’t say for making me care again, because to say that would be to insinuate I ever stopped. Which he and I both know I didn’t.

He totally screwed up my world coming back for me—turned the whole place upside down.

My older brother, Raif, hasn’t talked to me since I got out of the hospital after Boss and Chaos rescued me from the box. The blackness. The wet. The place Houdini meant for me to die. I miss him. My brother, not Houdini.

Half the time he’d been a shit brother, all entitled from being not just a man in a motorcycle club, but the son of a founding chapter member and his old lady.

We may have grown up together, but our lives couldn’t have been further apart since I’m the worthlessdaughterof a founding chapter member and hisclub whore.

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