Page 1 of Ride Long
Chapter 1
Sloane
Courage.
The word was losing all meaning—especially in the face of all I’d been through. When death stares you in the face, you soon learn the truemeaning.
In the distance, I could see the smudge of the dirty air, lights, and concrete of Los Angeles. More people lived there than in some countries. It was a warren of roads and buildings, a cesspool of glitz and glamour with mid-tones of middle-class suburbia, and shadows of the ghetto gangsterlife.
I was finally going home. Fortitude had been the place I’d grown up, but it had become something sinister after my mother’s death. I’d become a commodity in the worst sense of the word and home—the one place in the world a little girl was supposed to be safe—started to resemble a cage. What kind of father sold off his daughter as a sex slave? A father likemine.
Chaser moved beside me, hissing as he repositioned his leg. Glancing at him, I saw the stab wound in his thigh was bleeding, and it hadn’t stopped since the train. Not really. He looked pale, his skin pasty and washed out. He’d lost a lot of blood, and it was soaking into the upholstery. We were so not getting the security deposit back on this rentalcar.
His body was slumped in the passenger seat, his head lolling to the side. His iridescent eyes were bright and alert, so at least I didn’t have to worry about him dying on theexpressway.
Chaser was the kind of guy I’d had dirty fantasies about while I masturbated. He was this rough, devilish, bad boy with messy hair, scratchy stubble on his jaw, and the fashion sense to boot. Leather jacket, tight T-shirts, tighter jeans, and big ‘kick the shit outta ’em’ boots. He had a tattoo on his chest, but I didn’t even know what it was because I was always too caught up in his gaze. Chaser had this thing with direct eye contact. When he had you in his sights, you couldn’t look anywhere else. He put theAin alpha, especially when his cock was inplay.
He was a giant-ass bastard with a perpetual scowl on his face, but when he turned on his heart…oh, fuck me. He’d taken a lot of shit in my name since he walked into my life. He’d been a literal human shield. His arrival might’ve started out as a direct order from my father, but we’d transformed into something else. Somethingunexplainable.
The man I wanted to hate but lovedinstead.
The man I had killedfor.
He’d taken my innocence, but I’d given it freely. Now we were on the road to something bigger.Revenge.
Fortitude would be mine, and Chaser would find justice for the one he’d lost. At least, that was the plan, but whether or not it turned out that way, was another story entirely. There were too many variables to know how this was going toend.
“When we get to the compound, let me do the talking,” Chaser said, breaking thesilence.
“Why?”
“You might’ve grown up there, but a lot has changed. There are a lot of new members, and all of them know you as the woman who ran away from her father. That’s a problem. Loyalty is a big thing to men likethese.”
“I know I have a lot of work to do,” I complained. “I know they won’t trust me rightaway.”
“I’m not doubtingyou.”
I didn’t want to argue, not when I didn’t understand what I was walking into and whether they would look after Chaser. There was no way I was walking into the Fortitude compound with my rage on. I needed to have a clear head when I finally came face-to-face with my father. He would not manipulate me. Not thistime.
“Listen, Sloane,” Chaser said, his voice strained. “If we’re doing this, then they can’t know aboutus.”
My hands tightened on the wheel. I knew we had to play this carefully. I had to hate Chaser for bringing me back even though I wanted nothing more than to claim him in front of the entire world. Our screwed-up road trip had brought us together, and now it was over. What we’d been through was nothing compared to the war I’d just signed us upfor.
I had to be prepared to make sacrifices. Bigones.
“I have to go back to doing what I was doing,” Chaser went on. “You have to forget aboutme.”
“I could never forget about you,” Ireplied.
He snorted, his silent and deadly ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ mask sliding back intoplace.
“I didn’t know the truth,” I went on, already annoyed with how this was starting to work out. “Now I do. Now I understand at least a little. I will never know how you feel, but at least I knowwhy.”
Chaser grunted, turning his head away fromme.
“You owe justice to Madison, but you deserve it, too,” I continued, fixing my gaze on the road ahead. We both knew how his last undercover operation went, but this one was anyone’s guess. “We’re not going to end up the same way. I won’t allowit.”
“Glad we’re on the same page,” hedrawled.
