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CHAPTER 1

To say that Haven Randall’s escape plans were not going as she’d hoped was quite possibly the understatement of the century Especially since she wasn’t at all sure her current situation was any better than the one she’d run from three weeks before

But today could be the day she found that out for sure

Staring out thethrough the slats of the blinds, Haven watched as another group oflot below They’d been coroups of four or five for the past hour or so And, God, there were a lot of the, since she was currently holed up at the compound of the Raven Riders Motorcycle Club A shiver raced over her skin

“Don’t worry,” Haven’s friend Cora Caainst the wall, and her choppy, shoulder-length blond hair twisted up in asmile

“I don’t knohat I’d do without you,” Haven said And it was the truth Without Cora’s bravery, encouragement, and fearless you-only-live-once attitude, Haven never would’ve put her longti from her father’s house into action Of course, those actions had landed her here, ae bikers of questionable character and intent, and Haven didn’t knohat to make of that Yet

But it had to be better than ould’ve happened if she’d stayed in Georgia She had to believe that Had to If nothing else, for the first tiin to consider what she wanted Even if she didn’t yet knohat that was

“Well, you won’t ever have to find out,” Cora said, flipping through an old gossip htstand “Because you’re stuck with me”

“I wouldn’t want to be stuck with anyone else,” Haven said in a quiet voice

Outside, the late-day sun gleamed off the steel and chro the lot The bass beat of rock ainst the floor of their roo where they’d been staying for just over teeks had apparently once been an old uests used to stay, and though Cora had been more adventurous, Haven had stayed in her room as much as possible since they’d arrived And that hile the uys had been away from their compound on some sort of club business

Men’s laughter boomed from downstairs

Haven hugged herself as another group of bikers tore into the lot “There are so many of them”

Cora tossed thea plain gray tank top and a pair of cutoff shorts that Bunny, an older lady as y white T-shirt and loose khaki cargo pants were borrowed, too They’d run aith a few articles of clothes and cash that Haven had stolen from her father, but they’d lost all of that—and their only vehicle—teeks ago Haven and Cora literally had nothing of their own in the whole world

Haven’s belly tossed Being totally dependent on anyone else was the last thing she wanted She was too faainst her to s she didn’t want to do

Standing next to her at the , Cora said, “We’re not prisoners here, Haven We’re their guests Remember what Ike said”

Haven nodded “I know” She hadn’t forgotten Ike Young was the ht the as they needed to, who said that no one would give them any trouble Who said the Ravens helped people like them all the time

People like them

So, people like sohter of the head of a cri in tenth grade so her father could control her every move—and ain? Someone whose father used her for a maid and a cook and planned to barter her off in a forced e to another cri a -dealing gang seven hundredthat had apparently received notice of a reward for capture from her father? Someone as then rescued by soldiers and bikers at ith that gang?

Because that was Haven’s reality, and she really doubted the Ravens had helped someone like her before Or, at least, she hoped not Because she wouldn’t wish the life she’d lived so far on her worst enemy