PROLOGUE: WREN
NEW JERSEY
“Wake up.” The sound of Saint’s voice is accompanied by a rough shake. “We need to get you out of here.”
When a member of the Iron Outlaws New Jersey chapter tells you to move, you move.
My eyes are bleary as I try to open them, but my heart rate has already accelerated to a thousand beats per minute as I toss back the covers of the bed in his spare room. My watch tells me it’s four thirty in the morning, too early for any of this to be good news.
And I know Saint wouldn’t do this to me unless he had good reason. The former FBI agent who went undercover to infiltrate the club understands my predicament perfectly. He knows just how far the FBI will go to get what they want. Especially when they have me over a barrel like they do.
“I’ll help you pack,” Briar, his partner, says. She’s been such a source of softness and comfort since I arrived four months ago, I could weep that I’m leaving their home. Years ago, Saint helped her escape traffickers, and she’s the first person who made mefeel like I could start to unravel all the different traumas I’ve held on to for so long.
“Where am I going?” I ask. “To Niro and Catalina’s?”
That was the backup plan, since Niro and Cat moved to live out in the sticks somewhere. Niro, one of the club’s two enforcers, has ADHD and gets easily hyper-focused on things. He decided he wanted to build an impenetrable fortress with underground rooms. I suggested he was at risk of becoming a doomsday prepper. He simply winked and said he was inspired by Bond villains like Dr. Kananga and Ernst Blofeld after watching every James Bond movie, in order, in a week.
Saint shakes his head. “Sadly, no. We’re taking you on Calista’s private jet to Colorado.”
What?
“Colorado? Why would I want to go three-quarters of the way across the country?”
Briar pauses shoving my clothing into a large canvas bag to listen to Saint’s answer.
“Because it’s the safest place we can think of. Someone hacked into your personnel file at Calista’s headquarters. She’d put a flag on it of some sort to indicate if anyone went looking for you. Someone did.”
It had been Calista’s idea. Set up a fake life for me. Fake job, fake home, fake everything. Just to see who came looking for the information. The cartel wants me dead for what I did. The FBI wants me for intelligence about the cartel, but I know I’m facing jail time if they find me.
“The decoy address?”
Saint sighs and tugs a hand through his hair. “Destroyed.”
That stops me in my tracks. “What do you mean, destroyed?”
“They set fire to it.”
I jump out of bed and grab the clothes I’d put out, ready for the following day. “I need a minute.”
The floor is cool as I hurry into the bathroom and slam the light on. My long hair—black with dark green ends—is in a braid. The many piercings I have in my ears, the two I have above my left eyebrow, and the two I have in my nose glint under the harsh lighting.
My gray eyes look as haunted as I feel.
After I strip out of my pajamas, I splash some water on my face and to the damp patches beneath my armpits. I guess I don’t have time for a shower or many other basic hygiene tasks. Everything else can wait.
I fight my way into my chest binder, and the squeeze gives me both relief from anxiety through its pressure around my ribs and the desired aesthetic I want to present to the world.
My ink also helps tell my story. Coordinates of the home Mom and I lived in sit on my wrist. It’s the last place I felt safe and happy, the place I held Mom when she died from medical negligence, and the place now demolished for gentrification. When I miss her, which is often, I place my thumb over it and pretend my pulse is her heartbeat.
Above the coordinates are the wordsI remain. On my bicep is a smashed hourglass where the sand flows upwards. Beneath it, an origami boat.
My black T-shirt is soft beneath my hands as I tug it over my head and smooth it down. Then, I step into the cargo trousers and secure the chain from belt to pocket. Finally, I tug on my heavy boots. They add two inches to my height, which still doesn’t put me at the imposing size I wish I were.
But they help with my confidence when I walk out in the world.
I hurry to the small bedroom at the back of the house that was set up as my tech room. The cases are more like what a roadie would use to ship a musician’s equipment rather than thecommercial laptop bags you can buy in the store. I’ve worked hard to be able to afford the equipment I have.
Although, I need to remember, working hard for illegal money is part of the reason I’m in the trouble I am.
