Page 1 of Pain

CHAPTER 1

SARAYA

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I PUT A HESITANT FINGER up to my nose and swiped at the blood I could feel running down my upper lip, then turned my face toward where I knew the window was.

Of course, I only knew it was there because it was to the right. Where any window would be if you were sitting in the passenger’s seat of a container truck flying over the freeway toward a destination the driver hadn’t bothered to tell you about.

A destination where, honestly, more bad things were probably going to happen to you, and where you may or may not get to have anything to eat. Or a trip to the bathroom.

Or a fucking shower. Or a bed, or a pillow, or a blanket.

Right. So let me start at the beginning, because this story didn’t start in that truck, with my nose bleeding and a blindfold covering my eyes. Bruises marking my skin and horror, embarrassment, and betrayal rushing through my stomach. It didn’t start with me sitting there thinking—for the millionth time—that I should have run when I had the chance, and that I should have known better than to make a deal with the devil, and that this was the most recent bad decision in a fucking string of them.

No, it had started a long time before I got into that truck. Like, years.

And I know what you’re thinking. Believe me, I know exactly what you’re thinking because there was a time when I would have thought the exact same thing. Why the hell should I feel sorry for a girl who’s been through years of whatever this girl has been through? If things were that bad, why would she have stayed? Why should I waste any feelings on someone who didn’t go through all of that and get the hell out the first time it happened?

And while there were a lot of reasons for that—none of them good—the only one that mattered was the big one. The one that started with a capital D. Literally.

Devil.

Blake “Devil” Davis to those who knew him well. And just Devil to those who knew him by reputation or on sight. Rebel. Outlaw. Drug and gun runner, breaker of laws, walker of a fine line between the legal and the illegal. Head of the Devil’s Steed Motorcycle Club, president without any sympathy for those underneath him.

Killer. Thief. Bully.

And my boyfriend.

The truck made a sudden left and then jerked to the right, and with my hands tied in front of me the way they were, I didn’t have anything to brace with. I hit the door next to me and gasped in pain. Shit, that hurt. I didn’t know what was wrong with my shoulder, exactly, but it couldn’t be good. It hadn’t been working right for a week now, and though I didn’t think it was broken—could shoulders even be broken?—I also didn’t think it was whole.

It hadn’t been whole since the night Devil had found me talking to one of his soldiers at what he’d evidently thought was too late an hour. He’d kicked the guy out of the coffee shop where we were having one last latte and then taken me into the back room and ‘taught me a lesson’ about what it meant to be his old lady.

A lesson I wasn’t likely to forget.

Not that that mattered. It had been going on for long enough—and for smaller and smaller reasons—to show me that much. I knew now that it almost never depended on what I might have been doing at the time. No, it depended on what Devil’s mood was like. How much he’d had to drink.

Whether he’d done anything he was feeling guilty for himself.

The truck jerked underneath me as we hit a pothole or something, and I braced back against the seat, trying not to hit the door with my injured shoulder again. I had no idea where we were going, but the road was getting worse the longer we drove, and I was starting to think that this time, Devil might be sending me to a place where I wouldn’t be able to find any help whatsoever.

And that scared me.

The thing was, he’d been a really great boyfriend once. He’d ridden into my little Arizona town, where the choices were few—prostitution, drugs, or getting the hell out of town—and swept me onto his motorcycle like we’d planned it. I’d swung my leg over his bike and grabbed his waist, feeling brave and fearless and free, like I was riding into the sunset toward a future that no one else could ever have achieved. And for the first year of living with Devil, that had been true. We’d been such a pair, roaring through the desert landscape and stopping at roadside cafés to split meals. Planning the club’s next heist, him handling the defenses and me handling the timelines to make sure he and his crew got out of the way of any law trying to come down on them. I’d been the Robin to his Batman, the trusty sidekick who he also took to bed every night.

And I’d been in love. I’d known it at the time, and I’d never fought it. Life was too exciting, Devil too dashing for me to even think about going home again or trying to get out. I’d thought I’d found everything I could ever have wanted in him, and his club just made everything better. We were a family, a gang, and they’d been both siblings and best friends to me. A bunch of kids without an adult to answer to, out on the road and doing whatever the hell we’d wanted.

I’d finally felt free, after a childhood of never having been good enough for my parents, no matter what I’d done. I was the old lady of the president of a big club now, the better half of one of the most powerful MC leaders in the area.

And then something had changed.

One day he’d come home drunk from someone else’s house—he never told me whose—and punched me in the mouth for no good reason. I’d left the room, sure I’d done something wrong, and had apologized profusely when I saw him later. He’d apologized as well, told me how sorry he was and that it would never happen again, and had then taken me to bed and made love to me, erasing every memory of his fist smashing into my face. And I’d forgiven him.

I forgave him the second time, too. And the third, and the fourth, and by the time another year had rolled around, I’d lost track of how many times I’d had to forgive him for some pinch or slap or punch. I’d learned how to protect myself from his mean words and his even meaner looks. And I’d become an expert at spotting the look in his eye that meant he was in a rage and I’d better get the hell out of the way, or I’d pay for it. I’d never understood what had changed or why he’d decided that he could hit me.

And I’d damn sure never asked. Because asking only got me in even more trouble.

And no, I’d never even thought about leaving. I mean, sure, when it was going on, in the moment, I’d thought that maybe I needed to get out of there. But then it would be done and he’d apologize and I’d have weeks—months, sometimes—of him being so sweet to me that I could talk myself into believing that the violence had never happened... or that it would it never happen again. I’d talk myself into thinking that I might have imagined it or that he’d learned his lesson, or he was really sorry this time.