So I bought cookies and took them to my super-cool car, thinking that maybe, all this biker babe stuff, and the biker babe’s place in the biker lifestyle, really wasn’t all that bad.

In fact, most of it was really super good.

I’d stowed the bags in the trunk, slammed it down, and suddenly, I felt someone in my space.

Too in my space.

I cried out because I felt something unpleasant in my side, sending something equally unpleasant zinging through every inch of my frame.

After that, I went down.

I was tossed, kicking and struggling, on a bed.

Seconds later, the bonds securing my wrists and ankles were snipped.

My hair was in my face.

I shook it out, and my body stilled.

Standing beside the bed was Imran Babić, Bosnian lunatic.

Oh no.

He sat on the bed, and I scooted up it, shoulders to the headboard, remembering to be terrified.

But I stopped scooting (but not being terrified) when he leaned across me, resting his weight into his hand at my opposite hip.

“Did you…did you…?” I swallowed, shoved more of my hair out of my face and forged ahead, “Did you kidnap me?”

“No, Clara, I’m checking up on you.”

Yes.

Definitely a lunatic.

“You tased someone, bound them and took them to an unknown location to check up on them?” I asked.

He grinned a grin that I was pretty certain could be sketched and printed next to the entry for “psychopath” in dictionaries.

Through it, he answered, “I couldn’t be assured you’d accept a written invitation to dine with me.”

This wasn’t good.

His eyes traveled my body and it didn’t take a clairvoyant to note he liked what he saw.

This was worse.

His attention came back to my face. “You’re looking well, Clara.”

I’d gone semi-biker babe that day, and now I was regretting it.

I was wearing my own cashmere turtleneck sweater, but I’d paired it with tight, faded jeans I’d bought while out with the girls and spike-heeled boots I’d also bought out with the girls.

The jeans had some fraying and rips in them, and I was pretty certain strippers wore my boots when they were off-duty and some of them when they were on.

The boots were hot, and I knew this because, the second I walked out wearing them last weekend before Buck took me and the kids to the Valley Inn, Gear had said, “Shit, Clara, those boots are fuckin’ hot.”

Buck, on the other hand, had taken one look at them, his eyes running up the rest of me, and then he’d laid another big wet one on me right in front of his kids.

Clearly, Bosnian lunatics also liked off-duty stripper boots.

“Uh…thanks,” I muttered.

He moved so his hip was resting against my hip, and I tensed.

“I’ve been worried about you,” he told me.

“I’m good,” I assured him quickly. “Really good. Life’s good. I’ve got a job. A car. A man. It’s all great.”

He shook his head and his eyes went funny. “You miss your friend.”

My heart skipped and I stared.

“My friend?” I whispered.

“Tia,” he whispered back in a scary way.

Oh God.

What did he know about Tia?

“Tia?” I asked, and he nodded. “What do you…?” I swallowed again. “What do you know about Tia?”

“I know what West Hardy won’t tell you because he knows you’ll leave him if he does.”

My heart skipped again before it slid up my throat.

“What won’t Buck tell me?” I forced out.

“That, many weeks ago, Tia Esposito’s car was sold to a used car salesman. She took some cash and a trade. Smart move, but too late. Ten miles from the dealership, her new car was found abandoned on the side of a road, door open, her bags in the trunk, her purse in the front, no sign of her except the blood.”

Oh God.

The blood?

Oh God!

That could not be good.

There was no way that could be good.

I closed my eyes, put my hands over my face and dropped my head.

“No,” I whispered to my hands, tears stinging my eyes.

“Yes,” he whispered back.

I dropped my hands and looked at him as one tear slid down my face.

His gaze followed it, lighting as it did like he enjoyed seeing me cry. He mumbled something in Bosnian and his hand came up, finger crooked, and he traced the tear with his knuckle with creepy reverence.

I pulled my head away, and his hand dropped.

“It was a lot of blood, Clara, too much,” he went on.

I felt my lips quiver as my throat blocked and he watched my lips with eyes alight.

I forced down a swallow and asked, “Buck knows this?”

“Everyone does, pretty-pretty, everyone but you. Tucker and Sylvie Creed are working this job for Aces. They went to the scene themselves, and I know for certain they reported everything to Hardy four weeks ago.”

Four weeks?

Four weeks?

“Where was this?” I asked.

“Nevada.”

On her way to Seattle.

On her way to safety.

My idea.

“Have they found her?”

He shook his head. “No, pretty-pretty.”

It was also creepy, him calling me that.

Actually, everything about him was creepy, and I didn’t need creepy when I found out bad news about my best friend.

No.

I didn’t need creepy ever.

“Why didn’t Buck tell me?” I asked him a question, the answer to which he couldn’t possibly know.

But he answered anyway.

He pressed up closer and leaned in, and when he did, I shrank back against the headboard.

“You. You need men for reasons. This was your reason for needing Hardy. He knows this. You…” he lifted a hand, I shrank back farther, and he dropped it, “a man will want to keep you. He does. So he won’t tell you.”

“I’m not with Buck for Tia,” I whispered.

He leaned closer, and I couldn’t shrink back because I had nowhere to go.

“We all use each other, Clara. Now that I’ve told you what you need to know, I will tell you what I need you to know. Then you are free to leave. My men have brought your car. It’s outside. Or you’re free to stay. This will be your choice. But what I need you to know is that I’m happy for you to use me any way you like, and in return, I will use you any way I like. I’ll take care of you. I’ll buy you nice things. You’ll be treasured. Now, I’ll leave you to think about that. You can stay or you can come back. I will wait for you.”

Then he leaned super close, my body went solid, he shoved his face in my neck and I heard him sniff as his nose traveled up my jugular.

“Pretty,” he whispered.

I shivered as he lifted his head, gave me his psychopath-defining grin, got up and walked out of the room.

I stared at the door and didn’t move.

It took a while for me to look around the room.

It was nice. Heavy furniture, dark wood, silk drapes.

Expensive. Almost ostentatious.

Dark.

Suffocating.

I spotted my purse on the foot of the bed lying there next to my keyring.