“You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us,” Samantha said in a quiet tone as she scratched at her neck.

“Yeah, she’s right, you wouldn’t.” He waved the gun around in the air, still shifting from one foot to the other. “You wouldn’t be where you are either. Bringing in money for selling yourself. Hooking up with a fucking man, you faggot. You make me sick to think you came from us, but like your momma said, you wouldn’t be here without us, so you owe us, and we want it paid in money before it ends in blood.”

They were threatening me.

My own parents were threatening me.

Not only that, they threatened all I’d built in my life. In a second, they could take away everything with a bullet. I couldn’t let it happen. I was happy, in love, and I wanted a future with Zion at my side, yet they thought they could take that away in blood if I didn’t give them money?

“You think I carry a heap of money around with me?” I asked the stupid motherfuckers.

Samantha swung the bat back and forth in front of her. “Take us to get it,” she said with a giggle. She was either high or coming down from one. I expected they needed the money for more, so they thought up this fucked-up plan. “Take us, and then we’ll let you walk away and never bother you again.”

Bull-fucking-shit.

If they got away with it this time, they would come back again and again.

It wasn’t happening.

But how did I stop it?

“No,” Henry snarled. He kicked at the ground and looked around. “He ain’t going anywhere.” It was the grin that put dread in my veins as his eyes landed back on me. It was then I heard footsteps on the front porch. Since the door was still open, two other men stepped into the room.

“Henry, what’s this? Henry, no, we talked about this,” Samantha said. Her eyes were wide with horror. She stumbled over to Henry and grabbed his arm, but he shook her off.

I backed up when the guys started my way. “What’s goin’ on?” I demanded.

“You’ll give us your PIN to your account and your bank card, or things will get messy,” Henry said with a gleam in his eyes before he started cackling like a lunatic.

“Stop, no stop,” Samantha yelled. She stepped forward, then back, then forward again. Her mind couldn’t make up what she wanted to do. “Don’t do this. Don’t.” Finally, she moved in front of me and tried to push the men back.

“Sammy, get the fuck outta the way,” Henry growled.

“No.” She stomped her foot and dropped the bat to put her hands on her hips, but she kept rolling her head from side to side. “We talked about this. Our plan was to get him to the bank, get money, and leave him alone. The plan was working. Why would you do this? We planned this. You got Country out of there with a house fire so his guy had to go to work and we could get in here. We planned this,” she shouted again.