“Mine,” he growled in a deep, guttural, forceful way that even I, who had no clue what was happening, I just knew I didn’t like it one…single…bit, agreed.

When he said “mine,” he meant me.

Uh-oh.

Chapter One

It’s Only Just Begun

Delilah

He tossed me on the bed.

I bounced, staring at him as he prowled away from me and across the room.

I should have fought. I should have tried to run. I should have done anything but let him take my hand and drag me to his bike.

I didn’t.

When we got there, he didn’t let me go even as he swung astride it. Then he pulled me on in front of him, started up the bike, and we took off.

My dad was a biker. I’d been on a bike so often, if I had a nickel for each time, I’d be a millionaire. Hell, I even had my motorcycle license and my own bike at home in Dad’s garage.

But I’d never ridden up front while someone else was driving.

If I didn’t struggle and run when he took me to his bike, I should have done it when he stopped us in another alley, this one dark, dank, and not smelling all that great, located behind a Chinese restaurant.

And if I hadn’t done it then, I should have done it when he shoved a big Dumpster out of the way like it weighed no more than a shoebox, lifted the grate under it, and dragged me down a flight of stairs into a dark hall, to a steel door, and through, to this room.

No one lived in a scary basement room off an alley under a Dumpster.

At least no one I wanted to know.

Vaguely, as I sat on that bed, it came to me that I hurt. My shoulders had scraped against the pavement when that guy took me down. But I ignored the ping of pain, seeing as I was clearly In Trouble, capitalized in a way that shit should be in neon. Blinking neon. In huge letters.

My mother’s voice all of a sudden came into my head. “You’re nuts. You’ve always been nuts.”

This is what she’d said when I’d told her what I was doing during my vacation days.

She believed this and I knew she did because she said it to me more than once, starting from when I was about four.

It was safe to say I wasn’t real tight with my mother.