“All right, Sophia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I wish I could say the same.” She’s flushed, her irritation making itself known on her cheeks as well as in her eyes. Her body language is speaking volumes, too. She’s locked up tight, shoulders angled away from me. Her hands are balled together now, interlocking fingers white at each joint, showing how hard she’s squeezing.

My father was a fucking asshole—hated me from the moment I was born. He judged me as he saw fit, and I’ve made sure to prove him wrong at every available fucking turn. But he was right about one thing. He always said I had a stone-cold, manipulative side to me when I wanted to. And I do. That part of me, usually kept under lock and key for civility’s sake, pipes up, now, as I look at her. How hard would it be to make her change her mind about me? How hard would it be to alter that body language? It would be a mildly interesting game to play.

Her head snaps up—she stares at me as though she can hear my thoughts and she’s daring me to even try it. I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face, slow as sin. “Cade says you need me to do something for you,” she snaps. “He says you’re gonna let me go if I do it.”

“And do you believe him?”

She fixes her gaze on mine, staring me right in the eye. There are few people who have the balls to do that. My coloring’s always been a little confronting to some people. Unsettling, even. My eyes are a piercing ice blue. They’re not the kind of eyes you’d forget in a hurry. It’s not vain of me to admit that. I just know how other people work, how they think, and I also know how I affect them. Sophia doesn’t look away. She’s nowhere near as fragile as I assumed she would be. My interest is now well and truly piqued. “I don’t know. I believe Cade believes you’ll let me go. But you? I haven’t worked you out yet.”

I almost burst into laughter. Well, isn’t this interesting? I was just thinking the exact same thing about you. “Oh, I’m not a complicated man, Sophia. I do the things I say I’m going to do. I keep the promises I make. If I say something, you can take it to the bank.” But I’m lying to her. I am a complicated man. I make it my business to be as fucking complicated as I possibly can. If I were simple, I would be easy to pre-empt, and that’s not how you survive in the world that I live in. I can’t tell from looking at her whether Sophia believes me, but I’m enjoying the way she’s sliding her legs up and down against the other. In this case I’m sure it’s signifying discomfort, but it can mean other things, too. Sexual excitement for one. I suddenly realize that I want that—to sexually excite her.

“So what do you want me to do?” she asks. The question could not have come at a more appropriate time. A number of things are flooding through my head as I answer her. I manage to keep them to myself, though.

“I need you to testify what you witnessed in that alleyway in Seattle for me, Sophia. I need you to take the stand in a courtroom and tell a judge and jury how you saw a man murdered in cold blood.”

Her face goes pale, the angry flush that was still present a moment ago vanishing entirely. “You want me to go up against those men that took me? You want me to go testify against Raphael?”

“I do.”

She shakes her head, each shake becoming more and more violent. “No. No, I can’t do that.”

I didn’t think she was going to be happy about it, but in the same vein I didn’t think she was going to be this aggressively against the idea. Hector’s men did kidnap her, after all. “The guy they murdered was a judge. He was a good man. And you won’t do this, because?”

She takes a stuttering breath, pushing back into the chair, as though the more space she puts between me and her distances herself from the very idea of testifying. “Because I can’t. I…I have a family to protect. Raphael threatened them. He said he was going to kill them all. I can’t allow that to happen. I’m sorry for the guy that died, but that’s it. He’s already dead, now. Taking the stand won’t help him any. If I do what you’re asking of me, they’ll find my family. They’ll kill my parents. They’ll kill my sister, too, but they’ll rape her first.” She shakes her head again, fear written all over her face. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I won’t do it.”

REBEL

“Well it’s obvious. You can’t do either.”

I drop my head into my hands, groaning. There was no persuading Sophia that she needs to speak out against Los Oscuros. She wouldn’t even listen. She locked herself in the bathroom, and I took the opportunity to leave the cabin, locking the door behind me, too pissed off to try any further. The clubhouse is packed full of Widowers, just like it is every night, but tonight’s different. Tonight they know not to approach the quiet table in the corner of the bar that Cade and I occupy when shit is hitting the fan. If they could see the black bag sitting on the bench in between my second and me they might have tried, though.

“You can’t involve yourself with the DEA, man. And there’s no way the club will pass running Maria Rosa’s blow and dope all over the country for her. She tried to strong arm us into that the last time we got caught up in her shit, remember?”

“I do remember. But it was almost worth the risk back then. We had no other leverage. I thought this time she’d agree just for the sake of fucking with Hector.”

Cade stares grimly down into the bottom of his rocks glass. I know he’s not seeing the burned amber of the whiskey in the bottom, though. He’s thinking about Laura. Laura, my best friend. Laura, Cade’s sister. Laura, who went missing from my father’s estate years ago, never to be seen again. That’s what started this whole fucking thing—the MC, the gun running, the small time weed operation the Widowers sometimes dabble in.