“Send a message all you want, but leave Rachel out of it.”

Eric advances on Isaiah. Isaiah never moves as Eric shoves a finger in his face. “She showed with them, and they made me look like a fool! No one makes me look like a fool!”

The finger slowly descends, but Eric stays in Isaiah’s face. Isaiah’s expression never changes: one long, continuous stone-cold glare. “No one looks at you as a fool. Everyone on the street has heard how you put those college boys in the hospital. No one doubts your strength.”

“It’s not enough,” Eric snarls.

“I think tire irons and baseball bats against skin is convincing to everyone.”

Eric backs away from Isaiah and glances at me. “Is she yours?”

Isaiah remains silent.

Eric slides to the side, acting as if he’ll skirt around Isaiah in order to be close to me, but he halts the moment Isaiah speaks. “Go near her and you’ll join those boys in the hospital.”

Dangerous—both of them are. But Isaiah would scare me more if he wasn’t protecting me. My eyes dart between them. The two males before me are barely civilized animals fighting for dominance and control.

Eric regards Isaiah. “She showed with them so people think she was involved. If I don’t act on her then people will believe that I have a weakness. She won’t go unpunished. If she gives me my money, I’ll wipe her slate clean. My decision is made. Short of killing me, Isaiah, you aren’t changing my mind.”

“If she doesn’t pay?” asks Isaiah.

Eric flashes a smile full of teeth. “She is pretty.”

I swallow a dry heave and slap a hand over my mouth.

A muscle in Isaiah’s jaw tics. “I’ll take on her debt.”

Chapter 23

Isaiah

MY STOMACH BOTTOMS OUT WITH the last words I said: I’ll take on her debt. Five thousand dollars or Eric will own me for life. Hell, with those words, he owns me now.

I risk breaking eye contact with Eric for a brief second to observe my surroundings. His threat to me earlier, that I either kill him or walk away, indicated he wasn’t alone. Sure enough, back in the main parking lot, two of his most trusted guards watch.

Eric laughs, yet I find nothing funny. “Isn’t this a strange turn of events. Isaiah Walker, the guy who owes nobody nothing, takes on a debt for a girl.”

“Isaiah?”

I close my eyes at the sound of my name from Rachel’s mouth. She wants reassurance, and I can’t console her. Not with Eric inspecting my every movement. He already knows I care about Rachel, and that’s bad for both of us. She just became a liability.

I try to repress any thoughts of Rachel: her beauty, her kindness, how frightened she was when I found her. Emotions are evil. Ice water needs to flow in my veins. “No girl should face your wrath.”

“Yeah,” Eric says in mock disbelief. “You’re selling yourself to me so I won’t hit a girl. Sell your shit someplace else.”

This situation hovers between dangerous and deadly. Eric will use her against me if he realizes Rachel’s more than someone I owe. He’ll keep me as a dog on a chain, wielding her as a weapon. I can’t do that to myself. Dammit. I can’t do that to her. Because, God help us both, I do care. “She means nothing. I owe her a debt for saving me, and like you said yourself, I don’t owe debts.”

Her hand drops from my back and I hear her sharp intake of air. Eric’s observant eyes catch her reaction, and he’s discovered a new person to toy with. “So she was a fuck.”

I’ve had enough of this. “When’s the money due?”

“Now.”

Even if Rachel did have five thousand dollars, which I doubt, she wouldn’t have it in her pocket. “I need longer.”

Eric rolls one shoulder as if we’re debating the cost of an item at a yard sale instead of my life and her safety. “Because I’ve always liked you, two weeks.”

“Eight.”

“Six. And if she doesn’t pay I take her car and I own you. Are we clear?”

Crystal. Because, for Eric and his crew, the beating is the payment. The taking of the car is for kicks. “No one touches her, Eric.”

Having accomplished what he came for, Eric pulls his keys out of his pocket and strolls toward the main parking lot. “As long as someone pays. But if you don’t...” He looks over his shoulder and slides his eyes over Rachel. My fingers curl with the thoughts of strangling him. “For you, pretty girl, I promise there won’t be baseball bats involved.”

I watch him until he drives off, then examine Rachel. She’s so beautiful it hurts. Golden blond hair flows past her shoulders. Those gorgeous violet eyes shouldn’t be so wide with fear. I’ve dreamed of being this close to her again. I ache to gather her in my arms and keep her safe from the world...to be her protector, but I can’t be that man.

“You okay?” I ask.

Rachel moves her head as a yes, but the answer’s no. After being touched by Eric, how can she be fine? I run my hand over my head. Just fuck. “Get in the car.”

Rachel fidgets with the oversize buttons on her black coat, then readjusts her skirt, drawing my attention to her bare legs. Her warm breaths billow out into the air as white fog. “I’m late for school.”

So am I. “You and I need to skip today.”

It’s difficult to discern her head shaking no as her body shudders from the cold. “My parents will kill me.”

I rub my eyes with both hands. “Eric will actually kill us both. My car—now.”

Without looking at me, Rachel retrieves her backpack and heads to the passenger side of my black Mustang. The driver’s side door hangs open and the engine still purrs. When I cut into the overflow lot, I saw his hands on her and my whole world went red.

She slams her door shut before I have a chance to go around and close it for her. I don’t want her to hate me. I don’t want her to fear me. But she witnessed who I really am, and now there’s no avoiding reality.

I slide into my seat and put my car into First. “Can your brother cover for you at school?”

“Yeah,” she barely whispers. “Maybe.” Rachel pulls a phone out of her pack. The screen brightens as she powers it on, and I notice her go completely still. “You called.”

A lot. Every half hour since Abby told me that Eric had found her. “You didn’t answer.”

“I turned my phone off.” An edge of hurt creeps into her tone. I want to reassure her that we’ll be okay. But I shouldn’t.

Rachel types into her cell. We drive in silence as she stares at the phone, possibly waiting for a reply. It chirps and she sighs with relief. “My twin, Ethan, says he’ll cover for me, but he wants to know why I’m ditching.”

Tell him I’m saving your life. I shift gears as I hit the freeway heading downtown. There’s only one place I can think to take her to guarantee her safety.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

I tug at my bottom loop earring. “To the police station.”

Her hair flies as she whips her head to face me. “To the... Where? No!” she screeches. “No. We can’t go there.”

Time to be honest with her. “We aren’t. You are. It’s the only way.”

One of her hands grips the edge of her seat. The other holds on to the door. The knuckles on both her hands fade to white. “There has to be another way. The police will call my parents.”

“Better grounded than in the hospital,” I mutter.

“Isaiah...”

I cut her off. “Do you have five thousand dollars?”

“No,” she says quickly.

“Do you own the papers to your car?”

She shakes her head this time.

“Look.” I force calm even though everything inside me writhes in rage. I want to fix this. Dammit, I want to fix us. “Go to the police. Tell them you made a mistake and street raced once. Tell them that the guy who took the bets threatened you if you don’t race for him again. And for Christ’s sake, don’t name names. Tell them you never learned anyone’s name. Tell them you were scared to death.”

We breeze by a row of tractor trailers, and I press harder on the gas. We’re cruising at seventy. My eyes narrow on the road. I itch to hit eighty and then ninety. I crave speed.

Her hands flutter in the air, signaling impending hysterics. “What will that accomplish, besides upsetting my parents?”

I shift down and reluctantly reduce my speed when I spot the exit. “The police have been after Eric for a year. They know who he is and what he’s capable of. The moment you say drag racing and threatened, they’ll put the pieces together. They’ll protect you in ways I can’t.”

She draws in several quick breaths. “He threatened you, too. Why aren’t you going to come with me?”

I flex my fingers then grip the wheel again. “Because I’m not a snitch.”

Rachel straightens in her seat and the spark of attitude that I remember from the night we met flashes. “And I am?”

Off the freeway, I turn the wheel sharply to the left, coast into an abandoned parking lot and cut the engine. “You don’t have to live by the rules I live by. Those streets you played in one time are my home. I don’t get to go back to a gated community when I decide I’m done slumming. You street raced and you got burned. I’m trying to make sure you don’t die from your mistakes. So what if you don’t get to go to a dance because you’re grounded. You’ll be safe.”

Her eyes brim with tears. “You don’t understand. This will crush my mom. It’s my job to make everything in her life all right. She can’t know. This would destroy her.”

“Dammit, Rachel,” I yell. “You can’t be this fucking dense!”

Her door opens and she darts out of the car. I slam my hand on the steering wheel and bolt after her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“School!” she shouts. With one foot in front of the other, she heads across the lot—in the wrong direction.

“Get back in the fucking car!”

“No! I’ll figure this out. It’s not your debt, it’s mine. Leave me alone!”

I stalk after her, grab her arm and swing her around. My face lowers to her. “Do you think this is a game? Do you think that you can ignore this and it will go away? It won’t, Rachel. He knows who you are and where you go to school. Eric will never stop tracking you until he gets what he wants.”

“Stop swearing at me!” Her entire body trembles. Back is the terrified girl from the bar after she got pegged by the beer. Maybe her life is more complicated than I thought.

Rachel jerks her arm in a pathetic attempt at freedom, but I hold tight. She has to understand the dangers of this situation.

“Take your hands off of me,” she yells. “No, I don’t live near you, but that doesn’t make me stupid. He threatened me. Not you. You want me to go the police and I can’t. I’ll do this on my own.”