CHAPTER 002

LYRA

It isn't funny, but my mind goes blank at the number. Ten million dollars? Who owes anyone ten million dollars? It’s so absurd, so entirely disconnected from my reality of student loans and grocery budgets, that a hysterical giggle spills past my lips.

It turns out to be a massive mistake.

The giant behind me, Spidey, doesn't find it funny. His iron fingers clamp around my collarbone, digging into the tender muscle with ruthless pressure. A sharp, agonizing gasp rips from my chest, and I wince painfully. My eyes squeeze shut as more tears sting my eyelids.

“Quiet down, sweetheart,” the ringleader warns, nodding toward my shoulder. “Unless you want him to snap that collarbone in half.” He flickers a lazy gesture toward him. “Let her breathe, Jax.”

Jax releases his grip, but his heavy hand remains resting lightly on my shoulder like a loaded weapon. I bite my lower lip until I taste copper, forcing my breaths to stay shallow, and keeping my eyes clamped shut, desperately trying to wake myself up from what has to be a nightmare.

Fingers snap inches from my face, and I flinch, forced to open my eyes.

Dom, I heard one of them call him, leans further in, I can see the razor stubble along his jaw. He toys with the hunting knife in his hand, letting the flat of the cold blade glide slowly down my cheekbone.

“So, girlfriend of the year... do you have ten million dollars stashed under the mattress?” he purrs.

I swallow hard, my nails biting into my clammy palms. “No.”

All three men burst into another sharp, cruel chorus of laughter. Dom shakes his head, turning back toward Declan, and drives another heavy leather boot straight into his exposed abdomen.

“Stop! Please!” I cry out, clinging to the wooden arms of the chair so hard my knuckles pale. “He has to have it somewhere! Please, just let him speak! Let him tell you where the money is!”

Dom lolls his head back and lets out another dark chuckle. “Where the money is? Do you think we’d be standing in this dump if he had the money, sweetheart? We’re here because your boyfriend likes to play big shot on credit he can’t cover.”

He pulls back his leg and drives another brutal kick into Declan's side. Declan doesn't scream this time. He lets out a sickening, wet, shallow wheeze and his body goes limp.

He’s dying. If he hits him again, he’s dead.

“Please, stop!” Panic overrides every self-preservation instinct I possess, and I surge forward, sliding off the chair and grabbing Dom’s heavy, leather-clad wrist with both hands.

He freezes, slowly turning his head to look at where my hands clutch his, and his dark eyes narrow into dangerous slits.

“I’ll get the money,” I stammer out, my voice cracking with pure desperation. “I’ll get it. Just don’t kill him.”

Dom scoffs, pulling his wrist free from my trembling grip, and looks around my cramped, messy apartment. “From where? No offense, darling, but I know what a teacher makes. Even if you sold both your kidneys on the black market, you wouldn’t come close.”

He raises his boot again to finish Declan off.

“No!” I throw myself onto my knees right on the blood-stained carpet, and grab his pant leg, tears blurring my vision. “Please! I’ll find a way, I promise! Just leave him alive! I love him, please!”

I don't care about the dignity I'm losing. I don't care that I am begging on my knees to this monster. I just want them out of my house so I can rush Declan to the hospital and call the police.

He stares down at me, his expression unreadable as I cling to his leg. “And how, exactly, are you going to do that, Lyra?”

A wave of cold dread washes down my spine. He must have gotten my name from Declan, or off the mail sitting on the kitchen counter.

“I’ll... I’ll figure it out,” I lie through my teeth, wiping furiously at the hot tears on my face. “I swear I will.”

I won't. I can't. I just need you to get the fuck out of my house.

Dom pries my fingers off his pant leg and steps back, exchanging a silent, calculating look with Jax and the brute with no name. An unspoken agreement passes between them.

“Give me a month,” I push, scrambling back onto my feet, my legs shaking so badly I knock the wooden chair over behind me with a loud clatter. “Thirty days. Please.”

He turns back to me, his smirk returning, sharp, cruel, and absolute. “You have seven days.”

“Seven? That’s impossible, I can't…”

CRACK. Jax’s open palm flies across my face with blinding speed and crushing force. The violent impact snaps my head back, and heat explodes across my jaw, my vision instantly blurring into a chaotic swirl of light and shadow. My feet slip out from under me, and I crash hard onto the floorboards, my shoulder taking the brunt of the fall.

A high-pitched ringing fills my ears, drowning out every sound in the room. And through the haze of blinding pain, a dark silhouette crouches over me.

A thick, heavy hand reaches down, gently tracing a finger across my burning, swollen cheek, and Dom’s face floats into my line of blurred vision, his voice sounding like it’s coming from underwater.

“Consider that a preview, sweetheart,” he whispers, his breath hot against my ear. “Seven days. If we come back and you don’t have our money... it would be a real shame to ruin a face as pretty as yours.”

He jolts up.

I lie paralyzed on the floor, my cheek throbbing as the heavy sound of boots fades toward the entrance. A door slams shut, and the darkness swallows me whole.

******************************************************************************

"Lyra. Hey, wake up." A hand shoves my shoulder, sending a spike of sharp pain down my collarbone, and my eyes snap open.

For one fleeting second, I pray my brain made the whole thing up. That I am just tired from school, that Declan is on the couch shouting at his video games, and that my life is still normal. But then the iron smell of blood hits my nose.

I am sprawled on the cold floorboards, and inches from my face, a dark crimson stain spreads across my rug.

Declan is lying on his back beside me, the swollen eye shut into a purple mass, blood crusted around his nostrils and mouth. He winces with every shallow breath, hands clutching his midsection.

Panic clears the fog in my brain, and I push myself up, my head swimming as a wave of nausea rolls through my stomach. "I’m dialing 911."

I scramble toward my purse by the door, but a hand snatches my ankle.

"No...," Declan wheezes, his voice a raspy scrape. A tear cuts a clear track through the dirt and dried blood on his cheek. "No hospital."

I drop to my knees beside him, my chest tightening. "Are you out of your mind? You’re bleeding from your mouth, Declan! You have to go to the emergency room!"

"Hospital reports assault wounds to the police," he grunts, his fingers digging into the carpet with frantic force. "You bring cops into this... those guys come back and finish the job."

He isn't wrong. Dom made it clear what happens if we step out of line.

"Help me up." His hand reaches out to me, teeth grinding together.

I hook my arms under his shoulders, using every ounce of strength in my legs to haul his dead weight off the floor. He groans, a gut-wrenching sound of pure agony, but manages to stumble with me down the narrow hallway and collapse onto our mattress.

My hands are shaking so hard I can barely hold the damp washcloth I grab from the bathroom. I drag the first-aid kit out from the closet, relying on basic emergency training, and I wipe the blood from his face, check his breathing, and position him on his side. His ribs are bruised and battered, but he isn't coughing up fresh blood anymore. I think he'll survive the night.

As the immediate terror recedes, fury takes its place.

"Ten million dollars, Declan?" I adjust the pillow beneath his head and stare down at him. "When did this happen? How?"

Declan turns his face toward the wall, a low groan escaping his throat. "Can we not do this right now? My head is split open."

"There isn't another time!" My voice cracks, sharp and desperate in the quiet bedroom. "Those men are coming back in seven days! They will put a bullet in both our heads if they don't get that money!"

He shifts, clutching his side, his tone turning cold. "If we don't get the money? I thought you told them you were going to pay it."

The washcloth drops from my fingers onto the bedspread. "What?"

"You told Dom you'd handle it," he says, refusing to meet my eyes. "You bought us thirty days, or seven, whatever he said."

A cold, sickening horror blooms in my chest. "I said that so he would stop kicking your ribs in! I said it so they wouldn't murder you on our living room floor!"

"Well, you said it," he snaps, his voice laced with defensive venom. "So figure it out." He rolls onto his uninjured side, turning his back to me.