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Chapter One

Laila’s POV

“Please. Don’t do this to me.”

My voice came out smaller than I wanted. Shaking. The kind of scared that lives in your throat and won’t let you breathe right.

The liquor storage room smelled like cheap whiskey and dust and something sour underneath it all. One bare bulb hung from the ceiling, swinging just slightly, throwing shadows that moved like they were alive. The shelves on both sides were stacked floor to ceiling with bottles. No windows. One door. And Rico standing between me and it.

There was nowhere to go.

“Rico, please.” I pressed my back harder against the shelves. Glass clinked behind me. “You watched out for me when I first started here. You said I was like a little sister to you. You said that.”

He laughed. Not a warm laugh. The kind that makes your skin crawl.

“That was before you started walking around here like that with those huge boobs and wide sexy hips” His eyes moved over me slow , the way a man looks at something he has already decided belongs to him. “Months, Laila. You’ve been doing this for months. Don’t act surprised.”

I wasn’t doing anything. I was just working. Trying to stay invisible so I could help pay for my mother’s chemo and keep the lights on and make it through the week. But I didn’t say any of that because his eyes were already glassy and wild and I knew that whatever Rico had been drinking tonight, logic wasn’t going to reach him.

His boots scraped concrete as he stepped closer. I could smell the gasoline on him. Sweat. Whiskey. Something underneath all of it that made my stomach turn.

My hand found a bottle on the shelf behind me without even thinking. My fingers wrapped around the neck of it and I threw it as hard as I could.

It hit him across the cheek. Glass exploded. The sound was sharp and ugly in that small room. Blood opened up on his face, a dark line running down toward his jaw.

I felt a split second of hope.

Then he smiled.

He touched the blood with two fingers, looked at it, and smiled like I had just given him a gift.

“I love the smell of blood,” he said softly. Almost gentle. “And helplessness. You just made this better, doll.”

His fingers fumbled with his belt. The zipper went down. His cock sprang out thick, hard, veins standing out. I whimpered and tried to turn away, but he gripped my chin and forced me to look.

“Stop… please…” My voice broke.

He laughed, low and mean. One rough hand shoved my skirt up and ripped my panties away in one yank. Cool air hit me. I shivered hard.

He moved fast for a big man. His hands locked around my waist and I screamed, full and raw and loud as my lungs would let me. I kicked. I scratched. I went for his eyes with my nails and he barely flinched, just grabbed my wrists and slammed them above my head against the shelf. Bottles rattled. One toppled and smashed on the floor. The sharp bite of spilled rum hit the air.

Outside the door, the bar exploded in noise. The crowd roared. Someone was fighting on the main floor tonight, bodies and bets and music all bleeding together into one wall of sound that swallowed everything else.

My screams included.

Rico knew it. The smile on his bloody face told me he had planned this. Tonight of all nights.

“Scream all you want,” he said against my ear. His breath was hot and stale. “Nobody’s coming.”

I twisted hard, got one hand free, and slapped him across the face. He grabbed my chin and squeezed until my jaw ached.

I was losing. My legs were going weak. My chest hurt from how hard I was breathing. The fear was turning into something worse, that horrible heavy feeling of a body starting to give up.

Then I heard it.

A voice. Just on the other side of the door. Casual, easy, like the world outside this room was completely normal.

“Hello? Anyone back here? I need a refill.”

My whole body jolted.

“HELP!” The word tore out of me. “HELP ME, PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME!”

The slap came so fast I didn’t see it.

My head snapped sideways. Pain cracked through my skull. My cheek went from burning to numb in seconds. I tasted blood. The room tilted. My knees buckled and the only thing holding me up was Rico’s grip on my arm and the shelf at my back.

Stars. Actual stars, floating at the edges of my vision.

“That’s better,” he said. Low. Satisfied. Like he had just settled something.

My body felt like wet concrete. Heavy and useless. I could hear the crowd outside still roaring like nothing had changed. Like I wasn’t back here falling apart.

I thought about my mother in that hospital bed. The way she smiled at me last Sunday and said she was proud of me for being so strong.

I thought about my wolf.

Two months. That was all. Two more months and I would turn eighteen and she would come, that other part of me that I could feel sleeping somewhere deep in my chest, coiled and waiting. She would have claws and rage and strength that men like Rico wouldn’t be able to grab and pin and laugh at.

Two months was a lifetime away.

Rico reached for his phone. The camera light blinked on. Red dot, steady and cold.

“My boys are gonna love this,” he said.

I closed my eyes. My body was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. The shelf edge cut into my back. Broken glass crunched under his boots as he stepped closer.

I prayed. I don’t even know who I was praying to. I just prayed for anything. Anything at all and I vowed to fight back when my wolf fully transformed.