Chapter 1

The coffee pot slipped in Maya's hand, scalding liquid splashing dangerously close to her wrist. She caught it just in time, her heart hammering as she forced her breathing to steady. Three months in Redemption Falls, and she still jumped at every loud noise, every slammed door, every rumble of a motorcycle engine.

Especially motorcycle engines.

"You okay, hon?" Dotty called from behind the counter of the Chrome & Grease Diner, her reading glasses perched on her silver hair.

"Fine," Maya lied, setting the pot back on the burner with shaking hands. "Just clumsy today."

Through the diner's front window, she watched them roll in. Six motorcycles, their chrome gleaming in the afternoon sun, engines growling like caged beasts. The Devil's Rejects MC. She'd learned to recognize the patch on their cuts—a horned skull with wings, deceptively beautiful and undeniably dangerous.

They came every Thursday like clockwork. Ordered burgers, black coffee, pie. Tipped well. Never caused trouble. But Maya had learned the hard way that men who wore leather and rode steel weren't to be trusted, no matter how polite they seemed.

She should know. She'd watched three of them murder her boss in cold blood.

"I'll take their table," Dotty said, already grabbing menus.

"No." The word came out sharper than Maya intended. She softened it with a smile. "You take your break. I've got it."

Dotty hesitated, then shrugged and headed to the back. Maya smoothed down her apron, checked that her nametag said "Emma" instead of her real name, and grabbed her order pad.

The bikers had claimed their usual booth—the big corner one that let them see both exits. Smart. Maya understood that impulse intimately.

"Afternoon, gentlemen," she said, keeping her voice light, her smile professional but not too friendly. Never draw attention. Never be memorable. Those were the rules that kept her alive. "What can I get you?"

Most of them ordered without really looking at her. That was good. Forgettable was safe.

But one man watched her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.

He sat at the head of the table, and even seated, she could tell he was tall. Broad-shouldered, with dark hair that brushed his collar and a jawline sharp enough to cut glass. Tattoos snaked up his neck—she caught a glimpse of flames and something that might have been feathers. His eyes were an unsettling pale blue, like winter ice, and they tracked her every movement.

The patch on his cut read "President" beneath the club's symbol.

Devil.

She'd heard the name whispered around town. Saw the way people either nodded respectfully when he passed or crossed to the other side of the street. The Devil's Rejects weren't the mob—they were different, local, operating in that gray area between law and lawlessness that small-town America pretended not to see.

But Maya knew better than to trust the difference.

"Just coffee," he said, his voice rough honey and gravel. "Black."

She scribbled the order, hyper-aware of his gaze. "Anything else?"

"Yeah." He leaned back, one arm draped over the booth. Casual. Controlled. "You always this jumpy, or is it just Thursdays?"

Maya's pen froze over her notepad. "I don't know what you mean."

"Sure you don't." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "You've been working here what, three months? And every time we roll in, you look like you're about to bolt."

"Maybe I just don't like bikers," she said, then immediately regretted it. Don't engage. Don't be memorable.

One of the other men chuckled. "Can't say I blame her, Prez. We're pretty scary."

But Devil didn't laugh. He kept watching her, and Maya had the uncomfortable sensation of being studied, catalogued, figured out.

"What's your real name?" he asked quietly.

The blood drained from her face. "It's Emma. Says so right on my tag."

"Uh-huh." He nodded slowly. "And I'm betting those roots growing in aren't naturally blonde either."

Maya's hand instinctively went to her hair—dark roots showing beneath the cheap box dye job she'd done in a gas station bathroom somewhere in Nebraska. She caught herself and dropped her arm.

"I'll get your coffee," she said, turning away.

His hand shot out, not grabbing her but blocking her path. "Hold up."

"I have other tables—"

"They can wait." He stood, and Jesus, he was even bigger up close. Six-four easily, with the kind of build that came from real work, not a gym. "Let's take a walk."

"I'm working."

"Dotty won't mind." He nodded toward the back where Dotty was watching them with interest. The older woman gave Maya a thumbs up.

Traitor.

"Look," Maya said, lowering her voice. "I don't know what you think you know, but—"

"Parking lot. Now." Not a request. "Unless you want to have this conversation in front of everyone."

Maya's options flashed through her mind. Run—but where? She had two hundred dollars and a bus ticket's worth of desperation. Fight—against a man twice her size and his entire crew? Or trust that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't about to end with her body in a ditch.

The last option seemed least likely to get her killed.

"Five minutes," she said.

Devil's smile was slow and dangerous. "That's all I need."

He walked toward the door, and after a moment's hesitation, Maya followed, very aware that she might be making the last mistake of her short, paranoid life.

The afternoon sun was blinding after the diner's dim interior, and Maya squinted as Devil led her around the side of the building, away from prying eyes.

"So," he said, leaning against the brick wall with deceptive casualness. "You want to tell me who you're running from, or should I guess?"