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the tail end of the session, and Mom should have known better. She never could stomach watching Zach get his balls handed to him.
    Rafe hadn’t just handed them over—he’d shoved them down his throat. That was the day he and Zach became best friends. Predictably so, that was also the day I developed the biggest crush on Rafe.
    By the time I entered my freshman year of high school, I became Miss Popularity because of two reasons: one, I was a De Luca—the adopted daughter of Abbot De Luca, famous for his impressive record in the UFC; and two, I was sister to rising star Zachariah De Luca. Having a connection to Rafe Mason, who had surpassed my brother in skill, tenacity, and ruthlessness in the business sealed my fate. I became an “it” girl.
    I hated “it” girls, but they didn’t seem fazed by my blatant indifference, as not one of them passed up an opportunity to hang out at my house. They were in it for the testosterone, and I didn’t really care, so long as they kept their hands off Rafe. He might have been six years my senior, but in my head, he was mine, though someone forgot to tell him.
    However, Zach noticed me noticing his best friend, and that’s when the jealousy began, the dangerous possessiveness. Their friendship had shifted to more of a competitive nature.
    Ever since our parents married, Zach and I had been tight, probably closer than most blood related siblings. We often slept in the same bed, huddled under the covers when Dad’s drinking got out of hand, or when my mom had another episodic break that necessitated a trip to the mental ward. Their marriage had crumbled under screams that pierced ears too young to understand the words being launched through the air like weapons of mass destruction.
    Having Zach at my side calmed me, but as I grew older, I realized how off our relationship was, especially once Rafe’s presence got under Zach’s skin, and my brother had morphed into a stranger before my eyes.
    The police arrested the wrong guy, and I let them.
    In hindsight, I had no one to blame but myself for my current predicament—naked and freezing, ass chafed from the concrete, utterly humiliated. I almost pissed myself every time something scampered in the darkness. How silly to be scared of rodents when a man I once knew so well held me prisoner.
    A door opened unexpectedly, and the overhead light came on. I squinted, the dim bulb too bright on eyes accustomed to nothing but suppressing blackness. Rafe stomped down the stairs and halted outside the cage.
    I couldn’t say how much time had passed since I’d awakened in this hellhole, but if I had to guess by the coarse hair on my legs, the smell of unbathed skin, and the tangled, greasy mess on my head, I’d say about three days. I’d lost count of his visits. The first was the most notable, as he’d tossed a bucket to the ground for me to do my business in, left a tray of food and a bottle of water next to it, and exited without a single response to my pleas. The visits that followed wielded the same results, and I stopped begging, accepting I might be down here for a while.
    Crouched in the corner, I draped my arms around shaking legs. “I-I’m cold,” I said through chattering teeth. “Can I have a blanket? Please?”
    He unlocked the door and sauntered inside. “I spent weeks in the hole, naked just like you. Do you think I got a blanket?” He knelt and lifted my chin. “I usually got a beat down before they threw me in, and some days, they didn’t even feed me.” His mouth flattened into a grim line. “Lucky for you, I’m not as nasty as the guards who had it out for me.”
    I stared, overcome by the guilt that chiseled off another piece of my heart. I wished I could comfort him, erase the last eight years. What an impossible idea.
    “What do you want with me?” I asked. “Do you want to hurt me? Fuck me?” Whatever he was going to do, I hoped he’d just do it. The waiting made me a nervous wreck.
    “You took