Randy was good with cars. Always good with cars. He'd grown up with a wrench in his hand, learning their mechanics. How to make them work. How to make them fall apart.

Or blow up.

During his prison duty, it had cost him everything he'd had in commissary to secure a transfer from the kitchens down into the garage. There he'd spent hours in the shop, fixing the vehicles as a prison mechanic, and because there was no way to guarantee which of the three buses would make the trip out during his transfer, Randy had been careful to rig them all.

This one had taken a bit longer for the brake lines to wear out, but his timing had been almost flawless. Aside from a searing burn on his neck and side of his face, his injuries were limited to a wrenched shoulder and a bit of whiplash. Though the restraints had undoubtedly saved him some major hurt, holding him fast while the bus rolled off of the road and into the ditch, they'd also posed a particular problem until Guard Diggs made the mistake of cutting him loose.

Maybe the fucker had taken one too many knocks to the head in the rollover, or maybe the sight of a spreading fire pushed him to be a fucking hero, but whatever the reason—nothing had felt more satisfying then when Randy had his hands around the guy's throat. Or his boot cracking the man's skull like a walnut.

A few prisoners had survived crash but needed everyone dead if he was gonna make it all come together. Hauling out an extra body, he stashed it in a densely wooded area in a thick cover of bracken. Any dogs sweeping the scene would find it eventually, but figured he'd be where he needed by that point. And even if they did find the body, they'd waste precious time searching for the wrong bastard.

Shuffling back to the wreckage, he'd swapped his name tag on another body—a decent match to him in size and colouring—and siphoned some gas from the tank to douse the bodies and feed the growing fire. The whole fucking mess needed to be scorched to high heaven for it to work as he'd planned it all out in his mind. He'd stripped down the driver, taking his jeans, shirt and coat—because in a fucking fire, no one was gonna take a second look at the guy behind the wheel. He set off down the road, boots clomping on concrete, and followed it down a ways to avoid leaving tracks.

A few miles down the way he'd scored a ride into Seattle. The burns had seared through his flesh like a soldering iron pressed against his skin throughout the night, leaving him tense, edgy and in need of relief. He'd stopped every now and then while on the run to scoop up a wad of snow like an ice-pack, but he didn't need to look in a mirror to know nothing short of pharmaceutical grade morphine wasn't gonna cut it.

By sun up his fucking face screamed like a whore gang banged by a prison mob. While his intention was to find Annelise, he'd needed things first.  When you grew up in the seediest criminal underbelly, one urban sprawl was as good as another and just as easy to navigate. And at his size, kicking in doors was a breeze. So when the driver had pulled up along the side of a street and let him out where he'd asked, Randy'd kicked in the only one he knew.

A greasy haired thug who owed him a solid. He wasn't surprised that the shit-eating bastard didn't want to pay up. You didn't survive in that kind of life if you dropped your pants and bent over for the first asshole swinging fists. Aside from kicking in doors, Randy knew how to persuade the uncooperative to be more accommodating and seeing his crack-head bitch bent over the table and drilled up the ass got his gums flapping in less than five minutes. The extra ten Randy spent enjoying himself as much to make a point before popping them both off so he could get a decent sleep.

Money. Drugs. Gun. Car. The scumbag had all four plus some choice narcotics that hummed nicely under his skin and finally gave him some fucking relief.  After a shower and cleaning out half a stale pizza from the fridge, he'd driven the car as far as Portland and wasted almost an hour scoping the docks before he'd found a boat tethered to the dock with a strong motor easy enough to hot-wire into action.

Throttling the boat, Randy checked the watch he'd lifted from Guard Digg's dead body, and noted the time was coming up on six. But at this time of year the sky was a black wash behind a smoky veil of clouds. Obscuring the moon so that no light filtered through; that gave him cover on the water and an advantage.

He'd rolled in like a shadow and crashed his way through the community records until he'd found what he was looking for. She'd been careful, he'd give her that. Keeping her name off records and documents and he'd almost come up empty handed until he'd found a recent purchase for a cabin on the beach.

A cabin owned by Eva Turner and a Marshall Davies.

Fucking cunt was shaking up with some fucker? He'd seen it blasted in the news while in prison, the media coverage that showed her on screen with some pretty boy blond with long hair like a little bitch. They'd said she was happy and moving on with her life. Engaged. Rage shocked him so intensely he'd gone momentarily blind. He'd cooled that heat with a fresh hit of Oxy, coke, Percocet and a bit of Molly to soften the edges.

How he'd fucking missed this shit.

The cabin hadn't been hard to find and by some fucking miracle it sat isolated on a narrow slit of beach. High wall of cliffs on the left and a rise of dunes on the right where houses sat, owned by some rich trash, Randy spat and hunkered down in the shadows. Watching. Waiting. Though his bones vibrated beneath his flesh, he knew the importance of patience and planning. Only when he was certain no one was around, walking the beach in the fucking cold or passing on by, did he climb up the steps to the porch and knock.

He'd heard her before her he saw her, the smoky husk of her voice seconds before the door opened and she stood there.

The years washed away and she stood before him. Ripe and real and only a breath away. Fear in her eyes, seeing it shot a bolt of lust through him. He liked her afraid. Randy stepped forward, crossing the threshold as equal parts of love and hate snarled in his chest.

Annelise.

"Anna..." he reached for her and she staggered back. Away from him. Only then did the reality jolt forward to overlap with the past, the edges uneven and distorted. Blurred. Shorter hair. A colourful streak of purple. Piercings in her skin. Larger breasts. This wasn't the woman he'd remembered. The woman who's face haunted him at night and turned his body out with rage and lust. And while some changes appealed to him, his temper spiked in a furious blast.

Move. Warning screamed in her head, but Alyssa couldn't think. She was frozen. Frozen with panic. With fear. So many questions echoed within her, the loudest of all was how? How was the bastard alive. How had he found her?  His face, dark and twisted, dark eyes full of crazed love and loathing, the skin on his face reddened around his jaw and throat with a painful burn making him look like a demon come straight from Hell. As he crossed the threshold, an apparition made flesh, she heard the crack of the door slamming shut the sound ripped through her daze like a bullet to her skull.

"You did this to upset me, didn't you?" he asked, fingers tangling in her hair ahis boot crushing her phone in a merciless stomp. "You knew how much I loved it long, Anna." 

 Alyssa saw the murderous rage transform his features a second too late. His hand caught her across the face in a firm, open hand that flashed hot behind her eyes. It might have been a slap, but the man was powerful. Huge. It was like being struck with a brick.

Cheek screaming, Alyssa staggered, tasted blood in her mouth. "I'm not, Anna," she rasped, clawing herself back from the daze. "I'm not—" His boot cracked in the soft underside of her belly and she wheezed through a cry. Star flashed before her eyes and pain spread across her torso.

"You didn't have my permission," he bellowed. "Did I say you could change? Did I say you could do these things, Anna?"

Hands hugged to her belly, Alyssa panted, sucking in air and biting down on the whimper as Randy wrenched her onto her back, his hands on her shoulders and face hovering in and out of focus. That rage had calmed in his features so that sickening, perverse love was there once more.

"There," he soothed, brushing strands of hair out of her eyes. "Why do you always want to make me hurt you?"

"I'm sorry." Something flashed in his gaze at her murmured apology and she knew she's stroked the right side of his ego. He wanted her cowed. He wanted her broken. He wanted her afraid and obedient.

"Good," he said. "I forgive you for betraying me, Anna. You made a mistake and mistakes happen. But I still have to punish you so you won't do it again. How else will you learn? How else can I trust you?"

Alyssa's blood went cold. 

"Don't look at me that way, Anna. You've hurt me. Hurt me bad. Right here." He pressed a hand over his heart. "Now I have to show you how that feels. Because you apologized so nicely, I'll be kind. I'll take only one. And I'll make it quick. But you have to choose. Otherwise it won't be a lesson. Otherwise it's just murder. And I'm not a murder, Anna."

When she stayed quiet his lips thinned in temper and his hands tightened around her throat. Angrily, he smacked the back of her head against the floor. "Where are they?"

"They're...not here," Alyssa answered, her mind scrambling. She had to think of something fast. She was running out of time.

His face dropped closer to hers, until Alyssa could almost see herself reflected in those shocking black irises. "How about that asshole you've been fucking, Anna? Marshall?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me, whore. I saw you in the papers." His eyes shone, no—glowed—with rage. And tears. "They said you hooked up with some journalist. That you were getting married."

"I'm not," she gasped around the clenching circle of his fingers. "It's a lie. It's all a lie."

"It better be." Fisting his hands in the neckline of her shirt, the fabric ripped under a single, brutish jerk. "You're mine. I'm going to show you you're mine. So you never forget. Ever." His hands squeezed over her breasts, his mouth pressed against hers with possessive lips and probing tongue.

She screamed against the invasion. Fought but his superior size and weight made it impossible to escape, he was all muscle and determination. Panic rose in her throat with slick, acrid bile as he fumbled with his belt. His jeans. His heavy panting in her ear. Grunting about all the disgusting, gut-churning things he was going to do to her.

Oh god. 

She kicked out, punched, bit, clawed and struggled. Even if her resistance was futile, damned if she was going to lie down and take it. She'd die first. 

Bucking under him, she jerked up her elbow and it caught with a solid crack under his chin, spiking his head back. Before he could recover, using that same elbow, she drove into his throat. His collarbone deflected most of it, but he reared back, freeing her legs. Aiming for his balls—she kicked but he'd shifted, anticipating the move, and her heel glanced off his hip.

His fingers lockedaround her throat, his grip so strong she felt her esophagus was being crushedagainst her spine. Locking her legs around his brawny arm, Alyssa leveraged herhips, grappling for an inch—a single, solitary inch—to draw in breath andhopefully break his hold. Enraged, Randy reared up, raising her bodily off thefloor before slamming her back down. 

The first time stunned her; the secondtime broke her hold.