Chapter 1

The phone call ripped through the quiet of my garage. It was Wendy.

"Maria, thank God. You have to help me."

Her voice was thin, full of static and panic.

"Wendy? What' s wrong? Where are you?"

"I don' t know, some rest stop in the middle of the Mojave. My car broke down, and these guys... these bikers... they took me, Maria. They have me."

My blood went cold. I dropped the wrench I was holding, the clang echoing in the sudden silence.

"Stay calm. What do they want?"

"They saw my posts, the pictures of your bikes. They said they need a mechanic. They said if I get you here, they' ll let me go. Please, Maria. I' m so scared."

She gave me a set of GPS coordinates, her words choked with sobs. I didn' t hesitate. Wendy was my oldest friend, the closest thing I had to a sister.

"I' m on my way. Just hang on."

I grabbed my keys, my wallet, and jumped into my truck. The drive from Arizona into the Nevada desert was a blur of asphalt and fear. Three hours later, the GPS led me off the main highway and onto a dirt track that ended at a derelict airplane hangar.

I saw Wendy standing outside, silhouetted against the setting sun. She looked unharmed. Relief washed over me, so powerful it made me dizzy. I parked the truck and ran to her.

"Wendy! Are you okay?"

Before she could answer, something hard slammed into the back of my head. The world exploded in a flash of white, then went black.

I woke up on a cold concrete floor. My head throbbed. The hangar smelled of oil, dust, and stale beer. A few feet away, Wendy was talking to a tall, wiry man with cruel eyes. She was handing him my wallet and my keys.

"Here. This is everything. Now let me go. That was the deal."

The man, who they called Ryan, laughed. It was a low, ugly sound.

"The deal changed."

He pocketed my things and gestured to his men. "We' ve got a party now. Two for the price of one. She' s all yours, boys. Just don' t break them too quickly."

Wendy' s face crumpled. "No! You promised!"

Ryan ignored her. He was looking at me. His men, a dozen of them, started moving towards us, their boots scraping on the concrete. They took off their helmets, grinning.

That' s when I saw the bikes.

Thirteen of them. Parked in a perfect, menacing line. And they were all identical.

The custom flame-patterned paint job, a deep crimson bleeding into black. The hand-tooled leather seats. The raked-out front forks.

My breath caught in my throat. I knew these bikes. I had built them.

Every single one.