I feel like shit. No part of my body is under my control and now… Hakeem is swerving around like he’s driving on a dirt road. This Escalade isn’t bumping around enough for us to be on a dirt road, so I don’t have an explanation for Hakeem’s crazy ass driving.

Fuck…

The white Lexus swerves again and this time, I know something is wrong. The vehicle makes a jerky movement and then it feels like I’m rolling smoothly across ice – diagonally. Hakeemisn’t in control of this car anymore. The white Lexus accelerates faster. And faster.Why isn’t it stopping? Why isn’t he moving in a straight line?

I hear a loud crunching sound. Then I feel the impact. Next thing I know, the whole world is black. Slipping into unconsciousness is strangely peaceful.

But waking up is hell.

“I was a good shot!”

I don’t recognize the voice, but it feels like someone is driving a screwdriver behind my eyes. Pain. There is just so much damn pain everywhere.

“YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HER.”

The darkness drags me under again.

The next time I wake up, I can feel that I have the freedom to move because I jerk awake awkwardly and my limbs move freely.Thank Godis my first thought, followed by disoriented panic as I have no fucking clue where I am or who the hell has custody of me. There’s a bed beneath me, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.

I jump out of the bed and the second I get to my feet, the light turns on, making me scream in fucking terror until I realize Owen is the one standing at the light switch. And he’s grinning.I stumble around disoriented, trying to piece together details of the room but all I get are flashes of color

“You’re awake.”

I feel way more emotions at once than I am comfortable feeling, quite frankly. The only sound that comes out of my mouth when I open it is a frustrated scream. My body shakes with emotion and I lunge forward violently, smacking Owen hard as fuck across the chest.

“OW!”

His pained cry sends a surge of pleasure through me and this time I really try to hurt his ass. Owen grunts as I smack him with one hand and try to scratch the fuck out of his face with another.

“I HATE YOU!” I scream at him as I hit him. “I HATE YOU!”

My hand falls against Owen’s hard, impossibly muscular chest. I don’t even think I’m hurting him at all.

“I hate you!” I beat his chest one last time before Owen curls his hand around mine. Controlling me again. Doing whatever the fuck he wants because that’s how men in his world work. Even if he thinks he loves me, he can’t stop himself from exerting his control over me. Trading me away like a fucking poker chip.

“You can stop hitting me now,” he says in that infuriatingly deep and sexy voice. He is out of his mind if he thinks I will ever stop trying to beat his ass. I look up into Owen’s eyes. They’re so fucking pretty, he could honestly get away with murder if he blinked a few times. That doesn’t change my fury with him.

“You have a serious fucking problem.”

“It was just a game,” he says, scowling and sounding like a little boy who got caught touching his dick in the back of the class. “I knew I could get you back.”

“But you just had to play?”

Owen’s cheeks darken, so at least I know beneath the goddamn audacity this man has just a little bit of fucking shame.

“Yes,” he says. “It’s how I’m wired.”

“You told me you loved me! What about Waverly? Would you wager your own damn daughter?”

It’s like all his flaws are hitting me at once. I knew he wasn’t perfect when I first met him. I wouldn’t have drugged his ass and hopped out the window if he was perfect. But the dark side of Owen’s gambling and his criminal lifestyle ended with me rattling around Hakeem’s trunk.

“I’m fucked up,” he says.

“I know that.”

“But I want to do better. Every day I do a little better. Since I met you… that was the first time I gambled.”

“You gambled me,” I say to him, trying my best to move my hands away from Owen’s grasp. He just grips me tighter. This confusing asshole makes me so damn mad, especially because I can’t stop looking into his eyes and if I really wanted to get away from him right now… I could.