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There's a sensation that ripples through a man's body when danger is present.

It's almost like a switch that flips inside his body, alerting and preparing him for the trouble he can feel is brewing.

The hairs on the back of his neck rise, his hands steady, and his emotions switch off as the survival instinct inside of him roars to life.

Everything around him becomes sharper – more vivid and clear.

His eyes, brain, and body all join force, and work harder to scope out the threat and eliminate it.

For me, that warning sign had kept me alive and in one piece.

But it failed me tonight.

Came just too little too fucking late.

The minute I stepped out of Noah's car on the outskirts of the Ring of Fire, and laid eyes on the men surrounding us with machetes and guns, I knew I was walking into something I wouldn’t be walking out of.

Not in one piece at least.

And I also knew that I was too fucking late to do a damn thing to stop it.

Gonzalez called to meet him here.

Said he had information on David.

I had been lied to.

I had beenbetrayed.

That part was obvious.

But the part that wasn’t obvious, the thing I really wanted to know, waswhy?

My only way out now, and I was well aware that the chances of that were slim, was the way I'd spent most of my life living; fighting and killing.

"You need to get out of here," I warned as eight men closed in on us, all armed, all noticeably members of Gonzalez's gang. "Get back in the car, man, and drive."

"Like fuck I'm leaving you on your own," Noah snarled, eyes locked on the men moving closer.

"Noah," I hissed. "Get back in the fucking car and go!"

"I'm not leaving you here, Luck," he bit out. "It's not fucking happening."

"Then you're a fucking idiot," were the last words I managed to say before the men closed in on us.

I reached for my gun.

And then all hell broke loose.

****

I was thirty-one years old and I was ready to die.

I'd been ready for a long time now.

Making peace with my maker wasn’t something I was interested in doing.

In my eyes, my maker was the woman who'd given me life, and my mother had been gone for a very long time now.

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