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“WakeMeUpWhenSeptemberEnds”—GreenDay
To say I was terrified was an understatement. I still didn’t understand how I could know how to make a meal, conduct basic daily tasks, walk, talk, and basically function as a human, but I had no idea who I was. Prior to being abducted, I had zero memories.
After introductions that I seriously didn’t absorb, Detective Santiago gave me a hug and prepared to leave. “I’ll stop by to check on you as often as I can.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” she quietly insisted as she held my shoulders in a firm grip.
“Do you realize I don’t even know your first name?” I asked with a sad smile. I’d known her longer than anyone I remembered.
“It’s Mia,” she replied as she glanced at the waiting men. Then she looked back at me and whispered, “They’re a little rough and definitely not perfect, but they’re good people. We’re not exactly on the same side of the law, but we have an understanding…. It works, I guess. Theywilltake care of you. If they don’t, you have my number in your phone.”
I nodded. She had gotten me a cheap prepaid phone from Walmart. I wasn’t sure why, since she was the only person I knew, but her number had been saved as “Detective Santiago.” When she cast one last peek at the small group of men standing around before returning to her SUV, panic began to well up in my throat.
“Miss?” The deep voice that called out to me belonged to a tall, gruff guy with salt-and-pepper hair. I blinked up at him and tried not to cry in frustration as I heard the vehicle leaving the property.
“Y-y-yes, sir?” I stuttered, practically choking on the huge ball of fear lodged there. Though he and his friends were easy on the eyes, they were also scary as fuck.
“Call me Venom. I’m the president of this club, but I’m certainly not a sir. Do you have a name you want us to use other than Jane Doe?” he kindly inquired. As it was every day, my mind was a blank when I tried to conjure up any hint of who I was.
“Soleil,” another man chimed in. Confused at the slight recognition I experienced at hearing his voice and the name, I frowned and turned to him. So did the rest of the men who I suddenly realized were all wearing matching leather vests. That sent me into a brief flashback of the people who had held me captive, and I became nauseous. I had to remind myself that Mia said she trusted these guys.
“Do you know me?” I tried not to puke from my nervousness or let myself get hopeful, because I’d been disappointed time and time again over the last few months. My heart raced with hope as my stomach cramped. If he recognized me, he would be the first person to do so since I’d been rescued.
There were no missing persons reports fitting my description anywhere. I had no fingerprint history, which meant no criminal record, thankfully. Well, unless I was so good, I simply never got caught. Turned out, I was now one of dozens of men and women living without an identity. No one knew what to do with me.
His eyes appeared brilliantly silver as he stared at me—searching. His brows practically came together as he frowned in obvious disappointment when he didn’t find what he was looking for.
“I, uh, I’m not sure. You look like someone I used to know,” he muttered before tearing his piercing gaze from mine. He turned to Venom, and I couldn’t help but notice how painfully beautiful he was. “I can get her settled in one of the guest rooms but then I need to run something by you. If that’s okay?”
“Sure,” Venom told the man who held my attention. “Just me, or do you need everyone?”
“Everyone might be best,” he muttered.
I heard Venom tell one of the other men to call in everyone that was available for a meeting or something. It was hard to hear exactly what he said because his back was to me at the time.
The man was tall, with disheveled dark hair, eyes almost as black as midnight, and gorgeous. In a way, I really hoped he knew me, for so many reasons. Simply looking at him had my body trembling from head to toe, but not for the reasons Venom and the others did. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t attracted to him. Except that was a complication I didn’t need in my life at the moment—especially considering the fact that I had no idea who I was or if I was married.
The rest of the men wandered off, probably back to whatever they’d been doing before we showed up. I brought my attention back to the tall dark-haired man.
“They call me Sabre,” his smooth, sexy voice purred—or maybe that was me. It was crazy that he did these things to me. Especially after all the shit I’d been through.
“You said I look like this Soleil person you knew? Is that a good or bad thing?” I nervously asked him.
“Depends,” he mused without giving me a real answer.
“Well, if it’s not a bad thing, you can call me Soleil,” I offered. Anything was better than “Jane Doe.” Being a nonentity sucked, and it scared the shit out of me most days. The doctors believed I blocked my past out to deal with what had happened to me. I didn’t think that made much sense. Wouldn’t my mind have blocked out what happened as well? When I asked them that, they gave me a bunch of bullshit about the mind being an unpredictable thing.
For a second, pain flashed in his now dark gaze, and he blanched. Then his features smoothed, and he gave me a curt nod. I frowned in confusion because I could’ve sworn his eyes were silvery gray when I first saw him.
“Follow me,” he instructed, then walked through the metal door that led into a huge metal barn of sorts. It was easily two stories high. When I stepped inside the dim interior, my suspicions were confirmed.
We initially entered a massive open area set up a little like a huge living room. There were couches, some recliners, a big-screen TV, pool table—and was that a stripper pole? Oh my God. Don’t ask me how I knew all that but still didn’t know who the hell I was.
There was an L-shaped bar, and I could see what appeared to be the entrance to an industrial kitchen at one end. Several tables were scattered in front of it. A man behind the bar glanced up at me as I gawked around but kept wiping down the surface in front of him. Two bathrooms flanked either side of a central hall. A stairwell started close to one of the side walls and went up to a second story. Struck dumb by the grand scale of it all, I paused and looked around.
Without looking back to see if I was following, he cut through the room and started up the stairs. Only then did he cast a glance my way. Something about him made my chest ache, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with the possibility that we knew each other.
