Cuffed (The Untouchables MC 1)

Prologue

I stood on the street in the freezing rain, wondering if this was it. If I was going to end up sick or worse. In a ditch somewhere. I looked around for shelter but there was nothing.

There wasn’t anywhere to go from here.

I’d been heading down the coast, keeping mostly to the service roads. I was hoping to find someplace warm to wait out the winter.

Or at least, warmer.

I’d barely gotten fifteen miles from my last foster home before the rain started.

Home. That was a laugh.

My scrawny arms wrapped around my torso as I crossed the road . I hurried down the sidewalk past rows of small, somewhat rundown houses. The kind of neighborhood that wasn’t rich, but cared enough to plant a few flowers.

Or at least that’s the impression I got through the freezing rain.

I’d gone half a block when a door opened. I heard a gravelly voice say ‘hey kid.’’ I was about to run when a huge wall of a man stepped into my path.

“You got someplace to go?”

I stared up at him, the rain washing over both of us. He stared right back at me, absolutely impervious to the water. I was squinting but he looked like he was actually challenging the rain.

Daring it to get him wet.

He was big and tall, with long dark hair and piercing eyes. He was dressed in denim and leather, though he didn’t seem too worried about it getting ruined.

I should have run. I was thinking about it, though he could have easily stopped me. But one thing stood out to me. The most surprising thing you could notice about a giant man who looked like a norse god and a badass from a Quentin Tarantino movie rolled into one.

The giant had kind eyes.

I’m not sure why but I shook my head in answer to his question. No, I definitely did not have someplace to go.

“What’s your name, kid?”

I chewed my lip, realizing I needed a new name.

“Casey.” I lied. It was close enough to my real name. My old name. The one that didn’t matter anymore. The name of a girl who’d had parents. And lost them.

Besides, I’d had a friend named Casey once.

The man considered me, and then nodded.

“Well, I guess you better come inside.”

I hesitated.

“You a pervert?”

He laughed and shook his head.

“No, hon. I got a thing for strays is all.”

I followed him to the side door of the house. It was hard to see much in the torrential downpour but it looked well kept. It definitely wasn’t anything fancy.

I stepped inside the kitchen and the smell of home cooking hit me. My stomach growled so loudly that the big man heard it. He raised an eyebrow.

“That hungry, eh?”

A scruffy looking dog and two fat cats stared at me from different spots in the kitchen. I stood near the door in case I had to run for it. But for some reason, the animals put me at ease.

“Saw you out the window.”

He ladled me out a bowl of stew and set in on the table. I shouldn’t have eaten it but my body took over. I moved so fast you would have thought I was starving.

I was starving. And cold. And pissed off at the world.

But for the first time in months, I wasn’t scared.

He sat across from me and opened a beer.

“Well, Casey, I’m Mason. And if you’ve got someplace you should be I’d surely like to hear about it.”

I stopped eating for just long enough to answer him.

“No place to be.”

He scratched his chin as I shoveled food into my face. Good food. Magically delicious food.

The broth was tomato-y but I tasted celery and onions and hmmm… potatoes.

“How old are you, kid?”

I glared at him a little.

“Not a kid. Fifteen.”

He grinned at me.

“Is that so? My apologies young lady.”

“Not a girl.”

He laughed and shook his head.

“Whatever you say, Casey.”

How the hell had he known I was a girl? I’d tucked all my hair into a baseball cap. And I was wearing every t-shirt I owned under a hooded sweatshirt and a denim jacket.

I was in disguise, dammit.

“You need a place to stay?”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to seem too eager. But I would have killed for a place to stay. After a handful of days on the run, I’d realized finding a safe place to sleep was next to impossible.

You could doze with your back against a wall, but actual sleep? That was a joke.

“I guess.”

“Well, I got a spare bedroom in the back.”

I looked at him, desperate to believe he was just a nice, big, tattoo covered man.

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch.”

“Don’t like charity. Don’t need it.”

“Fair enough. I got plenty of work for an enterprising young lady such as yourself.”

I nodded. I didn’t bother telling him I was a boy again. The jig was up.