Page 1 of Big, Bad Biker Daddy

CHAPTER ONE

Beth

"So, is this your first time in Colorado?" asked the taxi driver as he drove me from DIA to the address I had given him. Not exactly ready to open up to anyone, I kept my head down and continued watching my phone.

I didn't know what to think about anything at this point thanks to how sleep deprived I was. Having not slept for the last two days, I couldn't help but nod off on occasion, but I refused to fall asleep. Until I reached Amanda's house, I refused to let my guard down for even a second.

It wasn't the driver's fault I was exhausted and was having a hard time trusting anybody. In fact, it wasn't anyone's fault out here. My troubles started long before Amanda invited me to come see her.

Last year, while I was still in high school, Mother ended up remarrying Jackson, a jerk who wasted absolutely no time making himself at home in our house. He was part of a motorcycle club, and he liked to invite his friends over to the house every day. What made it even worse was the fact that his friends seemed to have hidden intention towards me, despite me being seventeen.

Originally, I thought that it was just me, and I preferred to keep my distance from all of them. But recently, I started to realize that something was really wrong. The day Jackson tried to defend a friend of his, who had tried forcing himself on me, he told me that, if I wasn't going to be kind to his friends, he wasn't going to let me stay in the house any longer. That same night, I found out what he meant when I overheard him talking to a few men in his club that he was going to take the lock off my door so that they didn't have to worry about me giving them any trouble.

Rather than return home from work that night, I had called Amanda, who had moved to Colorado for college, and she invited me to come move in with her so that I didn't have to continue to deal with Jackson and his friends. She purchased me a plane ticket that night, and I disappeared to the airport. By the morning, I had arrived in Colorado and was exhausted beyond all belief. Amanda was still worried about me and getting nervous about everything that was going, so I continued to message her as I was driven to her house.

Because of how paranoid I was, I had looked up the address on my phone as well, allowing myself to see how much longer before we arrived. However, the longer we drove, the more I started to panic. The navigation system on my phone showed that we were going in the wrong direction, and it kept indicating that we needed to turn around. When I took a screenshot and sent it to Amanda, she texted me that I was heading in the wrong direction and told me to get out of there.

"Hey, I think I changed my mind about going to that address," I told the taxi driver as I looked around at the unfamiliar city. "You can drop me off here at the gas station. I can walk across the street to my friend's workplace." The driver maintained a polite smile as he shook his head at me.

"No need," he reassured me, his voice calm and professional. "I can take you to the address no problem. There's no need to bother your friend." Thinking fast for the best excuse, I shook my head.

"Yeah, she's not at home, and the door's locked," I lied. "There's no need to go to her house if no one's going to be there. You should really just let me go so I can wait for her. I'll remember to tip generously." He raised an eyebrow at me as he shook his head at me.

"There's no need," he repeated, his voice cold and frightening as he spoke. "I can take you to the address." Panic overtook me as I thought about what to do now.

While we were still in the city, I had no idea where I was or where we were going, and I was scared for my life. Immediately, I messaged Amanda, telling her how the driver was refusing to let me out of the car. She told me to keep telling her where I was and, under no circumstances was I to accept any food or drink from the man. After sending her another screenshot of my location and the license plate number from the taxi, she said that she was sending help and told me to stay calm.

Deciding to distract myself with the city that was passing around me, I started trying to decide what I was going to do if anything happened now. I hadn't left Texas and travelled to Colorado only to put myself at the mercy of another gang or club. There had to be something I could do. Looking down at the floor, I smiled when I saw the cooler on the floor.

"Help yourself to a drink from the cooler," the driver called out from the front, almost as if he had already caught me looking at it. "I like to offer those to my customers free of charge." Immediately, my stomach started churning, and I forced a smile and nodded.

"Thanks," I said as I opened the cooler, a plan already formulating in my head.

To my amazement, I saw the soda sitting at the top, the very miracle I needed. Taking the soda, I closed the cooler, looked at the window and rolled it down before carefully pulling the lock. Seeing that the driver was too distracted by the traffic as he approached the stop light, I knew it was do or die time. As he pulled to a stop, I prepared for my escape.

As soon as the car had stopped at the light, the driver turned to look at me, and I popped open the can of soda, taking aim directly at his eyes. Thanks to how much I had shaken it, the soda sprayed in his face, and he yelled as he ducked away to escape the spray. With the driver temporarily distracted, I popped the back passenger door open and took off into the street, my backpack and phone in hand as I raced toward the sidewalk.

"Get back here!" he called out as I raced toward the nearest building, one of the many gas stations along the same stretch of road, thankful that my plan had worked.