by Pam Godwin
How many times have I been drugged?
Prodding a finger along my throat, I feel bruising around two injection sites. Another one flares on the inside of my elbow.
I grit my teeth and raise my bound arms over my head. Out of the corner of my eye, the guitar string bracelet glimmers on my bicep. I still have it. Lorne’s with me. The thought makes it easier to breath.
Steadying my stance, I tighten my abs and ram my arms downward as fast and hard as possible against my stomach while pulling my elbows apart.
The duct tape rips off. No pain. Small victory.
I scan my clothes and consider my options. The square toe of the boot is hard leather. Could I hit him over the head with it? Would it knock him out? The panties would rip if I tried to choke him with the strings. Not sure what I can do with the cutoff shorts and t-shirt, but the under-wire bra is the right length and shape for strangulation.
Once I’m booted and dressed in everything but the bra, I turn my attention to the single light bulb in the ceiling. There’s no pull switch or lever on the wall.
I’m an inch too short to twist the bulb, so it takes a few jumps to knock it loose in the socket.
Blackness floods the room, and I release a breath. When he opens the door, he’ll let light in, but the shadows will give me an extra second to take him by surprise.
Wrapping my fingers around the straps of the bra, I stand near the hinges of the door and wait.
After ten minutes, maybe longer, a key slides into the lock. My muscles tense.
The tumbler slides open, and the door scrapes along the floor. My heart rate explodes.
Light spills in, casting a white stripe through the room. John’s tall silhouette moves past the door, and I launch.
Hooking the bra around his neck, I fall against him and grapple with the straps, trying to twist them tighter, harder around the column of his neck.
Terror engulfs me, shaking me to my bones as he swings an arm and nails me in the face. I lose my grip and adjust my hands, grunting, panting, and climbing his towering frame. But I’m at the wrong angle. Hanging on his side, fighting his arms, I can’t get a good handhold.
Spinning around, he tries to shake me off. Every movement causes my fingers to lose purchase.
“Enough.” He reaches back and jams the cold, hard, undeniable barrel of a gun against my head. “Let go.”
My heart thunders. My breaths wheeze, and my fingers curl tighter around the bra wires.
“I missed you, Raina.” He digs the gun against my scalp. “But I won’t hesitate to blow your brains across the wall.”
Panic, adrenaline, terror—all of it floods my system. I can’t defend myself against a gun.
If I run, he’ll shoot.
If I fight, he’ll shoot.
I release my grip and scream, “Help! Somebody help me!”
He whirls around, clamps a hand over my mouth, and shoves the gun under my chin. “Save your screaming for when I’m inside you. There’s no one around for miles.”
Tears sear my throat and ache in my eyes.
Where are we? Another isolated property in the middle of nowhere? A place where Lorne will never find me?
He yanks me out of the closet and into a bedroom furnished with log cabin decor. Beyond the window lies a blue lake that stretches toward the setting sun. Woodland creeps in from all directions. No other houses. No cars or boats. No people.
I scan the room for clues and hone in on a row of picture frames on the dresser behind me.
My stomach clenches. I know those faces. It’s the same couple in every picture.
Mary and Sheriff Fletcher.
“Fletcher helped you.” I glare at John.
“Of course.” He gestures toward the door with the gun. “Walk.”
I shuffle out of the room, flexing my hands to stifle the trembling. “Where’s Conor?”
“Living in my house. Fucking my son. Or… if Jake’s anything like me, he is fucking her.”
“He’s nothing like you.”
The instant I say it, I know it’s not true.
It’s hard to look at John without seeing Jake and Jarret in his face. The brown eyes, full lips, square jawline, symmetrical features—he’s sickeningly, disturbingly handsome.
Without the hat, he appears older, thanks to the silver peppered in his dark hair. He carries extra weight in his midsection, but his arms and legs are muscled and toned. Every time I’ve fought him, he’s overpowered me.
I step out of the bedroom and enter a large living area with a stone hearth. A couch and chairs face a wall of windows that overlook the lake. The back door leads to a deck, and the lock requires a key.
Straight ahead is the kitchen, and beyond that, an interior door that likely opens to the garage. Opposite the picturesque windows is the front entry with another lock that requires another key to exit.
Even if those doors stood wide open, I wouldn’t reach them before John filled my skull with lead.
He trails me as I pass the chairs, the couch, and…
I yelp and shuffle back, bumping into him.
Those are dead bodies.
On the kitchen floor.
Holy fuck, that’s the old couple that kidnapped me today.
With bullet holes in their heads.
Dead.
A chill grips my spine.
“Why?” I blink rapidly, my shoulders hunched and tingling.
“I promised them I’d get their son back. Problem is their son is buried, wherever my boys bury bodies.”
If Jake and Jarret killed their son, he would’ve been a hitman or a dirty creditor. I don’t feel anything for him or the parents who abducted me.
Erin died because of them.
I’m here because they sold their souls to the devil.
John has caused so much death and torment, and it won’t end. Not while he’s alive.
Hatred simmers like acid in my veins. I jerk away from him and back up, shaking and clenching my fists.
I want to run. I want to fight.
My gaze shifts to the pistol in his hand.
I want to live.
“I really don’t care if you hate me right now.” He advances. “You’re here because that’s what I want.”
“Fuck you, you sick fuck.”
“Damn, you’re beautiful.” He licks his lips. “Your feisty spirit, sexy eyes, tight body…” His slow perusal crawls over my skin. Then he softens his voice. “You remind me of Julep. She was such a firecracker. Huge brown eyes like yours, and a heart of gold. Being with her made me a better man. Then I lost her and…” His forehead furrows, and he rubs a hand over it, smoothing away the creases. “When I’m with you, I feel young again.”
“You’re a psychopath.”
His nostrils pulse, and he stabs a finger at the couch. “On your back. Arms over your head. Legs spread.”
Staring down the barrel of his gun, I know without hesitation that I’d rather die. I can’t bear the thought of him touching me, putting his despicable mouth on me, and unzipping his pants.
If I turn and run, he’ll shoot me in the back, and this will all be over.
It’s the only way.
My muscles tense on the verge of springing, but a soundless command holds me in place.
Live, my heart whispers.
A heart that’s tethered to a man who would feel my death like his own.
Lorne is out there looking for me, and his ruthlessness is an unstoppable weapon. He’ll find me. I just need to survive until he does.
Surviving means enduring the thrusting, panting pestilence of John Holsten’s lust.
“See that?” He points at a control panel on the wall near the front door. “Fletcher’s high-tech security system will sound if anyone approaches the property. If, by some miracle, Lorne learns your location, I’ll know he’s coming.” He wriggles the gun. “I saved a bullet just for him. Now get on the couch and open those legs.”
I sway beneath the weight of hopel
essness, but my resolve holds steady. I’ll brave this with the determination to escape.
I’ll sustain by transforming into the woman I once was with him. The numb, robotic creature who detached and endured.
My pulse pounds in my stomach. My mouth floods with excess saliva, and my skin feels heavy and hypersensitive as it prickles and tightens against my bones.
I try to distance myself, but the feelings inside me are too deep, too human. I don’t know how to separate from a heart that’s so swollen and raw with love.
Lorne lives in my soul, always with me, and he’ll be with me through this.
I swallow, choking against the burning revulsion in my throat.
Dread leaks from my eyes.
Agony stabs through my chest.
My insides shatter into panic-stricken tremors as I sit on the couch and spread my legs.
Sheriff Fletcher drives his SUV with Mary in the backseat. I sit beside him, my pulse beating a cold, steady rhythm and my pistol trained on his sobbing wife.
As we approach the lake cabin, my jaw locks.
Raina’s in there. She’s so fucking close I can feel her in my skin. As much as I want to storm in with guns blazing, I can’t.
Fletcher warned me about the security system, so this won’t be a smash and grab situation. Right about now, John’s being alerted of intruders. He’ll use Raina as a hostage, and there will be a standoff. Since Fletcher’s a wild card, Jake is my only backup. My biggest concern is Raina getting caught in the crossfire.
My plan accounts for all of this. It’s complicated, risky, and fucking perfect as long as there isn’t a single misstep.
Up ahead, Jake parks my truck on the vacant road. He’ll do a perimeter check and catch up.
Fletcher motors past him and pulls into the driveway.
“If you don’t give me your full cooperation,” I say, “Mary dies.”
She whimpers from the back seat.
“I said I would.” He stops the SUV and kills the engine, his face gaunt and pale.
Before we left Sandbank, he gave me the keys to the cabin and a layout of the floor plan. Then Jake returned his gun to him.
Fletcher rolled over on John, and John will feel that betrayal the instant Fletcher enters the cabin with me.
Arming the sheriff with a gun makes him more pliable. Whether he turns that weapon on Jake or me is uncertain. Doing so would risk Mary’s life, which is why he didn’t try to shoot me on the way here.
But the night is still young.
“Get her.” I motion at Mary.
He carries her to the door, and I follow, scanning the empty windows of the one-story cabin. He steps aside so I can push the key into the lock. Then we’re in.
The door opens to a vast sitting room, wall of glass, and open kitchen. I’m aware of everything. Every shadow. Every creak. I’m so reined in and calm I don’t react to the two dead bodies on the floor near the back.
One is a woman, probably the kidnapper from the vet clinic. If so, John cleaned up loose ends I won’t have to deal with.
I keep Fletcher and Mary in front of me, my pistol sweeping between them and the surrounding rooms.
A few more steps into the cabin brings John into my line of sight.
He lies face down on the couch with Raina struggling beneath him. Hips thrusting between her kicking legs, he pins her arms above her head and holds a gun to her cheek.
A sucking, roaring maelstrom of madness and violence implodes beneath my skin, and I brace against it with everything I have, desperately trying not to let it pull me in.
He slows his vile humping and slides his soulless gaze to mine.
My self-control is a jagged crag on which cold fury teeters. I dangle an impulse away from filling this room with hailing blood and carnage.
His finger curls around the trigger, the gun aimed at Raina. He only needs to squeeze.
He may not have it in him to murder his sons, but the rest of us mean nothing. If I shoot, he’ll pull that trigger. If I so much as move, he’ll kill her.
I take calming breaths, center all thought on the plan, and leash the ravenous storm inside me.
With a clearer mind, I’m able to acknowledge the details, like the fact that she’s wearing clothes. Her shorts are fastened. Her cries have fallen quiet, and her liquid brown eyes find mine from across the room.
She’s scared. Terrified. But not broken.
John isn’t inside her. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t already violated her, but he’s in this position because he wanted me to walk in and find him bucking on top of her with a gun to her head.
He intended for me to see it, imagine the worst, and come unglued.
I lost my shit when I was eighteen, and I paid gravely for it.
Lesson fucking learned.
“Don’t move.” He pushes off her, pointing the gun at her chest.
Her eyes stay with me, questioning.
John and Dalton taught me how to shoot. John is the best marksman I know. He can probably hit her and me before I fire a single round. One false move and we’ll both be blown to bits.
I give her a slight shake of my head and fight the pull of fear.
Fear is the rope around wrists in a ravine. It’s a knife in the heart, slowly twisting.
It hammers in my head and throbs behind my eyes, but I shake it off.
I need to be the one tying the rope and twisting the knife. I must keep my shit together.
John looks at Fletcher for the first time, his sneer laced with malice. “How could you?”
“John, listen to me. I didn’t have a choice.” Haggard and edgy, Fletcher inches to the closest chair and lowers Mary onto it. “He broke Mary’s arm and would’ve hurt her more if I didn’t cooperate. If it was Julep, you would’ve made the same decision.”
John grits his teeth and yanks Raina off the couch, with the barrel wedged against her ribs. “So what happens now? Are we all going to shoot each other?”
No one will shoot Raina.
I touch her with my gaze, wishing it was my arms.
The door opens behind me, and I swing my pistol from Fletcher to John, confident the tread of Jake’s approaching boots means his weapon is pointed at the sheriff.
“How’s Conor?” John looks at his son without a hint of surprise or concern.
Jake doesn’t answer, following the plan. We’re here to lead the questioning and control the end result.
I loosen my rigid fingers on the pistol and seek the comfort of Raina’s proximity.
Held at gunpoint, she stands strong and noble. There’s no withering. No waterworks. It’s not that she’s fearless. Given the shaking of her fists at her sides, she’s fighting an avalanche of emotions and holding herself together through sheer willpower. It’s fucking awe-inspiring.
Christ, I love her. I love her magnificence, her fortitude, and her spirituality. Her presence weaves through the bloodlust in my veins, pacifying me and keeping me focused.
“You booted me off the ranch for eight years.” I meet John’s dark eyes, burning to stab the life from them. “But you couldn’t boot me out of the family. In the end, you’re the one who lost it all—your job, your sons, your wife, and your fucking soul.”
“It’s not over, boy.” John stiffens, his finger twitching against the trigger.
I mark the aim of every gun in the room, the trajectory of every possible bullet, and draw a map in my head of where Raina should and shouldn’t be when everything goes south.
“You killed my mother.” Jake stands at my side, gun aimed at Fletcher, eyes on his father. “And Ava O’Conor.”
The air coils, the tension locked and loaded.
I feel it inside me, like icy, liquid metal sliding through my veins. My legs twitch, fighting the impulse to run for Raina, my throat thick with the need to roar.
I reach for her through eye contact, and she reaches back with a soft unblinking gaze.
We’re going to get through this.
“Julep wasn
’t supposed to be in that car.” John brings Raina tighter against him, an arm around her back and his thumb intimately stroking her upper arm.
Get your hands off her.
My nerves rampage, my heightened senses prickling and stretching me beyond my physical limits. I can’t watch Fletcher, John’s trigger finger, and his wandering hand all at once.
I focus on Raina, on the strength in her eyes, and check my rage before shifting back to John. “You killed my mother for the land.”
“Of course, it was for the fucking land. Ava was dead set against drilling on her precious inheritance. It was irrational fucking bullshit. That oil would’ve made us rich.”
“So you killed her and lost your wife in the process. Then you discovered Conor and I own the land, not my mother.”
He could’ve murdered us when we were small, but he wasn’t as evil then. He’s always been greedy. Always wanting more, more, more. But he wasn’t desperate enough to kill innocent children for it. That didn’t become an option until he ran the cattle operation into the ground and found himself owning bad people a lot of money.
“Julep’s death will always be my biggest regret.” John says remorsefully, as if he isn’t holding a gun to Raina’s heart. “I hope someday my sons will forgive me.”
How different things would’ve been if Julep hadn’t climbed into the car with my mother. From what I know about her, she would’ve kept John and Dalton on the right path. The four of us kids would’ve been raised by a mother.
I doubt John’s words move Jake in any way, but he reacts as if they do.
“Go to hell, you selfish prick. You took our mothers from us, because you wanted more money, more power, more possessions and bullshit. You will never be forgiven. Not for the heinous crimes you committed over the past twenty years. And not for the atrocities you’ve done and are currently doing to Raina.”
A furious tide of anger rises up John’s neck. “She’s mine, and I’ll do whatever—”
“Shut the fuck up.” I concentrate on his trigger finger, holding mine steady with the pistol’s sights lined up on his chest so very close to Raina’s head.
My teeth saw against the inside of my cheek, and the copper taste of blood fills my mouth.
