A muffled voice pulled at me. Some part of me recognized that the tone was angry. I had a radar for rage and could pick it up before it fully turned to the point of no return.
My eyelids fluttered. Each tiny movement brought a burst of light. Snapshots filled my mind, but none of them made sense.
I was in a car. No, an SUV. One with a black interior and tinted windows. But I could see through the windshield, and there was nothing but forest. The trees swam in wavy lines as I tried to focus.
The vehicle itself wasn’t familiar. My brows pulled together as I tried to sit up. I didn’t make it. Pressure tightened around my wrists and ankles with the attempted movement.
I looked down and stilled. My hands and legs were bound with zip ties. I stared at the little pieces of plastic as if that would somehow help the scene make sense.
Panic built in ragged waves as I searched my memory. Flashes of images appeared: the conversation with Nash, him leaving, my phone call with Grae.
My heart seized as I remembered someone grabbing me from behind.
My hands shifted to my side as I felt for the place where I’d been jabbed. My fingers caught on a tender spot. I hadn’t just imagined it. Someone had drugged me.
Curses sounded from outside the vehicle. My body knew the voice before my brain registered it. It had become so accustomed to guarding against the owner of it and preparing for the infliction of his rage that it was extra attuned.
The door to the back seat flew open, and I skittered back. With my hands and feet bound, the movement was awkward at best, but I still managed to create space between me and the man in the opening—the one whose features I’d once seen as kind and gentle. The man I’d thought would be my future.
Adam’s typically perfectly styled hair was in haphazard disarray, and his button-down shirt was rumpled. “Finally.”
He spoke as if I were late to a date we’d planned. I couldn’t find words to respond as my heart hammered harder against my ribs.
Adam snapped his fingers. “Are you awake?”
“You mean have the drugs you stabbed me with worn off?” It was dumb to talk back to him, I knew as much, but I couldn’t stop myself. Maybe it was the past few weeks with Nash or my time with Grae, Wren, and Aspen. They’d reminded me of who I was: someone who didn’t let people walk all over her. Not anymore.
Adam waved me off as if it were nothing. “We were in a hurry, and I didn’t want you to make a scene.”
I gaped at him. Is he for real?
He tapped on his phone and turned the screen around to face me. “How else can we get out of here?”
I blinked back at him, confused.
Adam gripped the phone harder, shaking it in my face. “How. Do. We. Get. Out. Of. Here?”
“Out of where?”
He let a stream of curses fly. “I should’ve known better than to choose a moron for a wife.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from snapping back.
“Whoever the hell you were on the phone with called the damned police. They’ve got checkpoints on the two main roads in and out of Cedar Ridge. Tell me a back way.”
A tiny bit of relief swept through me. Of course, Grae had gotten the police involved. And Lawson and Nash wouldn’t take any chances. Not with me.
“There are only two roads in and out of Cedar Ridge.” I tried to keep my voice calm as my gaze swept around us. I didn’t recognize exactly where we were, but I knew we hadn’t made it past the town limits. It looked like a forest service access road, but there were a million around here, and I had no idea which one this was. Even if I could get away and break the zip ties, I wouldn’t have the first idea which direction to head in.
Adam cursed again, this time punctuating it with a swift kick to the tire. “You just had to live in the middle of goddamned nowhere, didn’t you? I won’t let these moron hick pigs get the best of me.”
He moved so fast I barely had time to register it before he’d grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me out of the SUV. “You will tell me a way out of here.”
He shook me with each word, spittle flying and hitting my cheeks. “Answer me!”
Blood roared in my ears. “There’s no other way.” The words were barely audible. I hated how soft they were, how my voice quavered.
Adam slammed me against the SUV. My head snapped back, colliding with the window. The world around me tunneled, and my legs trembled.
“Don’t you pass out on me,” he snapped.
“My head,” I croaked. “It’s still hurt.”
He knew about my injuries because there was no doubt in my mind that he’d been the one to inflict them outside Dockside.
Adam’s hold on me instantly gentled. “Shit, baby. I’m sorry. I’m just stressed.”
My stomach twisted, nausea sweeping through me at the familiar personality shift. He could be the one who inflicted the pain, but he also wanted to be the one to soothe it.
“Did they check you for a concussion?” he probed.
I blinked back at him. I’d play up the weakness if it would help me. If I could get his keys somehow, I could make it out of here, press the roadside assistance button, and ask for help. I cast my eyes downward. “Yes, the doctor said I had a concussion.”
Adam let out a growl. “No one hurts you.”
My gaze snapped to him, confusion swirling there. “It was you.”
He lashed out, pinning me to the car, his hand at my throat. “You think I lurk in the dark and attack women?”
“N-n-no, but I…” I had no idea how to answer that.
“It was your goddamned father. My P.I. caught it on film.”
My father. I waited for the shock to hit me, but it didn’t. Because I knew the evil that lived inside him. It was more sickening that Adam’s P.I. had taken pictures of my attack but hadn’t bothered to step in or call for help. What kind of monster did that?
Adam kept one hand around my throat but smoothed the other over my hair. “Don’t worry, baby. Your dad’s been dealt with.”
Bile crept up my throat. “Dealt with?”
A slow grin spread across Adam’s face. “No one touches what’s mine.”
“W-what did you do?”
He huffed out a breath. “Let’s just say some of the local wildlife will have a feast to snack on for the next week or so. How long do you think it takes for a corpse to decompose completely? I think the fact that I sliced him open will help.”
I bit my lip to keep from hurling. I knew Adam was a monster, had known it for years, but I’d never suspected this level of psychopathy. “What are you going to do with me?”
Adam arched a brow. “No ‘thank you?’”
I just stared back at him, having no idea what to say. No idea what to feel. The man who’d tortured me for years was no longer walking this Earth. But the violence that took him from it made me sick.
Adam rolled his eyes. “I’m taking you home, of course. And if I can’t get you out of this godforsaken town, then I’ll leave you in the forest to rot. If I can’t have you, no one else can either.”
