Logan tightened his fingers around Grace’s hand as the car pulled into a long driveway. Gray clouds covered the setting sun. Rain threatened at any moment, contributing to the ominous dread tugging at his gut. The feeling had started the second they’d been picked up at his home—and he didn’t like it.
He’d been in the back seat with Grace the entire drive, but that hadn’t stopped him from keeping his eyes peeled for any tail. There hadn’t been one.
The only reason he was allowing this to happen was because Steve had assured him that outside of himself, the woman guarding Lizzie and the driver, a trusted agent, no one else knew about this location.
Luckily, no one had asked for Logan’s or Grace’s phone. If they had, it would have been a deal breaker. He needed his phone so he could contact his team if he needed them.
The gun in his holster helped calm him, too.
The driver stopped in front of an old wooden house. It was nestled amongst trees and, in the distance, Logan could hear the crashing of waves against rocks.
“I’ll wait here,” the driver, Trav, said from behind the wheel.
Logan climbed out of the car, going around to Grace’s side and helping her to her feet. Small freckles of water dropped onto his jacket. Her gaze shot up. It would be bucketing soon.
“You doing okay?” he asked Grace, searching her face as they walked to the door.
She nodded, nibbling on her bottom lip. “I’m just worried about her. She’s not in a good place, and I think moving her here has made her mental state worse.”
Logan ran his hand up and down Grace’s spine, trying to bring warmth and calm. Lifting his fist, he knocked on the wooden door. He could hear the sound of crying from inside the house. It was heavy and pained. Lizzie.
Trying the handle, he wasn’t surprised to find it locked. Logan knocked again. The crying inside became louder.
After another beat, the sound of the car door opening echoed behind them. Then Trav was beside them, pulling a key from his pocket. “Steve warned that Sue, the guard, might have her hands full trying to calm Lizzie.”
He unlocked the door, swinging it open, and stepped back.
Logan nodded his thanks, stepping into a well-lit living area, hand around Grace’s. To the right was a kitchen, and up ahead was a closed door. It was behind the door where Lizzie’s cries were coming from.
He walked forward slowly, hand going to the door and pushing open.
Lizzie sat on the bed, against the headboard, knees tugged up to her chest and head down. Her entire body was shaking.
Grace moved straight to the bed, sitting on the side but not reaching out. “Lizzie, it’s Grace, can you hear me?”
The woman didn’t move, cries continuing to cause her body to vibrate.
Grace continued to talk while Logan studied the room, listening in to how many heartbeats he could hear. He frowned. There was just Grace’s and Lizzie’s…and the guard at the front of the house.
He frowned. Where was the female guard? She hadn’t come to the door, and she wasn’t in the room.
He moved to the window, not seeing a damn thing but trees. Then he crossed to the other side of the room, to a closed door that he assumed was a connected bathroom. As he drew closer, a light, acidic smell penetrated his nose.
His fingers wrapped around the handle and he tugged.
The second the door opened, he saw her. A woman lying on the white tiles, blood seeping from a bullet wound to the head.
Logan’s hand went to his gun. He was mid-turn when the sound of a gun going off splintered the room. Pain laced his chest, sending him to the floor, and his vision went black.
Grace sat across the bed from Lizzie, trying and failing to calm her cries. Her heart hurt for the woman who looked so broken.
She vaguely heard Logan’s footsteps behind her. But it wasn’t until a door clicked open that Lizzie finally raised her head. And when she did—she withdrew something from her lap.
Grace barely had time to scream before the trigger was pulled, and Logan crumpled to the floor.
For a split second, Grace’s world stopped. Then a buzzing started between her ears that had everything going silent around her. Crying out, she ran to Logan, hand going to his chest to stem the blood. Oh, God, there was so much, and he was so still! Was he even breathing?
She’d just lowered her head to listen for a heartbeat when another gunshot went off.
Grace jolted, eyes shooting up to see their driver, Trav, lying in the doorway, blood pouring from a bullet wound in his head.
She felt the blood drain from her face. When she looked back to Logan, she glimpsed the bathroom. Fear and panic washed over her like a tidal wave at the sight of a woman, eyes open, bullet wound to the head…just like Trav.
Lizzie rose to her feet, the desolation of moments ago wiped from her face, replaced with…nothing. Her expression was completely clear. The gun was still in her hand and pointed directly at Grace.
“Unlock your phone and slide it across the floor to me.”
Grace’s mouth dropped open. Who the hell was this woman? Her heart felt broken, she felt broken, and Lizzie wanted her phone?
A beat of complete silence and stillness passed before Lizzie huffed. “He’s not dead, Grace. I shot the other two in the head. Kill shots. I shot Logan in the chest. The chest that’s still moving.”
Grace glanced back to Logan, noticing for the first time that, just as Lizzie said, his chest was rising and falling.
He wasn’t dead. Not yet.
“Now give me your goddamn phone or I’ll go against Kieran’s orders and the next one will be a kill shot.”
The name slivered into her ears. Her skin chilled, terror thundering through her chest. “Kieran?”
When the woman’s eyes narrowed, flicking back to Logan, Grace cried out. “No!” With trembling fingers, she tugged the phone from her back pocket, unlocking it and sliding it across the floor.
Lizzie trained the gun on Grace once again as she bent down and lifted the phone. The gun remained pointed at her as Lizzie pressed some keys before putting it to her ear.
“It’s done, and I’ve sent you our location.”
When she hung up, she placed the phone on the floor and stomped on it. The thing shattered.
“Why?” The word tore from Grace’s chest. She continued to press against Logan’s bullet wound, praying that he wouldn’t lose too much blood.
“Why what? Why am I doing this?” She almost looked like she was going to smile. “Kieran and I love each other. He didn’t treat me like the other women. We have a connection. A real relationship.”
Grace just stopped the gasp from leaving her lips. Stockholm syndrome. Lizzie had developed a psychological bond to her captor.
How had she not seen it? But Grace already knew the answer to that. Lizzie’s emotions had looked and felt real.
God, the woman was the best damn actress she’d ever seen.
“So everything you said to me was a lie.” All their sessions together. The tears. The fear. The panic. Grace could barely believe it.
“Good, wasn’t I?” She smiled.
“I don’t…” Grace swallowed. “I don’t understand.” Anything. She didn’t understand what the heck was going on.
“Then let me simplify this for you. Kieran watched those men destroy his compound through his surveillance footage. He went to Cradle Mountain for them, but it didn’t take him long to find me. The first night, he came to my window…” She sighed. “I couldn’t get the thing unlocked fast enough. Then each night after, I’d sneak outside to be with him.”
“He’s a rapist and a murderer, Lizzie.”
A flicker of remorse flashed over her face. “We don’t choose who we love.”
Kieran must have seen her weakness and jumped on it. “If you wanted to be with him, why didn’t you just leave with him that first night?”
Her eyes narrowed onto Logan, and Grace was a second away from leaping in front of him to save him from another bullet. “Kieran told me all about your history. He told me that as long as Logan was alive, the asshole wouldn’t stop until Kieran was dead.”
That was true.
Logan’s body twitched. Grace’s eyes shot around to him. Was he waking? She knew that he healed faster than the average person, but would that still be the case with a bullet lodged in the wound? At least, she assumed it was lodged.
“Shit. Kieran better get here soon. If I need to shoot him a second time, there’s a chance I could kill him. Kieran wants that honor.”
Grace wouldn’t be letting that happen. Rising to her feet, she positioned herself in front of Logan.
Lizzie scowled, following Grace’s movement with her gun. “What are you doing? I told Kieran I wouldn’t kill you either, but if I have to, I will.”
“Lizzie, you need to listen to me. Kieran isn’t going to kill me. He’s infatuated with me. When he took me eight years ago, he was supposed to deliver me to the compound. He didn’t. He kept me. It’s exactly what he’ll do again.”
Lizzie shook her head, the gun lowering a fraction. “You’re lying. He loves me. Everyone else is expendable. He told me so.”
Grace took a small step forward, still blocking Logan’s body with her own. “Do you know why he takes redheaded women? Because I’m a natural redhead. It began with me. Eight years later, and he’s still as obsessed with me now as he was then.”
Lizzie’s chest rose and fell in quick succession. “No.”
A car engine sounded outside. Oh, God, was he here? “Lizzie, please believe me when I say, you are expendable to him. If you don’t kill him, he’ll kill you.”
Anger marred her face. “No!” She raised the gun again.
Grace was readying herself to drop to the floor when another gunshot went off. She cried out…
Lizzie went limp, blood pouring from the side of her head.
Nausea rose in Grace’s stomach. She looked across the room, freezing at the sight of the man who had filled her nightmares for so long.
He smiled. “She always was a dumb bitch.”
Grace dove for the gun that had dropped from Lizzie’s fingers. She heard heavy footsteps seconds before a sharp pain burst through her head, sending her into darkness.
