Grace woke slowly, pain keeping her eyes closed. Her head throbbed at the back of her skull, and her skin was so chilled that goose bumps pebbled her skin.
She tried to move her arms, frowning when she couldn’t. Something was stopping her. Something around her wrists.
Restraints. And she was sitting on a hard wooden chair. That’s why her neck was sore. Her chin had been pressed to her chest.
Shuffling noises sounded around her. Slowly, she peeled her eyes open.
She was still in Lizzie’s safe house, only now she sat in the living room. She swiveled her head around, ignoring the sharp pain in her skull, immediately spotting Logan in another chair, hands behind his back and feet bound with metal chains.
Her breaths sped up with panic. Blood no longer seeped from his chest, but there was something in his neck now. Wait…was that…the end of a dart? It almost looked like an animal tranquilizer.
Fear for Logan began to skitter over her skin. Her breaths whooshed in and out of her chest even harder, faster. His chest was still moving. Only slightly, but he was breathing. That was good.
Glancing down, she realized why she was so cold. Her top, pants and shoes had been removed, leaving her in just her bra and underwear.
She gave her restraints a small tug. Rope chafed against her wrists, digging into her flesh. She took more deep breaths, counting to five on each inhale, then holding the breath for another five.
More shuffling sounded from the other room. She steeled herself as footsteps drew closer, then Kieran moved from the bedroom into the living room.
Every step closer brought a new wave of fear. The man of her nightmares. The man who threw her into hell eight years ago. A hell she’d been clawing her way out of ever since.
Just like on the surveillance footage, his head was now shaved, his face thinner than she remembered. Something that had stayed the same, though, were his pale blue eyes. Eyes of pure evil.
“Hello, Grace.” He studied her face. Her body. God, how she wanted to cover herself. Her skin crawled, having his eyes on her. “So many years have passed where I assumed I’d never have you again. Too many.”
“What did you do to him?”
He cast a quick look at Logan before turning back to her. His smile reminded her of a lion as it hunted prey. “I shot him with a powerful tranquilizer created for large animals. I didn’t know if the chains would hold him.” If they were normal chains, they wouldn’t. “Fortunately, it didn’t kill him. I want you to watch that.”
Grace couldn’t allow herself to accept that would ever happen. No way. He wasn’t going to die.
Kieran took slow, predatory steps forward. “Do you know how sad I was when I couldn’t find you?” He gave her a hurt look. “And angry? There was a lot of anger. I did a lot of terrible things before you. But after…”
When he stopped in front of her and lowered to his haunches, she tried to pull back but could barely move. Reaching out, he trailed a finger from the base of her neck, down to the top of her scar.
Revulsion mixed with fear throbbed inside her as he trailed his finger along the scar he’d created. His finger then continued over her stomach, her underwear, reaching the scar on her thigh.
“You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to keep,” he said quietly. “Since you, I’ve been searching for someone to take your place. Someone to chase away my demons and consume me the way you did. For a while, that woman was Lizzie. She liked being my favorite. A fucked-up upbringing will do that to a girl. But then I found you again.”
“Don’t. Touch me.” The words sounded scratchy, even to her ears. But she was proud of herself for getting them out. For holding his gaze.
He almost looked like he wanted to smile. “You were so passive last time. I’ve been wondering if you’d grown some courage.” His hand was now wrapped around her upper thigh in an almost intimate way…possessive. Her stomach churned with the need to be sick.
“And I was wondering if you’d grown a conscience.” That, or died for his sins.
That same slight smile. “Afraid not. And now that I have you, I won’t be letting you go.” He squeezed her thigh so tightly she cringed. He leaned forward, whispering in her ear. “Ever.”
The second he released her leg and stood, air rushed out of her chest. When the man touched her, she couldn’t breathe. She could barely think.
“How did you find me?”
This time, his smile wasn’t so small. “I’m sure you know by now that the security footage at my compound led me to Logan’s boys. They’d just been all over the media, so identifying them wasn’t hard. I flew out to Cradle Mountain to give them a taste of their own medicine.”
Walking over to a kitchen drawer, he opened it, pulling out a knife. She tried not to react when he walked toward her, touching the sharp point with the tip of his finger.
“I intended to gut the whole team, one by one. Their enhanced abilities don’t scare me. It’s nothing a bullet or a bomb can’t tame. Imagine my surprise, though, when instead of finding Logan in his kitchen—I find you. A woman who’s disappeared off the face of the fucking planet for the last eight years. I thought I was seeing a ghost.”
He shook his head like he still couldn’t believe it.
“I turned off the power, wanting to see if you’d disappear along with the light, because surely you weren’t real. But then the moon reflected off that delicate skin of yours that I’ve missed so much. Suddenly, I no longer cared about Lizzie, or any of the other bitches the Blue Halo guys stole from me. All I cared about was you.”
“So you just used Lizzie until you didn’t need her anymore? You always intended to kill her?”
He kept touching the knife like it was the sole focus of his attention. “Of course. I needed her to get you somewhere isolated. Everything I asked her to do, she did, like the pathetic bitch she was.”
Grace tensed, forcing herself not to look into the other room and catch a glimpse of the now dead woman.
“Seeing that fear flash through your eyes as I waited for today, seeing your hands tremble and your body shake…it took me back. Back to eight years ago when I watched you in that bar. It was like my entrée before the main course. I also loved seeing those assholes get nervous. They knew I was close but they couldn’t find me.”
The guy was sick. “And now? What’s your plan? To keep me indefinitely?”
“Of course. You belong to me, Grace.”
He slid two phones out of his pocket, placing one on the kitchen counter and keeping the other in his grasp. Grace frowned, recognizing the one he held. “Is that…that’s Courtney’s.” Ice trickled over her skin.
He chuckled. “It is. I never give anyone my contact details, not even Lizzie. It’s how I’ve kept hidden all these years. That’s why I took your friend’s phone. Told Lizzie to call it with yours and send me your location.”
He dropped the phone, stomping on it in much the same way Lizzie had to hers.
“Is she okay?”
“That’ll depend on how long it takes for someone to find her. How long can a person survive in a freezer?”
Some of her fear fled, replaced by red-hot anger. Anger that he was hurting the people she cared about. That he had zero remorse. “I hope they find you and they gut you.”
The smile left his lips. When he moved toward her this time, his steps were deliberate and powerful. Dropping down again, he wrapped his fingers around her neck, pressing the knife to her face. There wasn’t enough pressure to cut her, but the threat was there.
“They won’t. They’ll be the ones gutted. You’re mine, and what you did will not go unpunished. Just like Logan will be punished for touching you. And your father for hiding you from me.”
She felt the color drain from her face. Her father? “What have you done?”
The knife was now moving down her chest, her stomach. “I took him.”
No…
“But that’s not the question you should be asking. Don’t you want to know what I plan to do with him?”
A beat of silence passed. He was going to make her ask. Her words were spoken through gritted teeth. “What do you plan to do to him?”
The knife trailed back up her throat to sit just under her chin. She barely paid it any attention now.
“Instead of telling you, why don’t I show you?”
Turning, Kieran walked out the door. The click of something opening, maybe the trunk of a car, sounded, then the bang as it was shut. Less than a minute later, he returned with her father slung over his shoulder.
Grace couldn’t silence her cries any longer.
