The other SUV. Caleb and Leo.
They'd been following after all. Just hanging back. Waiting for their brothers to spring the trap.
I was boxed in.
Trapped.
For a long, horrible moment, I just sat there. Engine idling. Hands shaking on the wheel. Heart pounding so hard I could hear it over the rumble of the motor. The SUVs crept closer from both directions, moving slowly now, inexorably. Like predators who knew their prey had nowhere left to go. Like wolves circling a wounded deer, patient and hungry, savoring the moment before the kill.
Think, I screamed at myself.THINK.
I scanned my surroundings with desperate eyes. The drop-off to my right was too steep, a sheer cliff face that fell away into darkness. I'd never survive the fall, and even if I did, I'd be broken and bleeding at the bottom of a ravine with no way to call for help. The mountain wall to my left was solid rock, ancient granite that had been there for millennia and would be there for millennia more. The road ahead and behind was blocked by men who had been planning this moment for three years.
But there—between Mason's SUV and the tree line—a gap. Narrow, barely wide enough for the rental car, choked with underbrush and fallen branches. If I timed it right, if I was fast enough, if the car could handle the rough terrain?—
It was stupid. It was reckless. It would probably get me killed.
I gunned the engine anyway. The car shot forward, engine screaming in protest. I wrenched the wheel to the right, aiming for that tiny gap between metal and wood. Through my window, I caught a glimpse of Mason's face—his eyes going wide, his mouth opening to shout something?—
Then I was through.
Branches scraped against the windows like skeletal fingers, filling the car with a shriek of metal on wood. The undercarriage groaned as I bounced over rocks and roots, the whole vehicle shuddering with each impact. Something cracked beneath me—a piece of the frame, maybe, or the exhaust pipe—but I didn't stop. I burst through the tree line onto the road beyond, tires squealing as they found asphalt again.
Yes. YES.
I'd made it. I'd actually made it. The road stretched out ahead of me, empty and clear, winding down the mountain toward?—
The road ended. Not gradually. Not with warning signs or barriers or any indication that anything was wrong. It juststopped, the asphalt giving way to a wall of orange construction cones arranged in a perfect line across both lanes. And behind them, parked sideways across the road like a final barrier, sat a massive construction truck.
ROAD CLOSED, announced a bright orange sign, the letters reflective and cheerful in my headlights.
I slammed on the brakes so hard the seatbelt cut into my chest, leaving a line of fire across my collarbone. The car skidded, spun, came to a stop mere feet from the truck's massive chrome grill. Close enough that I could see my own terrified reflection in the polished metal. Close enough that I could read the logo on the door: SUMMIT CONSTRUCTION LLC.
For a moment, I just stared. The cones were too new. Too perfectly placed, arranged with military precision in a line thathadn't been disturbed by weather or wildlife or time. The truck's engine was still running, a low rumble that vibrated through the ground, like someone had parked it there just moments ago.
This wasn't real construction.
This wasn't a real road closure. This was another trap. Another piece of the elaborate snare they'd built around me, cutting off every avenue of escape, herding me exactly where they wanted me to go.
They'd planned for everything. Known I would run, known which way I'd turn, known exactly which roads I'd take. They'd probably been tracking me since the moment I got in the car—hell, they'd probably let me get in the car, let me think I was escaping, just so they could crush that hope when they finally caught me.
The realization should have broken me.
Instead, it made me angry.
Fuck them.Fuck their traps and their plans and their goddamn construction trucks. Fuck all four of them and their obsessive, possessive, controlling?—
My door was ripped open.
I screamed, twisting toward the sound, throwing a punch at whoever was reaching for me. My fist connected with something solid—a chest, maybe, or a shoulder—but it was like punching a wall. The impact jarred up my arm, rattling my teeth, doing absolutely nothing to stop the hands that closed around my wrists.
"Easy, little fox." Caleb's voice, rough as gravel and dark as sin. "Don't hurt yourself."
"Let mego!"
He pulled me from the car like I weighed nothing, hauling me out into the cold mountain air despite my kicks and scratches and increasingly creative profanity. My sneakers scraped against asphalt. My shoulders screamed in protest as I tried to wrenchfree of his grip. My lungs burned with the effort of fighting and screaming at the same time.
None of it mattered. Caleb was six-foot-four and two hundred and forty pounds of solid muscle, and I was a hundred and twenty pounds of exhausted, heat-addled Omega. I might as well have been fighting a mountain. He spun me around, my back hitting his chest hard enough to knock the wind out of me. His arms wrapped around my torso, pinning my arms to my sides, trapping me against a wall of heat and muscle and overwhelming Alpha scent.
