I scan the square, searching for movement, for anything that indicates I'm being watched. The windows of surrounding buildings are dark, though, and the street's empty. But that doesn't mean shit. If someone went to this much trouble to deliver a message, they're not going to make it easy to spot them.
The woman in my arms makes a grunt that sounds like a protest. She's trying to speak again, but the drugs have her now, pulling her under. Her eyes roll back and her weight goes completely slack against me. I can't leave her here in the cold. I don't know what she knows or who sent her, and I can't let her wander around town with information about my past she could easily hand off to that nosy sheriff or his deputy.
She has to go with me, like it or not.
I haul her up, draping her over my shoulder in a fireman's carry, and move toward the truck. She's lighter than she looks, all lean muscle and bone, but even in her limp state, she tries to muster a fight. My boots scrape against cobblestone as I cross the square, hyper-aware of every shadow, every potential vantage point. If someone's watching, they're getting a show, but I'm not leaving her here, not with that bullet around her neck making it clear she's a message meant specifically for me.
The truck's passenger door protests when I yank it open, years of misuse and rust buildup groaning against my effort. I dump her onto the bench seat and buckle the seatbelt across her chest. Her head lolls to the side, hair falling across her face, and I take a moment to get a good look at her features.
She's mid-twenties, maybe late-twenties, and really attractive in a girl-next-door way that doesn't match the dress or the situation. She's not wearing any jewelry, has no purse, wears no makeup. It's almost like she was still getting ready to go out. And there's something familiar about her face, a nagging sense that I should know her, but I can't place it. The drugs have smoothed out her expression and sucked her into oblivion, and I'm standing here risking getting caught.
I shut the door and round the truck, climbing into the driver's seat where I turn the engine over on the second try. I pull away from the curb, heading out of town toward the mountain roads that lead to my cabin. My eyes flick between the road and the rearview mirror, watching for headlights, for anyone following me.
But there's nothing, just darkness and the faint glow of Sutter's Gap fading behind us.
Someone took all the effort to figure out at least my general whereabouts, which means they either got to one of my contacts in the city or they're really good at tracking people. But I know the hit was clean. I know I left no witnesses and no trace of evidence.
The only people who knew were the Ferraro family, and they have no reason to out me now. It would expose their own operation, their own complicity. So either someone inside turned or someone outside has been digging where they shouldn't.
Either way, this woman's a liability. She's been used as a delivery system, drugged and dumped in my path with evidence hanging around her neck. Whoever did this wanted me to find her. They want me to react.
Well, congratulations. I'm reacting.
The truck climbs into the mountains, trees closing in on either side of the narrow road, snaking upward until the cabin appears tucked into a clearing surrounded by pines. I have no neighbors within five miles and there's no cell service unless you climb to the ridge. It's the closest thing to safe I've found in five years.
I park and cut the engine, and the woman hasn't moved. I debate leaving her in the truck, letting her sleep it off out here, but the temperature's still dropping. She'll freeze before dawn, or if she comes to, she'll be able to follow the gravel roads downward toward the town on the distant horizon, and I can't let that happen.
She's not leaving until I figure out what the hell is going on. And if that makes me a bastard, fine. I stopped pretending to be anything else a long time ago.
2
SLOANE
My head feels stuffed with cotton and broken glass. Every thought scrapes against my skull, demanding that I pay attention, but the fog won't clear. I'm moving—being moved—and the cold air shocks my system enough that awareness comes flooding back in jagged pieces.
Hands—strong hands gripping my arms. The smell of leather and wood smoke. A man's voice, grumbling something I can't understand with my head spinning like this. I've been drugged, and I don’t know who did it.
I twist against whoever's holding me as my body remembers how to fight before my brain fully catches up. "Get off me."
"Stop moving." The way he speaks to me like he can boss me around really pisses me off, but my mind processes it too slowly to defend myself. "You'll hurt yourself."
"You drugged me." The accusation comes out slurred but furious. I thrash harder, trying to break his grip, but my limbs aren't cooperating. Everything feels disconnected, my muscles responding half a second too late. "You fucking drugged me."
"I didn't drug you. I found you in the town square freezing your ass off." He's dragging me now, pulling me toward a dark structure that materializes out of the trees. I blink my eyes hard until the building comes into focus, and I realize he's dragging me toward a dark cabin. It's just the sort of place maniacs like him drag women they've drugged. He's going to assault me.
Fuck….
Panic surges through the chemical fog and I drive my elbow back, aiming for his ribs but connecting with solid muscle. He grunts but doesn't let go. If anything, his grip tightens.
"Knock it off." His tone hasn't changed—still flat and controlled—but his pace slows slightly. "You want to explain why you're wandering around town half-dressed with hypothermia setting in? Or do you want to keep fighting me so we can both freeze out here?"
"Let me go!" I throw my weight sideways, trying to unbalance him. We're close to the cabin now, close enough that I can see the door. If he gets me inside and closes that door, I'm done for. Statistics flash through my mind—survival rates, response times, how long it takes for someone to die when they're this far from help.
He hauls me up the steps but I grab the railing, fingers wrapping around weathered wood and holding on. He could break my grip easily. I can feel the strength in him, but he stops instead.
"Listen to me." His face comes into view as he moves around to look at me directly. Gray-blue eyes slice through my consciousness, forcing me to look at him. My brain processes his face slowly—stubble along a squared jaw, dark hair, tattoos creeping up his neck from beneath his collar.
He looks exactly how a man who drugs women and drags them to isolated cabins should look—dangerous, controlled, capable of terrible things.
