"Good. Now get out of my station." He turns to Sloane. "Miss Grady, or Sarah, or whoever you are—you're free to go with your brother. I suggest you take advantage of his generosity and get yourself sorted out."
"He's not my brother," she says, but her voice has lost its fire. She sounds exhausted now, defeated. "He's lying. He's lying about all of it."
"Then prove it," Wade says flatly. "File a report, get a lawyer, do whatever you need to do. But right now, you're the one who stole a vehicle. So either go with him, or I'm charging you with grand theft auto. Your choice."
She looks at me, and I see the exact moment she realizes she's trapped. No ID, no phone, no shoes, no way to prove who she is or where she came from. Just her word against mine, and I've got witnesses and five years of community presence on my side.
"Fine," she says through gritted teeth. "Fine."
I walk to the door and hold it open and Ms. Sloane Grady storms out with bare feet slapping the cold tile floor as she passes.
So I might not be her favorite person, but I just saved her a hell of a lot of trouble and she doesn't even know it.
Whoever sent her knows what they're doing, and they'll be watching. If I let her cause trouble around here, she'll have the whole goddamn Mob breathing down Sutter's Gap in a few hours and I'll have no choice but to fight my way out of it and end up in prison.
4
SLOANE
My fists are raw from pounding on the cellar door. The wood is solid, old-growth timber that doesn't give no matter how hard I hit it. I've been screaming for twenty minutes, threatening everything from lawsuits to murder, and he hasn't responded once.
The bastard locked me in his cellar.
After dragging me out of the sheriff's station with his sister story, after driving me back to this isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere, he shoved me down a set of stairs, and I've been trapped here ever since.
"Let me out!" I hammer on the door again, ignoring the pain shooting through my knuckles. "You can't keep me here! People will look for me!"
But just like the previous seventy five times I've screamed at him, there's no response.
I slide down to sit on the floor, back against the door, and try to think. My head is clearer now—whatever they dosed me withhas mostly worn off, leaving me exhausted but functional. But instead of feeling the dull throb of drugs, all I feel is the nervous tension of anxiety knotting my chest.
Knowing this is somehow connected to that dead man from Queens isn't helping. The police came right out and said it was connected to organized crime and I couldn’t leave well enough alone. What the fuck have I done, and what have I brought on myself because I was too prideful to just let them think I made mistakes?
I hear footsteps overhead, heavy boots crossing the floor, heading toward the cellar door, so I scramble to my feet, backing away from the entrance, and watch as the lock disengages. The door swings open and he descends the stairs carrying a tray.
The smell of food hits me immediately—roasted chicken, vegetables, bread. My stomach clenches with hunger I've been ignoring for hours as I scramble backward and give him space. I'm not stupid enough to try running again, but damn, if I had a weapon of some sort, he'd be the one locked up in the basement.
Dane reaches the bottom of the stairs and sets the tray on a small table near the cot. "You done screaming?"
"Go to hell."
"That's a no, then." He pulls out a chair and sits, gesturing to the food. "Eat. You haven't had anything since before you were drugged, and passing out from low blood sugar won't help either of us."
I want to refuse and throw the food in his face, demand he let me go. But hunger wins. I cross to the table and sit, pulling the plate closer. The chicken is still warm, seasoned with herbs and lightly salted. I tear into it, barely tasting anything as I shove foodinto my mouth. Maybe I'm stupid for eating something I didn't cook myself, but I'm starving and if he wanted me drugged, he wouldn’t have to hide it in food. He could just pin me down and shoot me up.
He watches me eat without speaking. When I'm halfway through the plate, he finally breaks the quiet.
"Someone sent you here as a warning."
I stop chewing, meeting his eyes across the table. "A warning about what?"
"Someone knows who I am and where I've been hiding." He leans back in the chair, arms crossed. "That bullet around your neck was a message. They're telling me my past isn't as buried as I thought."
"Then why not just kill you? Why involve me at all?" I set down the fork, appetite fading. "If someone wants you dead, why go through this elaborate setup?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." His jaw tightens. "In my line of work, when someone wants you dead, they don't send warnings. They send hitmen. The fact that you're here, alive, means whoever did this wants to play games first."
"Your line of work." The words taste bitter on my tongue. "You mean murder for hire. You're an assassin."
