But he doesn’t leave for another minute.
Another.
Just as a sick feeling starts to rock my stomach, the skin crawling sensation of my own senses raking down my spine, the engine spikes, and the car rolls forward.
I exhale through my nose but I don’t dare change my posture.
Not yet. I simply turn my head to watch his car roll by, gun still in both hands.
And as his taillights get further and further away, the adrenaline spike of his nearness abates and I let my eyes close one second.
Only one fucking second, but it’s then I feel a hand over my mouth, another gripping my wrists so tight I think the bones might break, and I hear a voice in my ear, low and frigid.
“God, I’ve missed you.”
CHAPTER
TEN
LYDIA
After all these years, I recognize his voice.
I try to twist my wrists out of his grip but he easily holdsbothof mine in one hand, keeping the gun down. My finger is on the trigger but he’s forced my head up with his hold on my mouth so I can’t see what I’m aiming at. For all I know, I’d fire a bullet into my own foot.
Using my body weight, I try to leverage my way out of his grip by throwing myself around, making my body hard to control.
But he doesn’t struggle.
At all.
Instead, he casually removes his arm from my mouth and quickly jams his elbow into my back, forcing me against the tree while keeping his hold on my wrist.
My chest crashes against the rough bark and my face follows right after.
He bars his forearm over the back of my neck before I can duck away, and his body is pressed up behind mine. Even without looking at him, I can sense he’s much taller than I am. He was taller then, too, but he seems to have kept growing where I eventually stopped.
I keep twisting and turning my wrists because without at least one free hand, it’s going to be hard to get away.
“Who was in the car?” I ask, my voice a rasp as I try to distract him. But he only laughs, his mouth going to my ear and making me freeze as he tightens his strong fingers around my bones.
“Let go of the gun,” he says calmly while my chest heaves. “Or I’ll break your fucking wrist.”
I take a breath in, the scent of the forest and of him, like leather, filling my nose. The bark on my face is pissing me off, and being completely helpless in the dead of night where no one knows where I am makes me feel queasy.
Lele is on life support.
If I don’t make it back, that puts Lynx in charge because I assumed years ago when I had to make these decisions, since its family, he should be the one deciding in the event something happened to me and Lele couldn’t.
My uncle promised to train me and leave my brother alone.
I believed him when we signed that promise in blood. So different from the one I have with Lele.
No matter where you go.
But with what Eve said about Lynx, I should’ve already met with my lawyers to change that.
It’s too late for regrets now. All I have to do is survive.
