Her eyes widen in surprise. “They didn’t find it?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how.”
“Do you know if anyone is looking for you?”
“My boyfriend for sure. My brother was coming home from his honeymoon today, so I assume him as well.”
Her shoulders relax ever so slightly, and as desperately as I want to ask why her family wouldn’t be doing the same, the more I say, the more at risk we are of being drugged again.
“They’re going to find us,” I promise.
“How do you know?”
“Colten is a bit of a stalker.” I nod at my shoes.
“He has trackers on you?”
“Yep. There are few things he values as much as my safety.”
Thinking about Colten is hard right now, because although he’ll be tearing this city apart to find me, and his obsession with me and keeping me safe will likely be what saves us, I’m furious that he hacked the matchmaker algorithm to match us.
And not only that, he didn’t tell me.
Even after I accepted his stalking behaviors. Even after everything we’ve been through the last few weeks, he still didn’t trust me, trust us, enough to tell me.
How is our relationship supposed to last when he’s constantly lying to me?
Laken falls silent for a moment, her shoulders shifting slightly is the only sign that she’s testing her restraints.
“Jay doesn’t like it when I’m marked. I think I can get out of mine.”
“Do it,” I say, turning my attention to the hallway. “I’ll keep a lookout.”
The warehouse falls quiet, the only sound is the wind rattling the door on the other side of the wide-open space.
A shiver racks through my body, the cold settling into my bones the longer I sit here immobile. I’ve lived in Seattle my whole life apart from the few years I was away for college, but this cold feels different.
Maybe it’s the dread that weaves alongside it, making my body shudder every time I consider the possibility that we won’t be able to escape.
What if this is my life now?
What if everything Cruz did to protect me from a life like this was for nothing?
What if I wasted years being too afraid of being in hurt to live my life to the fullest?
I don’t want to live the rest of my life with regrets.
“How are you doing?”
“I think I’ve almost got it.”
Footsteps in the distance make us both pause, and my stomach rolls with their urgency. Something’s wrong.
Laken stares at me with wide eyes, terror dancing in the depths.
“The gun is tucked into my left side,” I whisper urgently.
She shakes her head, but I break our eye contact, dropping mine to the concrete floor. They’ll be pissed if they find out we were talking and our exit window is closing.
