I blinked my eyes open, able to focus long enough to make out my surroundings.No log beams running across the ceiling.No snow-capped mountains outside the window.No stone fireplace carved into the wall.
The ceiling above me was smooth, sterile white.Light streamed through the window, the trees outside a mixture of oak and maple.The furniture was modern and impersonal, and the air smelled faintly of detergent, not wood smoke.
I shifted, trying to sit up, but the motion made my head flare with pain so sharp my stomach heaved.I touched a hand to my temple, pressing down as though I could hold my skull together by sheer force, feeling a bandage covering my forehead above my right eye.
I searched my mind for a memory of how I’d gotten it.How I’d gottenhere.But nothing came.
Had I imagined everything?Had the cabin been some fever-dream I’d conjured to escape my own reality?Was I still dreaming now?
But if thiswerea dream, why did everything hurt so much?Why did my ribs feel like they’d been used for target practice?Why did every slight shift feel like glass lodging deep beneath my skin?
Was this all Victor’s doing?
I’d gotten used to his abuse.But it had never been this bad.He’d never left marks on my face.Everywhere else, but never my face.
I forced my eyes wider, blinking until shapes started to form.Something moved in the corner, massive and ominous.
I squinted, willing my vision to sharpen.The shape came into focus, and a tail thumped against the floor.
A dog.
Relief hit me fast.I wasn’t with Victor.He would never tolerate a dog in the house.
But I recalled someone whodidtolerate a dog in the house.
Henry.
Fractured memories played before my eyes as I struggled to piece together the events that led to this moment.
Sheets tangled around us.Henry’s weight pressing me into the mattress, his mouth claiming mine.His rough voice calling me a warrior.
Then the duffel bag.Rolls of bills spilling out.The phone.The messages.
The Bratva.
I’d drugged him.Ran.Stopped for gas.
What happened after that?
I closed my eyes, as if that would help me remember better, more snippets coming into focus.
A dark SUV.Headlights in the rearview mirror.Gunfire exploding behind me.The tree.Blood.Pain.Then darkness.
I pressed my lips together until they hurt, smothering the sob clawing at my throat as the pieces clicked into place.
I should have known better than to think I could outmaneuver Henry Fontaine.He was bigger, faster, stronger.
And from the rolls of cash in his duffel bag, he’d been paid a lot of money for me.
I wasn’t a person to him.Just a piece of property.
Like I was to Victor.
And I was stupid enough to fall for his charms.
Like I did with Victor.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, nearly crying out from the agony coursing through me.I gritted my teeth and breathed through the pain.
