Did the gas station attendant recognize the car and call him?
But Henry didn’t have an SUV.
At least, I didn’t think he did.
My stomach twisted.
I sped up.
So did the car tailing me.
With my heart in my throat, I pressed the gas harder, panic clawing up my spine.Trees whipped past like ghosts.The road narrowed.I gripped the wheel with white-knuckled hands.
Another mile.
Another curve.
Still behind me.
Suddenly, a loud bang reverberated in the silence.
The rear window exploded, glass shattering around me like shards of ice.I screamed, instinct causing me to jerk the wheel as the Wrangler fishtailed on the slick road.
Another shot rang out, and I lost control.The Jeep skidded, veered off the street and down an embankment, snow spraying past the windows, before crashing into a tree with bone-jarring force.
My head whipped forward.The wheel met my forehead with a sickening crack.Pain shot through my skull, bright and searing.
I couldn’t breathe.Couldn’t move.
My vision blurred, the edges curling inward.
Then I heard it.
Boots.
Crunching snow.
Getting closer.
The door to the Jeep opened.
I tried to speak.To scream.To fight.
But I never got a chance before my world went dark.
ChapterOne
Henry
The red dot on my cell phone’s tracker app pulsed like a countdown, each blink a reminder that Ariana was too far ahead.That I was too goddamn slow.
My hands choked the steering wheel of my truck, knuckles white as the mountain road blurred beneath my headlights.Sixty miles of distance between us felt like six hundred.Every second that passed was a chance for the Bratva to reach her first.A chance for her to keep believing the worst about me.
I never should have left the duffel bag where she could find it.Never should have allowed myself to forget what happens when I let my guard slip.Now she thought the phone inside belonged to me.Thought I’d been hired to abduct her.She’d drugged me and ran, praying she’d never have to see me again.
But she didn’t understand.I wasn’t the one who’d been paid to abduct her.Irescuedher.At the time, I didn’t know who I was rescuing her from.Now I did.And I also knew if the Bratva found her, her time left on this planet was dwindling with every beat of her heart.
I kept checking the tracking signal every few seconds, grateful she was still moving.Then her signal slowed.Stopped.My pulse spiked.Had they already caught her?
