And David.
This time, she wouldn’t be the one packing her things.
She pulled her hand from the window, leaving her print ghosted in the fog. Her reflection stared back—eyes bright, jaw set. Not fragile. Not flinching.
Chester had stepped into her world now, where she had allies and resources. Let him hide in the trees. Let him watch and scheme.
She wasn’t running. She was done being prey.
Tomorrow, she would talk strategy with David and his brothers. They would find his angle. They would turn the tables.
Tonight, the anger burned bright, consuming the last vestiges of fear and shame that Chester had planted in her heart.
When she finally drew the curtain closed against the dark, her steps were steady.
Chester came to intimidate a frightened woman, but he had walked into a storm.
Chapter 40
Shifting Fronts
She paceduntil her legs ached, lay down, then jerked upright and paced again. When she finally drifted off, the dreams came fractured and sharp—images of surveillance screens and tree lines and thin, leering smiles. She woke more exhausted than before.
The adrenaline that had carried her through the night had burned out. What remained was silence. And space for thoughts she’d held at bay.
In the early evening, strength had felt clean. Absolute.
At two in the morning, it felt thinner.
The fan turned overhead, indifferent. The steady whir grated against her nerves.
Each step across the cold tile felt heavier than the last. Her ankle throbbed from the crash, but that wasn’t what kept her upright. Her head pounded from swallowed tears. Her throat burned from everything she refused to let out.
Because what was there to say? He was here.
Chester. On this island. In the life she had rebuilt.
“Because of me.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and held on tight, nails biting into skin as if pressure alone could keep her steady. “Because I didn’t press charges. BecauseI couldn’t face more courtrooms. More questions. More doubt. Because I thought if I kept it quiet, I could finally breathe. Because I thought I could just… move on.”
The words lingered in the room, small and brutal.
She rested her forehead against the window. The glass was cool, damp with condensation, blurring the neat landscaping into streaks of color. Even here—even now—she hadn’t outrun him.
But she could try.
The thought surfaced quietly, rationally. Not panic. Just the cold calculus of survival, honed by necessity.
She pushed away from the window and moved with purpose now; her steps were no longer aimless. The closet door opened soundlessly. She pulled down the smaller suitcase—not the large one, nothing obvious—and set it on the floor of the walk-in where it wouldn’t be visible from the bedroom.
Her hands moved automatically. Passport first. Tucked into the inner pocket. She’d never used it, but she’d gotten it when she and Emma had talked about taking a cruise. The slim folder she kept in the back of her nightstand drawer—copies of broken restraining orders, police reports she’d never filed, screenshots she’d never deleted. Documentation of a history she’d tried to bury but couldn’t quite abandon.
She added a change of clothes. Practical ones. Jeans. A dark shirt. Sneakers, not sandals.
Her fingers paused over a framed photo on the dresser—Walter and her at a resort function, both of them sun-drunk and laughing. She left it where it was.
This wasn’t running. Not yet.
This was readiness.
