“Wren? Is something wrong?” Sly asks, dropping a hand on my shoulder as his gaze follows mine to the stretch of bare grass.
“Would it be okay if we delay leaving by a couple of minutes? There’s something I want to do first.”
“Of course. What do you want to do?”
I bend down and slip off my shoes and socks as I step onto the grass, my toes wiggling with freedom.
“Find a little piece of myself.”
“What—” His question cuts off when I start running across the grass. After a few yards, I raise my arms and throw myself into a cartwheel. I move so fast my dress stays glued to my body as I giggle with unrestrained freedom.
I’ve been away from home for over a week, but this is the first moment I’ve genuinely felt free. Thanks to the guys, I feel safe enough to let go and be myself truly. I spin in a circle, arms wide with my head thrown back, a broad smile plastered on my face as I take in the moment. I could never do this around Robert; he would tell me it wasn't appropriate.
Although I don't know what my penpals think about it, I have a feeling they wouldn’t say that.
I let out a small scream of surprise that quickly turns into a laugh as Pete grabs me around the waist, pulling my backagainst his chest as he swings me in circles fast enough that my legs fly out in front of me.
“You’re flying, angel!” he exclaims, happiness coating his voice and easing even more of my tension, not just because I know he doesn’t mind my behavior, but because he’s joining in.
He sets me on my feet, and I try to turn to him, but I get dizzy and start to fall. He reaches out to steady me, but has the same problem, and we both end up falling with me held safely across his chest as he takes the brunt of it.
We both laugh, and I drop my head to his chest, staring up at the blue sky. I feel his fingers stroke through my hair. “I don’t know what brought this on, but I love seeing you like this.”
“Sometimes, when Robert left the house, I’d run out to the yard and do cartwheels, or lie in the grass like this and stare up at the sky.”
“Well, now, you can do it whenever you want. Well, wherever we find grass. I wouldn’t suggest doing this in a motel parking lot.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, I don’t think that would feel the same somehow.”
We continue watching the clouds roll by as I take a few deep breaths, knowing we should get moving.
“Peter, do you think we’ll ever be able to stop running?”
“I do,” he says, his fingers gently threading through my hair. “One day we’ll find a home with a big backyard full of grass where we can do this every day.”
He imagined us all living together?
I close my eyes and try to picture living in a large house with these four men, and hope blooms in my stomach as I imagine a future filled with laughter andjoy, rather than loneliness and fear. The image feels unattainable and perfect all at once.
“That sounds nice,” I say, and for a moment, I almost believe it’s possible, but then I remember that all five of us are being hunted. And the people chasing us? They won't stop until we’ve been caught.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SLY
She bites her lip as she studies the phone, small fingers trembling with uncertainty. The realization that she’s never chosen anything for herself settles like frost beneath my skin. That thought alone makes me want to dismantle her sad excuse for a brother piece by piece, until there is nothing left to recognize him by.
Resting back against the headboard, I try to calm my anger. It was something I learned to do from a young age after watching my attorney father help murderers and rapists walk free. I questioned him on it, but he beat me until I couldn’t walk straight. I learned to keep my mouth shut after that. So I knew, partly, what it must have been like for Wren, growing up in a house where she wasn’t allowed to speak her mind.
Over the years, I cultivated a deliberate calm, never reacting, only listening and filing everything away, biding my time until I possessed both the judgment and the force to set things right. That day came in the form of Chester Beaten, athirty-three-year-old man who had kidnapped and raped a nine-year-old girl.
My father had gotten him off on a technicality, one I can no longer recall. What I do remember with vivid clarity is that Chester was guilty. So after my father got the case declared a mistrial, I took matters into my own hands.
Chester was my first, but not my last. During the days I worked from the comfort of my home as an accountant, at night, I stalked the men my father had helped walk away without any sort of repercussion for killing or raping others. Then I removed them from this world, deeming them unworthy of life.
It’s why I wanted to know more about her brother. There was certainly more going on there than meets the eye. My fists clench angrily with the knowledge that he’d been grooming her. Was his plan always to sell her to who we believed to be Ivan Sokolov, the man who ran the entire goddamned Russian mob?
I realize we only had the initials from the note and his first name from her. Maybe we were wrong.Please be wrong.
