His truck jerked sharply toward my bumper, close enough to hit me.
A sob climbed violently up my throat. “Stop,” I whispered desperately. “Please stop.”
The phone kept ringing. Then stopped. Then rang again immediately, and my vision started to blur from tears.
Luke swerved beside me suddenly and rolled his passenger window down while screaming something I couldn’t hear through the glass. His face looked wrong, not so much angry as furious, and then he jerked his truck in front of me without warning.
I slammed the brakes hard enough that the Jeep fishtailed slightly across wet pavement before stopping on the narrow shoulder near the trees.
For one horrifying second, everything went silent except my ragged breathing.
Then Luke climbed out of the truck.
I locked the doors instantly, my heartbeat thundering violently while he approached through the drifting fog and harsh wash of headlights. For one disorienting second, I hated that some part of my brain still remembered the version of him I used to think was beautiful before I understood what he really was beneath all the charm and attention and false devotion.
Now all I felt was dread.
Fear sharp enough to make my hands shake.
Luke yanked the driver-side handle once, but I had locked the door. I tried to calm myself enough to put it in reverse and leave, but I kept popping the clutch and stalling out.
He tried again, harder this time, violent enough to rock the Jeep slightly beneath me.
“Open the door, Bliss.”
I shook my head immediately while tears blurred my vision.
“Baby,” he said quieter this time. “Open the door for me. I just want to talk to you. We can work this out.”
False softness laced his voice, but I had learned long ago that the softer he spoke, the harder he hit.
“No.”
His jaw flexed for a split second as he tried the handle one more time. Then he smiled.
The expression barely looked human beneath the headlights.
“You really gonna force me to do this over Cade fucking Mercer?”
Fear slid like ice through my bloodstream.
He always knew my next move, and I would never understand how.
“You’ve been ignoring me long enough,” he continued conversationally. “Fighting me every time you see me, running from me when I try to talk to you. Acting different, like you only see him, which is an awful lot, Bliss.” His eyes dragged slowly across my face through the glass. “Then you bring him to my world thinking I wouldn’t react?”
My chest tightened painfully as Luke leaned closer to the window.
“You forgot who you belong to, and I will fucking remind you, Bliss.” He tried the door again, then slammed his hand against my window. “You open this fucking door right now, or I swear I will pull it from the fucking hinges and drag you out.”
Something inside me snapped then.
Could have been exhaustion. Could have been fear. But a rage so hot and wild burned through me in that instant.
“I don’t belong to you!” I screamed loud enough for heaven to hear me. “How are you this delusional? I fucking hate you!”
Luke went completely still. Even the fog drifting through the headlights suddenly felt frozen around us.
“What did you say to me, you little bitch?”
