Prologue
Thirteen hours on a bus is a long time with nowhere to go and nothing to do except lose oneself in the murky depths of one’s thoughts. For Anna Thorn, the thirteen hours she sat on the bus taking her from Sacramento to Portland were spent alternating between regret over how her life had turned out over the past two years, horror from her memories of two nights ago, and hope that she could somehow move on from it all.
She had never imagined that she could fall prey to an abuser. Surely, she was smarter than that, but it was that kind of naïve thinking that led to Anna’s downfall. Even intelligent and educated women could be manipulated by men who used fear and control to prey on women. Over the two years that she was with her ex, Tim Fox, she had slowly lost everything and everyone that mattered to her, until she was nothing more than a puppet on his string.
In the beginning, Tim was the consummate boyfriend. Kind, generous, and affectionate. He overwhelmed her with grand gestures, and constant attention. So what, if he was jealous of the time she spent on campus at class or hanging out with her college friends, surely that just meant he missed her. His insistence that she move in with him after only a few months together was sweet, wasn’t it? When he would comment that she ‘owed him’ for the gifts he gave, she readily agreed. He was her boyfriend after all, and shouldn’t relationships be a give and take? It didn’t seem to matter that he would always take much more than he would give. That foolishly blind attitude was how Anna ended up trapped in the dark depths of Tim’s control, much as a fly could be caught in a spider’s web.
It was when he started to push her to drop out of school, promising to support her and telling her she didn’t need a degree or a job if she was with him, that Anna first started to wonder about his intentions. When they first met, he had seemed so supportive of her dream to become a kindergarten teacher. Still, she gave in to his insistence that she stay home, she was so caught up in the fantasy he had spun of a happy life together. Surely once they were married and had children, he would let her complete her education.
A short while after she left school, Tim started to change. Instead of seemingly harmless comments, he began to exert his control in more frightening ways, tightening his hold on Anna. First, he sold her car without telling her. Then he sent a letter of resignation to her boss at the coffee shop she worked at part-time, essentially stranding her at his apartment in Sacramento. His displeasure any time Anna tried to make plans to see her friends grew and grew, to the point that she didn’t want to upset him and simply stopped trying. When he gave her a new phone, complete with a new number, heaccidentallyerased her contact list making it impossible for her to reach anyone. Anytime Anna would try to talk to him, to confront him about his actions, he would morph back into the loving man she had first fallen for. He would insist that all they needed was each other and that he would provide for her. And so, the cycle would repeat. Tim would be sneakily manipulative and controlling, Anna would try to stand up for herself, Tim would smother her with attention and cause her to feel so much guilt that she would let her concerns slide.
Over time, his demeanor began to change. Instead of attempting to maintain a facade of affection, he allowed his true nature to be revealed—cold and cruel. Where his manipulations had always been couched in false platitudes of love, now he was more blatant with his arrogant and heartless desire to control Anna. She gradually became fearful of his reaction if she were to push back, and so her protests died away. The rational voice inside of her knew, it was only a matter of time before his emotional torment of her turned physical. His insidious comments and threats had done their job; they acted like drips of water carving out stone over time, eating away at Anna’s confidence—eventually leaving her a shell of a woman who was too mortified and too terrified of his reaction to ever reach out for help. By the time she realized that his endless supply of money was because he was a high-level dealer who provided illicit drugs to many of California’s notorious gangs, it was too late for her to back out of the relationship safely, or so Tim led her to believe.
In the end, it was a letter from a lawyer in Portland Oregon that was the catalyst to Anna taking control of her life again. The day the letter arrived was the first time in a long time that luck seemed to be on her side. Tim had tossed the mail on the counter as he barked orders at someone on the phone. Out of the corner of her eye, Anna happened to notice the Portland return address, and curiosity had her stealthily looking at the envelope. When she discovered her name in the address line, she had snuck the letter into her pocket and that night she began to plan her escape. However, despite her attempts to hide everything from Tim, Anna knew he must have suspected something had changed. He became obsessed with never letting her out of sight, and, if he had to leave the apartment without her, he began to lock the front door from the outside. The unending fear she felt at being completely at his mercy was consuming. This man owned her, body and soul. Still, Anna prayed desperately that she would get an opportunity to run.
His preoccupation with keeping her close, was what led to the events that haunted her. Anna found herself sitting in the front seat of his car one night, while he went to one of hiswork meetings. She had been scared before but nothing like what she had felt that night. She knew her life was in danger and terror ran through her veins.
Even now, hundreds of miles away from where it took place, sitting on a bus that raced her away from him, she could see the events take place in her mind as clear as ever.
Feeling too anxious and filled with dread to sit still, Anna had fidgeted with her hands as she waited for Tim. Through the tinted back window, she saw another vehicle pull up and a man step out. Tim approached him and they talked for a minute. What happened next all occurred so quickly it was as if it were a nightmare playing out in front of her at warp speed. A nightmare she would never forget. When it was over, Tim had made a brief phone call, then came back to the car without a word and drove them home. He dropped Anna off, locking her inside as usual, then headed off to god only knows where, leaving her trembling with fear.
Later, when she thought about what she had done, Anna would wonder if an angel had directed her actions. Why else would she have thought to take out her phone and record what had played out right in front of her eyes?
The next two days were fraught with tension. Tim was rarely at the apartment and when he was, Anna could sometimes overhear frantic conversations on the phone. People would come to the apartment at all hours, why, she didn’t know as Tim always shut her in the bedroom when they did. Still, it didn’t take a genius to notice Tim’s stress, or the fact that his clothing and computers seemed to disappear, coinciding with those late-night visitors. Was he preparing to leave? She had no idea, and that uncertainty fueled her desperate desire to get away.
Only once in those two days was Anna brave enough, or stupid enough, to say something to Tim. It had been a seemingly innocent question she thought, about where a particular sweater of hers was. For some reason that set him off into a blind rage and led to the one instance of him becoming physically violent to her. She had the bruises on her arms from when he grabbed her as a reminder of just how volatile the situation was.
The night that her prayers were answered was unlike any night before. Tim had never been one to sample his own wares, but that evening Anna knew he had taken a hit of something, she could see it in the glazed look in his eyes when he came into the bedroom looking for her. He gave her a once-over look of disdain, then fell onto the bed and passed out. She had not been worried about him trying to force her into sex for a while, she knew he had many other women he used for that. The way he would come home stinking of perfume and sex, with rumpled clothes and a cruelly arrogant smirk told her that she had no value to him in the bedroom. For that, she was eternally thankful.
That night, with Tim passed out on the bed, Anna quickly packed a bag with clothes and the few meaningful belongings she had left. A stack of cash on the counter went into her jacket pocket along with the SIM card that she popped out of the cell phone he had given her. She knew she should go straight to the police with the video, but right now her focus was solely on getting as far away from Tim and his network of control as possible, and that meant leaving California.
She knew that if Tim ever figured out that she knew what had happened, he would come after her. And so, she ran for her life. All she could do now was lay low and pray her past would never catch up.
Chapter 1
The Lucky Strike pub was uncharacteristically quiet, thanks to the snowstorm blowing outside. January was cold in Portland, so cold that most people were staying inside instead of venturing out to pubs and restaurants.
Ryan Carlisle leaned against the back wall behind the bar and crossed his arms. Not much to do as a bartender when there were only a couple of customers.
His best friend, and co-owner of the pub, Jake Evans, sighed in irritation. “This place is dead. Why the hell are we still here? I could be home with Callie right now, she’s on her days off, and I’m stuck in an empty bar,” he muttered. Jake’s new fiancée, Callie Scott, was an emergency room doctor at a local hospital. Her hectic schedule combined with the demand on his time at the pub meant they had precious little time together.
Ryan smiled sympathetically. “Damned if I know, man. That last group looks like they are almost ready to settle up. Why don’t you head out, and I’ll just close up early when they leave. I’ll get on social media now to let people know we’ll be closed.”
Ryan enjoyed his role as co-owner and head bartender, but recently he had been trying to take over more of the administrative tasks to give Jake time to focus on his relationship. After all, it wasn’t as if he had someone special to go home to each night.
“Thanks, that would be great,” Jake replied with a grateful smile. He put away the cloth he had been using, untied his bar apron and headed toward the back to collect his coat and leave.
As Ryan stood alone behind the bar, he wondered if he would ever be ready for a relationship like Jake’s. Going home to the same woman each night, sharing a home and a life with someone. It was not something he had ever envisioned for himself, but he had to admit, seeing the loving connection between Jake and Callie stirred up strange feelings of longing within him.
He was growing tired of the playboy-bachelor lifestyle he had been living since college, when a devastating knee injury ended his soccer scholarship and dreams of a career in the major leagues. These days, he found himself wanting to build a life in Portland that didn’t only revolve around one-night stands, but perhaps included something more meaningful.
Even as this wistful thought crossed his mind, Ryan could feel his defensive inner walls go up. He had always believed that marriage and a family were not in the cards for him. Growing up he had been forced to watch his mom struggle every single day to keep their family together. His deadbeat dad had cheated on his mom over and over, before taking off for good when he was just a baby. Molly Carlisle had been left alone with the job of raising two boys, Ryan and his older brother, Noah. She had sacrificed everything to keep the boys happy, fed, and healthy.
Ryan had vowed early on in his adult life that he would never do that to a woman. He would never allow himself to be in a situation where he could possibly hurt someone the way his dad had hurt his mom. If there was one lesson he had learned from his father’s actions, it was that love had the power to hurt. So, to avoid that risk, Ryan lived by the belief that it was better to just avoid love entirely.
His somber musings over his past were interrupted by a customer coming to ask for their bill. As he rung up the tab, comfortably chatting with the older gentleman about the extreme weather, the front door opened, bringing in a gust of cold air. Ryan looked up, curious and just a little annoyed that someone new might be delaying his journey home. At first glance all he could see was a slight figure, bundled in a thick jacket, hat, and scarf. But when the newcomer took off her hat, and unleashed a cascade of wavy, mahogany brown hair, Ryan’s attention perked up. And when his curious gaze met the soft, hesitant look that glanced furtively around the bar, Ryan was struck by an intensely protective feeling in his gut, unlike anything he had ever experienced. He didn’t know who this woman was, but he immediately wanted to fold her into his arms and promise to keep her safe. The intensity of this thought was quickly followed with a healthy dose of cynicism as he realized how insane it was to want to protect a complete stranger, but Ryan was intrigued to find out who she was, and why she was in his bar.
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