I lean against it, breathing hard, heart slamming against my ribs.
The cottage is quiet. Pretty. Sunlight streaming through lace curtains.
It feels like a cell.
You're being ridiculous. He was at a window. It doesn't mean anything.
But I know better.
I've spent years knowing better.
He told me I'd come back.
And here I am.
Standing in a cage I walked into with my eyes wide open, and my instincts screaming so loud I can barely hear myself think.
This time, I'm going to fucking listen.
CHAPTER TWO
Elias
The black sedan turns onto the estate road, and my hands curl against the windowsill.
I know before I see her.
Before the car rounds the bend, before the gates swing open, before my sister's voice drifts up from the driveway below.
I feel it in my chest—a hook buried deep between my ribs, tugging, pulling, the way it has every day for eight years.
She's here.
Finally,finallyhere.
I stand at the window of my study, one hand pressed flat against the glass, and watch my sister's car pull around the circular drive toward the guest house.
My heart beats steady and slow.
I learned a long time ago how to keep my body calm even when everything inside me is screaming.
My father taught me that. Sit still. Breathe even. Never let them see what you're feeling.
But right now, watching that car roll to a stop, I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my own skin.
The passenger door opens.
And there she is.
Liberty.
The air punches out of my lungs.
She steps onto my driveway, my land, and it's like watching a missing piece of myself finally slide back into place.
Eight years. Eight years of tracking her movements through reports and photographs and secondhand accounts, and none of it prepared me for this.
For the way my whole body goes tight at the sight of her.
