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I exhaled with mild relief. If I wasn’t back there, then maybe I had a fighting chance. After all, I wasn’t that woman anymore. I had gotten away. I had Knox.

Shit, Knox. The thought of him almost broke me. He would be home by now. He would have found my note and known I'd been taken. I didn't hold out hope that he would find me. Hope was a foolish thing where Derek was concerned.

But I also knew Knox wouldn't leave me here. He would do everything to find me. I had to believe he would come for me.

My breath became shaky. He was going to turn everything upside down if he didn't find me. And after what happened with his sister, how was he going to survive if something happened to me? He would spend the rest of his life thinking he was at fault. I couldn't let that happen.

A sound outside the room made me freeze. It sounded distant, but I picked it up—voices. They were muffled, but I was able to detect from the bass that they were men.

I stopped moving to listen harder. The first panicked voice was unfamiliar. The second wasn’t. My entire body went cold.

Derek.

“You’re sure there won't be any problem?” the first voice asked.

My stomach twisted. They were talking about me.

“She’s secured. Nobody is getting to her here,” Derek assured him.

My stomach churned at his words. Secured? Like I was an object. Jesus, where was I? Where had this man brought me?

A tear slipped down my cheek before I could think to stop. I hated that I was scared. I hated that after everything, some part of me still reacted in fear to him.

The door opened, and I immediately flinched, veering backward even though there was no way to move. I smelled the cognac on him as he unveiled my face and removed the clothes stuffed into my mouth to prevent me from screaming.

The room tilted, my eyesight hazy at first before adjusting to the light. Derek’s frame materialized in front of me, and my stomach lurched.

I didn't know what I was expecting, but he looked exactly the same. Not one part of him had changed. Except maybe the part where he looked angrier. Frustrated. And satisfied all the same.

His eyes moved over me, smiling. “There you are,” he said, taunting. “You thought you could get away from me.”

A shaky breath escaped me. I refused to give him the satisfaction of crying in front of him.

He crouched in front of me. “Look at you. You really thought you could disappear?”

I stared at him.

His smile faded slightly. “You know, Wren, I spent days trying to understand what happened.” He tilted his head. “I gave you everything. More than your ass deserved.”

A laugh escaped me. A bitter sound that scraped against my anger. Even after all this time, he still didn't get it.

Something in his expression changed. “You think this is funny?”

I looked at him. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t see him as powerful. I saw him as pathetic. A man who needed control because without it, he was nothing.

“You don’t love me.”

The words came out before I could stop them.

His jaw tightened. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“Yes, I do.” My voice shook, but I kept going. “You never loved me.”

His face hardened. “You ungrateful—”

He grabbed my jaw.

The old instinct screamed at me to apologize. To make it stop. To say whatever he wanted. But that woman was gone. In her place was a woman who would speak her piece against all odds. I knew I had Knox and the Sons. I wasn’t afraid anymore. “You made me afraid of you.”