Page 11 of Falling for My Matchmaker (The Matchmaker Files #1)

Technically, I was on a date with Brad.

But “on a date” was a generous way to describe sitting in a car, saying nothing, while my brain rewound the last two hours like a teenage romcom on fast-forward.

I hadn’t said much. Not because I was nervous, but because I was still mentally kissing someone else.

And also mildly carsick. But mostly the kissing thing.

We’d been driving for just over an hour, and the trees were getting taller while the road signs were getting rarer. Brad didn’t seem to mind the silence. He was focused on the road, humming faintly to a playlist that could best be described as “Spotify for Men Who Own Leather Coasters.”

I’d missed the first few turns, the moment we left the city limits, and whatever explanation he’d given about the destination.

Something about a surprise. Something “off-grid.” I’d nodded like a person who definitely wasn’t still rewatching a mental movie in which her matchmaker’s shirt had been halfway off.

By the time I tuned back in, there were no more buildings. No streetlights. Just woods. Miles and miles of them.

I blinked, finally surfacing. “Hey. Where are we going again?”

Brad smiled, eyes on the road. “You’ll see.”

Never a great answer. Especially when paired with zero bars of cell service and a man who had mysteriously avoided the photobooth .

At first, I tried to enjoy it. I told myself the silence was peaceful, not unnerving. That the trees weren’t ominous, just scenic. That the way Brad stared at the road—focused, unmoving—was just good driving, not a complete personality shift.

“You okay?” he asked finally.

“Yeah,” I said too quickly. “Just curious where we’re going.”

He smiled. “You’ll see.”

I smiled back, but it didn’t quite reach my stomach.

I glanced at my phone. One bar. Then none.

I checked again. Still none. No signal. No Wi-Fi. Just...digital silence.

I told myself it was fine. We weren’t that far from the city. This wasn’t the setup to a documentary. Just a surprise getaway with a man I barely knew and who may or may not have been on a dating app under a different name.

Totally normal.

“Do you do this often?” I asked lightly.

“What, the drive?”

“The surprise date. Remote mystery location. Signal dropout optional.”

Brad laughed. “You’re funny.”

He didn’t answer the question.

I forced a chuckle and turned back to the window. More trees. Fewer houses. The kind of place where no one could hear you second-guess yourself.

“I like it when it’s just the two of us,” Brad said after a long pause. “No distractions. No outside noise.”

He glanced at me. His tone was calm. His smile was easy.

So why did it feel like a lock clicking shut ?

I checked my phone again, mostly out of habit. Still dead.

My fingers tightened slightly around it anyway, thumb hovering uselessly over the screen.

“Relax,” he added. “You’re not going to need that.”

“I just like knowing I could need it,” I said, trying to keep my tone breezy.

Another smile. “It’s nice, though, isn’t it? Not being reachable. Like the rest of the world doesn’t exist.”

Maybe that was romantic. Maybe that was controlling.

My body couldn’t seem to decide.

But then, like some divine glitch in the matrix, the signal returned. One bar. Two.

I blinked, barely believing it.

I opened Messages, hands shaking slightly, and hesitated.

Nate.

The last person I wanted to talk to—and the only one I trusted enough to tell.

God, after everything. After what almost happened. After what did happen.

It was a terrible idea.

So I started typing.

Me:

Hey Nate. I know this is weird, but Brad took me out of the city.

SEND

We’re in the middle of nowhere. He’s acting off.

SEND

(Just small stuff) .

SEND

Can you reach out to Claudia? She said he was flagged.

SEND

I don’t want to overreact. Just being safe.

SEND

I stared at the screen.

Then, because I didn’t trust my own instincts, I added:

It’s probably nothing.

I hit send again. Then I turned the screen facedown in my lap like that would stop the consequences from existing.

Brad glanced over. “Everything good?”

I smiled, tight and shallow. “Just checking in with my roommate.”

“Still worried about being murdered?”

I laughed—too loud, too hard. “You know me. Caution as a lifestyle.”

He didn’t say anything.

The smile lingered on his face for another beat. And then faded.

I looked back down at my phone. One bar again. Then none.

The first two messages were sent. Now I just had to hope Nate would read them and figure out where “middle of nowhere” was.

I forced a laugh.

“You’re not going to disappear me, are you?”

He laughed too. “Not if you behave. ”

Totally normal. Totally romantic. Just two people flirting about not getting murdered in a forest.

A few minutes later, the car turned onto a gravel path that crunched beneath the tires like a warning. The trees got denser. The road narrowed.

Then—like something out of a rustic AirBnB horror film—it appeared.

A cabin.

It was...nice. Kind of. If you liked remote. If you liked zero cell service. If you liked being just far enough off the grid that no one would hear you scream.

I reminded myself that I had watched too many documentaries. That this was fine. That the porch light being dim was “atmospheric,” not ominous.

Brad parked and got out first, moving around to open my door like he was auditioning for Boyfriend of the Year. “Welcome to my favorite place to unplug,” he said.

I stepped out, heels crunching on the gravel. “Unplug. Great. Just what I crave—total disconnection in a place with murder lighting.”

He laughed. “You’re funny.”

That was starting to feel like his default setting. Like he had five canned compliments and had rotated through three already.

The cabin door creaked slightly when he opened it, and I reminded myself again: not haunted. Not a crime scene. Just...wood. Old wood. Atmosphere.

He ushered me inside.

The inside of the cabin wasn’t cozy so much as curated—like someone had Googled “how to look trustworthy” and bought everything on the list. Worn leather couch. Edison bulbs. Firewood stacked just-so. A massive knife set on the kitchen counter, gleaming under the overhead light.

“Hope you’re hungry,” Brad said casually, heading toward the knives. “I thought we could cook something together.”

My stomach tightened.

There were two wineglasses already out. A cutting board. Some vegetables and vacuum-sealed meat laid out like we were about to film a rustic cooking segment called Surprise, You’re Trapped.

“You prepped all this?” I asked, hovering by the door like a polite hostage.

He smiled. “Just wanted it to feel welcoming. Low-pressure.”

Right. Because nothing says low-pressure like a stranger with a chef’s knife and zero neighbors for miles.

Still, I nodded. “Very thoughtful.”

He picked up one of the knives and tested the weight in his hand, casually. Like he did this often. Like he’d done it before.

My phone was in my coat pocket.

No signal.

No bars.

And, officially, no appetite.

“It’s really...charming,” I said.

Brad grinned and disappeared into the small kitchen. “Red or white?”

“I—uh—red,” I called back, mentally rehearsing every exit I’d seen on the drive up.

He returned with a glass and that same practiced smile. “Relax. I’m not that guy. ”

Funny. That’s what that guy always said.

I accepted the wine. Took a sip. Tried to seem normal.

“So,” he said, settling into the couch like it was home, “you want to sit? Talk? Or just let the vibe happen?”

Nothing made me panic faster than an undefined vibe.

But I sat anyway.

I smiled. I crossed my legs.

The air seemed to shift. Not dramatically. Just a subtle drop—like the room had exhaled something it wasn’t supposed to.

I smiled—thin, brittle. Reached for my glass of wine like it could steady my hands.

This was fine. This was still recoverable. He was being romantic. Probably.

Except my phone was dead. The charger was gone. The cabin was goddamn soundproof. And now he was telling stories with the same tone people used for favorite recipes.

The wine tasted sweet. Too sweet. Like someone trying too hard to cover something bitter.

Or maybe that was just me. Overthinking. Paranoia, stirred not shaken.

“Come sit,” Brad said, motioning toward the oversized couch. “Relax.”

I nodded and sat down—carefully. He sat beside me. Too close.

The room felt hotter than before. Or maybe I did.

My skin buzzed. My eyelids fluttered. My limbs started to float, slow and heavy.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Little dizzy. Must’ve stood up too fast. ”

“That’s okay,” he said, voice suddenly too smooth. “Just let yourself rest.”

I blinked.

The world tipped sideways.

***

When I woke up, I was cold. And chained to a chair.

And then there was Brad. Holding a cup of something—water? Blood? I wasn’t ruling anything out.

“Oh good,” he said, like I’d just come to after fainting at brunch. “You’re awake.”

I stared at him. “What. The actual. Hell.”

“Sorry about the wine,” he said. “I didn’t want you to panic. You were getting jumpy.”

“You drugged me!”

He shrugged. “Just a little. You needed to slow down. Get out of your head.”

“I liked my head.”

He tilted his head. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’M CHAINED TO A CHAIR!”

“I know,” he said, sighing. “It’s not ideal. I was hoping this wouldn’t be necessary.”

“Oh my God, you rehearsed this.”

He didn’t answer. Just walked over and crouched in front of me.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But I’m not one of the bad guys. I just get...misunderstood. People panic before they give things a chance.”

“A chance at what? Stockholm Syndrome?”

He didn’t laugh, but he did smile. Like I was being cute .

Nope. No thanks.

“I liked you,” he said, quieter now. “I thought maybe you’d be different.”

“Well, you were right. I am,” I said. “Different in that I don’t respond well to kidnapping. Or restraint. Or juice that makes me pass out.”

He tilted his head again. I was starting to hate that move.

“It’s okay,” he said gently. “You’ll see. When the panic wears off, you’ll understand. It’s better this way.”

Better than what, I wanted to scream.

But I didn’t.

Because I had one hope—one ridiculous, remote hope—that Nate had gotten my text. That someone knew where I was. That help was coming.

Until then, I just had to stall.

“Quick question—where’s the bathroom?” I asked, aiming for breezy. “Figured I should pee before the trauma bonding begins.”

He didn’t move. Just stared at me with that too-soft intensity you only saw in dark romance novels—right before the kidnapping becomes emotional.

“I just want to take care of you,” he said. “No one else ever really has, right?”

I froze.

So...no bathroom, then.

“I’m good, actually,” I said. “Emotionally, physically, bladder-wise. All set.”

He stepped closer, slow and deliberate.

“You don’t have to pretend,” he whispered. “Not with me. ”

I smiled too brightly. “Right. Because pretending in this exact situation would be wild. ”

He ignored me. Stood up slowly. Walked to the edge of the room. And then— I swear on every Kindle Unlimited subscription I’ve ever opened —turned back and started taking off his shirt.

I blinked. “Oh my God. Is this happening? Is this the shirtless trauma reveal? With full nipple eye contact?”

He dropped the shirt.

And yep—there they were. The scars.

Like the Kindle algorithm had finally loaded him in high resolution.

“I didn’t always look like this,” he started, voice low. He stepped closer. “People look at me and see...intensity. Control. But I didn’t choose this.”

“I mean, you did kidnap me, so—”

“They made me this way.”

There it is, I thought. The Villain Origin Story.

He knelt again—shirtless, wounded, dramatic.

Stared up at me like I was both salvation and symptom.

“No one will ever love you like I do,” he said.

“I hope not.”

His face flickered—confusion, then hurt.

Brad stood and turned away, like he needed a second to stare into the middle distance and process his own intensity. Then turned back toward me, bare chest glowing under the single flickering bulb, scars catching the light like plot points.

“No one will ever love you like I do,” he said again, more intense this time.

And that’s when it hit me.

Not the line.

Not the scars.

The moon.

Big. Full. Perfectly timed.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “It’s a full moon.”

Brad paused. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Just...some keywords.”

But my brain was sprinting now.

Of course he was shirtless. Of course there were scars. Of course he was suddenly monologuing.

Every paranormal dark romance I read before I turned full true-crime girl had warned me: the full moon makes the unhinged go full fanfic.

He wasn’t just Brad anymore. He was Dark Brad. Possessive, tortured, moonlit Brad.

Fine. If I couldn’t control the plot, I’d at least take over the dialogue.

“You think you’re the only one with pain?” I proclaimed, shifting in the world’s most uncomfortable chair. “I know what pain is. I have a Girl Boss mug I didn’t ask for, a kleptomaniac ex, and student loan debt for a degree I never got to use.”

His eyes widened, just a little.

“You want a scar story?” I continued, lifting my chin. “Try surviving low-rise jeans, side bangs, and being called ‘intimidating’ in a Bumble message. Try shaving your legs in a dorm shower with two inches of standing water. Try group projects with men who call themselves ‘idea guys’.”

He took a step back.

I smiled, sweet and sharp.

“Put your shirt back on, or I monologue about the housing market.”

He stared at me—unblinking, unnerved, like someone who’d just realized his villain arc was no match for a woman with emotional range and monthly payments.

Then, without a word, he backed up.

Grabbed his shirt from the floor.

Fumbled with the door.

“Wait—are you seriously leaving?” I asked, half in disbelief, half annoyed I didn’t get to finish my bit about getting ghosted during a shared Spotify trial.

He didn’t answer. Just yanked open the door and disappeared into the cold night air, shirt balled in one hand like it had betrayed him.

The door slammed.

Silence.

“Well,” I muttered. “I guess I am intimidating after all.”