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Chapter Fourteen

MERRICK

Boden and I crash for a couple of hours in our own rooms before we wake up, order coffee and food, shower, and get ready to tackle today. I’ve already decided that I’m going to watch and follow Colette to the mysterious location her father is sending her.

There are going to be answers to questions that I have in that location. Is it a safe house? Is he sending her away and canceling the wedding? There is something big, a movement that I don’t understand, and I know it involves her new future husband and those three fucks who showed up yesterday.

“You ready?” I ask as I look over to Boden.

He’s standing in the kitchen of the suite, coffee in one hand and his phone in the other as he slides his thumb across the screen, no doubt scrolling some kind of social media app. He lifts his gaze to meet mine and smirks.

“I thought you said she was being taken in the afternoon. It’s only nine.”

I stare at him for a long, silent moment, waiting for him to start moving. When he lets out a heavy sigh and shoves his phone into his pocket, I know he’s ready to move.

“You don’t have to come with me,” I point out. “You can stay right here.”

“Calm the fuck down, Merrick,” he snaps as he pushes away from the wall. “I’m not letting you handle shit on your own. Just fucking relax.”

Turning my back to him, I march out of the hotel suite and make my way to the hallway. He follows behind me, although reluctantly. I know he has my back, and I shouldn’t be annoyed because the likelihood of Colette being gone already is slim, but I don’t want to risk it.

Boden drives us in the rented black sedan. It doesn’t take us long to get to the limestone house, but when we arrive, we park down and across the street so we’re catty-corner and can see everything without being obvious.

I’m surprised to see Adriano stepping out of a car and onto the sidewalk. He walks up to the front door of the house, then stops and looks to the side. He’s alone, but I try not to read too much into that since it’s still early. It’s ten in the morning, and I heard him, in his own words, say afternoon.

Boden doesn’t say anything as I stare at the house and wait for her to come out. After Adriano slips inside the limestone house, I watch for the door to open again and for her luggage to be wheeled out onto the sidewalk.

It doesn’t happen.

As each hour passes and the house stays shut tight, I realize that she’s already gone. I missed her. My gut was telling me that she was going to leave earlier than Adriano announced, and I didn’t listen to it. Not that I think if we left five minutes earlier, it would have made a difference.

I should have never left in the first place.

I fucked up—big-time.

Boden chances speaking to me, although I know he can feel the vibes in the car are electric. He still takes that chance, and that is one of the reasons he’s here. Nobody else, aside from maybe Theron, would take such a risk with the signals I’m sending out right now.

“Just because she’s gone right now doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find her. That wedding is going to take place.”

Yeah.

Right.

What the fuck ever.

“Let’s just go,” I mutter.

He doesn’t start the car, though. Instead, he presses his lips together, his gaze flicking from the house to me, then back to the house. Slowly, I turn my head and look at his profile. He’s thinking, but what he’s got rolling around inside of his head, I could probably never guess.

Then he speaks, and again, it’s something I would have never guessed. This fucking guy.

“It might be crazy, but what if we had Vaughn add Adriano to that dark web list. I would pay for that fucker to get knocked off just based on the bullshit he’s pulled with you and your wife.”

I would pay for it, too, but as much as I want to lay all the blame on Adriano, I let him take Colette, and I signed the paperwork for the annulment and sent it back. Shaking my head, I tell Boden just that, and he grunts.

“He’s still a piece of shit,” he snaps.

Dipping my chin in a single nod, I agree. Adriano is a piece of shit. “I do want to ruin him, every fucking ounce of him. I want to watch him suffer, but I also want to ensure that Colette is safe when I do so, and if I put his name on a hit list right now, I’m not sure she would be safe because I have no idea where she is.”

“But we agree that he needs to go down.”

“Agreed,” I murmur. “Maybe Lucille can do something financially without us even touching a hair on his stupid fucking head.” Boden snaps his fingers together before he lets out a chuckle. “But not until I get Colette back.”

“Not until she’s safe and fucking sound,” he mutters.

And she will be. I will find her. It may not be until her wedding day, but she will be with me then. Before she takes a single vow to the man who thinks he’s marrying her. The plan we had, the wedding day with all of the people and distractions, is the way to go, even if waiting for a couple of weeks feels like I’ll be waiting for a goddamn lifetime.

COLETTE

I have no idea where I am. My father didn’t even have to blindfold me or anything to disorient me since I rarely go anywhere. My sense of direction is horrible, so the fact that I rode around in the back of a car for a couple of hours before ending up somewhere in the woods doesn’t make me feel any better or worse than just staying at home in my room.

I’m a thing to be shuffled around—an animal to be relocated as seen fit. I’m just in a new stable, is all. Thankfully alone. I don't know what to expect because I can’t imagine that I’ll be sitting here all alone in a cabin in the woods for long.

There is no way my father would leave me here by myself. Not when he always has someone watching me at any given moment of any day… or, at the very least, watching my door. Just because I don’t see any cameras here doesn’t mean they aren’t hiding somewhere.

I sit on the sofa facing an old television. It’s one of those thick ones, flat in the front but long in the back. You could definitely not hang it on a wall anywhere. I couldn’t even guess at how old it is. I don’t even attempt to turn it on. Not sure I would even know how if I tried.

I don’t know how long I sit in silence before the front doorknob begins to turn. I’ve never been to this cabin before, but the way that my father just waltzed inside makes me feel as if he owns the place, and I can’t help but wonder why he would own a remote cabin in the woods just a few hours from Manhattan.

The door swings open, causing me to jump when it does. I’d become so lost inside my own head that I’d forgotten someone could open it to begin with. The man who walks through the door is not who I expect to see.

Although it shouldn’t surprise me. I just didn’t expect it, so I’m caught off guard. I suck in a breath, and my eyes widen as I watch him walk through the door, turn to lock it behind him, then face me.

“Colette,” he purrs.

After a chill of dread slides down my spine, my entire body shrinks as I try to make myself as small as humanly possible. I thought I would have a few weeks before I would be forced to be in a room alone with him.

“Hello, Malcolm.”

He stays where he is, thankfully keeping his distance from me. I don’t know what is supposed to be happening here. I almost tell him that but press my lips together and decide against it.

“You are wondering why I’m here,” he states.

It’s not a question. He is telling me that I wonder why he’s here, and it’s true, I do, so there’s no reason for me to comment. Instead, I sit and wait. My entire body trembles, and as much as I attempt to hide the way I’m shaking, I’m sure I fail.

“I’m here because I don’t trust your father.”

I.

Almost.

Almost.

Laugh.

He shouldn’t trust my father. I wouldn’t if I were him, and I don’t. Malcolm takes one step toward me, but just one. My spine stiffens even straighter as I wait for him to pounce. I very much feel like a lamb being led to the slaughter, and I wish I were just about anywhere else right now.

“I don’t trust him not to fuck me over. And if he fucks me over, then I’ll do what I want to you… I’ll probably do what I want to you anyway, but he fucks me over, it’ll be tenfold.”

I want to ask him just what my father is supposed to do for him, give him, or whatever the case is, but the way his eyes narrow on me and his jaw clenches, I think maybe it’s not the best idea to ask any questions right now.

“You are a quiet little thing. I wonder what it would take to make you scream,” he murmurs.

Sucking in my lips, I press them together in an attempt not to scream. There are a million different things that are flying through my head, but I can’t verbalize any of them. Then he begins to move closer to me.

One foot in front of the other until he’s blocking the blank screen of the television from my view. I watch as he crouches down in front of me. Slowly, as if I’m some scared animal, he reaches forward and touches the side of my cheek.

His soft fingers slide from my cheek to my temple. It feels like slithering snakes. I don’t know how else to describe the sensation of his hands on my skin. At the engagement party, he didn’t touch my bare skin, and I’m regretting that he’s touching it now.

“A pretty little wallflower that will take what I give her because I own her,” he rasps before his lips curve up into a smirk. “Or rather, who I will give her to.”

I release my lips, and my eyes widen in surprise at his seeming confession. He doesn’t go into it any deeper, but my confusion is real, inside and out, and I know that as observant as he is, he sees it—feels it.

But he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t touch me further either. Thank God for that because once was enough to send chills of disgust down my spine. Pressing my lips together, I watch as he stands and walks over to the kitchen.

He’s moving around the cabin, opening the fridge, taking out a bottle of water, and doing all of the things a common person would do in a normal kitchen. But this isn’t a normal situation and nothing about this man is common.

When he twists the cap off the bottle of water, he turns around, and his eyes find mine. He holds my gaze as he takes a big gulp. When he swallows the liquid, he jerks his chin toward the bedroom.

“There is a chain with a collar attached soldered to the headboard,” he announces. “Put that on. You will wear it the entire time you’re here. If you take it off, well, you won’t be able to take it off because the collar has a padlock, and I’ll be locking it.”

I stare at him in silence, unmoving as I do, unsure that I’ve heard him correctly. There is no way he’s just said what he has… is there? He can’t mean what he’s said… can he? There is a moment of silence where I continue to stare at him, my lips parted in shock, awe, whatever the fuck it is.

I don’t know.

But when he takes a step forward, arching a brow, I stand up. Taking a step backward, I think about what would happen if I tried to fight him. If I try to run from him, I know I won’t make it.

He’s about a foot taller than me and has at least a hundred pounds of bulk on me. I don’t know if he’s necessarily muscular and fit, but I don’t want to find out, either. Dipping my chin, I look down at my feet in submission.

The only way I’m going to have a shot at getting out of this alive is if I submit.

So that’s what I do.

I submit to being chained up in a bedroom in the woods and send a silent prayer that Merrick will somehow decide to come and look for me. And if he does, hopefully, it won’t be too late for me.