Page 28

ELLIETTE

I didn’t know if I was more scared or more annoyed. This was my neighborhood. It was well lit. There was traffic on the street. There were people on the sidewalk—not a lot, but I wasn’t completely alone. And I’d walked the five blocks to the tiny corner market a million times before.

Even late at night, like tonight. I was supposed to feel safe.

But I didn’t. So, forget what I said before. I was definitely more scared than annoyed.

My plastic grocery bag banged against my knee as I shot another panicked glance over my shoulder. There was no one there, but I wasn’t fooled. I’d heard the footsteps in the dark. Someone was following me but staying out of sight.

A part of me wondered if Daniel had sent one of his friends to scare the shit out of me, make me so afraid that I’d move out of his apartment immediately.

Still, it seemed unlikely. I knew Daniel. He’d definitely be pissed about being emasculated in his own apartment. But he wasn’t a sadist .

I glanced over my shoulder again and picked up my pace. Did the footsteps sound closer? Or had I become both paranoid and delusional?

No. They were definitely closer. Fear prickled over my body as the sound of heavy footsteps matched my speed. Not only that, they were gaining. Shit.

I hooked my arm through the handles of my grocery bag and broke into a run. Seconds later, I dropped the bag entirely. The jar of spaghetti sauce cracked and splattered. Cans of soup rolled across the pavement behind me and over the curb.

Despite the burning in my lungs, I imagined my pursuer tripping over the cans like some kind of cartoon slapstick, allowing me to escape. It was an asinine fantasy, but I clung to it even as the footsteps grew louder and faster behind me.

I made another quick glance behind me and, for the first time, saw movement in the darkness. Stay calm, I told myself. I was almost home. Another half block. That was all.

My nose ran, and my feet pounded against the pavement.

When I rounded the final corner, I was moving so fast the centrifugal force sent me reeling into a parked car.

I hip-checked the passenger door and bounced back toward the sidewalk.

My building’s double doors were just ahead. I could make it. I was safe!

Fingers clamped onto my shoulder and jerked me to a stop. My feet flew out from under me, and I screamed.

Before I could fall, a man’s arm curled around my waist, hauled me backward, then shoved me from behind, sending me staggering forward, right into the twenty-foot alcove cut into the side of the building.

I landed on my hands and knees. Pushed myself back up. And ran straight into one of three Dumpsters. Bang! I would have fallen again, too, if I hadn’t been grabbed, turned, then thrown backward against the alcove’s brick wall.

I screamed, but a large sweaty hand covered my mouth, muffling the sound. His fingers dug into my cheeks in a cruel grasp.

It was too dark to see his face, but I was sure I didn’t know him. All that mattered was getting the hell away.

He uncovered my mouth, but pressed his entire body weight against me while he reached for something at his side.

I took the opportunity to scream again—loud! There was no way no one heard me that time. Any second, someone would come running to my rescue.

“Quiet!” the man hissed. There was a sticky ripping sound, then he slapped a wide piece of tape over my mouth and pressed it tightly against my cheeks.

He whipped me around to face the wall and, a second later, he’d bound my hands behind me with a Zip-tie.

A squeal of tires pulled my attention to the mouth of the alcove. A shiny black SUV skidded to a stop, blocking the entrance, and my attacker pulled a hood over my head.

The car ride to wherever they’d brought me had been short. No more than ten minutes. I’d paid attention.

My attacker carried me out of the back seat of the SUV, then dumped me onto a wooden chair. Someone else—probably the driver—tied me to it—ankles and shoulders—with my hands still bound. The plastic restraints cut into my skin .

When they ripped the hood off my head, I blinked rapidly under the flickering fluorescent lights, getting my first good look at the man from the alley. He was alone now, the driver having disappeared.

For whatever reason, it pissed me off that he was good looking. Thick blond hair. Straight white teeth. He stood scarily close to me, waist bent, his face mere inches from mine. His breath smelled like cigarettes.

My gaze shot beyond his broad shoulders, trying to identify something that could help me escape. I seemed to be in some kind of warehouse. There were rows and rows of stacked wooden crates and flickering fluorescent bulbs. The only windows ran along the top of the twenty-foot walls.

He ripped the tape off my mouth— Yow! —and my eyes shot back to his face. “What do you want? I don’t have any money.”

“Yeah?” he sneered. “Tell your idiot brother to get his head out of his ass, or we’ll all be in the same boat as you. ”

My brother? In all my scenarios, I’d never imagined this had anything to do with Evan. This had to be a mistake. He meant somebody else’s brother.

“You’ve made a terrible?—”

The man’s eyes flashed dangerously, and I tried again.

“You’ve got the wrong person. I’m not who you think I am.”

The man backhanded me so viciously across the cheek, I thought my eye was going to explode. The force of the blow tipped the chair over, and I went with it. Fortunately, my shoulder hit the concrete before my skull.

The man dropped into a squat beside me. “You’re Elliette Rogan. And your idiot brother hasn’t been getting our message. Seems it’s time we sent him a message he might understand. ”

Right. Okay. Shit. I lay on my side, tied to the chair, shivering on the cold concrete. Pain radiated down my arm, and I heard the distinct tap, tap, tap of a light rain pelting against the warehouse’s metal roof.

The man rose from his squat, moved behind me, and—with a harsh jerk—righted the chair with me still in it. My head snapped to my left shoulder, then up as my vision blurred.

Something flipped open with a click close to my ear.

My eyes cleared, but it wasn’t his grinning face that grabbed my attention. It was the shiny silver blade he held in the small space between us, right in my line of sight.

My blood ran cold, and my hands shook so badly the plastic restraints carved into my wrists.

The man twisted his own wrist, back and forth, giving me a good look at the knife. The handle was hefty. The blade was thin, about five inches long, with a vicious looking curve and a sharply rising tip. The top edge of the blade had a couple inches of serration near the handle.

I didn’t know if any of those details were significant to what the man planned to do, but there was no question he intended some serious damage.

“D- don’t,” I whispered, my imagination torturing me as much as his threat.

“I could rip up this pretty cheek of yours,” the man said. “And you can remind your brother that a deal’s a deal. Or maybe you’d rather lose an eye?”

He laid the cold flat side of the blade against my face, aiming the point at the corner of my eye. The asshole would do it too. I could see it in his crazed expression.

My brain scrambled for a way out of this while nausea coiled like a snake in my stomach. I could talk my way out of this. The right words always came .

All I had to do was keep my wits. “I can deliver your message to Evan. You don’t have to hurt me.”

He pressed the knife even more firmly against my cheek. It didn’t cut, but I felt the cold prick of steel against the tender skin under my eye. A chill settled in my bones.

“Yeah, see,” he said. “I think I do have to hurt you.”

Terror shot through me. I could barely think. But if he wasn’t in the mood to negotiate, it was time to switch gears. “You need money. Okay. How much? I can?—”

I didn’t finish because there was an odd sounding thud from somewhere behind the wall of crates and boxes.

The man straightened and turned toward the sound. “Tony?”

There was no response from Tony, presumably the driver, and with another loud clunk, all of the lights in the warehouse went out.

In fact, it was so dark, it was as if I’d been hooded again. I yanked at my restraints, knowing that wouldn’t do any good, but still desperate to escape.

A low growl rumbled somewhere in the warehouse, and I froze. The man didn’t move either. No more sound from Tony. All I heard was my own rapid breathing and rain splattering against the metal roof.

Thunder rolled over the night sky, and a few seconds later, lightning flashed across the windows, illuminating the warehouse and giving me a glimpse of an enormous wolf stalking out from behind a row of crates.

“ Shit ,” the man muttered just before we were thrown back into darkness.

I heard an ominous growl, then running—claws against concrete—and a heavy impact. This was followed by the sound of a clattering knife and something else, much heavier, hitting the floor.

A groan of pain.

Another growl.

I tensed, unable to see what was happening.

Then there was the sound of someone scrambling back to their feet and more running—feet, paws, and claws—ending in a collision somewhere deeper in the warehouse. A tower of crates crashed to the floor.

Oh, God. This was my chance. I had to get out of here.

I drew in a ragged breath and started hopping my chair toward an exit. That’s when I noticed two small, glowing red eyes in front of me. They were surrounded by a shadowy mass. Shit . Another wolf?

No. With those eyes, it had to be a hell hound .

I screamed and flinched away just as a flashlight clicked on, illuminating an enormous man with shaggy black hair.

“Easy,” he said, dropping into a squat in front of me. “Let’s get you out of here.”

It took me a second to recognize him. “ Rafe? Rafe MacConall?”

“Yeah,” he said.

Rafe put the butt of the flashlight between his teeth and moved behind me. “Stay still.”