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CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

THE SECOND DAY was worse, not because anything happened, but because nothing did. The stillness wasn’t a comfort. It wasn’t peace. It was its own brand of punishment, heavy and airless, the kind that didn’t scream but instead settled deep into your bones and made itself at home.

I hadn’t moved much. The motel room had become a cage I chose, even though the lock turned from the inside. The curtains were drawn so tight that not even a whisper of sunlight could find its way through. I couldn’t risk it—not even a sliver. The thought of someone spotting the shift of light, seeing movement, recognizing the outline of a woman too afraid to stand tall, was enough to keep me pinned in shadow.

Sometime after dawn, when the world outside was quiet and still stretching itself awake, I crept out in an oversized jacket too big for my frame. I made it only as far as the vending machine near the office. The crackers I bought tasted like dust. I tried one, maybe two, but they turned to paste in my mouth, too thick to swallow alongside the regret already lodged in my throat. The water was warm, but I drank it anyway.

The hours didn’t pass here. They didn’t tick by or melt away—they dragged, slow and aching, like rusted chains dragging across a concrete floor. Every creak in the walls, every muffled voice from another room, every slammed car door outside sent a jolt through my system. My breath would hitch, my body still, heart beating so loud it drowned out everything else. But then the moment would pass, and silence would return, cruel and absolute.

No voices I recognized. No knock at the door. No gruff command from Mystic telling me to eat, to rest, to fight. No Lucy’s soft concern. No Brenda with her firm kindness and unyielding maternal edge. Just me, the silence, and the truth I hadn’t wanted to face.

By the time darkness fell again, it didn’t feel like hiding anymore. It felt like being forgotten. Like the world had moved on without me. Like maybe I’d never really mattered in the first place.

I tried to write a note. Something. Anything to explain—to make sense of what I’d done. I found the paper in the bedside drawer and held the pen with shaking fingers, staring at the blank page for what felt like hours. But nothing came. Not the words. Not the courage. Just the weight in my chest tightening until it became too much. I snapped the pen clean in half, watched the ink spill onto the cheap laminate table like a wound, and turned away from it.

Eventually, I ended up on the floor in the corner, curled against the wall like I was waiting for something I couldn’t name. Arms wrapped around my knees. Back flat against cold plaster. There was comfort in it. Safety. No one behind me. No one beside me. Just the quiet. Just the dark.

I hadn’t truly been alone since I was sixteen. First came the men who pulled me from everything I knew. Then came Drago—his voice, his rules, his control. His hands never bruised me, but they suffocated me all the same. And then Mystic. Always near, always watching me with eyes that seemed to see too much and yet never pushed too far. He never demanded. But his presence alone had become a strange kind of tether.

Even when I didn’t speak to him. Even when I couldn’t. He was there.

And now he wasn’t.

My voice cracked as it left me, barely more than a breath. “Maybe I wasn’t meant for peace.”

The night outside was thick, pressing in against the thin motel walls, wrapping everything in a kind of hush that felt soaked in sorrow. I pushed myself up and moved toward the window, just enough to pull the curtain back with two fingers and peer through the gap. The parking lot was mostly empty. One flickering streetlight bathed the cars in a dull yellow glow.

Two doors down, a man stepped out. He didn’t look dangerous. Didn’t look kind, either. Just tired. He lit a cigarette, inhaled, and stood there like the world couldn’t touch him. Like he belonged to no one and owed nothing to anyone. He didn’t check his surroundings. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t care who watched.

I stared longer than I should’ve, my breath fogging the glass.

How must that feel? To move without fear. To breathe without permission. To exist without someone’s eyes always tracking you, even when they said they weren’t.

Maybe if I stayed quiet long enough—if I stayed hidden, nameless—maybe one day I’d feel that way too.

I crawled back into bed, slow and careful, the blanket pulled up to my chin like it could shield me from the weight of everything I didn’t want to feel. My fingers brushed against the worn book tucked beneath the pillow— A Walk With Me. It was the one piece of myself I’d clung to. The one thing that never asked for more than I could give. A reminder of what hope used to look like, back when I was still someone else.

I let myself believe for a moment. Maybe they wouldn’t find me. Maybe tomorrow I’d catch a bus, go somewhere no one knew my name, start over. I didn’t have a plan. No ID. No papers. No idea how to exist in a country that felt too loud, too fast, too unfamiliar.

But the thought of vanishing… it brought me something close to peace. Fragile. Thin. But enough.

Still, as my eyes began to drift shut, a voice deep inside whispered the same words it had whispered since the moment I left—words I couldn’t outrun no matter how far I went.

You made a mistake.

Maybe I had. Maybe I hadn’t. But I knew one thing for certain—if I called Lucy, I’d ask her not to tell. Not yet. Just long enough to breathe. Just long enough to figure out how not to drown.

That hope settled around me like a threadbare sheet, barely enough to keep the cold out. But I wrapped myself in it anyway.

And sleep took me in pieces. Uneasy. Restless. Like my body knew what my mind refused to admit.

I wasn’t free.

I was just lost.

***

THE BED DIPPED behind me, just slightly, just enough to shift the air around me and pull the blanket in a fraction tighter. But that subtle weight, that unmistakable shift, was all it took to send a cold wave of dread crashing down my spine.

I didn’t need to turn around to know.

The warmth that pressed against my back wasn’t comfort—it was a trap. Solid. Unyielding. Familiar in a way that made my stomach turn and my limbs lock up. An arm slid around my waist, fingers splaying low across my stomach with a possessiveness that made my skin crawl, curling in with a grip I hadn’t felt in months but could never forget.

For a moment—just a breath of time—my body responded. The nearness of another human. The heat. The way his chest rose and fell against my back. For one impossible, aching second, I let myself pretend that it was Mystic, and maybe he had found me after all.

But then I breathed in.

Leather, rich and worn. Heat. Sweat. And cologne.

But not his.

Not that quiet, woodsy scent that lingered on Mystic like pine after rain. This was incense and smoke, like a fire burned too long and left only the embers behind. It always clung to him. Powerful. Designed to linger. The kind of scent you remembered long after he was gone, whether you wanted to or not. It was Drago, distilled, dark, commanding, and impossible to escape.

My lungs stuttered, the air thick and unwilling. My heart didn’t just beat, it dropped, plummeted into some hollow space inside me where panic bloomed sharp and fast.

The arm around me tightened, dragging me closer, back against the hard line of his chest. The weight of his leg hooked around mine, anchoring me like he was afraid I’d vanish. His mouth brushed the shell of my ear, the heat of his breath sending a fresh wave of revulsion through me.

“I was beginning to think I’d never find you,” he murmured, his voice low and calm, but not the kind of calm that soothed. This was the calm that came just before something shattered. “But tonight was my lucky night.”

I tried to move, even just to shift my shoulder an inch away, but his grip flexed in warning. Possessive. Casual. Deadly.

“Don’t,” he said, his lips ghosting across the curve of my jaw as if they belonged there. As if I belonged to him. “Not yet.”

I froze. Every part of me going still, survival instincts overriding reason.

“Drago…”

He made a sound deep in his throat, something between a hum and a sigh, like I’d just sung him his favorite song. Like hearing me speak his name had made everything worth it.

“There she is,” he whispered, voice curling with satisfaction. “I was wondering when I’d hear that sweet voice again.”

Slowly, with deliberate movements, I turned to face him. Every muscle in my body screamed against it, but I made myself do it. I had to see him. Had to know what I was up against.

He was stretched out beside me, shameless and relaxed like this was his bed, his moment. One leg slung over mine. One arm still around my waist. His eyes roamed my face like he had the right—like I was still some prize he’d earned.

“Goddamn,” he breathed, smiling with teeth that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You still look like a dream.”

“You’re here,” I said, the words a whisper scraped raw from the back of my throat.

“You’re mine,” he said, flat and final, no room for argument in his tone. “I think you forgot that.”

“I could never forget,” I answered carefully, like trying to carry a full cup without spilling, steady hands, shallow breath, no room for error.

“That’s good,” he said, voice softening, but only just. His fingers lifted to trace the line of my throat, feather-light, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Not from tenderness. From dread.

“But you made me angry, running from me like that.”

I didn’t speak. Sometimes silence was safer than any lie.

He brushed a strand of hair from my cheek, the softness of the gesture at odds with the flicker of calculation in his eyes. “You were with The Devil’s House. I know that much. What I don’t know is why you stayed.”

My pulse kicked harder, pounding like fists against my ribs. But my voice stayed level, quiet, low like a prayer not meant to be heard.

“I was hurt when they found me,” I said, like mixing salt and sugar and hoping no one noticed the taste. “Badly. I couldn’t leave. I wasn’t strong enough until now.”

It was close enough to believable, and far enough from the truth to safe someone from getting hurt because of me.

He stilled. Just for a breath. Long enough for me to feel the shift in his thoughts.

“That might explain why you stayed,” he said slowly. “But it doesn’t explain why you ran from me.”

I kept my gaze down, let my voice tremble just enough to sell the lie. “I was manipulated. Lucy… she said things. Made me question everything. I didn’t know what was real anymore. I needed space. That’s all.”

His stare burrowed into me like he was trying to unearth whatever truth I’d buried, trying to read the space between my words.

“They treat you bad?” he asked, voice colder now. “Rough you up? Did anyone touch you?”

He leaned in closer, breath sharp, jaw flexing with restrained violence. “I heard some scarred freak was hanging around. Guarding you. Thinking he had a shot with something as perfect as you.”

Mystic.

The name thundered in my skull. He didn’t say his name but he knew, and he didn’t understand. Not really. He couldn’t fathom that someone like Mystic could be wanted. Loved.

So I lied again.

“Yes. He guarded me. That’s all.”

Drago’s gaze pinned me down. He leaned in until his nose brushed mine, and I had to fight every instinct that screamed to pull away.

“Good,” he said, and I hated how quiet his voice had become. “Because if anyone had laid hands on you, I’d have gutted them. Slow. Made it last.”

His lips met mine, soft at first, testing, then deeper, hungrier. A mockery of affection. A claim.

I didn’t kiss him back. Didn’t move. Didn’t respond.

He didn’t care.

“You’re coming home,” he said against my mouth. “We’ll talk more at the clubhouse. I need you back where you belong.”

His hand slipped under my shirt, pressing flat against my bare skin, warm and possessive. I closed my eyes, shutting out the ceiling, the walls, the stifling weight of the room, and tried to will myself somewhere else. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere far away.

“Tell me you love me, Zeynep.”

I whispered the lie like a knife twisting in my throat. “I love you.”

His hand pressed tighter, and I felt the way his whole body stilled, drinking in the words like they were proof.

“I love you too,” he murmured. “Missed you like all fucking hell.”

I tried not to cry as he kissed me again.

How did he find me?