Page 8

CHAPTER 8

Sienna

Sienna snapped awake, a defense mechanism she’d perfected over the years. One moment, nothing, the next, full awareness.

A warm body was beside her, and an arm draped over her shoulder. Her muscles tensed as she shifted away and searched the blackness, trying to work out what the hell was going on.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

The words triggered a cascade of memory fragments that tried to thread into a sequence. She was eighteen again, with salt air in her lungs and sand between her toes, watching dawn break over the ocean. Rusty had called her that then, too, hadn’t he? No, wait, that was Russell. Russell, with his shocking red hair like copper wire against the sun, sharp jaw, and a prominent Adam’s apple that bobbed when he laughed.

“How’s your head?”

The voice was wrong though, too deep, too rich. The man beside her was built like a firewall, solid and impenetrable. Nothing like the lanky young man who’d once drawn a terrible love heart in the sand.

Her brain tried to process the impossible comparison: Could Rusty be Russell? The variables didn’t compute. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it, comparing that skinny redhead to this broad-shouldered man with his neatly trimmed beard and fierce gaze that could cut glass.

“Sienna, are you okay?”

The way her name fell from his lips had recognition pinging through her brain and demanding attention.

“Yes.” Her voice came out steady despite the jumbled memories swirling through her mind. “Um, question . . . have we met before?”

The silence that followed was heavy.

“It’s not a hard question, Rusty,” she said, her tone shifting to annoyance. “Have we met before?”

She jerked away from him, and her body hit the cold lava tube wall. The pieces clicked into place with brutal efficiency. “Oh my god. We have, haven’t we? You’re Russell Callahan.”

His deep groan was almost primal.

“You fucking lying bastard.” Her voice ricocheted off the volcanic walls and the acoustics amplified her rage into something nearly tangible.

“When did I lie to you?” His calm tone was infuriating.

“Calling yourself Rusty and not Russell.” She clenched her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms.

“I’m not the man I used to be, Sienna.”

“The lying, cheating bastard, you mean?” The words tasted rotten on her tongue.

He released a breath, steady and controlled. “I didn’t lie to you, and I never cheated.”

“You’re so full of bullshit.” Her chest was set to explode.

“Will you keep your voice down?”

“No, I will not,” she screamed, her throat burning raw. The cry bounced back at her, echoing eighteen years of buried pain.

Scrambling to her feet, she would have stormed off if she could see anything in the pitch blackness. Instead, she stood there, trembling with rage, trapped in the dark with her past nightmare on repeat in her mind and Pickle leaning into her shin.

Rusty huffed out a breath. “Sienna, you and I had a summer fling. Four amazing, incredible weeks together, but that was all it was ever going to be. You were heading back to Oakridge, and I wasn’t leaving Hawaii.”

The casual mention of her hometown caught her off-guard.

He remembers that detail after eighteen years?

She filed that away, determined to ignore its significance. “We were still together when you fucked that woman I caught you with.”

“I didn’t fuck her. Not then, anyway.”

“Oh, so you admit you wanted her.” The words came out as sharp as thumbtacks.

His silence filled the darkness, heavy as lead. The absence of denial was confirmation enough.

A rustling noise indicated he’d stood. “Yes. You’re right. She caught my attention.”

“Is that what you call it?” Sienna’s voice dripped with venom. “You had your hands all over that woman.”

“Her name was Hannah.”

The name dropped between them like a stone. “Oh, that’s just great. You still remember her name.”

“Yes. We were together two years and were engaged to be married, but then she?—”

The words caught in his throat.

“What? Oh wait, let me guess, you’re going to tell me she broke your heart when she had an affair?” Sienna loaded her sarcasm like armor.

His moan carried such raw anguish that it pierced straight through her defenses.

“Yes, actually,” he said. “She’d been having an affair with her boss for three months before I caught them together in his office. That was four nights before our wedding. Hannah hung herself the next day.”

The revelation knocked the wind from her lungs and wiped away every thread of anger.

“Oh God. Rusty, I’m so sorry.” Her rage gave way to so many emotions she couldn’t slot them into place . . . empathy, sorrow, compassion. Then came the understanding—deep and complete—of why he’d changed so much, why the carefree twenty-year-old with wild red hair had transformed into this controlled, guarded man.

The weight of his loss hung in the darkness between them, making her earlier accusations feel petty and small.

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” The words felt inadequate against such a tragedy.

“It was a long time ago,” he said, but his rough voice betrayed his attempt at dismissal.

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less.” The space between them felt different now, charged with something other than anger, something fragile and raw.

“No, it doesn’t.” His voice cracked slightly. “I spent years trying to understand why she cheated, but I should have considered how she’d handle?—”

“Hey. It’s not your fault.” The words burst from her lips. She knew how much blame could burrow deep and poison everything it touched. She reached out and found his arm in the darkness. His skin was warm beneath her palm, solid and real.

“I must’ve done something wrong for her to do what she did.”

“No.” Her voice softened, eliminating all traces of their earlier argument. “There is never an excuse for cheating. Or taking your own life. The fallout they leave behind is cruel. If only they knew how much their actions just break something in us when they leave.”

She gently squeezed his arm.

He went still under her touch. “Is that what I did to you? Break something inside you?”

The question hung in the air, heavy with eighteen years of unspoken hurt. Sienna withdrew her hand, aware of how vulnerable she was in this moment. Of how drawn she was to the man who had once made her feel so alive. And how dangerous that attraction still was.

She let out a slow breath. “For a long time, I thought you had.”

“And now?”

“Now I think we were both?—”

“Shush.” Rusty yanked her against him, his grip like iron around her arm. His breath came hot against her ear. “Quick, find Pickle.”

A faint glow appeared in the tunnel’s distance, casting skeletal shadows on the curved walls.

Shit! Panic clawed up her throat, stealing her breath. They were trapped in this tube with nowhere to hide. Down the tunnel, the single light split into two, and her fear ratcheted higher. The bobbing beams were coming from the direction they’d been heading.

She scooped Pickle up, crushing him to her chest. The little dog must have sensed her terror because a low growl rumbled through his tiny body.

“Shh.” She clamped her hand around his muzzle, desperate to muffle the sound.

“Stay here and don’t move,” Rusty said, his quiet tone razor-sharp with authority.

She pressed her back against the cold wall, and her heart thundered so violently she thought her ribs might crack. The lights grew brighter and closer, accompanied by the soft scuff of footsteps.

“Soda, attack!” Rusty’s command shattered the silence. He and his massive dog charged toward the approaching lights.

The tunnel exploded with chaos as Soda’s ferocious growl merged with terrified screams. She hit the first man like a freight train, and her brute strength and fury took him down. Her massive jaws clamped onto his wrist with bone-crushing force, and as he shrieked in terror, his flashlight spun across the ground, casting twisted shadows on the walls.

Rusty slammed into the second man, and his fist connected with a sickening crunch that made Sienna’s stomach lurch. The man staggered back but returned with a wild punch that Rusty blocked. Rusty drove his knee into the man’s stomach with enough force that Sienna heard the whoosh of expelled air.

The brutal fight continued—wild punches, fierce grunts, bodies slamming against stone walls. Each impact made her flinch as she realized just how lethal Rusty could be.

Pickle snarled with a ferocity she wouldn’t have thought possible, then twisted violently and jumped from her arms.

“No!” Terror seized her as Pickle charged into the mayhem, and she sprinted after him.

The tunnel echoed with the vicious sounds of violence, every grunt and thud amplified in the confined space. Flashlights cast distorted, flickering shadows across the chaos, giving her only fragmented glimpses of the fight. Rusty’s controlled brutality was a stark contrast to the frenzied desperation of the man he was battling.

His elbow connected with the bastard’s nose, and blood sprayed across the beam of light like grotesque fireworks. A cry escaped her throat at the raw, unrelenting ferocity of their blows.

Rusty drove his fist into the man’s throat, and the attacker crumpled like dead weight, hitting the ground with a sickening, wet thud.

Is he dead?

Before she could voice the question, Rusty snatched up one of the flashlights and brought it down on the man’s temple with a nauseating crunch. The glass shattered, the bulb blinked out, and darkness rushed in like a suffocating tide.

Soda had her man pinned to the ground and her teeth locked into his arm as he screamed and thrashed. Beside them, Pickle darted in, a blur of fur and fury as he bit the ankle of the man Rusty was fighting.

The man howled and lashed out, his boot connecting hard, and Pickle yelped as he was flung through the darkness.

“Pickle!” Sienna’s heart seized as she lunged toward him. But before she could reach the dog, rough fingers wrenched her head back, and a third man pinned her to his chest.

“Don’t move, bitch,” he hissed in her ear, low and venomous as he pressed cold metal against her temple.

She froze, gasping as tears of pain blurred her vision, but through them, she saw something that shattered her.

Rusty stood over the man he’d taken down, but his eyes were wide with raw, unrestrained fear.

And they were locked on her.