Page 107 of Shadows of Obsession

I'd be damned if I let Jared's mistakes put Anna in danger. Not while I still had breath in my lungs. Not while I could still fight.

In one smooth motion, I swung into the saddle, gripping Choco's sides as I turned him toward the narrow back trail. The path wound through the woods behind the ranch, a route that led straight to my cabin, unseen from the road. The approach they wouldn't expect.

As Choco broke into a canter, his hooves thudding against packed earth, that old familiar coldness settled over me. The same steel-edged calm that had kept me alive in combat—detached, focused, lethal.

They'd made a mistake taking her.

And I was going to make them pay for it.

Every single one of them.

CHAPTER 29

Anna

Acacophony of muffled voices swirled around me as I slowly regained consciousness, dragging me up from the depths of drugged oblivion. The fog lifted from my mind in fits and starts, reality seeping back in fragments that didn't quite fit together yet.

I lay perfectly still, every muscle tense despite my attempts to seem relaxed. The pounding in my head was relentless, a bass drum beating against the inside of my skull in rhythm with my pulse. It gradually dulled to a throbbing ache that made my temples sting and my stomach twist with nausea.

I couldn't risk moving. I had to prevent them from knowing I was awake.

As awareness seeped back in like water through cracks, I became acutely aware of the searing pain encircling my wrists and ankles. The sensation was sharp and burning. Rope, rough and unyielding, biting into my skin with every minuscule movement. My shoulders ached from being pulled back at an unnatural angle, arms bound behind me around something solid and immovable.

I'm tied up.

Memories flickered through my mind like a disjointed film reel, images flashing without context or order. Chester's frantic barking. His nails scraping desperately against the wood. A shadow moving behindme. The violent impact of my face slamming against the wall, the explosion of pain. The sharp sting of a needle piercing my shoulder, cold liquid spreading beneath my skin.

They'd drugged me. Someone drugged me and brought me—where?

My heart raced, the sound thunderous in my ears, and I fought to keep my breathing slow and even. If they realized I was awake, I didn't know what they'd do. The fear of the unknown was almost worse than the pain itself.

At first, I'd been certain Daniel had finally come for me, that after all this time, all these weeks of hiding, he'd found me and this was his punishment for running.

But then, fragments surfaced. A flash of blonde hair, not dark. A fleeting glimpse of a face that looked eerily like Jaxon's just before everything went black.

As I pieced together the scattered images, forcing my drugged brain to function through the haze, more details began to register. The ropes weren't just tight, they were suffocating, making it difficult to breathe normally. Each shallow inhale expanded my ribcage against the restraints, sending new waves of pain through my torso.

The surface beneath me was hard. Wood, maybe. Cold and unyielding against my side where I lay. The air smelled familiar and clean, like old timber and fresh air, undercut with something faintly metallic that turned my stomach.

I needed to focus, to listen, to figure out where I was.

The voices around me grew sharper as the fog continued to thin, the indistinct murmur splitting into words and tones. Despite every instinct screaming at me to open my eyes, to see where I was and who had me, I forced myself to remain motionless. My breaths stayed shallow and even, mimicking the rhythm of unconsciousness.

Information was survival.

"You think he's just going to hand over the money after you left a note basically admitting to murdering his fiancée?"

The voice came from somewhere behind me, male, familiar in a way that made my skin crawl. The tone was sneering, dripping with disdain and something that might've been fear disguised as bravado.

It was Jared.

My heart skipped a beat as realization crashed into me with sickening clarity.

Jared had been there in the hallway. That's why I'd thought I'd seen Jaxon before blacking out. They had similar builds, similar heights. In my drugged, panicked state, I'd mistaken Jared for his brother.

Oh God. Jared took me.

His earlier threats at the cookout echoed in my mind, taking on a chilling new weight. The drug dealers coming after Jaxon if he didn't pay up. The desperation in Jared's eyes when Jaxon had thrown him out.