Chapter 35

thirty-five

Nevaeh

I’ve spent the last three days posting regularly to social media, something I never do. But I’ve been doing it religiously and with intent. Photos of me at home alone, photos of me with just Kane. Photos of him touching me, kissing me—me in general being happy.

The first day I started posting, I’d gotten an email from one very unhinged Jacob Yancey. I hadn’t bothered to watch it, because Ian told me the gist and that was all I needed.

But today is the day. I sense it.

Standing at the door with my new husband, I take a candid short video of him kissing me goodbye at the door before I post it with a #hardworkinghubbie. A side effect of posting things with Kane is a slew of quick-fans that adore seeing Kane with his wifey.

This posting thing has a purpose right now, but I just might keep giving his fans what they want—a harmless glimpse into our life.

“Stay safe,” Kane’s eyes hold mine before sliding over my head to the empty room behind me.

“I will,” I promise as I walk him to the door. Then I watch, standing on the front step as Kane drives away.

I glance around the property, careful not to look too long in the direction of the game camera Kane spotted the other day. After a thorough inspection of the property by drone with a detection device crafted by Ian’s security company, we found it was the only one. And we know who put it there, more than likely, while we’d been in New York and the property had been mostly unguarded.

Giving the back of Kane’s truck a final wave, I walk back inside.

I make myself a sugar infused latte which I sit next to my laptop before taking a quick photo, posting it with #workingwifey.

Then I sit and do just that, with my back to the wall. I have a view of the whole main floor, and the glass doors that look out over cliff and sea and a steep set of stairs that lead to a sandy private beach below.

Then, unable to work, I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait.

I’m on my third latte when I hear it. The click of the door I’d left so foolishly unlocked; the house unarmed.

My spine pricks as cold sweat beads there, and I call, “Babe, is that you?”

It’s not Kane. I know exactly who it is, and it’s definitely not my husband.

I’m proved correct when a handsome man appears in the room with empty eyes. Unlike the last time I saw him, and in all of his videos, he’s unmasked. Just the fact he’s showing me his face is a bold telling of what he intends for me in my near future. I have to bite back a shiver, push down the fear and tighten the bolts pinning my game face in place.

I make a show of being confused and afraid as I scramble from my chair at the table, scurrying like a frightened, traumatized little mouse. “Who are you?” I blink big, doe eyes at him. “Wh—what are you doing here?”

“Hello, little slut.” I let fear fueled recognition bleed into my eyes and the sick bastard grins. “Yes, it’s me.”

Loosing just a little tremble, I ask, “What do you want?”

He strolls deeper into the house—my house—as though he has a right. I want to use claws and teeth and every blade in my kitchen on him. I want to carve out the fear he left buried deep inside me after his last attack and shove it into the wounds I ache to sculpt in him.

“You, of course.”

“Why?” I demand, my voice louder and steadier than I intend.

“I told you. When you failed to do as you were told, returning to your fiancé, a man who loved you enough to hire me to bring you back to him—things got personal.”

“So, you think you can have me for yourself?” I scoff, like the idea is the most ridiculous thing in the world.

He takes instant offense, his shoulders pulling back as a sneer curls his lip. “I’ll take you, kicking and screaming. This is personal, little slut. And you’re mine.”

“Is it personal or do I just remind you of her?” He stills, his empty eyes turning sharp on me. Abandoning the little mouse routine, I press on, “When did you realize I look just like her? Was it while you were choking me in my bed or beating me on my floor? Or was it later, after you’d already let me go?”

I see the moment he goes from man to lethal predator. But the thing is, I’m not afraid, because I’m surrounded by predators far more lethal than him.

I grin. “Where is she, Jacob?”

His body turns to ice at the sound of his name on my tongue. He’s smart enough to know he’s stepped into a trap he might not get out of.

“You little bitch,” he hisses, understanding registering. “You lured me here.”

I shrug. “You used media to hunt me, I used it to trap you. Fair play, I think.”

“I’m going to skin you alive.”

My smile drops and I take a brave step closer to him. “Is that what you did to her? To Arianna?”

“I loved her.”

“You don’t know what love is,” I hiss, and when he lunges for me, bright red lasers beam in the space as they land on him from every direction.

Because my knees feel as though they’re going to give out, I slide back into my chair, hoping I play it cool. I can’t give this psycho the satisfaction of knowing that he’s frightened me. I can’t let him think that I’ll ever think of him again beyond today.

At his sides, his fists curl. I have to fight a shiver, because I know exactly what they feel like as they pound into my flesh, calling bruises and blood to the surface.

Crossing my legs, I eye him coolly even though my heart is a frantic mess in my chest. Then I say, “Tranq guns and taser darts, to immobilize and paralyze you, should you get any ideas.” I hold up one finger. “But don’t worry, they won’t kill you here. It would be too quick. Too painless and we both know you deserve a slow, agonizing departure from this world, don’t you, Jacob?”

He lifts his chin in defiance. “Do I, now?”

“You’ve hurt people. Good people.”

“And you plan to hurt me. A little hypocritical now, isn’t it?”

The words Ilya spoke to me only this morning echo in the chamber of my mind, words I’ll never forget because they are true. And I understand them to the core of me. I parrot them to this hideous thing before me now, “There is always hypocrisy in justice.”

Kane appears behind Jacob, taking him to his knees fast. He’s so skilled at the takedown, I know with a cool kind of certainty that he’s done it before, more than once. Bound and gagged, now between two of Ilya’s men, I break free from Kane’s embrace to move until there is little space between me and the man who hurt me—who has hurt others before me and would have hurt others after me.

I lift my chin, speaking calmly and softly, “You will not be given the gift of death until you tell them where Arianna is. Her parents deserve to know where she lays so they can bring her body and their minds to peace. I don’t care if you hold out for days, weeks, or even years. You will not be allowed to die until you free her.”

Hatred fills those empty eyes, spilling from the depths of Jacob Yancey, but Ilya gives his men a nod and they remove him from our home.

I move into Ilya, surprising him as I wrap my arms around his massive, stone body. Against his chest, I breathe, “Thank you.”

Unsurely, he closes his arms around me and hugs me back. “This is what we do for family.” With that, he transfers me into my husbands waiting embrace. As the last person leaves our house, I feel myself break apart and cry.

Kane gathers me in his arms, lifting me into his lap as he settles us on the couch. We sit together until the sky turns dark and the howl of the wind outside grows stronger until I feel as though we’re the only two souls left alive on the whole planet.

I’m not sure what time he carries me to bed, I just know that we end up there. Like every night, I end up wound around his body, his big arms holding me close and safe.