Chapter 12

Sadie

T he urgent need to pee stirred me awake, my eyes fluttering against the streams of sunlight coming through the open bedroom window. The warmth pressing against my back and legs reminded me of who was sleeping next to me. With Keelan’s arms wrapped around me like a blanket, I began to sweat uncomfortably.

“Keelan,” I murmured, looking over my shoulder. “I need to pee. Let go.”

He squeezed my waist tightly before releasing me, allowing me to sit up and move free of the covers. I stretched my arms overhead, hearing the snaps and pops in my shoulders from being held in one position all night.

Quickly, I scurried into the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it. I pressed my hands against my eyes, releasing a shaky breath. I couldn’t think clearly with Keelan in my space. My heart thudded as the dangerous situation took root. I had to figure out how to escape that monster in my bed and disappear. I’d likely never be able to return to this life I’d built, but Poe and I could go somewhere else. The idea of starting over again made my throat tighten, but I couldn’t allow myself to become a prisoner again. I needed to make a bulletproof plan—no sudden, irrational decisions. Sadie Ryan must be smart about this.

If only I had the brains of my brother, God rest his soul.

After relieving myself, I went to the sink and washed my hands before I took a good look at myself in the mirror.

I look like I wrestled with a bear.

The state of my red hair, tangled and mussed, and my bloodshot, swollen eyes were a clear sign of how much I cried last night. I grabbed a hairbrush and combed through the knots and snags. Then, I splashed cold water over my face, alleviating the raw heat in my eyes.

Think. There had to be something in the bathroom I could use as a weapon. Small scissors, a razor, hairspray? How far was I willing to go? Would I be able to kill Keelan if it came to that?

As I kneeled to open the bathroom cabinets under the sink, Keelan knocked on the door sharply, startling me. “Sadie, I don’t like you having the door locked against me. I would hate to break it off its hinges if you don’t come out now.”

Fuck off.

I swallowed, knowing he’d question any response I gave. “Keelan, I can’t go anywhere. So, how about you let me wash my face in peace?”

He sighed as if frustrated and stepped away, taking his shadow under the door’s crack with him. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and returned to my search.

For an added measure, I turned the faucet on again .

Looking into the cabinet, I moved things around as quietly as possible. I pulled out a plastic storage container and sifted through its contents. There were bottles and brushes, but then I spotted my eyebrow tweezer. This one had a sharper edge. It would do.

Do what exactly?

I didn’t know yet, but having something sharp in my hand wouldn’t hurt. I cursed myself for throwing away the hairspray last month.

With the tweezers safely nestled in the waistband of my shorts, I stood up and focused on taking slow, steady breaths to quiet my pounding heart. I unlocked the door and stepped out into the bedroom. Keelan had dressed in the same clothes he wore last night, now freshly laundered. As I walked into the room, I noticed he had not only taken my basket but also dumped all the clean clothes onto the bed, where he was now carefully laying them out to sort.

“What are you doing?” I asked, perplexed.

“Folding your laundry, princess,” he turned to look at me, blue eyes shining with amusement. “Would you like to join me?”

I blinked. Seeing a unicorn jump roping would have been a more believable sight than this. “No, I don’t want to join you.”

Keelan’s lips widened into a playful smile—the one he had given me dozens of times when my defiance amused him. “Well, if you don’t fold your laundry, all your pretty clothes will wrinkle in your suitcase, sweetheart.”

I snorted and crossed my arms over my chest. “Wrinkled clothes are the least of my concerns, Keelan. I’m not leaving my home. What part of that do you not understand?! ”

I tried to level my best death glare at him, but that only made the asshole smile wider. “Here,” he said, tossing me a pair of sweatpants, as if he hadn’t heard a damn word of what I had just said. “It’s pretty cold today. Put those on.”

Great. Now Keelan’s dressing me like a damn doll.

Since arguing seemed futile, I glanced at the pants, bent my knee, and grabbed them. Before I slipped off my shorts, I stealthily took the tweezers out and bunched them up with the sweatpants he had thrown at me. As he turned to continue folding my clothes, I slipped off my shorts, pulled on the pants, and tucked the tweezers into the waistband.

“Sadie.…” his voice trailed off as the sound of tires crunching on gravel came through the window. I stilled, hot ropes of panic seizing my stomach. “Don’t—”

I bolted through the opened bedroom door, sprinting down the hall toward the stairs. If I could make it down, I could finally get help from whoever that was. Authorities would arrest Keelan again, and I’d be free. However, when I reached the bottom of the stairs, the runner snagged on my right foot, sending me crashing to the floor. I opened my mouth to scream, but Keelan’s rough hand wrapped around my mouth, smothering the sound. The total weight of his body pressed on me, his legs pinning my body. I grabbed onto his wrist and dug my nails into his skin, desperately trying to loosen his grip enough for me to yell. Keelan’s lips grazed the shell of my ear, his breath warming my cheek.

“Shh, princess. Quiet, now,” he purred before flipping me onto my back, breaking my hold on his wrists. He adjusted his grip over my mouth, legs pressed against my hips. “I don’t want to remind you of what will happen if you don’t behave. Blood is tough to scrub out of floorboards.”

I sobbed against his palm, tears burning in my eyes. I slapped his wrist hard before letting my hands fall to my sides, brushing his knees.

Keelan exhaled softly. “Did you lie to me last night about not expecting company?” Irritation covered his every word, and I knew things rarely ended well when Keelan was irritated.

I shook my head against his hand. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come by today. It was just my luck that my fugitive ex-fiancé was hiding in my house, and someone dropped by for a visit. Now, whoever was outside was in danger.

The knock at the door made us both look over, and I struggled harder under his grip.

“Stop,” he hissed through his teeth, keeping his voice low. “Listen carefully. I’m going to remove my hand, and you won’t do something fucking stupid, or else whoever is out there will meet a worse fate than being tweezed to death like you planned for me.”

My stomach dropped. Shit.

“Hey, Tess?” a voice called out from the other side of the door. Oh, my God. It was Mason.

I pulled on Keelan’s wrist, shooting him a frantic look that I needed to talk. He eased the pressure on my mouth, allowing me to whisper.

“Who the fuck is that?” he asked, tensing his legs against my hips painfully.

“Ma … Mason. He’s my boss.”

Keelan’s brows furrowed. “Why is your boss at your home? ”

His voice shifted into that terrifying tone I knew too well. If I said the wrong thing, Keelan would snap and hurt Mason. When we were “together,” Keelan treated me like a possession. He deemed any man in my life as a threat to his prize.

“This house is his,” I explained. “He’s renting it to me. Mason helped me build a life when I had nothing. Keelan, please, he’s sixty-eight years old. Old enough to be my grandfather. He doesn’t deserve to be hurt. Please don’t hurt him. Please.”

It felt as if my pleading was futile.

Keelan looked down at me. “If he sees me, he’ll be able to identify me to the cops once they realize you’re missing. You know I can’t let that happen.”

I shook my head furiously. “Then I’ll make him leave before he does. He won’t come inside.”

Keelan’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and then he nodded after a painful second.

Thank God.

Keelan climbed off of me and wrapped his hand around my upper arm, helping me stand. Before I could walk to the door, he increased the pressure on my arm to the point of pain and yanked me to him. He grabbed my chin to force my gaze on his face and leaned in close. “This is your only warning, Sadie. If you do anything that alerts him to my presence or that you’re in trouble, I will slit his throat and make you watch his life spill out on the floor.”

He would.

Keelan would be sadistic enough to kill another innocent man and make me watch. I’d seen it before, and that bastard held no remorse or guilt for his actions. That night, over a year ago, I saw the cold demon Keelan had become when our eyes locked in that warehouse. Blood soaked his white shirt, splattering his cheeks and chin. Fear had consumed me entirely then, making me sick to my stomach, yet those cold eyes never changed. It made me wonder if Keelan Blake was human at all.

I shuddered; even after all these years since we met, he was still a monster who relished in the pain of others by his hand. It was an image that I’d never been able to forget.

The thought of Keelan hurting Mason made my stomach roil so much I thought I would vomit right then and there. I had to be careful not to give anything away in my face or eyes.

“Okay,” I said, nodding quickly. “I promise—I won’t do anything.”

Keelan led me to the front door, releasing my arm before stepping aside to lean against the wall. He nodded in agreement before I took hold of the handle and unlocked the deadbolt. The door swung open, and Mason’s beaming face greeted me in the morning sunlight.

Don’t cry. Just breathe. You have to protect him.

“Mason … um, hey,” I said, adding a rasp to my voice. “What are you doing here?”

Mason smiled, clearly happy to see me, as he always had been since that stormy night last fall. My mind raced with the thought that this wonderful man was in danger because of me, and something terrible would happen to him if I somehow made a mistake.

“Morning, Tess,” he replied. “I tried calling you after your text last night about the power box going off again. I’m so sorry for the delay in fixing it. You know how busy things get at the store, and I haven’t had a free moment. I’m here now, though. ”

“Oh, right,” I said, shaking my head. “I forgot I sent you a message.”

“Yeah, when I called back, it went straight to voicemail.”

Because Keelan shut it off and hid my charger.

“When I went to bed last night, I let it die. It didn’t even occur to me to charge it this morning. I’m sorry. I started feeling sick when I got home from the store last night. If I didn’t feel better by this morning, I had planned to call you to take tomorrow off and recover.”

Mason’s brows wrinkled. “Sick?” he asked. “You do look a bit pale. Do you need anything?”

The fatherly tone of his questions nearly broke my heart in half, and tears pressed behind my eyes.

I shook my head slowly. “That’s really sweet, Mason. I’ll be okay, though. Brian dropped off some medicine before he left for New York. I honestly just need to sleep.”

Mason smiled, but something in his eyes gave me pause. Concern? Worry? Was he deciding whether to stay and help with something else or go home?

Please, go home. Please.

“Look, the power box is on the side of the house,” he said. “I won’t have to come inside. You head back to bed, and I’ll be in and out in fifteen minutes. All I need to do is change the troublesome fuses.”

“Mason,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “You don’t have to do that today. It can wait.”

“I can’t have the power going out on you while you’re sick, Tess. It won’t take long. ”

I swallowed hard. Mason couldn’t see Keelan from the side of the house, especially outside.

“Um … okay, sure,” I said. “The stove keeps shorting out, and the garage did yesterday. Oh, and my bedroom lights.”

There was a sharp pinch on my hip as I felt Keelan’s fingers squeeze. Hard. He wasn’t happy that I didn’t send Mason away, but what choice did I have? If I vehemently denied help, Mason would suspect something. I had to let him work, and then he would leave. He would be safe.

“Okay, great,” Mason said, pulling his small yellow tool bag over his shoulder. “You feel better soon, hun. Call me if you don’t feel better by tomorrow or need anything.”

I smiled warmly. “Thank you.”

After shutting the door, I pressed my forehead against the wood and started sobbing.

“Well, that wasn’t very smart of you,” Keelan snarled.

“What the hell do you mean?” I snapped, turning my furious, tear-soaked gaze to him. “He won’t see you, and it’s more believable to have him fix the fuses I’ve been asking him to do for the last month than if I just urged him away. You can wait fifteen minutes, Keelan.”

Keelan’s blue eyes were like chips of ice as he cocked his head. “Oh, princess. As much as I want to wait the fifteen minutes, there is one minor problem.”

My eyes widened, and my stomach dipped.

“I hid my car near the carport on that side of the house. So, unless you suddenly drive a black Ford Edge, I will have to take care of the old man.”