Chapter 1

CIARA

He's back again.

I'm not entirely certain how I know that it's him—maybe his mere presence awakens some long-dormant sense of self-preservation—but I know.

When I peek around the curtain, I can see his figure across the darkened road, staring at my cottage.

Fuck.

My fingers fumble as I check the locks on my front door. Once, twice, thrice. As thorough as my checks are every night—I know that they're all secure; I don't need this check to tell me that—but it gives me a moment to collect myself, allows me to take a breath and try to re-center.

How is he here?

I haven't seen him in years, not since I left, fleeing halfway across the country to the outskirts of Dingle, the most easterly point in Ireland. I couldn't have gotten further away unless I'd left the country altogether.

I won't give him that satisfaction.

I won't let him win.

Backing away from the door, I stumble over to the couch and sit down.

Deep breaths.

I've got this.

It's the third time I've seen him. The first time, it was just a glimpse whilst I was shopping in the supermarket, a moment so fleeting that I dismissed it as paranoia.

The second time was different. That time I knew it was him. I wasn't in the village, I was driving home, and the car coming toward me on the road was far fancier than most of the cars in this part of the world. That was the first clue. The second was his face.

His face still haunts my dreams, but since that second sighting, my dreams have become nightmares. Me waking myself screaming every night, sweat pouring off me.

And now he's here, opposite my cottage, my home, my safe haven.

It's taken years for me to feel safe again, to build an existence that I can cope with. All for what?

My phone, abandoned on the nest of tables by the couch, starts to vibrate. The screen lights up ominously and a withheld number flashes across it.

I should ignore it.

I should reject the call, change my number, start again; but there's something inside me that resists, that resents him upending everything I've built.

Hands shaking, I snatch it up and press answer before my courage fails me. I don't speak though. I just wait.

"Ciara? Is that you?"

His voice sends me hurtling back into the past so fast that I can barely register the change. I haven't had a flashback like this since I left. Not one that so wholeheartedly takes me by the throat and throws me into the living memory of my trauma. Him stalking the living room, watching me, waiting for me to fuck up so he can pounce.

Because that's what it feels like now. Like he's waiting to pounce.

Like he's the cat, and I'm the mouse.

Fuck this.

"Who is this?" I force my voice into bemused confusion. "I think you might have the wrong number, sir, there's no Ciara here."

Calling him sir was a mistake, I know it as soon as the words leave my lips. The knowledge of that is reinforced by the low chuckle that creeps down the phoneline.

"Is that the game we're playing? You want to play games Ciara?"

I don't want to play games with him. Him playing games never ended well. Ended with me in hospital, more than once, blaming a door or my clumsiness for broken bones and bruises. He's the last person I want to play games with.

I drop the pretense.

"I'm not playing games with you, Robert. I never was."

"But you ran away, Ciara. Why run away if you don't want to be chased?"

I don't want to be chased, never did. It's just his fucked-up view of the world that makes him think I do.

Friends used to tell me how thrilling it was that Robert was so protective, so intensely focused on me.

It wasn't thrilling.

It was terrifying.

My heart thumps in my chest so loudly I'm surprised he doesn't hear it down the phone and comment on it. Hands clench and unclench and my knees shake so much that I'm glad that I'm sitting down.

"Why don't I just come in and we can talk? I've missed you, sweetheart, please."

"No. You need to leave, and if you don't, I'll call the Garda."

That makes him laugh again, and the sound feels like knives, each one pricking me just enough to make me know that he could—if he wished—make my life a living hell once more.

"You'll call the Garda. How will did that go for you before?"

It didn't go well, and he knows it. He knows exactly what happened because he was there, and the punishment I'd gotten afterwards for daring to call the Irish police force wasn't worth risking twice.

Only this time I have my freedom. I know what I lose if I don't take the risk.

This time I will fight.