But I needed help getting there. Someone I trusted above everyone else who wasn’t afraid of Damon or his family or the elite in this town. Someone who could outwit my new sister’s husband and get me out of here.
Someone I hated putting in Damon’s path, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice.
“Hey,” Ethan called out from the running car. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, feeling the car brush my thighs and knowing he’d opened the door for me. “I’m fine.”
It was just after midnight, and a shiver snaked up my arms as I exhaled the chilly air outside my front gate and held on to Mikhail. Of course, my mother might see headlights, so I’d told my friend to pick me up down the road, honking three times in a pattern of two quicks and one slow to alert me he’d arrived.
Awareness made the hair on my body stand up. Damon hadn’t come back tonight, but as long as nothing had changed, then he was still the same. He liked to be up at night, so he could still be on his way, and I needed to hurry if I was going to put miles between me and this town before anyone found out I was gone.
I should’ve left when the feds came after my dad more than a month ago. I knew more was going on. Or I should’ve left two days ago when my mother and sister were summoned to a meeting with Damon’s father, and Arion came out engaged. But I was leaving now. I wasn’t spending a single night with him in this house.
My duffel was pulled out of my hands, and I knew Ethan had taken it to toss in the backseat.
“Hurry up. It’s cold,” he said.
I climbed in, forcing the dog into the backseat and pulled the door closed, fastening my seatbelt.
A strand of hair, loose from my ponytail, brushed across my lips before getting sucked into the corner of my mouth with all of my panting. I nudged it out of the way.
“Are you sure about this?” Ethan asked.
“I can’t stay in that house,” I told him. “I’ll leave them to whatever sick game they want to play.”
“He won’t let you go.” I could hear him shift into gear again and the engine rev. “He won’t let any of you go. Your mother, your sister, you… In his mind, you all belong to him now. You, especially.”
The car took off, I pressed back into my seat, and with every inch we sped away from my family’s home, the non-existent breath on my neck got hotter. I hadn’t slept well in a while, but from this moment on, I’d always be looking over my shoulder.
You, especially. Ethan was one of my best friends, and he knew the whole story and how bad this was for me.
“He only married Arion because she was easy. She said yes,” Ethan warned. “It’s you he wants.”
I remained silent, clenching my teeth so hard they ached.
Damon didn’t want me. He wanted to torment me. He wanted me to hear him in the next room with my sister every night. He wanted to see me sitting quietly at the breakfast table, nervous with my knees shaking, wondering if he was watching me and what he was going to do next. He wanted to kill any peace of mind I’d achieved these last years with him tucked away in jail.
I let out a breath. “I don’t care if he comes after me. I’m twenty-one years old. Whether or not I stay in that house now isn’t his decision.”
“But it is in his power to let you leave,” Ethan retorted. “He’ll bring in guards if he has to. We need to be ready.”
I knew he was right. Legally, I could do whatever I wanted, but Damon wouldn’t care about that. With or without my consent, he’d keep me wherever he wanted me.
I still had to try, though. And never stop.
“I’m not scared of him,” I murmured. “Not anymore.”
“And your mom and sister? What he’ll do to them if you don’t come home…”
Which was nothing different than he was already going to do, I finished for him.
“They knew what happened to me when we were kids. And what he did to me five years ago,” I pointed out. “And they still brought him back into our lives. They put me back in his path, because of the money. Not only did they not protect me, but they put us all back in danger. Damon’s family is bad.”
Arion’s behavior didn’t surprise me. We’d been wealthy our entire lives, and she’d always wanted him. Having money again and being his wife, even if he was the cause of all our recent troubles, was more than she could’ve hoped for. She might even be happy this all happened in the first place.
But my mother was a different story. She knew what inviting him into our lives would mean. She knew his end game here, and she didn’t protect me.
And as much as Ari and I didn’t get along, I didn’t want her suffering.
And Damon would make her life hell. What he’d said in the car was no doubt accurate. She’d be popping pills to dull the pain of his treatment sooner or later. How could my mother let this happen? Was she really that scared to lose her home? Was she that worried about how we’d survive?
Or did that intimate look between her and Damon’s father I’d seen when I was a little girl finally make sense?
My mother had an affair with him, didn’t she? Perhaps it wasn’t only fear that controlled her.
And despite what they were willing to endure, I wouldn’t let them make that decision for me.
“We could get married,” Ethan said, his usually light and playful voice, low with a sultry tone.
And despite my nerves, I snorted. “That won’t stop him. It won’t even give him pause.”
Having a husband wouldn’t even protect me from Damon Torrance.
“Ah, shit,” Ethan breathed out.
“What?”
“Cops. Behind me.”
Cops? We’d only been driving a few minutes. I hadn’t felt the turn onto the highway yet, so we were still on my country road. There were never cops out here. I knew that, because how many times had my sister sped up and down this road as a teenager with me in the car and never gotten caught?
“Are their lights on?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“We’re still on Shadow Point?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t stop.” I shook my head. “You weren’t speeding. They have no reason to pull us over.”
“I have to stop.”
He wasn’t worried, but I slid my hands into the center pocket of my hoodie, fisting them. The only time cops were out here was when they were called. Something was wrong.
“Please don’t stop,” I begged.
“It’s okay, babe.” I felt the car slow down. “We’re adults, and we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re not in trouble.”
Reaching over, I felt for the knob I knew would be there and turned off the radio, my ears trained on any sound coming from outside. Gravel crackled under the tires, and I knew Ethan was veering off to the side of the road. He pressed the brake, my body lurched forward a little, and I planted my hands on the dash to steady myself as he shifted the car into Park.
Shit. I’d only been in a car that was pulled over once before in my entire life, and now, tonight of all nights…
A car door slammed shut, and a quiet motor hummed, telling me Ethan was rolling down his window. His shallow breathing filled the car. He was nervous, too.
“Good evening,” a male voice said. “How are you tonight?”
I recognized the voice. Small town, limited cops, but I didn’t mix with him enough to remember the name.
“Hey, yeah, we’re good,” Ethan told him, shifting in his leather seat. “Is anything wrong? I don’t think I was speeding, was I?”
There was silence, and I imagined the officer bending down to peer through Ethan’s window. I remained still.
“Kind of late to be out, isn’t it?” he finally said, ignoring the question.
The hair on my arms stood up. What did he care?
Ethan let out a nervous laugh. “Come on, man. You sound like my mom.”
“Winter?” The cop spoke up. “Everything okay?”
Heat brushed the side of my face. He had his flashlight on me.
I nodded quickly. “Yeah, we’re fine.”
But my hands started shaking. We shouldn’t have stopped. If we’d just been able to get down into the village, around people…
“Can you pop the trunk for us?” the cop asked, his tone clipped. “You have a bulb out. I’ll check it.”
Us. There were two of them.
“I do?” Ethan shifted in his seat again. “That’s weird.”
The trunk popped open, and Ethan exhaled as I waited quietly, still feeling the heat of the flashlight.
“If you see any bodies back there, they’re not mine!” Ethan called back to the second cop at his trunk, joking.
The car shifted under me a little as the second officer fumbled around at the rear, and I clasped my hands together.
“Congratulations to your sister, Winter,” the officer still at the window said. “Looks like your family’s luck is improving. You must be grateful.”
I pursed my lips.
“So where are you two going?” he asked.
“To my apartment in the city,” Ethan replied.
There was a pause, the heat left my cheek, and then he continued, “Planning on staying a while, Winter?” the officer questioned. “Is that your bag in the backseat?”
I swallowed, my heart suddenly hammering.
And then I hear the officer’s low, taunting voice. “Tsk-tsk-tsk… Damon won’t like that.”
I turned my face away, out my window. Shit. I knew it.
“Excuse me?” Ethan interjected.
But he was interrupted by the officer shouting from the back. “Found something?”
“What?” Ethan blurted out.
I turned my head back toward their direction.
They found something? In his trunk?
“Step out of the car, please, Mr. Belmont.”
No.
“What is this? What’s going on?” Ethan argued.