Chapter 27
Mia
Darkness.
I surfaced slowly, consciousness filtering in like water through cracks. My head pounded—a deep, nauseating throb that pulsed behind my eyes. Something was wrong. Everything was wrong.
I was moving.
The rumble of an engine vibrated through whatever I was lying on. Leather beneath my cheek, smooth and cool. The back seat of a vehicle. My hands were bound in front of me, rough rope biting into my wrists. Don’t panic. Don’t move.
I forced myself still, kept my breathing even despite every instinct screaming to thrash, to fight, to claw my way free. The vehicle rocked beneath me, tires crunching over gravel. No voices. No radio. Just the engine and the road and my own pulse hammering in my ears.
Think. Remember.
The last thing I could piece together was the car accident—Lark beside me, both of us driving back from Billings. The impact from out of nowhere. Glass shattering. The world spinning and spinning until it stopped.
Bishop. It had been Bishop.
It all came back to me. The missing box of mementos. Fear that Oliver had figured out Coop had been working undercover. Calling Travis to see if he could get word to Coop.
Had he been able to?
The vehicle slowed. I pushed myself upright, blinking against the pounding in my skull. Through the tinted windows, headlights cut across a clearing. Trees. Rock face.
Gravel popped under the tires as we rolled to a stop.
The driver’s door opened. Bishop stepped out, his boots crunching on gravel as he walked around to the rear passenger door and pulled it open. He stood outside, face blank, hands loose at his sides. That same military stillness I remembered. Ready for anything.
He stepped back, giving me room to climb out.
My knees nearly buckled when my feet hit the ground. I steadied myself against the SUV’s frame, squinting against the glare of the headlights. And then—
A dark opening in a hillside. Timber framing gray with age. The late-afternoon sun didn’t reach inside—just a few feet past the entrance, the light gave way to black.
Was that an old mine?
“Good to see you again, Mia.”
I spun toward the voice.
Oliver stood ten feet away. But something about him was off.
His clothes were wrong—the pressed khakis streaked with dirt, the expensive button-down untucked on one side with a dark smear near the hem that could have been blood or grease.
A bruise darkened his jaw, purple-green and angry against his pale skin.
His hair, usually so perfectly styled, looked like he’d been running his hands through it for hours.
The polished veneer he’d worn like armor at the compound, at the Gathering, every moment I’d seen him—it was cracked now. Showing something frayed and desperate underneath. I hoped it had all been caused by Coop.
But despite his disheveled appearance, Oliver’s eyes hadn’t changed. Pale as winter ice. Empty as a corpse.
“I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said.
Bishop maintained his impassive expression, but I knew he wanted me to suffer. Payback for his nose.
Just the two of them. No soldiers stationed around the clearing. No guards watching the perimeter. Whatever this was, it was stripped down to its essence.
And I had a feeling it was personal.
“Your boyfriend has made my life very difficult.” Oliver moved closer, each step deliberate on the rocky ground.
“The warehouse was supposed to be his recapture. I’d planned the entire buy around it—dangled the kind of deal he couldn’t resist, knowing he’d have to show.
I was going to take my time with him first and then bring you in so he could watch what came next. ”
He stopped a few feet away. Close enough that I could see the broken blood vessels in his eyes. The exhaustion beneath the fury.
“Instead, everything went sideways. Half my men in custody. My buyers scattered.” His jaw tightened. “I don’t usually monologue. I find it tedious when villains explain their plans—so clichéd. But I must admit, I can’t resist a few observations.”
“How’d you find me?” My mind flashed to Lark, Pawsitive, and the others, wondering if they’d be in danger now too.
“I had Bishop do a little digging after you ran away. I was hopeful he’d be able to retrieve you, but he brought me something else that helped set my plan in motion instead.”
He reached into his jacket. I tensed, but he only pulled out a photograph. Edges worn soft from handling.
My breath caught.
It was Coop and me. Years ago, before everything fell apart.
I was wrapped around him from behind, my chin on his shoulder, both of us laughing.
I remembered that day—a picnic in the park near his apartment, autumn leaves everywhere, someone’s dog photobombing our attempt at a serious couple’s shot.
We’d been so happy. So certain of our future.
A lifetime ago.
“Your little memory box was very illuminating,” Oliver said, turning the photo so I could see it fully. “All those love letters. All those photographs. Two years of a relationship, carefully preserved.”
Seeing the photo in his hands—proof of how thoroughly he’d invaded my life—made my stomach turn.
“Once I saw this, I knew I had been played.” Oliver tucked the photo back into his jacket like it belonged to him now.
“Ryan Cooper was never Coop the arms dealer. He wasn’t a disgraced veteran looking to profit from his skills.
He was a hero playing villain.” His lips curved, but there was nothing pleasant in it.
“I must admit, he fooled me completely. That’s rare.” He leaned closer. “I don’t like being fooled.”
“Is Coop dead?”
The words scraped out before I could stop them. I needed to know. Even if the answer shattered me, I needed to know.
Coop not being here either meant he was dead or Travis had somehow gotten him out in time. I had no idea which.
Oliver’s expression shifted—something dark and satisfied moving behind those empty eyes. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. There was quite a lot of shooting at the warehouse. My men engaged him directly.” He shrugged, the gesture almost elegant. “Either way, he’s not coming to help you. No one is.”
The words hung in the cold air. No one is coming.
I should have spiraled. Should have let the fear drag me under, imagining Coop bleeding out on a warehouse floor, imagining myself alone with this monster forever.
But something else rose up instead. Something I’d learned in four hours trapped in crushed metal, in a hunt through dark woods, in every moment since this nightmare began.
Survive first. Grief later.
If Coop was alive, he’d want me focused on getting out of this. And if he wasn’t—
If he wasn’t, I’d make damn sure his sacrifice meant something.
I shoved everything else down. Locked it away in the same place I’d put the panic, the despair, the screaming terror that wanted to consume me.
“So, what now?” My voice came out flat. Steady.
“Now we have another hunt.” Oliver’s pale eyes brightened. “One where you don’t cheat this time. No one coming to pick you up in their car. No undercover operative waiting in the wings. Just you and me, the way it should be.”
Another hunt.
The words hit me like a physical blow. My vision tunneled, the edges going gray.
I could feel it starting again—the dress, the countdown, running.
The absolute certainty that I was going to die alone in the dark or that, worse, I wouldn’t die alone in the dark and that Oliver would catch me and do things to me that—
No.
No, no, no, no—
My body moved before my brain caught up. I bolted—didn’t matter which direction, didn’t matter that I had nowhere to go. Pure animal instinct, the prey’s only response to a predator.
I made it three steps.
Bishop’s arm caught me around the waist, lifting me off my feet like I weighed nothing. I thrashed, drove my elbow back into his ribs. He didn’t even grunt. Just held me until I exhausted myself, my breath coming in ragged gasps, fingernails bloody from scraping against his forearm.
This couldn’t be happening. Not again. I’d survived once—barely, impossibly—and now Oliver wanted to do it all over again.
He watched the whole thing with the patience of a man observing wildlife. When I finally went still, chest heaving, he smiled.
“I was hoping you’d do that.” He stepped closer.
“The fear is so much more satisfying when you fight it first. And look at poor Bishop. You tore up his arm just like you broke his nose. Good thing I said he could have you to dispose of when I was finished. I’m sure he’ll be creative. The quiet ones always are.”
Bishop set me down but kept one hand clamped on my shoulder. My legs barely held me. I could feel myself shaking—not just my hands this time, but everywhere. Deep tremors I couldn’t control.
“The rules will be similar to last time,” Oliver continued, as casual as if nothing had happened. “You still get a head start. Thirty minutes this time since it’s only me pursuing. I even have another dress for you.”
He smiled. “Oh. And the hunt won’t be outside.” He turned, gesturing to the mine entrance. “Abandoned mine. Lots of tunnels. Should be fun, right?”
The darkness gaped at me. Infinite. Hungry.
“I know. Looks a little scary. But don’t worry.” His voice dripped with false concern. “I’ll give you a flashlight.”
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Every fear I’d spent years trying to manage, every nightmare about crushing walls and no escape, every therapy session and breathing exercise and hard-won progress—it all crumbled in the face of that black opening.
My breathing was already harsh, but I couldn’t get it under control.
“Once I had that box, I knew not to have my people do much more searching about Coop. That would’ve let the powers that be know I was onto him. But you, on the other hand, were wide open.”
He watched my face with obvious pleasure. “A little bit of hacking and we had it. Your phobia was in your medical records. Your therapy notes. Everything leaves a digital trail if you know where to look.”
He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell his cologne—something expensive, completely wrong for this place.
“Four hours trapped in a crushed car. That must have been terrible.” His voice dropped, intimate and obscene. “The metal pressing in. The darkness. Your own screams echoing back at you. Not knowing if anyone would ever find you.”
My hands had started shaking. I couldn’t stop them.
“I considered recreating that experience more directly,” he continued, almost thoughtful. “Something with a confined space, slowly crushing you… But where’s the sport in that? At least this way, you’ll have room to run. And I do so enjoy the chase.”
He nodded to Bishop, who produced a garment from somewhere behind him. Burgundy silk, just like before. The fabric caught the late-afternoon light, gleaming like fresh blood as it landed at my feet.
“And I’m letting you keep your sneakers, even though that was cheating last time. But I’m a gentleman.”
I would’ve scoffed if I weren’t so desperately trying to get enough oxygen into my system.
“Your thirty minutes starts now.” Oliver checked his watch. “But you can’t leave until you’ve changed.”
I looked at the dress. At Oliver watching with those empty eyes. At Bishop standing motionless, face revealing nothing.
He wanted me to strip. Right here, in front of them. Another humiliation. Another reminder that I had no control, no power, no dignity he hadn’t decided to let me keep.
“No.”
He shrugged. “Your choice, but every second you waste out here is a second you don’t have in there.”
He wasn’t bluffing. I pulled off my jacket. Let it fall. My shirt followed, then my jeans, the cold air raising goose bumps across my skin. I didn’t let myself hesitate. Didn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me falter.
The silk slid over my body like cold water. Too long without heels, dragging in the dirt. I didn’t care.
“The flashlight,” I said.
Oliver tossed it to me—small, cheap, the kind you’d find in a gas station bargain bin. I clicked it on. The beam was weak and yellowish, barely cutting the darkness.
The mine entrance waited.
Every instinct I had screamed to run the other direction. To take my chances with Bishop’s gun and the wilderness beyond. Anything but walking into that hole in the earth.
But there was nowhere else to go. And my thirty minutes were already bleeding away.
The blackness beyond the entrance was absolute. My flashlight beam disappeared into it like a stone dropped into deep water. The air coming from inside was cold and damp and ancient, carrying the smell of wet rock.
Behind me, Oliver’s voice carried clearly in the still air.
“See you soon, Mia.”
I ran into the mine.