Chapter 4
Marin
He nods at the door. “Step aside.”
There’s a beat where I think about refusing, just on principle. But my shoulder already aches, and I know how this goes: if I say no, I’m the difficult one. If I say yes, I owe him a thank-you smile and another line in the invisible tab men keep.
Still, I step back. One foot off the top step. I keep my eyes on him, cataloging what to report if this ends badly. Face. Voice. Shape. People say that all the time—just in case.
It doesn’t help.
He doesn’t move like a threat. He moves like a solution.
I’m trying to decide which bothers me more when it happens.
A sound. Faint. Muffled. But sharp enough to make my stomach flip.
Metal shifting. Something dragging. A thump from the trailer.
It could be my furniture rearranging itself. It could be an animal. Could be anything.
Except it isn’t.
His head tilts slightly. Not enough to raise alarm—but enough to register it.
“I’m a terrible packer,” I say too quickly. “Just sort of threw everything in there. There’s really no telling what I’m going to find when I open those doors.”
He glances toward the trailer hitched to my SUV.
Doesn’t press. Doesn’t ask. Just nods and turns back to the door.
I exhale—quiet, controlled. The kind of breath you take when your whole plan is soaked in gasoline and someone’s holding a match.
He didn’t hear him. Not really. Just a faint knock—loud enough to notice and quiet enough to ignore. That’s manageable. For now.
It wasn’t supposed to start like this.
None of this was.
There was no grand scheme. No checklist. No gloves.
Just a fight in a hallway—his bag half-packed, his face unreadable as he told me I wasn’t the kind of woman you marry.
Too ambitious. Too independent. Too much.
“You’re already married—to your career,” he said, like it was reasonable. Like it wasn’t a blade.
I nodded. Smiled. Said I understood.
Then I left the building with more than I came in with.
It wasn’t kidnapping—not at first.
It was a conversation. Then a compromise. Then a drive.
And now it’s…this.
A new key. A tilted porch. A house that looks like it’s rooting for me—just not very hard. Like it knows what I’ve done.
The truth is, I know time will fix us.
If we can just get quiet enough, still enough, he’ll remember.
He’ll remember I’m capable of softness.
He’ll remember what it feels like to want me.
And when he does—he’ll thank me.
But I don’t think he remembers anything right now. Not with the duct tape.
Obviously, the man at my door doesn’t know any of this.
He sees a woman with too much baggage and not enough help.
And maybe he’s right.
He just doesn’t realize most of it is breathing.
He clears his throat and reaches for the knob.
And I hand him the key—before anything else can give me away.
Better to get this over with. He needs to go.
I already have one man locked up.
I’m not looking for a second.