Chapter 10
LILY
My heart is pounding from Mason and his barely there touch—did he almost kiss me?—so when the man steps into the Rusty Spur, I’m already struggling to catch my breath.
Seeing him knocks it clear out of me.
For a second I think that I’m imagining it. He could just look like the man who kidnapped me and Mandy. After years of one dead-end after another, maybe I just want the lead that brought me to Iron Ridge to be valid so badly that I think it’s him.
But I look—really look—and I know.
He’s older, his face weathered by time and whatever life he's lived in the thirteen years since I last saw him, but the eyes are the same. The predatory set of his shoulders is the same. The way he prowls through space like he owns it—like he owns everyone in it—is exactly the same.
My kidnapper.
The man who stole me and Mandy in the dark, going home from a late movie. The man who branded us like cattle. The man who imprisoned us in a decrepit house while he looked for buyers to sell us to.
The man who shot Mandy when we’re tried to escape.
My vision tunnels. The bar spins. I grip my wrist over the tattooed barcode he imprinted on me, like I was cattle.
Hell—to them, I was. I was just another girl they grabbed and sold to the highest bidder. Though when they found out I was a virgin, I was more valuable than the other girls.
And now he’s here. I stare as he moves to the other end of the bar and orders a drink like he's just another customer, like he hasn't starred in every nightmare I've had for thirteen years.
His eyes scan the bar casually, a predator checking his territory.
He's going to see me. I freeze. He's going to recognize me. My hand moves instinctively toward the knife inside my boot.
Mason shifts, his body blocking mine. “Breathe,” he quietly commands.
I do as he says instinctively, but I look over his shoulder, needing to keep an eye on that man.
I don’t even know his name.
His gaze passes over me without recognition.
Of course he doesn’t. I'm not the girl he took. It’s been thirteen years.
I'm not the terrified eighteen-year-old who had no clue of the atrocities that could happen in life.
I'm someone else now—harder, more determined, and trained.
He doesn't see me because men like him don’t expect someone to stand up to him.
But I see him, and I will take him down.