9. Karolina
KAROLINA
Rand’s arm is heavy around my waist, his muscular body cradling mine from behind.
For a moment, I think I must’ve fallen asleep while he was massaging my shoulders.
My head clears a bit, and a hazy memory surfaces.
The prick of a needle on my neck.
Rand holding a syringe.
The last of the fog dissipates from my mind, and I sit bolt upright.
He doesn’t fully release me, but he loosens his grip enough that I’m not helplessly trapped in his arms.
I cast a frantic gaze around the unfamiliar bedroom. I barely took the time to study my surroundings when he carried me in here, and then I threw myself at him like I needed him more than my next breath.
We’re lying on a massive four poster bed, cuddled up under the plush black duvet. The walls are painted hunter green, like a billiards room. Sturdy antique furniture in carved dark wood punctuates the space.
I look out the window, and my heart drops when I see verdant fields and woodland.
I remember that we’re not in York. We’re alone on his vast estate.
And he drugged me for some reason.
“What’s going on?” I demand, somewhat tremulously. “You drugged me.”
His face draws tight with regret, and his dark eyes flash with panic. He watches me warily.
“I have to protect you.”
As though that explains everything.
“Tell me why!” I demand. “Right now.”
A shadow flutters at his jaw. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want an explanation.”
I rub my shoulder where he slipped the needle in. There’s a small, hard bump beneath my fingers.
“What the fuck did you do?” My voice is shrill with rising fear.
He’s lied to me before. Have I been a fool to trust him again?
“I need to be able to find you if we’re separated.”
“What does that mean?”
His expression firms with resolve. “If anyone tries to take you from me, I’ll be able to trace your location. I won’t allow anyone to hurt you, Karolina.”
Nausea curls in my stomach. “So, what? You…put something in me to track my location?” I scrape the bump with my nails. “Take it out.”
He grasps my wrist in a loose shackle. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
My heart twists. “You’re hurting me! I trusted you!”
I scoot off the bed, and he allows the distance between us.
“I have to keep you safe,” he insists.
It’s meant to be a reassurance, but alarm bells blare at the back of my mind.
I’m trapped here with him. Isolated.
I knew he was obsessed with me, but now he’s separated me from everyone I know. Amala isn’t here. There are no tourists to help me if I scream.
The threatening stranger at the café stole my phone. I can’t call anyone to get me out of here.
No one will save me from the possessive man who’s trapped me on this remote estate.
“Take me back to York,” I insist.
Anger is so much preferable to panic.
His expression darkens. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“You chose to drug me!” I burst out. “Who even has drugs like that lying around? And some sort of tracking chip? Have you planned this all along?”
My mind spins.
“How much do you know about me? Did you know about Brandon before I told you I killed him?”
He flinches, and my stomach drops.
How deep does his obsession go? How much did he learn about me when he looked me up online? He’s admitted to finding me on the UNC website. I was an idiot to accept that half-truth. He’s known one of my darkest secrets all along.
“You’re connected to that man who threatened me somehow, aren’t you?” I accuse. “He knew about Brandon, and so did you.”
“I can explain,” he says, voice rough with desperation.
“That’s what you said before. I don’t want to hear any more lies.”
His lips press to a thin line. He doesn’t say anything.
The awful truth settles around my shoulders like a leaden blanket. “Has anything you’ve told me been true?”
“Yes,” he rasps. “You know me, Karolina. Everything I’ve told you about myself has been true.”
I rake a hand through my hair. I can’t allow myself to believe him again.
I have to get the fuck away from him. This man is more dangerous than the stranger in the café, more insidious than the Russian who was stalking me.
Because he’s worked his way into my heart. Now, his betrayal is rending it asunder from the inside.
He gets to his feet, and I take a step back. “Stay away from me.”
“Don’t be afraid,” he begs.
“Of course I’m afraid of you! What part of drugging and isolating me aren’t you understanding? You want to track me like I’m some wayward pet. That’s terrifying, Rand.”
I take another step back, but I keep my eyes locked on the threat. “I’m leaving.”
His muscles flex. “I can’t let you do that.”
My fists curl at my sides. I haven’t survived this long to be victimized by the man I was falling for—falling right into this trap he set for me.
“Don’t you dare try to stop me,” I warn. “If you care about me at all, you’ll let me go.”
He grimaces. “I care about you more deeply than you could imagine. That’s exactly why I can’t allow you to leave. You’ll be at risk. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re all that matters to me. Everything I’ve done has been for you. I love you, Karolina.”
“Don’t say that!” I shriek. I’m the one begging now.
My heart can’t bear it.
His obsession is horrifying.
I think about how I welcomed him into my body, and my stomach churns. I fucked this madman. I trusted him with my virginity.
His features harden with determination, and he prowls towards me.
Without a second thought, I grab a gilded clock from the nightstand and swing it hard at his head.
The crack of the impact with his skull makes my blood go cold.
It’s the same sound I heard when I slammed the horseshoe into Carter’s head—on the night I committed my first murder.
Rand drops to the floor. Blood pours from his brow, soaking into the crimson rug.
He’s not moving.
The clock drops from my numb fingers, and I jolt when it shatters on the hardwoods.
I only allow myself a few seconds to check that his pulse is steady, and he’s still breathing.
He’s alive. I didn’t kill the man who’s captured my heart.
I don’t think I could survive that agony again. Not after what I did to Brandon.
I can’t linger. This might be my only chance to escape.
I quickly get dressed and shove my feet into my sneakers.
Spinning on my heel, I dart out of the bedroom. The house is enormous, and my feet pound down long corridors as I frantically hunt for an exit. The wood paneled walls flash by me, their dark hue making the vast space seem to close in on me like an elaborate trap.
A relieved sob heaves from my chest when I find the front door.
Chill air kisses my flushed cheeks, and I sprint away from the manor.
The silver sports car is parked in the driveway, but I don’t have the key. I don’t dare go back to grab it from Rand’s jeans pocket.
I have to escape before he recovers from the blow to his head.
There has to be another house not too far away. The estate looks deserted except for the sheep that dot the green hills, but I can’t be more than a few miles away from another person.
I hope.
My sharp breaths saw in and out of my lungs, but I don’t slow my sprint. I’m grateful for the years of running that have conditioned me to survive this madness.
Open fields stretch to the horizon to my left, but a thick patch of ancient forest waits to my right. I decide to conceal myself amongst the trees as I make my way farther from the manor, farther from the monster who tried to take me captive.
“Karolina!” He bellows from the direction of the house.
My heart hammers against my ribcage. He’s coming for me.
I put on an impossible burst of speed and dart past the tree line.
As I duck branches and race through the woods, it’s a sick perversion of the night I indulged in the kinky hunt. This time, it’s not a game. If he catches me, I won’t have a hope of escape. He’s too strong.
And I have no idea what he might to do me. I hurt him. I made him bleed.
He’s sworn to protect me from other men who threaten me.
But who will protect me from him?
Me. There’s only me.
I’ll do whatever it takes to save myself.
I crash through the brush, not daring to slow down even though I know he can probably track me with every cracking branch beneath my feet.
No to mention the nauseating tracker he injected beneath my skin.
I’ll have to cut it out at the first opportunity, but for now, my priority is getting to another person who will help me.
I’m making so much noise that I don’t hear him closing in.
Just like on the night of the hunt, he’s managed to outrun me. He’s far too quick and far too quiet.
He barrels into me, and a scream tears from my chest.
My fingers curve into claws. I blindly rake at his face as his weight takes me down.
He ignores the sting of my nails on his cheek, turning our bodies so that his takes the brunt of the impact with the forest floor.
Then he flips us, and he’s pinning me with his naked body. His big hands encircle my wrists, trapping them above my head.
“Get off me!”
I writhe and curse at him, but he doesn’t relent.
“Calm down,” he growls. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
I bark a maddened laugh. “You’re hurting me!”
“No, I’m not.” He refuses to see sense.
I snap my head forward in an attempt to smash my skull against his nose. He reels back just in time.
One hand keeps my wrists captive. His other gently encircles my neck, thumb hooking beneath my jaw to hold me immobile.
I wriggle beneath him, but I’m utterly helpless.
At his mercy.
I glower up at him, my eyes burning into his with pure rage.
His eyes…
One is the same dark brown I’ve fallen into so many times in the last few weeks since I met him as Rand.
The other is blue.
I must’ve knocked out his contact lens when I hit him with the clock.
He wasn’t just wearing the slutty little glasses to conceal who he really is. The contacts are fake, too.
His eyes are blue.
The exact same hue that haunts my nightmares.
The way he’s holding me is achingly familiar. It always has been.
The truth clicks into place.
I go utterly still.
“Brandon?”