Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Aurora
I wake up into nothing.
No light. No shape. Just thick, pressing dark and the slow, nauseating awareness that something’s wrong in a way my body understands before my brain catches up.
My head throbs.
My wrists burn.
My mouth tastes like fabric and fear.
For one long second, I don’t move. Not because I’m calm. Because somewhere deep in my bones, a voice whispers wait.
Listen first.
It smells of gasoline and cold metal. Sharp and industrial. There’s damp concrete under it, stale and gritty, like a place that doesn’t belong to daylight anymore.
A storage unit.
Or somewhere close enough that the distinction doesn’t matter.
My hands try to move.
They don’t.
Panic hits fast and ugly.
I jerk instinctively, wrists pulling against something tight and unforgiving, and pain flashes hot under my skin.
Zip ties.
The plastic bites deeper when I fight it, a bright, vicious pressure that makes my breath snag in my throat. I twist again anyway, because terror doesn’t care about strategy, and the ties only cut harder.
Okay, that is not helping.
I force myself to stop.
Just breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
My eyes adjust by slow, miserable degrees. Enough to make out shadows. A low ceiling. Concrete floor. A metal shelving unit to my left with shapes stacked on it. Boxes, maybe. A rolling door ahead, edges outlined in the thinnest seam of gray light.
Closed.
Of course it’s closed.
I push myself upright. My shoulder protests hard enough to make me wince. My head spins. I swallow against the dizziness and make myself stay still until the room stops tilting.
Think.
Think.
The alley.
Footsteps.
The hood.
That voice.
Cole.
My stomach drops so hard it feels like falling.
Right.
This is real.
This is happening.
My heart tries to climb up my throat and choke me from the inside out. My chest tightens. My pulse slams. The room feels too small, too dark, too close.
No.
No, no, no…
“Evie,” I whisper.
My voice is cracked and small, but saying her name puts one thing back into the world.
I close my eyes for half a second.
“Evie, I need you.”
The words leave me like a prayer. Shaky. Barely there. Ridiculous and necessary all at once.
I picture her anyway, her warm hands. Sharp eyes. Kindness with teeth.
I picture the way she always made softness feel stronger than anyone expected.
I hold onto that.
Not because it fixes this, but because I will not let fear hollow me out before he even gets back.
A scrape of metal cuts through the room.
My whole body locks.
The rolling door lifts partway with a mechanical rattle, and pale light spills across the concrete in a hard stripe. It makes everything sharper.
A shadow stretches long before the man attached to it steps inside.
Cole.
He moves like he belongs here.
No rush. No wasted motion. Just that same terrible calm, as if none of this is improvised, as if he’s already accounted for every possible outcome and found them all acceptable.
“Well,” he says. “There you are.”
I hate how relieved some broken part of me is to hear another human voice.
I hate him more for noticing.
He lets the door drop most of the way behind him, leaving only a strip of light at the bottom. Enough to see him. Not enough to feel less trapped.
I push myself a little straighter.
If I’m terrified, and I am, I’m not giving him all of it.
“Hi,” I manage a little shakily.
His mouth curves faintly. Not quite a smile.
“You wake up quick,” he says. “That’s good.”
“For who?”
“For both of us.”
He leans one shoulder against the wall like we’re having a casual conversation instead of whatever this is. Like I’m not zip tied on a concrete floor, and he didn’t drag me off a street in a town that had started to feel like mine.
My gaze flicks toward the gap under the door.
He notices instantly.
“That’s not going to work,” he says mildly. “You’re welcome to try, though. I enjoy watching people learn.”
A chill slides down my spine.
“You don’t need to do this,” I say.
He gives a quiet huff of amusement. “No, Aurora. I really do.”
The way he says my name makes my skin crawl.
He knows my name.
Of course he knows my name.
“You could still walk away,” I say.
That gets me a real smile. “I think we both know I’m past that.”
He pushes off the wall and paces once across the room, slow and measured, like he’s letting me look at him on purpose. Letting me understand exactly how unhurried he is.
That’s what makes him frightening.
Not shouting.
Not violence for the sake of it.
Control.
He doesn’t have to hit me to make the room feel dangerous. He doesn’t have to lay a hand on me at all. The threat is already everywhere. In the door. The ties on my wrists. The fact that he can stand there talking like he’s already won.
“I was curious about you,” he says.
I don’t answer.
“The girl who walks into The Hollow and suddenly three men who don’t share anything start orbiting her like she’s gravity.
” His eyes move over my face, clinical and calm.
“I thought maybe you were convenient. A distraction. A softness they could use to pretend they were still men who deserved soft things.”
My pulse jumps, but I keep my expression still.
He notices that too.
“Turns out,” he says, “you matter more than that.”
“This is a weird way to introduce yourself.”
He laughs softly. “You’ve got a mouth on you.”
I say nothing.
“Ryder likes that,” he adds.
My stomach twists.
There’s something in the way he says Ryder’s name. Not just hatred. History.
“You don’t know him,” I say.
His gaze sharpens. “I know him better than you ever will.”
“I doubt that.”
He takes a few steps closer.
Close enough now that I can see the details: the flat calm in his face, the complete absence of doubt, the kind of stillness that means violence is never far, only waiting to be useful.
“He’s not a hero,” Cole says quietly. “I don’t know what he’s sold you. Or this town. Or himself. But Ryder Callahan is not a good man.” His head tilts. “He’s a monster with better PR.”
Part of me knows Ryder has monsters in him. He knows it too. He wears control like a second skin because beneath it, bites.
But Cole says it like he’s offering truth when really he’s offering poison.
“Interesting take,” I snarl. “From the guy who kidnapped me.”
His smile doesn’t move. “Difference is, I’m not pretending.”
I swallow.
He studies me for a beat, then turns away like I’m a problem he’s already solved.
“You know what annoys me most?” he asks, almost conversationally.
“The performance of it all. The cleaned-up version. The bar. The town. The fresh start.” He gestures vaguely, like The Hollow and Coyote Glen and everything we’ve built are just props in some story he’s tired of hearing.
“He buys a business, puts on a clean shirt, starts speaking in low tones, and everyone acts like the wolf turned into a shepherd.”
My hands curl uselessly against the zip ties.
“You don’t get to define him for me,” I say.
“No?” He glances back. “That’s cute.”
I hate the patronizing softness in his voice more than I would hate rage.
Maybe because rage is easier to push against.
This is just rot wrapped in silk.
He keeps pacing.
“I’ve been watching,” he says. “The bar. The town politics. Your little rescue project.” His gaze cuts back to me. “Founders Day. Flyers in the windows. Sign-up boards. Wild Reverie posters. The whole campaign to make The Hollow look wholesome.”
Cold spreads through my chest.
“I’m closer than you think. Always.” His gaze drags over me. “You check the door twice before you leave The Hollow now. You touch that necklace when you’re trying not to panic. And you keep choosing the long way through a room so you can see everyone in it.”
He sees it land and continues.
“You’ve been busy,” he says. “Coffee at Coyote Cup. Talks with that Lani. Cozy little planning sessions. Running around with that clipboard like you can stitch yourself into the town if you work hard enough.” A pause. “Then there’s your grandmother.”
My breath catches.
No.
“She lived in the town once, right? I know the gossip. About your family. About you,” he says, watching me carefully now. “Evie. The ashes. The trail. The finding yourself tour.” His mouth curves again. “Very moving. Dottie is a very friendly woman.”
My whole body goes cold.
That…
That he should not know.
“You don’t get to talk about her,” I snap back.
He tilts his head. “Why? She’s part of this. She’s the reason you came here. Maybe the reason you stayed.”
“Stop.”
He doesn’t.
“And the way they watch you,” he goes on, quieter now. “That’s been the interesting part.”
I go still.
“Finn like you’re the first real thing he’s ever wanted to keep. Zane like if he builds enough walls around you, the world won’t touch you. Ryder…”
He lets that hang.
I hate that I wait for the rest.
“Ryder looks at you like you’re oxygen,” he says softly. “And men do stupid things when they can’t breathe.”
My heart is beating too hard. Too fast.
He knows too much.
Not just facts, patterns, intimacies, things that should belong only to us.
“You’re sick,” I say.
“Maybe.”
“You think this gives you power?”
His gaze settles on me with almost pity. “No, sweetheart. This is power.”
I force myself to breathe through the wave of nausea.
He crouches in front of me then, just close enough to make it impossible to forget he could if he wanted to.
“That’s the part you still don’t understand,” he says. “This isn’t about hurting you because you don’t matter.”
A beat.
“It’s about hurting him because you do.”
He doesn’t have to say the word. I hear it anyway.
Still, I make him.
“I’m not a bargaining chip.”
A flicker of amusement touches his face. “You’re exactly that.”
“I’m not yours.”
“No,” he says. “You’re his.”
The room seems to tilt for half a second.
Anger flares through the fear. Bright enough to hold.
“I don’t belong to anyone.”
“Does he know that?” Cole asks, almost idly.
I stare at him.
He shrugs like it doesn’t matter one way or the other. “Either way, he’ll come.”
My throat tightens.
Of course he will.
That is the worst part.
Cole reads the answer on my face and smiles faintly. “See? You know it too.”
“You let me go, and you walk away from this unscathed.”
He studies me, as if deciding whether to admire the attempt.
Then he shakes his head. “No. He’s going to get a message. A clear one. He comes alone. No backup. No club brothers. No quiet little strategy session with Jenson. No Finn. No Zane.” His eyes lock on mine. “Ryder comes alone.”
My pulse goes jagged.
“And if he doesn’t?” I ask, though part of me already knows I don’t want the answer.
Cole’s expression barely changes. “Then you become the example.”
The words land like ice water down my spine.
I don’t ask what kind of example.
I can feel it.
He doesn’t need to be graphic to be cruel. That’s not how he works. He lets implication do the cutting for him. Lets my own fear build the blade.
“No,” I say, the word leaving me before I can stop it.
His brow lifts. “No?”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
He smiles, patient and terrible.
“Aurora,” he says softly, “I already did.”
I shake my head, even though I don’t know what I’m arguing against anymore. The logic. The threat. The inevitability.
He watches me like he’s waiting for me to understand my place in this.
I refuse, even now.
Especially now.
“You think Ryder’s changed,” Cole says. “You think he’s become something better because he wants to play house above a bar.” He leans closer. “But when it matters? When it costs him? He’ll be exactly what he’s always been.”
My chest aches. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
He searches my face, maybe looking for doubt.
I don’t let him have it.
Maybe Ryder has darkness in him. Maybe all three of them do. I’ve seen enough now to know love and danger can live in the same body, that tenderness can come with blood on its knuckles.
But I know this too: Cole wants fear to erase everything human in the world.
I will not help him do it.
So I lift my chin.
My wrists hurt. My head hurts. My whole body feels like one long bruise wrapped in panic.
Still, I look him dead in the eyes.
“He’ll come,” I say. “But not the way you think.”
Anger flickers in Cole’s expression. The smallest irritation that I am not breaking on schedule.
Good.
Let him be irritated.
Let him work harder.
He straightens slowly. “We’ll see.”
He turns toward the door.
The light under it looks thinner now.
Before he lifts it, he glances back once.
“Pray all you want, sweetheart,” he says. “It won’t change what he is.”
The door rattles upward. Light cuts in. Then he’s gone again, and the metal slams shut behind him with a sound that seems to shake the whole room.
Darkness rushes back in.
Silence follows.
For one terrible second, I let myself shake.
Then I inhale.
Exhale.
And whisper into the dark. “Evie, stay with me.”