Chapter 2
What He Keeps
Summer
Living with Jacob was meant to be temporary. That’s what he told my parents, anyway. Just until things “settled down.” Just until the men who took the photos of me were caught.
Two months later, I’m still in his house.
And somewhere between that first week and now, Jacob announced that I was his.
He says it in front of the whole town—at the diner, at the gas station. He parades me through Main Street on Saturday mornings, hand on my back, guiding me like I’m a new shiny toy that only he gets to play with. People smile at us; say we make a nice couple. They tell me I’m lucky.
I want to tell them all that this is a charade. That none of this is true, but the threat of Jackson’s men still hangs over my shoulders. Visions of the photograph of me asleep still live in my mind, and although Jacob is dangerous, at least he does keep me safe.
He knows I don’t want him. I see it in the way his eyes narrow when I pull away too fast, the way his jaw tightens when I answer him with one word instead of two. But Jacob’s patient in that dangerous way—like a hunter who knows his prey has nowhere else to go.
He tells me I’ll get used to it. That one day, I’ll stop fighting him. That the walls I’ve built between us will crumble, and when they do, I’ll realize there’s nowhere safer than right here.
And maybe that’s the worst part. Not his certainty. Not even his control.
It’s the quiet voice in my head that wonders if he’s right.
I missed celebrating my twenty-first birthday in the house I grew up in.
Mama and Papa came to us instead, carrying cake and gifts, trying too hard to make it feel normal. Adelaide and Constance came, too. They hugged me longer than usual. Constance’s eyes followed Jacob every time he moved, like she was keeping count of how close he stood.
Constance and Adelaide know that Jacob has always been infatuated with me.
It used to be an inside joke between the three of us.
But the joke fizzled out, and they quickly realized this was more than a crush.
We had spoken about trying to put a stop to it.
But who would listen to three small-town girls over the sheriff?
Jacob is a lot older than me. Thirty-seven.
Sheriff. Badge. Power.
Day by day, he messes with my head—giving and taking like it’s a lesson plan.
He confuses me on purpose, makes me question everything until I can’t tell what’s real and what’s bait. Sometimes I catch myself wondering if he’s as bad as I think. Then the manipulation turns bitter, and I run.
He’s caught me three times in the two months I’ve been here.
The time before last, it wasn’t even him who found me—one of his deputies did.
When I was brought home, he locked me in my room for a whole day and night after telling me he wouldn’t let me go.
He said I’d spend every day of the rest of my life in that room if I kept running.
I begged. I wailed. I screamed until my voice broke.
Then, like a switch, he came back in and behaved like nothing had happened. Like we were sitting at breakfast, not that he’d spent a day deciding my punishment. The normalcy was part of it—the apology never came, only the neat silence that pretended it was all my fault.
When Mama and Papa came, I told them. At first, they were furious. They demanded answers from him, and he gave them a story: I kept running, he did what he had to do to teach me a lesson and to keep me safe from Jackson’s men.
He said it like it was charity.
They believed him. They said it was best to keep me hidden. After all, they’d done the same.
I was dumbfounded that he had managed to wriggle his way out of it, that they didn’t immediately take me home, but it’s clear. Jacob will always win. He will always get away with taking and doing whatever he wants.
One saving grace is that Jacob hasn’t tried to own my body.
Still, when his hand finds my throat and his need to “protect” me hardens into control, a treacherous thought flickers: what if I stopped fighting and gave in to him?
I hate that my body answers him at all. The longer I’m here, the more his rules crawl under my skin, and the more that wrong hunger wakes.
I’ve only had sex once—back when I was nineteen. It barely counted: clumsy, rushed, over in minutes.
Jacob was already one step ahead. He’d ordered a drug raid on Tyler Jenkins’s place that same night—sirens, lights, deputies shouting down the hallway. They found nothing, of course.
That’s when I understood: Jacob didn’t have to be in the room to stop me from living my life; he just had to be everywhere else. I don’t know if he realizes I lost my virginity that night. But I won’t tell him—ever.
I’m wrenched from my thoughts when Mama and Papa arrive.
I move downstairs to greet them, though the weight in my chest makes every step heavier. When I open the door, they’re polished and smiling, the dying sunset behind them casting everything in gold—a cruel kind of beauty that only deepens the poison in my thoughts.
My stomach twists. The betrayal settles in my bones, resentment flaring hot and wild, like a furnace I can’t contain.
How can they not see? How can they stand there, blind to what’s happening right in front of them? They handed me over to a man whose obsession swallowed my life whole.
They used to visit often. Now, it’s once a week—if that. I’ve told them I want to come home, but Jacob keeps reminding them that the men who took the photographs are still out there. That Jackson’s appeal is coming up soon.
It’s a battle I’ll never win—not while that threat keeps hanging over my life.
“Summer, sweetheart.” Mama throws her arms around me and kisses my cheek. “You’re not dressed!”
“It’s early, Elaine, not every female takes three hours to put on some makeup and brush their hair.” Papa winks, a cheeky grin forcing one of his dimples to the surface.
I let out a forced laugh and gesture toward the kitchen island. Mama shrugs her jacket off and hangs it on the back of one of the leather dining chairs.
“You know, now you’re settled here, you ought to think about putting your own touch on the place,” Mama says, looking around the beige, minimalist room.
I head over to pour the coffee, biting my tongue. I want to scream at her. I don’t want to live here. I want to get out before I cave and go completely insane. Before I let some kind of Stockholm syndrome swallow me completely.
Instead, I turn my head and force a smile.
I place the mugs of coffee in front of them and excuse myself to the hall.
I need a moment to gather myself before I unravel again.
My parents, who now feel like strangers, will not be the answer to my freedom—that much is clear.
So, not only am I aiming to run away from Jacob… I’m running from them, too.
In truth, I don’t think the relationship with Mama and Papa will ever be fixed after this. I’ll never be able to look at them as the doting parents they once were.
I used to imagine Christmases, gathered around the tree with tinsel and lights adorning the room. My child straddling Papa’s lap and a husband who held my hand and brought me wine.
But now, after what they’ve done to me, after how they’ve handed me over to the devil himself, that dream is fractured. When I do get away, when I do meet a man and have a child, they’ll have nothing to do with any of it.
Of that, I’m certain.
I hear footsteps above me, and then the quiet noise of the shower running. Jacob—
The moment I’ve waited for. My chest is tight, lungs straining for space, and before I can second-guess myself, my feet carry me down the hall.
Past the photographs Jacob has hung like trophies.
Past the locked front door. Straight to the one room he spends most of his time in but never lets me enter: his study.
That must be where he keeps the surveillance—the feeds from cameras dotted through the house.
Every time I try to run, a ping hits his cell and he’s there; a notification, a footprint on his screen, and the chase starts again.
That’s why I never get away. It isn’t luck or stupidity that traps me—it’s wiring and red lights that blink like tiny eyes.
If I can get into his study and find the feed, maybe soon I can make my final run. I can plan, but I need to be able to move before he knows I’ve moved.
I took the key from his bedside drawer last night. He had headed out to the store—it was the perfect opportunity. I just hope his bedroom doesn’t have a camera.
I hardly slept a wink last night, worrying that he would notice it was missing. I’ll put it back as soon as I’ve found what I’m looking for.
I twist the key; the knob is cool in my palm.
For a second, I almost turn back, the urge to retreat pressing at me like a hand between my shoulder blades.
But I push the door open anyway, slipping inside before I lose my nerve.
The curtains are drawn, the air colder in here, like even sunlight knows better than to trespass.
His desk is painfully neat—papers stacked into perfect squares; a single pen lined up against his notepad.
His badge rests in a patch of shadow, glinting just enough to remind me that all of this—me, this house, this cage—sits under his authority.
And then out of the corner of my eye I see it. A filing cabinet. Heavy. Black. Each drawer neatly labeled in block letters: Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter.
My stomach knots. Who even organizes their life like this? Seeing Summer stamped on metal in this room makes my skin prickle. But then I stop to think—are these seasonal files? Or is it something darker?
I crouch down, fingers trembling as they graze the cold metal handles.
The silence in the room is deafening, like the walls are leaning closer to watch.
I try Spring first. The drawer slides open with a low groan.
Empty. Too empty—like it’s mocking me for ever expecting otherwise. Autumn. Also empty. Winter. The same.