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He storms in wearing a skull mask and black combat-looking gear. Heavy boots. A bulletproof vest. To my relief he has a gun in one hand.
He found me.
He came for me.
I can only hope he’s managed to find and rescue Ky, too.
Oh, my god. I’m a fucking mess.
Muffled noises tumble out of me as he walks over, with the gun still gripped tight in one hand. Through my wet lashes, I watch as he stoops beside me, wrapping a hand around my arm, lifting me onto my unsteady legs.
With my hands locked behind my back, I can’t do anything but sag against his hold. I want to hug him and cry into his broad chest, relief inundates every bruised muscle.
But he’s not speaking to me.
And his grip hasn’t relented. It’s silent and bruising where his fingers dig into my upper arm and instead of finding comfort in his touch, a chill races up from the soles of my feet.
Someone else is here. Another person follows him into the room.
A sight that has my knees nearly giving out from beneath me.
I blink several times.
There’s a woman standing in front of me, a little taller than I am, but she always was. Especially when she wore heels. Where she used to have long, curled blonde hair, it’s now cut short into a sleek bob and has been colored dark brown. Or maybe that was always her natural hair color all along.
“You really have grown up, haven’t you.”
I’m staring at a ghost.
My mother.
68
“Put her over there for me, darling.” She gestures behind Thorne, and I’m tugged backward. No care. No familiarity. At this moment, he’s a soldier of doom, and I’m a captive foolish enough to think this man was…God, I can’t even finish that thought.
My numb feet drag over the floor, and everything around me spins. More metallic screeching noises claw at my brain as I’m dropped into a chair. The handcuffs clank against the hard back and dig into the bone of my wrists.
“Take her gag out, too.” On command, his fingers dig at the rope, loosening it enough that he can drag it down over my chin, leaving it to rest like a noose around my neck.
His scent washes over me, and I have to fight back the urge to break down right then and there.
This is too fucking cruel.
Everything I thought I knew about this man was a lie.
Thorne goes to stand beside my mother as she drags out a chair for herself and folds neatly into it. His piercing blue eyes are on me, but there’s no comfort or softness or anything there. He’s a heartless sentry, standing with legs splayed and gun still held in one hand, while he grips his wrist with the other.
Ready to shoot me the moment he receives the order to do so.
I’m certain I might swallow my own tongue.
“You look so different. Your hair.” She’s appraising me with a thin-lipped smile, like I’m somehow meant to be anything but devastated. “I mean, I’ve seen the photos of you, of course, but they don’t do you justice in the flesh.”
“Tell me what is happening.” I croak out. This isn’t some fucking family reunion, and I don’t care about what she has to say right now. “Thorne. Where is Ky?” My eyes drill into the man I stupidly fell in love with, and he doesn’t even show a flicker of emotion. Thorne Calliano is every inch the heartless bastard he appeared to be when I first met him.
“Call me sentimental, but I just had to come and see you one last time, before Thorne here does what he’s so good at and disposes of you.”
“Where. Is. Ky?” My lungs feel full of glass, and the stabbing pain in my ribs is the only thing preventing me from screaming.
