Terror bubbled up to the surface, and nausea twisted my stomach into painful knots.
My attention darted in every direction, trying to gauge the best escape route.
Could I make it to the shop doors before he got to me? Did Silas have any clue that he was there?
He cocked an easy grin with a tilt of his chin, casual enough to suggest that he was only there to request a simple oil change.
But it was the gleam in his eye that told me he was there for devious things.
Fear clutched, and I tried to swallow. To stand my ground and not let this asshole know I was shaking.
His brow pinched like he was confused, but I knew full well that it was feigned. “You know…you look awful familiar. Kind of like this guy I know.”
A piercing pain stabbed into my chest.
Dereck.
He was talking about Dereck.
I didn’t have time to run or spit in his face or demand answers or any of the thousand things I wanted before he moved.
A blur as he jumped over the counter.
Terror screamed through my senses, so loud I thought it would burst my eardrums.
My senses whirring into disarray.
Wanting to fight because fighting was the only thing I had.
But he had an arm locked around my waist from behind and a knife pressed to my throat before I even knew what happened.
My knees sagged when he gritted in my ear, “You’re coming with me, bitch.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
SILAS
From where Iwas in the paint booth, I tore off the respirator so I could inspect the first coat that I’d applied.
The sounds of the rest of the shop were subdued by the insulated partitions.
I examined my handiwork.
The black paint shined, gleaming and pristine on the old Ford Mustang that I was restoring.
Once left for dead after a crash, but the owner who’d plucked it out of a junkyard was trusting me to breathe it back to life.
Reforming mangled metal into something that in the end would eclipse the original.
Pride welled in my chest while my guts continued to be snarled and tangled.
All thanks to one fiery brunette who’d left me in shambles.
Swore to fuck, she was going to do me in.
Raze every restraint.
So fucking off-limits yet she’d begun to feel like the Holy Grail.
