We aren’t rich. We’re not famous. We’re just regular people doing our best to get by. Our girl didn’t have a face that went viral on the news. We even tried. Posting her story all over social media but they ignored her there too. I was just another somebody screaming into a void that never answered back.
This is the only way left. Maybe you will listen to me now. Everyone will remember her name when I carve it into your walls with blood. You will see her then. They all will. And even though people will hate me, they’ll remember my daughter and know you killed her when you could’ve saved her.
This is all your fault.
My chest squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. Folded into the back of the notebook were all kinds of loose-leaf papers. Pictures. The most disturbing a map of our office tower, withred X’s over the entrance and the lobby. All the fire escape exits marked. There was a list of human resource executives.
I just sat there, with the notebook trembling in my hands, stunned. Dawson was a grieving father who’d watched his daughter die while the cruel world buried him in red tape. All I could do was think about Oliver. Even though he was an animal, I loved him like he was my child. What would I do if it were him? How far would I go?
I didn’t condone Dawson’s reaction to his pain or what he was planning to do, but I understood it. What I didn’t understand was why he’d kidnapped me. What was my role in his plan? The two things obviously had to be related. None of this was random. I glanced back outside at the window and tightened my grip on the notebook.
The escape I’d been planning minutes ago was gone that quick. I couldn’t let him carry this out. Not on innocent people. Not on someone else’s child.
Escape wasn’t the mission anymore.
Stopping him was.
Chapter Eleven
The crunch of boots outside the door sent me racing. My hands flew as I shoved the folder of bills and denial letters into the backpack. I tucked the journal back under the gun. My fingers trembled so hard the zipper caught and nearly jammed, but I forced it closed and shoved the bag against the wall. I raced back to the mattress and curled into the same position he’d left me in. Laying there with my wrists tucked behind me and my body turned away, like I’d fallen asleep.
The door creaked open.
Dawson stepped inside. The smell of smoke came with him and clung to his clothes. He paused in the doorway and I felt his eyes raking over the cabin, like he expected to find it changed. My heart rammed so loud I was sure he could hear it.
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Finally, he shut the door and dropped his keys on the table. “Still alive,” he said underneath his breath.
He crossed over to the stove and stirred the coals back into flame. The fire snapped, throwing light across his face. He looked exhausted.
I shifted, making a small sound. His head snapped up.
“You’re awake,” he said.
I nodded slowly and tried to steady my voice. “You tried to kiss me.”
His whole body stiffened and his face flushed red. He rubbed his hand hard across his jaw. “I know. I—” He shook his head and took a step back. “That was wrong. I shouldn’t have. I lost control, and I’m sorry.”
The shame in his voice unsettled me more than the attempted kiss.
“You can’t kiss me,” I whispered. My voice thick with emotion. But not from what happened earlier, like he thought. Because it was impossible not to feel for his situation after knowing what happened to his daughter.
“I know.” He raked both hands through his hair and paced once across the cabin. His voice cracked on the next word. “I’m sorry.”
I stared at him, fighting down the storm inside me. I knew about his daughter now—the bills, the letters, and the pages written like prayers. I couldn’t reconcile the different versions of him. The captor who tied me to a mattress. The father who spoon-fed me soup and said his daughter’s name like it was holy. And then the one who was planning on striking down innocent people.
My voice shook when I asked, “Do you think she’d want this? Your daughter? Is this what she’d want for you?”
His head jerked up. His eyes burned. “Don’t.”
“I just—”
“I said don’t,” he snapped.
The fire popped. Filling the silence. My chest tightened.
I wanted to tell him that I understood. That I’d read the letters. Knew the weight of his grief. His unbridled rage. But that secret was mine, and it was the only leverage I had, if I stood any chance at stopping him from carrying out the senseless act of violence that he’d planned. So, I just sat there,and stared at him from across the cabin. Every moral line blurred.
