Drew goes quiet. I hear keys tapping. “Did he use his own property when he had her?” Drew asks.
I don’t have to think long. “No.”
“Then he won’t use it now,” Drew says. “People like that don’t want fingerprints.”
I close my eyes for half a second. He wouldn’t use family land. That screams evidence.
He’d use something temporary. Forgettable. Somewhere he can feel invisible. The kind of place no one looks twice at.
“I’ll call you back.” I hang up with Drew and search nearby rentals within ten miles.
I slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine.
“Hold on, Ivy,” I murmur into the dark. “I’m closer than you think.”
The road stretches out ahead of me, empty and waiting.
Silas is about to learn exactly what kind of mistake he made.
59
IVY
One second, I’m rocking on the chair, testing the give in the restraints. The next, the balance shifts, the legs scrape, and gravity takes over.
I go down hard.
The impact knocks the breath from my lungs. Pain blooms sharp and immediate in my shoulder and hip as the blindfold presses tighter, the world tilting and spinning.
Panic surges as I lie there on the floor, tied to a chair.
I suck in air too fast, too shallow, my pulse slamming as my body screamswrong, wrong, wrong.
The door opens, and heavy footsteps pound closer.
“Don’t,” he snaps, hands gripping the chair as he hauls it upright. “Don’t do that, Ivy.”
The chair lands upright with a jolt.
I gasp, fighting the tremor in my limbs, fighting the urge to curl inward.
He steadies it.
I feel his hands linger. His heated, rushed breath hits my skin.
“Sit still,” he says, quieter now. Controlled again. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
I swallow hard and nod once. “Okay,” I say softly.
His hands withdraw.
Silence stretches, thick and loaded.
I test my wrists again, this time subtly. Slow rotations, feeling for slack. The ties bite, but there’s friction there. Just enough to keep hope alive.
I breathe through it.
Time. I need time.
