“Whew… Okay, breathe, Maggie. Breathe. You got this,” I said to the air. And maybe to Graham.
Be cool.
Be normal.
God, how could I be normal? I had a fucking AirTag in a condom up my ass! That was anything but normal.
A few minutes later, Hunter’s Bentley pulled in. I stayed at the stove, stirring the carrots so they caramelized to perfection.
The door opened, but I never heard it close.
Then footsteps.
“Hey, baby,” I said, turning to him.
He didn’t say anything, just lined himself up behind me and swept my hair to one side before wrapping me in a backwards hug.
“Hey, doesn’t it smell great?”
He grunted in agreement.
I turned around. Something wasn’t right.
“You okay?” I said, staring into his eyes—they were dark… hollow.
He nodded, then kissed me. Before I knew it, he’d brought his black, leather-gloved hand to my mouth where he held a cloth drenched in what I could only imagine was ether. My knees weakened, and before I could say anything, my vision blurred, doubled, then faded out. Blackness consumed everything.
Like the waves of the sea, the ebb and flow of the moonlight shining into the cold, damp room brought me back. My wrists burned—bound tight with tape, and my head throbbed, either from the ether or the fact that I was upside down and my blood was pooling into my brain. I’d been draped over someone’s shoulder.
Graham?
No.
He wouldn’t carry me like this...
I breathed in deep and it hit me. Hunter’s cologne.
Fuck.
Even after everything… even after the proof… the plan. I’d still hoped Graham was wrong. But the way he moved… His scent… the way he breathed. I knew.
Hunter lowered me down onto a chair with my hands secured behind me and backed up, inspecting me, looking me over like I was his prize. Fixing my hair so it draped to the side like he liked it—fucking asshole.
He’d brought me to a dank old boathouse that smelled like swamp and turpentine.
Graham’s voice echoing, “I’ll find you,” in my mind was the only thing that kept me sane.
“Do you have any idea what kind of sick torment… what kind ofmind gamesyou’ve put me through?” Hunter seethed, his face contorting into something so dark and soulless my breath caught in my throat. “I’ve obsessed over you for three months without a fucking answer as to why. You’re not my type. You’re too… much—too emotional—too connected. Once you told me about the curse… it all made sense. I prefer the girls that don’t feel. The ones who keep their thoughts inside. The ones that stayed quiet. You’renothinglike that… but you know that, don’t you,mo chróí?
“That night at the bar, there was something drawing me to you. A sadness… the same sadness that consumed me every night. That night was the night I vowed to never raise my hand to another woman. But suddenly trying to keep that vow became an obsession I couldn’t control. I kept hearing the words, ‘Don’t. Not her. Not this time.’
“But thisurgetook over… thisneedto end you flooded every cell in my body. It consumed myeverythought. But I never could do it. Because part of me—the part that you cursed—loved you so deeply that the very thought of you dead tore at my soul.
“So I did the only thing I could. I found a substitute. Someone to stand in your place. A proxy. Someone to take the edge off.”
Hunter pulled his mask out from his backpack.
White.
