Page 110 of Lucky Haven

He’s delusional. Fuck.

Haven protests that nobody will believe that. She’s right, but what good does that do us right now?

As he tirades again, I work the window up enough to get through it. “Everyone in town saw you flirting with different men tonight. Advertising yourself as a loose woman. In a moment of weakness, I agreed to bring you here. I’ve been a good friend to you all these years, after all. We have a history. We could have had something good, but you strayed.”

“From who? You?”

“From your faith.”

I can’t make out her reply to that. My pulse is loud inside my head as I try to regulate my breath and step silently, moving across the dusty and unused bedroom. The door to the hallway is open, thank God, so I only have to ghost my way through it and I’m at the top of the landing.

“Nobody’s coming for you, Haven. All of those men you danced with? They all assume you went home with one of the others.”

“You’re wrong. Cash will come. And if you kill me before he gets here, he will spare you no mercy.”

She’s fucking right.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Haven

I shouldn’t have started asking Jeb questions. I make him so angry, and he’s just escalating as he hunts through the kitchen.

I don’t want to ask him what he’s looking for. I know, and it’s terrifying enough to just have it unspoken.

What kind of knife would he feel most comfortable holding as he stabs me to death?

He has something on him, a little utility knife, because he used that to cut the zip tie around my ankles.

If he doesn’t think that’s a good tool for the job, he doesn’t have a good enough imagination. I’d use that to slit his wrists if given half a chance.

He’s a poison on this earth.

I shift to the edge of the couch, suddenly over being a passive witness to my own demise.

If he’s nervous about using that tool, maybe there’s a way I can try to get it myself. Or anything else. I could hit him with a chair, or just savagely knee him in the balls and then drive my hand into his windpipe.

I’ve read that enough times in books.

I can channel a fictional badassery to save my own life. Surely.

“I need to use the bathroom,” I say loudly. “Can you free my hands?”

He slams a drawer and stalks over.

I shrink back when I see a serrated steak knife in his hand.

His eyes spark with a gross pleasure. “Scared of me, Haven?”

I glare back. Honesty gets under his skin, because it’s a kind of strength he doesn’t understand. “Yes.”

He smirks. “You never gave me enough credit.”

“Definitely didn’t see this coming.”

“Maybe I should free you.” He hooks the point of the knife under the zip tie between my wrists. The serrated edge grazes my skin. “It might be fun to have you fight back.”

“You’re a lot of talk, you know that?”