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CHAPTER 1
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Sweat poured down my brow as my arms throbbed with pain. Chopping wood was my twisted form of therapy - a therapy that also supplied my primary source of heat.
Even with the summer temperatures, it got dangerously chilly at night. The wind would whip by the windows and easily drop the house to shivering temperatures if I ran out of wood.
My phone rang, ripping me from my trance. I pulled it out from my pocket and saw that the caller was the principal of my daughter’s school.
Not this shit again.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Thompson, we need you to come in as soon as you can. It’s about Rebecca.”
I’d never get used to hearing my beautiful little Audrey being called Rebecca. Hell, I’d never get used to hearing someone refer to me as ‘Mr. Thompson’.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. Adrenaline was coursing through my body, my brain automatically going to the worst-case scenario.
We’ve been found.
“Rebecca is still having a lot of trouble adjusting to the other children. I know we agreed to give it through the rest of the semester, but summer’s upon us and she still isn’t branching out.”
I closed my eyes and consciously slowed my breathing, willing my heart to return to its normal rhythm.
My baby girl was safe.
Now I was just pissed.
“I don’t understand why that’s an issue,” I said. “She could simply be introverted. I’m introverted.”
“Being introverted and being unable to socialize are different. I need you to come in so we can talk.”
Who the hell did she think she was? She didn’t know a damn thing about my daughter.
“We can talk when I come to pick her up,” I said.
“Could you come in sooner? I’d like to discuss things with you while Rebecca’s still in school.”
“Then, I’ll be taking her with me when I leave.”
I hung up the call without saying goodbye. This preschool bullshit was getting ridiculous. Judging a child because she wasn’t social enough? Were they kidding me? The girl lived on top of a fucking mountain. Of course, she wasn’t going to socialize much. That was the whole reason she was enrolled in their institution, to have a chance to adapt and learn to interact with kids her own age. They were supposed to be teaching her how, not judging her for fuck’s sake.
What drives a man to move himself and his child to the mountains?
Losing his family.
In the mountains, no one could hurt the most important person in my life. My daughter was my world, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her.
My brother had had a gambling addiction; a bad one. I’d told him to quit the stuff when it got bad. Offered to pay for any rehab he needed. But when I found out his loan shark had ties with the wrong crowd, I liquidated every single asset I needed to pay off his debt and to keep my daughter’s uncle in her life – but I was too damn late.
The worst day of my life was that day I watched my brother get shot down in the street from an alleyway by a fucking coward. I found the son of a bitch who pulled the trigger, and I beat him to a bloodied pulp. All my rage blocked the logical part of my brain – the part that told me I’d surely place a target on my back.
So here I was, in the middle of the mountains, protecting the only family I had left.
And all the while, feeling like a coward for running.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I was a single father who knew nothing about raising a little girl on his own.
I was trying desperately to make it work.
The nightmares were terrible, and they kept me up at night. I’d toss and turn, and that piercing gunshot sound would always wake me up. Sometimes when I looked down at my hands, I could still see my brother’s lifeless body as I cried in the rain, begging for him to open his eyes.
I missed my brother more than I could stand.
My contact in the FBI suggested fleeing. Hudson Clay was my best friend, and the man I’d turned to for advice and an ear to listen, told me I needed to run, liquidate everything I owned, and find somewhere solitary to live out the rest of my days.
I liquidated all my assets, sold off the controlling shares of my company, stuffed my billions in scattered portfolios that led back to shell companies, and then built a huge log cabin in the middle of Whitefish, Montana.
It was the most secluded place in the United States, a cabin in the middle of the woods that was completely off the grid. Solar panels lined the roof, and a generator fed off gasoline I stored by the droves in a shed at the back of my property. The only city utility I had was running water for the indoor plumbing, and that was hooked up in my fake name, one of the identities Hudson had secured for me and my daughter.
We would live in the mountains, but the way I saw it, I had to do everything in my power to make the best of it for my daughter’s sake. So, I did. I’d built our home for comfort and luxury and outfitted my log with everything she could possibly want. She had a dedicated play room with all her favorites. I’d carved out paths in the woods and uprooted trees so I could build her a huge playground to play on. Everything I did, I kept off the grid, and if I needed to go to town, it was all fake names and fake IDs.
But I wasn’t a fool. I knew that even with the luxury I provided, she’d still feel lonely. I knew she needed a playmate.
Dammit, what child wouldn’t?
For now, the best I could do was to enroll her into the best private preschool in town for some normality and socialization.
After hours of chopping wood, I was in no condition to walk into my daughter’s school. I pushed into my bedroom, and could already feel the coolness of the water I’d splash in my face. I turned on the faucet and dipped my dirty hands in it, watching the water taint itself brown.
Then, I made the mistake of looking up.
Smoothing my hands over my unkempt beard, I took in the tanned texture of my skin. The way my eyes gazed from beyond a thick bearded jawline and a disheveled mound of dark hair. My shoulders ached, and I rolled them to ease the throbbing veins protruding from my skin.
I ripped my shirt over my head and wiped off my chest. I’d looked like this for some time. The beard got longer, the hair got thicker, and the eyes got more stoic.
More stern.
The bags under my eyes made me look much older than my thirty years. I rose to my full height of six three and studied my reflection. My dark brown hair was tousled from sleep, and my d
eep blue eyes were haunted.
