Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35499 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35499 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
He moves between them like a possessive curator, adjusting frames with precise fingers, wiping away invisible dust with reverent care.
What kind of sick set up is this? Why are all these pictures of me on the walls? They do not belong here. This is a hunting cabin. No one comes up here.
Which makes it the perfect place for a kidnapping.
He must be lying about Cash and Wyatt helping. He has to be. And there is no way—no fucking way in hell—that Colt would have anything to do with this.
Where is Colt?
Where is Legion?
I might never know the answers to these questions if I don’t get out of here. Who can tell how crazy Marcus is right now? He put a fucking tube up inside me to collect my urine so he doesn’t have to let me out of bed!
I pull against the restraints, testing. "I will never be with you again, Marcus."
His smile doesn't falter. Just shifts—a careful rearrangement, like adjusting a tie before stepping onto a stage. "You're confused, Savannah. That's perfectly natural after trauma."
"The only trauma here is being tied to a bed by you."
He leans forward, fingertips pressed together like a therapist I never asked for. "Your mother warned me this might happen. That if he ever got to you again—"
"My mother is dead."
"But her wisdom lives on." His voice softens to that political cadence he uses at fundraisers. "You're Savannah Ashby. Not some biker's plaything."
"I chose him."
"You chose escape. Rebellion. It's textbook, darling."
I stare at the ceiling. The knotty pine beams are unfinished. Rough. Like Legion's hands. "Untie me."
"When your mind is stable, my love. I’m going to help you recover. And then we can talk about letting you make your own decisions."
“Decisions like… when I’d like to go to the bathroom? Decisions like… holding a spoon to feed myself? I'm not an infant, Marcus. I’m not crazy."
"Of course not." He stands, smoothing invisible wrinkles from his slacks. "You're wounded. And I'm patient enough to wait."
"For what?"
"For you to remember who you really are."
"I know exactly who I am."
His laugh is gentle, practiced. "The woman I know wouldn't spread her legs against a silo wall for a convicted felon."
The words don’t even register. He thinks this is embarrassing me? It’s not. I have ‘spread my legs’ for Legion Kane hundreds of times. I’m ashamed of none of them.
"I'm going to bring you dessert later," Marcus says, like we're discussing normal plans. "Something sweet. Your body needs care after what it's been through."
"What have you done to Legion?"
He ignores me, straightening a photo frame. "Your mother built something beautiful with you, Savannah. A legacy. I won't let him destroy that."
"What did you do to him?"
"What needed to be done." He walks to the door and opens it. "Rest now. We'll talk when you're more yourself."
He walks through and the lock clicks behind him.
Heavy. Deadbolt.
I wait thirty seconds, counting heartbeats, making sure he's gone. Then I pull hard against the restraints, methodical now. Testing their give.
Zip ties. Not rope. Wrapped around each wrist, secured to the headboard's wooden slats. My ankles too, spread just wide enough to make me feel vulnerable. Clinical. Like I'm prepped for examination.
The plastic bites when I twist my wrists, but there's a technique to breaking zip ties. I saw it once in a crime documentary. You raise your hands above your head, then bring them down hard against your chest, using the momentum to snap the plastic.
But my hands are secured separately. No momentum possible.
I need another way.
The cabin's familiar. I've been here for family hunting trips, summer escapes, winter holidays. No cell service. One bathroom. Two bedrooms. Kitchen. Living area.
And tools. Always tools in a hunting cabin.
I study the restraints again. The zip ties connect to rope, which threads through the headboard slats. Smart. Harder to break free this way.
I rotate my wrists slowly, feeling for weakness. There isn't much, but the plastic will eventually fatigue if I work at it consistently. Plastic always does.
I close my eyes and listen. No sounds outside. No vehicles. No voices. Just wind in pine needles and distant water—the creek that runs behind the property.
Breathe. Think. Plan.
I start working my right wrist in slow, methodical circles. The plastic doesn't give—not yet—but it will.
It has to.
CHAPTER 2
I come back in pieces. First, the pain—cataloged, filed away. Then sound—wind through wooden slats. Then awareness—my hands bound behind me, my shoulders wrenched backward against a support beam.
Rope, not cuffs.
Blood has dried tacky across my face. Left eye swollen to a slit. Two ribs are definitely cracked on my right side.
My breathing is shallow and uncontrolled. I feel like I can’t get enough of it. Like I need to gulp it like water.
But I've been in worse situations. Not a good thing to admit to yourself when you’re in the middle of being kidnapped and restrained by an Ashby militia of two, but it is what it is.