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Anissa
Weeks later
I run along the Tryon Creek trail, the dense nature comfortably surrounding me as I push myself harder to pass two shirtless men jogging upfront.
I’ve taken this path for a while now, no longer appreciating the familiarity of the city streets. I need desolation. I can’t even follow my early morning café routine because holding a brief conversation with the barista puts me on edge.
I want to be left alone. To quietly bathe in my mistakes. To hate the world from my darkened isolated corner.
Work hasn’t been easy.
Taggert wasn’t suspicious of the extra days I spent away from the office. Instead, he thought I was throwing a childish tantrum and used my disappearance to build bigger walls between me and my colleagues.
The entire department has made it clear they’ve grown tired of my drama.
All except Easton.
Anthony had my back the whole time—sending e-mails, leaving messages on my voicemail, hassling my apartment building manager for possible details of my whereabouts.
Even now, weeks later, he’s the only person who checks on me.
There hasn’t been one word from Cole.
I shake my head free from thoughts of him and punish myself harder, demanding more from my legs as I round the bare-chested male joggers and speed ahead.
It’s a constant struggle not to suffocate in the past while also needing to analyze every second I spent on that island in an attempt to figure out where I went wrong.
I lost the game—that much is certain.
But it isn’t all bad.
Numerous missing women have returned home. The stories they recounted to authorities and news outlets were clearly fictional—their disappearances explained by anything from ru
And I’m thankful.
A snap of breaking undergrowth erupts from the bushes beside me, the hidden forest creature sending my hackles rising. I’ve been on edge since returning to Portland. Every shadow is Cole. Every bump in the night. Every private number that hangs up before I can co
Even now, surrounded by nature and calming solitude, my sixth sense is on alert.
I slow and glance over my shoulder, finding nothing. There’re no shirtless men. No animals. Not even a bird flittering from tree to tree.
It’s peaceful.
Too quiet.
I slide a hand over the canister of pepper spray held in the slim pocket of my skin-tight ru
There’s nothing to worry about out here.
Nothing but the waking nightmares I can’t seem to shake.
I speed up, rounding the curve in the path only to skitter to a stop at the threat waiting in the small clearing.
My breathing catches. My pulse quickens.
Heat suffuses every single inch of me, the warm tingle a welcome sensation after weeks spent numb.
“Hello, little fox.”
It feels like years have passed since his gorgeous face was more than a fading memory. A lifetime of misery since this foreboding man in his stu
I place my hands on my hips and straighten my back and shoulders, opening my lungs in an attempt to lessen the heaving gulps of air.
I don’t speak. I can’t. If I could, I wouldn’t even know what to say. There’s too much heartache.
And animosity.
Not to mention blinding rage.
He drags his gaze over me, slowly, the appraisal a tease even though his expression remains an emotionless mask. But he’s not the only person with eyes on me. I can sense someone else, the tingle along my neck becoming a full-blown throb that descends down my spine.
I chance a glance over my shoulder, scrutinizing the mass of trees.
“It’s Hunter,” Cole murmurs. “He’ll keep his distance and make sure we’re not disturbed.”
I continue to pant out my need for oxygen. “Is that meant to be comforting?”
A slow smile spreads across his gorgeous lips. The sight is punishing, the attack cutting deep. I’d almost forgotten how easily he lures his prey with that devilish appeal.
“I’ve missed your spite.”
His admission rocks me, foundations and all.
The bliss lasts a split-second before I remember he was the one who discarded me like filthy garbage.
“What do you want, Cole?”
“You.” He puts his hands in his pants pockets and lazily strolls toward me. “I think that’s always been obvious, don’t you?”
His lie doesn’t warrant a response.
I refuse to participate in another game.
The way he played me still keeps me up at night.
I fell for him like a stone into murky waters, never to be seen again.
At one point, I couldn’t picture returning to Portland without his protection wrapped around me. But that was before I came to terms with my Stockholm syndrome. Now, I know the sensation clawing beneath my sternum is nothing more than mental fuckery.
“What do you really want?” I cross my arms over my chest, building emotional barriers. “Because if you haven’t noticed, I’m in the middle of something here.”
“We were in the middle of something, too. Remember?” He raises a brow, continuing forward. He circles, walking behind me, setting me on edge. “We made a good team.” His words brush my ear. “We were perfect together.”
“You mean before you banished me?”
“I may have been quick to send you home, but don’t forget that’s exactly what you asked for.” He continues around my other side, looking at me from the corner of his eye. “You wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. You made me promise to cut ties—no more games, no more flowers. Nothing. That was your stipulation, Nissa. Not mine.”
He’s manipulating the past, trying to rewrite history.
Yes, I made that deal with the devil, but that was before… Before he became the only air I wanted to breathe.
“You don’t remember?” He stops in front of me, hands still in his pockets, his demeanor suave as hell. “It was after you tried to kill me with a loaded weights bar. We were in the panic room, and you were breathless and flushed. I’d wanted to fuck you up against—”
“Stop it,” I snap. “You knew I didn’t want to leave. Not after what I did. I was a mess.”
A brief glimpse of regret pulls at his brows before quickly fading. “I needed time.”
“And what about what I needed?” I slap a hand against my chest. “I was trying to save your life. Luca’s and Pe
My recount doesn’t matter.
Nothing does.
What I went through wasn’t even reality. It was just another game.
“I needed time” he repeats, his voice softening. “When you shot him, I—”
“Regretted setting me up to take the fall?”
He turns quiet, cementing the suspicions that have torn me apart for weeks.
“Did you think I wouldn’t work it out?” I glare. “You wanted me to kill him. You pla The silence stretches between us, building the anger I’ve kept tightly bottled. “I admit it took me a while to put the clues together. I spent days locked in my apartment, staring at the ceiling, going over and over what I thought was a mistake on my behalf. But it was never a mistake, was it, Cole? It was your plan all along.”