Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Michelle looks at the card, then back at Knox. A smile tugs at her lips. “I appreciate the offer. Really. But I belong out here.” She gestures at the mountains rising behind us, the endless stretch of forest. “The woods are home.”
“Fair enough,” Knox says. “But the offer stands. Anytime.
“One more thing,” Knox says. “My friend Cole, the one I work for. His company has been funding rural infrastructure projects for the last few years. Clean energy, satellite internet, equipment upgrades for communities that are off the grid. It’s good PR for him and actual help for people who need it.” He pauses. “I can make a call. See about getting some resources sent up here.”
Michelle looks skeptical. “What kind of resources?”
“Start with a generator that doesn’t sound like it’s dying. Maybe a satellite uplink that doesn’t cut out every time the wind changes. Go from there.”
Michelle laughs, shaking her head. “I’m not going to say no to that.”
Hailey grins. “You better watch out. You may end up liking being a city girl.”
Michelle laughs and tucks the card into her pocket. “I’ll keep that in mind. Now get out of here before another psychopath shows up and I have to save your asses again.”
We catch a ride to the nearest town with an airport. Book flights back to New York. First class, because after everything we’ve been through, we deserve comfortable seats and free champagne.
Hailey and Knox take the two seats together. I’m across the aisle, close enough to see them but not touch. She falls asleep against his shoulder somewhere over Manitoba, and he pulls a blanket up over her without waking her. His hand rests on her knee, protective even in sleep.
I watch them for a moment before looking away. We’ve been tangled together for days—the three of us sharing warmth, sharing breath, sharing things I never expected to share with anyone again. And now there’s an armrest and an aisle between us, and it feels like more.
Knox catches my eye across the gap. Holds my gaze for a long moment. Then he reaches across the aisle, palm up.
I take his hand. His grip is warm and solid, and I feel a sense of calm.
We stay like that as the plane crosses into American airspace. Knox’s hand in mine, Hailey’s head on his shoulder, the three of us connected even with the distance between us.
I should sleep. I’m running on fumes and adrenaline and whatever reserves I didn’t know I had. But my mind won’t stop spinning.
We made a deal with one devil to escape another. Sold out Marlena Kade to save ourselves. It was the right call—the only call, really. But I can’t help wondering what it says about us that the choice came so easily.
Maybe nothing. Maybe survival is its own morality. Maybe when someone tries to kill you, all bets are off and you do whatever you have to do to make it out the other side.
Or maybe we’re just not as good as we like to think we are.
I close my eyes and try not to think about it. Somewhere over the Great Lakes, I finally drift off, Knox’s fingers still intertwined with mine.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hailey
The brownstone looks exactly the same as when I left it.
Two weeks. I’ve been gone two weeks, and nothing about this building has changed. The same worn steps. The same brass knocker. The same crack in the second-floor window.
I dig my keys out and unlock the door. Knox and Liam follow me up.
My apartment smells stale. Closed-up. The heat must have kicked off at some point because it’s barely warmer inside than out. I flip the light switch and there it is: my life, exactly as I left it. Bookshelves overflowing. Dark walls I painted myself. The dried roses hanging near the kitchen window, petals faded, stems brittle.
Knox moves past the threshold slowly. When he picked me up for our first date, he’d stood right there, too polite to come in without invitation. Now he walks through my space like he’s finally been given permission.
Liam stops in front of the roses. His roses.
“You kept them,” he says quietly.
“I kept all of them.”
I watch them both taking in my space—Knox by the bookshelf now, running his finger along the spines, Liam still transfixed by the dried petals he left on my doorstep week after week. They’ve spent months learning me from the outside. My patterns, my habits, my secrets. They know if I’ve been bad or good. And they’re still here.
I pull my phone from my bag—the RCMP returned our belongings from the lodge before we flew out. The phone’s been dead since before the kidnapping. I’d meant to charge it that first night, but then the door splintered open and nothing else mattered.
The charger is where I always leave it. I connect the phone and wait.