Anger burned away some of the terror making her hands shake as she straightened her spine. Insulting her intelligence had been the first move he made in his campaign to demoralize her and coerce her into submission.
And like an idiot, she’d believed the things he said. She’d believed she wasn’t smart enough, pretty enough, good enough.
She’d believed those things so much that by the time his abuse escalated from verbal to physical, she thought she deserved it.
It took her far too long to realize she didn’t, and she wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
“I was smart enough to get away from you. Smart enough to hide from you for six months.”
Eyes narrowing, he dragged his gaze up and down her body, shaking his head with displeasure. “But not smart enough to stay hidden.” Clucking his tongue, he shook his head and met her eyes again, making her stomach roll with disgust. “What have you done with yourself, Stasia? You look haggard and worn out. And look at you! Working in a gas station. Come back with me. I’ll give you the life you deserve.”
“Oh, you mean the life where I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without you at my side? The life where you hit me just because you felt like it? No thanks.”
The muted roar of a motorcycle met her ears and a kernel of hope bloomed inside her. Shawn didn’t seem to hear it, and she prayed whoever it was would stop and help her. But even if they didn’t, she almost had the hidden compartment open. She just needed a few more moments.
“You required discipline, Anastasia. That’s all I was doing. Showing you the error of your ways. You need that. And I showered you in the finest clothes money could buy. I provided for you, gave you a nice home, a nice vehicle. And this,” he paused, sweeping his arm around the room, “is what you left me for? Do you know how insulting that is?”
“They came with a price I wasn’t willing to pay anymore. I’d rather have the life I’m leading now than anything you could give me.”
It felt empowering to say that to him—hell, to say everything she had so far. But when his cold blue eyes went frigid, the icy fingers of terror came back, wrapping around her heart and freezing her breath.
“Every word out of your mouth confirms how stupid you are, and you’re so clueless that you don’t even realize it.” Gaze dropping to her bag, he looked at it for a moment before snapping his narrowed eyes back up at her. Reaching out, he ripped it from her grip. “I don’t know what you’re messing around with in there, but whatever it is, it’s gone now. Do as your told and walk to my car. Casually, like you’re leaving for the day and nothing’s wrong. If you try to resist or signal to anyone in this backwater town, you’ll live to regret it—but they won’t. I’ll kill anyone that gets in our way. Do you understand, Anastasia? Their death will be on you.”
His words brought her up short and she searched his eyes, shivering at the resolve she found in them. He meant every word he said, and as his conviction sank into her, her shoulders drooped. There was no way around this. She was stuck.
He had her bag, which meant he had her gun. And while she’d taken self-defense classes in one of the towns she hid in along the way, she was almost certain that he could overtake her easily. She hadn’t gotten nearly as much training in as she wanted before she had to flee again.
And the last thing she could do was put an innocent person in harm’s way just to save herself. He’d kill them—he wasn’t bluffing about that.
Ana was going to be in a world of hurt the moment he got them somewhere private. She knew that. It would be far worse than anything he’d done to her in the past—including the last time she woke up in the hospital, the time that convinced her she had to get out or die trying—but she didn’t have a choice.
She’d found the willpower and backbone to run from him, to stand up to him as she had since he walked into the storeroom. Now she had to find enough of each to follow him out of here.
Even knowing it would lead to her death if she couldn’t escape him again fast enough.
Bolt pushed down the kickstand and shut off the engine, exhaling wearily before swinging his leg over his bike. He was just coming off a run to Nevada and he hadn’t slept in two days. More than anything, he wanted to get back to the clubhouse and pass out for a day or two now that he was back in Texas, but he couldn’t. Not just yet.
Instead, he was going to fill up his tank and grab some food and an energy drink—not that the drink would help him, but he was going to chug it down and pretend like it did while he waited on Ridge to check in.
Ridge was the VP of the north Texas chapter of the Dark Leopards MC, and one of his closest friends. Their chapters were monitoring a situation in a city midway between Spotted Hills and Bliss Creek, and they were the contact points.
Asshole better call soon or Bolt was going to knock him the fuck out the next time he saw him, friend or not.
Twisting the gas cap back on, he grabbed the receipt and stuffed it in his pocket as he made his way to the store. Frowning when he opened the door and the bell didn’t sound like it normally did, he paused just inside the entrance, scanning the seemingly empty store.
Senses going on high alert, he reached behind him and grabbed the gun nestled in the small of his
